[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He heard sounds from the police lines, and the pop-pop-pop of tear gas canisters, but somehow he knew that it would be far too late to save the boy.The entire crowd had gone mad.***“You shouldn’t be here,” Leo said, as Elizabeth stood at the window, watching the surging crowd down below.It seemed to be a living thing, thousands of minds blurring into one single supernatural creature.She could barely look at it without feeling a growing pounding inside her mind, yet she kept forcing herself to look.She needed to develop her mental shields, whatever it took.“They want us dead.”Elizabeth nodded.She’d felt at least one person die within the crowd, a sensation akin to feeling a rubber band snap in her mind.She didn’t want to know what would happen if someone died while she was within their mind, although she had a suspicion that the shock would kill her or drive her insane.Professor Zeller had wanted to reach out and test the inhabitants of the closest mental hospital for telepathy, but the moment they’d reached the building they’d been repelled by the waves of maddened thought reaching out towards them.“I have to be here,” she admitted.Part of her believed that it was all her fault.Ron was down there, whipping up the crowd against telepaths; Ron, her former boyfriend.She suspected, from his mood, that Janelle had dumped him as well.“I have to see it happen in person.”“They’re morons,” Leo said, simply.Unlike Charlie, or Elizabeth for that matter, Leo had always had a superiority complex.He was fiendishly smart – and knew it, and made sure that everyone else knew it – and telepathy had only added to his arrogance.He’d proposed, quite seriously, that the telepaths should breed together to produce telepathic children who would be stronger than their parents.Professor Zeller had been inclined to support the idea, but all of the female telepaths had flatly refused.“They’re lashing out in hatred and fear at something they don’t understand and will never have for themselves.”Elizabeth scowled.In two weeks, she had come to realise that every time a normal person – a mundane, to use Leo’s term, which he’d stolen from Babylon 5 – met a telepath, there was a brief flash of fear and shame, fear at the thought that their mind would be read and shame at the thought of someone else knowing their darkest secrets.She found it depressing and a little demeaning – she was more than just her telepathy – but some of the other telepaths, Leo in particular, got off on that sick little feeling.“They’re scared of us,” she said.She hadn’t dared go back to her flat, not even to pick up her possessions.Professor Zeller had cleared the building for the telepaths and set up a camp bed for her in one of the abandoned offices.It was uncomfortable, but at least she wasn’t surrounded by babbling minds.“Wouldn’t you be scared if your innermost thoughts were known to the entire world?”“Perhaps,” Leo said, easily.He slipped into the telepathic waveband, transmitting his thoughts to her directly.“But then, my thousands of intimate thoughts are not known to the entire world.”Elizabeth was preparing a cutting reply when the door burst open, revealing a campus policeman.“You have to get out of here now,” he said, sharply.“The crowd has gone berserk and is heading here.”“Doubtless with pitchforks and torches,” Leo said, calmly.Elizabeth couldn’t detect any concern in his words, which suggested either foolishness or bravado.“The modern-day witch-hunters are coming to kill us all.”Elizabeth turned and looked back out of the window.and stood, transfixed by the roar of emotion that was reaching out towards them.Thousands of people were advancing on the building, their minds baying for blood – telepath blood.She couldn’t move as their screaming minds bore down into hers.She was only vaguely aware of the other two until someone slapped her face, hard.Elizabeth staggered and fell towards the floor; Leo caught her just before she could hit the ground.“They’re coming,” Leo said.For the first time, he sounded shaken.and yet the fear in his mind was rapidly becoming replaced by anger.“They’re coming for us.”“You’re not superhuman, you dimwit,” Elizabeth swore at him.She allowed her contempt to flow into her voice as the noise outside grew louder.“You have to move, now.”Her legs were still wobbly and she had to hang on to Leo’s arm as they stumbled off towards the rear of the building.“We’re evacuating the surrounding area,” the policeman said.His words were reassuring, but his mental tone was grim and worried.And, she realised with a shiver, part of him was wondering if the crowd wasn’t right after all.It had simply never occurred to her, before, that policemen were human too and would worry about mental intrusion.“Once we get outside, we should be met by others who will escort you to a safe area and.”The entire building shook.Elizabeth felt, more than heard, rioters pouring in.She could hear the police demanding, through megaphones, that the crowd stand still or disperse, but it didn’t seem to be working.The crowd had turned into a maddened animal, its thoughts pervading the telepathic waveband and demanding blood.It would be impossible to stop the crowd until the madness faded away.Perhaps the police could use knock-out gas on them, or.did the police even have knock-out gas? They hadn’t used it at the last protest she’d attended.She winced.If she had realised just how terrified the targets of those protests had had to be, she wouldn’t have gone and added her voice to the crowd.She had been all fired up with youthful outrage and she hadn’t thought about their victims.Now.now, if she could take it all back, she would.The policeman grabbed her arm and pulled her back, too late.The protesters had, deliberately or otherwise, blocked their line of escape.Elizabeth stared in horror as they advanced, their faces twisted with madness, as they had recognised her.Professor Zeller had identified her to the world and now she was their target.Their thoughts and feelings bombarded her, hatred so deep that it was far beyond logic and reason, the same kind of hatred that she felt for rapists and molesters.In lashing out at her, they were lashing out at all telepaths, hating them all.Shame turned her legs to jelly and she collapsed, knowing that her life was about to come to an end.The campus policeman was drawing his pistol, clearly intending to go down fighting, yet there was no hope of escape [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]