The Hunt for Pierre Jnr Read Online Free PDF Page B

still found the symb cumbersome and he had to use his other arm to lift it up to the table and rest it there.
     
    ‘Don’t worry, Pete. It’ll feel just like normal soon. Just give it another week for your body to adjust. You hungry? No? You’ve got to learn to eat. These things take a lot out of you, even when you’re not using them.’
     
    ‘Order me a caf, Ozenbach.’
     
    ‘Certainly, Colonel. Pete, you should try and order for yourself. Perhaps some Pavlovian conditioning will help you get the hang of it.’
     
    ‘Tock.’
     
    Conversation quickly turned back to Pierre Jnr. It seemed the more they talked about him, the more of a mystery he became.
     
    ‘We must try to understand him. What is he like? What is he after?’ Pete questioned Geof. Pinter usually nodded off at this point in the discussions.
     
    ‘For a start, I think we have to stop thinking of him as a child. From a learning standpoint he isn’t like us. Humans learn one piece of data at a time, one thing connected to another. This kid, from what I understand, is an information sponge. He takes on data like the Weave does: linearly, yes, but so quickly it is effectively instantaneous. If he walks past someone, he can know what they know, right?’
     
    ‘But can he take on skills?’ Pete asked.
     
    ‘Maybe, but he doesn’t need to. This kid controls. If he needs a squib, he controls the driver.’
     
    ‘Of course. But he still must have the development level of an eight-year-old boy. The same level of processing.’
     
    ‘Why? Nothing about Pierre is normal. Not how he was born, not how he was raised, and not how he’s developing.’
     
    ‘You’re right. You’re right.’ Pete threw up his hands. ‘We should talk to his mother.’
     
    ‘Colonel, can that be arranged? Colonel?’ Geof raised his voice to rouse the snoring man.
     
    ‘What? Yes, of course.’ He blew out through his moustache. Colonel Pinter kept a constant link with Services decision-makers and within minutes an answer was always supplied. He didn’t really need to be awake, so he wasn’t. ‘Interviews have been arranged with the surviving facility staff. We are to wait until Tamsin Grey joins us.’
     
    ‘Where are they now? His parents, I mean.’
     
    ‘The islands,’ Pinter answered. ‘Where else?’
     
    A long silence condensed in the paused conversation — a typical reaction to any mention of the facility or the project. Two decades ago it had seemed like the first step to destigmatising psis, or people with psionic tendencies. In the Psionic Development Program, Doctor Yeon Rhee had created a place where psis could gather and be open about their abilities, a place for study or even to investigate ways to enhance their skills, and then for the researchers to see if it was possible to spark the talent in all humans.
     
    Over time it became something else. The participants were restricted like prisoners ‘for their own protection’. The world turned fearful of the risks psis posed. Tests became experiments, looking for ‘cures’ and controls. It was turning ugly long before Pierre was born.
     
    ‘How do we know he even exists?’ The woman from the nearby table was standing behind him. Pete had forgotten she was there, which was strange for him; he couldn’t feel her mind at all ...
     
    ‘I’m sorry?’ Pete asked as he turned to face her.
     
    ‘I mean, you’re going to all this trouble, gathering a little team together, pulling the great Pinter out of retirement. All based on the testimony of a non-Citizen.’
     
    ‘So you would like to join us now, Grey?’ Pinter invited dryly, awake for the moment.
     
    ‘No, Colonel, I wouldn’t. But since I’ve been ordered to, I shall obey.’ She pulled her chair into the ring around their little table.
     
    Pete and Geof reacted to Tamsin the way men inclined toward females always did. Sexual advantage was too much for Tamsin to pass on, and she dressed to best accentuate it. Though