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Amber was stirring. I turned to look at her. “How do you feel, Amber? Headache gone?”
She frowned. “Megan? Where are we flying, and why are we the only ones here?”
How had she known my name? Had I already been prevocalizing it? It was supposed to be difficult for a telepath to find out someone’s name, or at least it had always been difficult for Keith.
“We’ve just flown to Hive Futura,” I said. And how had she known we were in an aircraft?
Amber pressed her lips together, looking frustrated. “The animal and bird area has been working perfectly well to clear echoes, as I’ve said, so why do we need to be here?” Echoes? Of target minds? It was far too early for that. I had totally lost control of this conversation now, and I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Amber’s psychological profile had said that she was terrified of nosies, so telling her that she was a telepath was likely to provoke a severe reaction. Of course, she was also supposed to be terrified of both Outside and heights, which didn’t seem quite right given her reaction to being told she was in Hive Futura.
Amber had closed her eyes as I was thinking all this through. Now, she gave a small gasp. “Megan, I think someone reset you.”
That wasn’t possible, but for the moment I had to humor her.
“I understand that you don’t believe me, but please hear me out. You think it’s just after Carnival and I’m a newly discovered telepath, and you don’t have any memories of our unit’s runs or anything, but it’s actually just after New Year, and I’ve been a telepath for months.”
She had to be reading my mind, but how? It took days of training just to get to the level below prevocalization.
…Had I really been reset?
Amber sighed. “Look, can you just call Lucas?”
Lucas was the primary candidate for Amber’s Tactical Commander, and we had worked together in Keith’s unit for a few years, but was that who Amber meant?
“Yes, I mean Lucas 2511-3022-498.”
It really was disconcerting to have your questions answered as soon as you thought of them. Keith had never done that, even when he had been reading my mind.
“Sorry. I can stop reading your mind, if you want.”
“No, that’s fine,” I said. Telepathy needed to be as natural to her as breathing, and asking her not to read my mind would be extremely counterproductive to that.
If I really had been reset, and Lucas was Amber’s Tactical Commander, calling him would probably be the best choice. If I hadn’t been reset… well, Amber had to have found out about him somehow, so he might still be able to help.
I called Lucas.
***
Unfortunately, Lucas didn’t seem to understand the situation much better than I did. We agreed on the date, which meant we had either both been reset to the same date, or neither of us had been reset and something was wrong with Amber. He did have one interesting idea though. “Have you considered time travel?”