Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) by Jane Killick

witness who claims her daughter was ‘poisoned’ by the pills Brian Ransom gave to pregnant mothers through his company, Ransom Incorporated,” said the voice of a male correspondent as pictures of outside the court continued to play on the screen. “Marianne Croucher told the court: ‘I thought I was taking a vitamin pill, something that would make sure my baby was born healthy, but it turned out I was taking a poison that would scar my daughter for life.’ Mrs Croucher went on to say that her daughter showed the first signs of being a perceiver at the age of twelve and was cured at the age of thirteen. But, visibly emotional, she told the court that by that time, the damage had already been done and her daughter has not been the same since.”
    The television report cut to the image of the reporter, a greying man in sober brown suit and tie, standing on the road outside the Old Bailey. “Mr Ransom sat listening passively in the dock throughout this morning’s testimony. He denies twenty counts of Administering a Noxious Substance with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm and the trial—”
    Michael switched it off. He couldn’t bear to hear any more.
    He thought of Alex, who had been assigned to work in the court system, and took his phone out of his pocket. He checked the display, but he had no messages from anyone.
    He sent Alex a text: ‘How ya doin’?’
    The text went through, but no reply came back. The display dimmed with inactivity and eventually went to black.
    Michael awakened it again and saw the notes he had jotted down the night before. It reminded him, he was going to tell Patterson that he had left his phone in the flat. He called the office.
    “I’m sorry, Sergeant Patterson isn’t here at the moment,” said a male voice he recognised as the chubby detective he could never remember the name of. “I could take a message, or you could try him on his mobile.”
    “No,” said Michael. “Can you tell him he left his mobile in the flat.”
    “Ah,” said the detective. “What flat?”
    “He’ll know what I mean.”
    “Okay.”
    Michael thanked him and finished the call.
    He read the note on his phone again. He hadn’t written much down apart from Rublev’s name and the name of the hospital, but he remembered Detective Baker’s words. She had said Rublev hadn’t got long which, seeing how ill the Russian looked at their last meeting, probably meant not long to live. He also remembered the promise Patterson had made to him. If Patterson wasn’t around, Michael decided, then he would have to honour that promise.
    He turned off the TV and consulted his phone for the best way to get to Euston Road.
    ~
    MICHAEL BREATHED IN the smell of cleaning fluid, its perfume so artificial it added a cloying taste to the air. His body absorbed its germ-killing properties with each mouthful, but he wondered if the clinical air also contained tasteless radioactive particles that would burrow into his lungs and wreak damage inside of him. There were no radiation warning signs or people wearing hazard suits around Victor Rublev’s hospital bed, but Michael suspected there was a reason he was being kept in his own private room, and it wasn’t only because he had the money to pay for it.
    Rublev lay shrivelled in his bed, a shell of a man who seemed to have shrunk inside his own skin. Despite the tubes that fed liquid and drugs into a vein in his arm, his body looked desiccated, with translucent loose skin that gathered in wrinkles around his sunken eyes, on his withered neck and over the atrophied muscles of his arms. Light from the bright but cloudy day filtered into his window by the bed, reflecting off the pristine painted white walls and highlighting the array of medical equipment that sat in homage around his bed. It did nothing to lift the darkness where Rublev lay in a hospital gown, draped around his fading body like a shroud.
    Michael perceived Rublev’s ghostly presence drifting from one half-thought to