Hive Mind: Perilous is set slightly more than one year before the beginning of Telepath, starting a week before Carnival in 2531. Amber is hanging out at the Teen Level beach with her best friends, Forge and Shanna, and the rest of the teens on their corridor, when Forge suggests that Amber try cliff climbing. Amber is terribly afraid of heights, which Forge knows; he thinks trying a low-grade cliff climb might help her get over it. Amber means to tell him no, but when she looks at him, she finds herself agreeing to it but isn't quite sure why.
Partway up, she starts to panic, and Reece, the corridor's bully, starts to mock her. Amber tries to go up and bumps her head into the ceiling, getting a cut on her forehead. Forge comes up to help her down as Reece continues to mock her. The instructor says he's going to report Reece to Health and Safety for criminal endangerment; this will be his third report in six months, and he'll probably have a Nosy show up at his door. He runs off when the instructor asks for his identity code, but Margot is able to provide it. T He teens discuss Reece's behavior, which includes harassing Casper, a teen with a learning disability (implied to be Down Syndrome).
A paramedic shows up to treat Amber, putting her on a wheeled stretcher to take her to a medical facility. However, he can't take her to the normal Teen Level facilities as those are all full of 18-year-olds having panic attacks over Lottery. After a delay due to a beach emergency, the paramedic takes Amber to the express lifts, telling her that she's going to be treated on Level 93. He reassures her that she will get the same excellent care she would get on any other level of the Hive.
On the way down, on Level 69, a Nosy squad enters the lift, scaring Amber. The Nosy says in a weird, inhuman voice, "There's no need to be afraid, Amber." The Nosy reassures her that everything will be okay, then challenges the paramedic - he's been stalking his ex-girlfriend, and thinking about harming her. The paramedic is placed under arrest, but still needs to deliver Amber, so the extremely awkward ride to Level 93 continues.
After Amber reaches the Level 93 medical facility, the Nosy squad leads the paramedic away. A doctor treats Amber's cut, then says she will need to stay overnight. Amber calls Shanna to update her; Shanna is convinced that Level 93 is barely inhabitable, with unsafe water and horrible food.
A young woman in bright red clothing comes in, calling herself Buzz. She takes Amber to another room where she has Amber lie down in the sleep field, and they talk. Amber explains her weird reaction to Forge, and Buzz suggests dating somebody else to see if it helps solve the reaction.
Buzz confirms that Amber is feeling well, and decides to release her then instead of keeping her overnight. She says she's a psychogist, and all that was needed was for her to clear Amber of complications. Amber is dubious until Buzz reveals that she's a Level 1 Psychological Therapist. She explains the cheap red clothing as making herself approachable to whoever she's working with.
Amber leaves the medical center, and decides she doesn't want to take the lift she had shared with a Nosy, so she starts walking in the direction of her corridor, planning to take a different lift back to Teen Level. She helps a couple children enter a park, and follows them in. She's worried that she will get in trouble for being in a park of the wrong level, especially when a Health and Safety officer asks if she needs help. She explains that she wants to rest a bit before heading back to Teen Level, and the Hasty cheerfully agrees that it's a good idea.
She goes to a snack kiosk, where she asks for melon juice; it's not available this low in the Hive. She gets a cheese meal deal with a chocolate crunch cake and apple drink, which she uses to wash down a pain pill. The food is fine, although she ends up sharing her salad with a nearby rabbit. Fed and relaxed, she falls asleep on the grass.
Amber wakes at about ten in the evening, and the suns in the park had been turned off for the night. She finds her way out of the park, ending up in a shopping area. She takes a lift up to Teen Level, then gets on an express belt to Blue Zone.
As she approaches the boundary between Turquoise Zone and Blue Zone, however, the belt comes to a stop. She's confused until somebody explains that it's the quarterly test of the emergency doors, closing off all zones from each other. As she approaches the zone bulkhead, it closes, leaving her stranded in Turquoise Zone for an hour.
She finds a chair to sit in, only to discover that she's inadvertently crashed an activity session about the bulkhead closure. She dozes off during the session, but when the activity leader asks her a question, she guesses the right answer. He is clearly pleased with her, and gives her a gold card that would let her take advanced courses in engineering.
She reaches her room, only to find a weird black-clad creature climbing out of the air vent inspection hatch. It's Forge, dressed for climbing around in the air vents. He thought Amber would be staying at the medical center overnight, so he took advantage of the inspection hatch to go exploring; she had previously told him her door code, which is 54321. Amber gets mad at him and throws him out so she can take a shower. After the shower, she decides to take another pain pill, only to see on the package that it might cause drowsiness. She takes a pill and goes to sleep.
After having the Forge dream again, where she's with him Outside and he calls her a good girl, she wakes up very late. Forge is at the door checking on her; after confirming she's okay, he asks again if he can use the inspection hatch. Fully intending to say 'no', she agrees that he can.
Amber stops by the community room, where people are preparing for Carnival. After greeting people, she decides to go up to visit her parents early, which she does regularly. She reaches her parents' apartment on Level 27, only to discover that they haven't eaten yet. Teen Level rules say that she should only visit for meals occasionally, but if it so happens that she's there for a meal, she can do so, so her family pointedly comments how fortunate it is that she can eat with them - although her father notes that they set the table with 4 places, and happened to make Amber's favorite casserole.
When Amber arrives back in her room, Forge has apparently been and gone. Atticus stops by to ask Amber to be his partner for Carnival. She considers for a moment and agrees. As he leaves, Forge asks for help from behind the inspection hatch. He had left it open behind him, but somebody - probably Reece - had come in and closed it. Amber attempts to open it, but it appears to have been glued shut. The two of them work out a plan where Forge will find a hatch in a corridor or other area where Amber can let him out; until then, he asks her to go to his room and pass him some snack bars and water. She tells him he has until ten o'clock that evening, or she will call Emergency Services to get him out.
Amber tells Shanna that Atticus has asked her to be his Carnival partner, so Shanna starts planning out her outfit. Amber changes her door code to something harder to guess, then immediately forgets it and needs to have Accommodation Services let her into her room. Unfortunately, there is a behavior monitoring alert on her; due to a recent head injury, any incidence of forgetfulness requires a referral to the medical facility where she was treated. The man from Accommodation Services calls Buzz, who talks to Amber for a few moments and confirms that she has no memory issues. Amber sets her door code to something more memorable but still not the same as it used to be.
Shanna wonders where Forge is, and calls him. He claims to have been in an accident and getting treated on Level 16 for a cut leg; the rest of the group can't visit him because they don't want teens hanging out on Level 16. The group eats breakfast, shunning Reece because of the incident on the beach.
A group activity starts: machine embroidery. Amber attempts to design something based on the colors of the flowers in the park, but what comes out is garish and unattractive, especially compared to Atticus's and Shanna's elegant designs. Amber is sure she's useless, but the activity leader reassures her that Lottery will find something she will love doing. Shanna receives the gold card for the session, as usual, and Amber notes that Shanna doesn't have time for even half of the advanced sessions she qualified for.
Amber and Atticus go to the Light and Dark Pageant; Amber admits that she finds them very scary. Atticus asks to hold her hand because he's afraid of the dark; Amber, meanwhile, is terrified of Outside. The two of them accidentally end up right by the stage, and when the crowd tries to shrink back from the Hunter of Souls and his monsters, Amber finds herself trapped against the stage. An actress portraying the Truesun, which Amber is especially afraid of, starts to rise, and Amber focuses on her to the point that she doesn't notice at all when the Hunter of Souls taps her on the shoulder. He flees the Truesun, and Amber realizes that everyone has backed off from around her; everyone is in awe of her bravery, not realizing she was frozen in fear.
After the pageant, Atticus asks why Amber is so afraid of the Truesun; she snaps at him that she just is and doesn't want to explain it. Atticus changes the subject and talks about the activity sessions; he explains that for most people, the activity sessions don't matter at all. They provide practice for creative work and athletes but most people will gain everything they need from their imprint; the activity sessions are, effectively, busywork.
They pass by a nosy squad; Amber fervently chants tables to prevent the nosy from picking up that Forge is trapped in the vents. Atticus is amused; he didn't bother because he says he has nothing to hide. Amber splits off from him to get sandwiches; when he wants to go along, she says she wants some time alone after the frights she has had. They arrange to meet the next day. She buys some extra sandwiches and drops them off for Forge, then runs into Shanna, who mentions that Atticus's parents are low level. Amber realizes that Shanna pays attention to things like that, and that possibly she's Shanna's best friend because Amber's parents are of the highest level among the girls after Shanna herself.
Amber sends a message to Forge, who thanks her for the sandwiches. She eats her sandwiches and gets ready to go to sleep, when the lights go out and her sleep field turns off, dropping her on the floor.
Amber uses the glow of her dataview screen to find her way out of her room, finding that everybody else is doing the same thing. People are starting to get scared, especially Casper; Reece brags about how brave he is, claiming that everyone else is a bunch of cowards. He starts talking about how long the power might be out, and gets kicked.
Atticus announces that he is the deputy corridor emergency warden, and with the warden (Forge) unavailable, he's in charge. He asks Amber and Margot to help him retrieve lighting from the emergency store room. The lighting consists of hand-cranked lanterns, which the three of them pass out. As they're working on securing a water supply, everyone's dataview goes off with a message from Power Services about the blackout. Atticus tells the group to fill water bottles as he and Amber, who he names his deputy, go off to meet up with the rest of the groups. He gives her an emergency communicator that is hand-cranked like the lanterns, and reveals that he's the one who kicked Reece.
He checks in with the group leader; the eighteen-year-olds are all off at a Lottery candidates' event, so Ruby from corridor 15 is acting as leader. Ruby tells them to message relatives on other levels. Amber sends a message to Gregas, who replies back that Dad says she shouldn't be sending messages during a blackout.
The group members report in, saying that the outage seems to cover all of Blue Zone. Atticus tells Amber to call Buzz, who is in a different zone. Buzz explains that the Blue Zone power nexus has failed, but Turquoise and Navy zones have power and Oasis is operating. Buzz is in Blue Zone herself as part of a Health and Safety team dealing with people trapped in lifts and similar problems. Amber repeats this information to the group of emergency wardens.
After some discussion, Oasis is explained - each group will go in turn to the nearest park. This is done in groups so that top-priority areas like medical facilities can evacuate to the park without stumbling over other people. The nearby zones can't power all of Blue Zone, but they can provide light, air, and water to the parks.
Amber and Atticus return to their corridor, where Reece has been telling Halloween stories to scare people. Atticus threatens to have him bound and gagged, which he can do if he feels Reece is inciting panic. Atticus tells the rest of the corridor to pack a bag with a couple days worth of supplies and prepare to move out to the park when it is their turn; he says that they have ration bars to eat if people need them.
After being told that the outage might last for days, Shanna is outraged because of how this will set back her Carnival decorating. Atticus sends everyone off to pack their bags, then confesses his claustrophobia to Amber. He complains that Forge should be in charge; Amber reveals to him the truth of where Forge is, and that Reece glued the hatch shut. Amber wants to call Emergency Services, but Atticus explains that Emergency Services has much bigger problems to deal with.
Everyone returns to the corridor with their bags, and Atticus hands out ration bars. They look like crunch cakes but don't taste particularly good. Atticus and Amber go off to call Forge. Forge is aware of the outage, but has absolutely no idea where he is in the vent system. He was on a ladder when the power went out, and after he got off the ladder, he ended up going down a steep slope, cutting his leg in the process.
As Atticus and Amber talk to Forge, they are notified to go to the park. Amber says she doesn't want to leave Forge behind, but Atticus and Forge agree that she has to. Atticus and Amber return to the group, and everyone picks up their gear, the ration bars, the water containers, and the lanterns to go to the park. They meet Ruby, who is in a powered chair, and realize that they can use the manual wheelchair in the emergency supplies to help carry things.
As they start moving, they hear a hunting horn, and see the Hunter of Souls coming after them. Everybody but Amber panics, but Amber realizes that it's just Reece, and knocks him down with a bottle of water, then pulls off the helmet from his disguise. Margot attacks him and Amber has to keep her from killing him. Atticus places Reece under arrest; Preeja from Ruby's group arrives with a roll of tape to bind him, and Shanna provides a cloth to gag him.
Atticus takes roll, but Linnette is missing. He thinks he hears her sobbing inside her room, but can't get in. He offers to stay to coax her out while the rest of the group goes to the park, but Amber realizes he's terrified and offers to stay instead. The group heads off, leaving Amber alone. She talks to Linnette through the door, then decides to try easy door codes until one works. Linnette's room is empty, with the sob noise being a drip from her shower.
Amber discusses the situation with Ruby, wanting to go look for Linnette. Ruby agrees only to let Amber take a slightly longer route toward the park. She finds that a stack of boxes has been strewn around by somebody crashing through it; next to the boxes, she finds Linnette's dataview.
Continuing in that direction, she finds that Linnette fell down the downway to Level 51. Linnette was convinced that she was being chased by the Hunter of Souls and attacked by his monsters (the boxes), fell down the downway, and hurt her leg; when Amber reaches her, she tries to stand up and faints. Forge, a few levels down but near a connecting vent, hears them and tells Amber to contact Emergency Services. Amber calls and gives them the necessary information; they tell her that Triage will contact her as soon as possible and hang up.
Triage calls back quickly, and tells Amber that all nearby rescue teams are busy with higher-priority, closer calls, and that Amber will need to help Linnette herself. She is given the access code to a nearby emergency store room and told to give Linnette some painkillers, put an inflatable immobilizer on her leg, and help her up the stairs, then get her onto a stretcher and take her to the park. The emergency store room has already been opened and many items are gone, but the items Amber needs are still there. Amber returns to Linnette and gives her the painkillers. By the time Amber has the immobilizer on her leg, Linnette is asleep. Amber isn't strong enough to carry her up the stairs, so she tells Forge she'll help him get out - Linnette is safe for now, but Amber needs Forge's help to get her to the park.
She goes down the downway, slipping on Linnette's lantern and almost injuring herself in the process. She carries the two lanterns down to Level 53, and finds an inspection hatch that she can barely reach if she stands on the handrail. Her right ankle almost gives out due to her earlier fall, but she unlatches the hatch cover. Forge exits, then puts the cover back so that nobody else will trip over it.
They reach Linnette and Forge carries her up to the stretcher. Amber calls Atticus and Ruby and tells them she's on her way back with Linnette and Forge. Forge claims he had been released from the medical facility and was on his way home when the power went out. Forge is also limping from a hurt leg, but denies that he's in pain.
After maneuvering through the shopping area at the top of the upway, Amber leads them to the park, where Atticus is waiting. Atticus is happy to see Linnette and expresses his annoyance at Forge. Amber tells Atticus that Forge is injured and needs medical help, despite Forge's protests.
They enter the park, finding that Shanna has started a Carnival party. They take Linnette and Forge over to the triage area; Linnette goes to the top of the queue. Amber starts to tell them that Forge is injured too, but she looks at him and isn't able to. Atticus sighs and tells the medical team about Forge's leg injury, despite Forge's glare.
Walking back, Amber thinks she hears somebody crying, although Atticus doesn't hear anything. She finds Celeste, an 18-year-old who left the candidates' event after her boyfriend, Seb, cruelly insisted on breaking up with her and stated that she would clearly come out at a much lower level than he did. After talking to Amber for a bit, she gets over her sadness and decides she's better off without Seb anyway.
After Celeste leaves, Atticus and Amber talk and decide not to date after Carnival, because they could get too involved and have to go through a pre-Lottery breakup just like Celeste and Seb.
Amber and Atticus find the rest of their corridor-mates and tell them about Linnette. Casper is over feeding the animals, but Margot is complaining about the ration bars. Amber remembers some food packs they had passed, but Atticus says she's already rescued Linnette and Forge, and Margot can suffer with the ration bars.
Two days later, just after Linnette is released from medical, the power returns. Shanna has a special song queued up just for the occasion. The park keeper informs everyone that they need to stay in the park until Emergency Services gives the all clear; however, with the belts operating, real food will be coming in from Turquoise and Navy zones. Amber finds some higher-level food to enjoy, and reassures Casper that the food is free. He's dubious until Buzz, arriving in an Emergency Services uniform, confirms the fact.
Buzz asks Amber why she's afraid of heights but not the dark; Amber isn't sure why. Buzz confirms that Amber is okay, then gets assigned a problem teen to deal with - it's Forge, who went back into the duct system for his backpack and got caught. Buzz gives him a tracking bracelet, like young children wear, for a week, which embarrasses him deeply. Margot wonders what Reece's punishment will be; Buzz isn't sure, but suggests that his behavior may get him sent to a low level.
On the day after Carnival, Amber goes to the express belts to watch the eighteen-year-olds heading off to Lottery, and thinks about where she will end up. She's sure that she'll end up at a low level, but she accepts that as she heads back to her room.
