Mindguard (24 page)

PART 3: DESTINY

When danger
presents, the mind reacts first and only afterwards it thinks. It is my goal to
teach you to think first and only then react.

Villo Kantil

“How did you
know about the underground tunnel?”

Sophie finally
managed to catch her breath, after a few minutes of rest. The secret passage
had indeed led to a tunnel, a long and very narrow one. She wasn’t usually
claustrophobic, but she found it very difficult to suppress a panic attack.
Sheldon seemed unfazed, though that didn’t surprise her. She was amazed,
however, that Ross managed to remain calm. The bodyguard barely fit through and
had to resort to crawling on his stomach. On top of that, he was also dragging
behind him the lifeless body of Jason Elden.

They resurfaced
somewhere close to the town’s landfill, after which they started running, to
put as much distance as possible between themselves and Kamona. After half an
hour, they needed to stop, when Sophie and Sheldon got tired. Ross wasn’t even
breathing heavily, even though he was carrying Elden’s body on his shoulders, as
well as a backpack that contained what little they had managed to save from
their personal belongings.

They all sat
down and rested, Sophie with her back against a tree, as they tried to assess
their predicament. When she finally managed to catch her breath, she decided to
ask Ross about the tunnel.

“I sensed a
faint anomaly in the room’s air currents,” he answered. “ Some of the desert
dwellers use tunnels to smuggle merchandise in and out of the city. Also, to be
able to move freely from one place to the next, shielded from telepaths.
Physical limitations like walls or the earth weaken the signal of the thought
timbre.”

She just nodded
absently. There was something else she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t know
how to phrase it. She caught Sheldon looking at her, like he knew what she was
thinking. The look on his face seemed to encourage her to speak. She cleared
her throat and looked at Mac, hoping she wouldn’t upset him. Then, she looked
at Elden’s body.

“He, uh -”

“He is deceased.
I intend to bury him,” the giant said, anticipating the question.

“But, I mean,
perhaps some of the others -”

“I have no way
of knowing who lived and who died,” Ross said. “Jason was there with us and… he
is a Christian.”

Sophie looked
away; she didn’t know what to say. Sheldon stared at Ross, like he was
provoking him. Ross continued to explain, but his attitude got defensive. It
was the tone of a man who was used to being chastised for his beliefs.

“His body
belongs to God, not to those beasts. He deserves a proper burial.”

“Beasts…” she
repeated. “The way that man moved… the speed…” She felt a lump in her throat.
“The enforcers are after us,” she said, more to herself than to her companions.
Suddenly, a rush of adrenaline kicked in. She jumped up. “We can’t… we can’t stay
here… we have to move… if they…” Again she looked at Elden. “There is, I mean…
there’s no time to waste…”

At the last
second, she realized that she might have offended Ross, but the bodyguard just
stared at Elden’s body, unable to say anything. He seemed to be searching for
his words. Instead, Sheldon spoke for him: “Mac is not coming with us.”

“What?” Sophie
couldn’t believe her ears. Why wouldn’t he come with them? She had hired him to
protect her! All for a stupid religious ritual? They had been incredibly
fortunate to escape the enforcers once and she was finally regaining hope that
there might still be a chance to carry out the mission. Without Ross, their
chances were basically zero.  Ross looked up at Sophie with sadness and
guilt.

“The man who
attacked us, the man we… the man
I
killed, was Villo Kantil.”

Sophie did not
recognize the name.

“He was one of
the most important enforcers is the world, an adjutant to Commander Thomas
Anderson, the leader of the Enforcement Unit.”

“
Him
I
know,” Sophie said.

“Villo Kantil is
the commander’s right-hand man, his closest advisor. If Kantil is involved,
then this must be of very high priority to them.”

“All the more
reason I need you with me.  Mac, with all due respect to your team mate,
and
your beliefs, I -”

“No,” he said
gravely. “It’ s not that.”

Sheldon stared
at his partner intensely. Sophie could not recognize the emotion in his eyes.
Were it any other man than Sheldon, and were he looking at any other person
than his best friend, she would have thought it was a look of disgust. Mac
noticed, but he didn’t react. He just continued speaking with Sophie, perhaps
suggesting that the only person to whom he thought he owed an explanation was
her, not Sheldon.

“Villo Kantil
came after us alone. That is completely unusual for the enforcers. I can see no
reason why they’d send him without backup. But the fact that Kantil himself
came after us is important. Also, he knew exactly where we were.”

“I don’t
understand.”

“Genetic tracing
has its limitations. It can’t locate the position of a person with such
accuracy. Best it can do is reduce the search area to a few miles. There’s no
way genetic tracing could have told him that we were in that particular
building. Even if they captured Isabel, Ray and Francois first, none of them
would have given the enforcers our location. I can vouch for that with my life.
They could not have used a telepath, because Sheldon would have felt it. This
only leaves one other option: neural tracing.”

“What’s that?”

“They use
devices that decode and catalogue brainwaves, recognizing patterns. It’s a very
effective form of locating a person within a few feet.”

“I’ve never
heard of anything like that.”

“That’s because
the Council of Presidents outlawed it about a decade and a half ago. They said
it’s dangerously similar to telepathy.

“That can’t be.
That would mean the enforcers are acting against the order of the Council.“

“I see no other
explanation. I am familiar with every type of tracing technology there ever
existed and I’m always up-to-date with what’s in development. There is no other
method they could have used to know I was there. If the enforcers are breaking
the very laws they vowed to protect, then this is a lot more serious than we
could have ever expected.”

When Ross
pronounced the word ‘expected’, Sheldon’s jaw clenched. He looked like he was
trying very hard to hold back his words. Ross noticed that too and he turned
away from his associate with an expression that somehow managed to contain both
guilt and accusation.

 “That’s
exactly my point,” Sophie said. “If they’re acting this crazy, then we’re in
even more danger than we thought. I need you to carry out your -”

“Let him
finish,” Sheldon said with venom. Sophie did not understand the mindguard’s
animosity, but Ross seemed like he did. 

“They could not
have found you or Sheldon,” Ross said. “Only me. Kantil came after
me
.”

“What? Why? How
do you know that?”

“Because you two
are prototechs.” There were a few moments of silence, then he continued:
“Neuralfield scanners can’t trace the thought timbres of prototechs. The
neuroinsertions in regular people modify the brainwaves and create a certain
pattern, which is what the neuralfield scanners pick up. That pattern doesn’t
exist in prototechs. The scanners are blind to you, you can move freely. If I
come with you, they will track me down, no matter where we go. It’s only a
matter of time. Given that we are dealing with the Enforcement Unit, I think it
will happen sooner, rather than later. As of this moment I am basically a
security threat to our own mission.”

Sophie had tears
in her eyes. This was getting out of hand so quickly, she felt like she
couldn’t keep up anymore. She was living a nightmare. A sudden scary thought
materialized: if the enforcers had come after them, perhaps even her father had
been targeted. She feared for her father’s safety and now also for the safety
of Maclaine Ross, the man she had involved in this potentially fatal mission.

She felt a
terrible burden. It was the bond of the promise she had made to her father
clashing with the guilt of having put these men’s lives in danger. But wasn’t
that what they had signed up for? These men knew the level of danger they were
getting into when they accepted the mission. Or did they? After all, going up
against the Enforcement Unit was something that nobody could have predicted.
Why were they even targeting them? Could it be that they somehow knew about the
purpose of her mission? How? She was the only other person in the world her
father had entrusted with this. She couldn’t take it anymore. She decided that
she owed them an explanation.

“Look, the
information package I am carrying -”

“No!” Ross thundered.
“That is not according to regulation. We don’t have to know and we don’t
want
to know the nature of the information package we are guarding. That hasn’t
changed, the mission is still going forward only… without me.”

“But -”

“Look, kid,” he
said, and for the first time Sophie was not annoyed at being addressed like a
child. “I get that you’re scared and worried, you probably feel guilty and all
that. But you need to suck it up. Being scared I can understand but feeling
guilty is ridiculous, it’s childish. We are a thoughtprotection agency, this is
what we do. This is exactly why we are required, because protecting an
information package is very dangerous. It’s a risk we are aware of and one
we’ve decided to take. No matter the cost, it’s our profession.”

Ross’ words
snapped Sheldon back out of whatever trance he had entered while staring into
his friend’s eyes. The mindguard’s voice was so cold and hateful it frightened
Sophie. She had never heard him like this. This was not the same Sheldon Ayers
she had come to know over the past weeks. His voice was pure emotion. “Don’t
worry Sophie, if anybody has reasons to feel guilty, it’s Mac.”

“What?” Sophie
cried, but Ross’ face betrayed no surprise. He had expected
this.      

“You knew,
didn’t you?” Sheldon said viciously.  Ross sighed but he did not look
away. His face revealed the dignity of a man taking responsibility for his
actions.

Sheldon raised
his voice: “The attack… you knew it would come to this. You knew the
Enforcement Unit was going to get involved!”   

 “What are
you talking about?” Sophie asked. As scared as she was because of everything
that had happened, nothing unsettled her more than this argument between the
two men. Sheldon continued his passionate tirade: 

“There’s no way
White didn’t predict this. He warned you about this, didn’t he?”

Ross remained
silent but he never took his eyes off Sheldon.

“You knew the
enforcers might get involved and you didn’t tell us. You son of a bitch! You
went ahead with the mission. You’ve killed one of the most prominent enforcers
in the world. You’ve signed a death sentence for all of us!”

“We all accepted
the risk.”

Ross’ voice was
calm, but underneath, a terrible storm was brewing. Sophie shuddered as she
remembered how it only took one angry strike from Maclaine Ross to kill an
enforcer. What if Ross lost his temper? She feared for Sheldon’s safety, but
the mindguard did not back down.

“No! No, we
didn’t accept the risk because we were unaware of the mission’s true
implications. You lied to us. You did it on purpose. You killed us all to save
your company!”

The faintest
hint of a smile ghosted over the bodyguard’s lips. 

“We need to go,
Sophie,” Sheldon said. “We have to defend the honor of the great Ayers-Ross.”
The bitter sarcasm in his voice was directed at Ross, not her, though that
didn’t make her feel any better. Ross nodded like he were giving permission. He
took off his heavy backpack and handed it to Sheldon.

“The portable
gateway generator is in there,” he said and turned his back to them. Then, in a
soft voice:  “Good luck.”

Sheldon,
however, was not finished. He looked at Elden’s body. “When you’re praying for
your god to take his soul, to be merciful, keep in mind to also ask for
forgiveness for yourself. After all, he’s dead because of
you
.”

Sophie didn’t
even have time to let out a scream. Ross instantly turned around and grabbed
Sheldon by the throat with his right hand. He shook him a few times until the
mindguard fell to his knees. Sophie knew for sure that he wasn’t applying much
force, otherwise Sheldon would have been dead within seconds.

Sheldon Ayers
remained defiant. Though on his knees, he never took his eyes off Ross’, while
the bodyguard looked at him with an expression that seemed to declare ‘I could
kill you in a heartbeat.’ It was as expression that had, no doubt, never before
been meant for a friend. He quickly regained his composure and let go of his
former partner. He took a step back as Sheldon got up.

“Let’s go,”
Sheldon said to Sophie, but the young woman was frozen in place.

“Now,” he
commanded and she obeyed.

“Goodbye, Mac,”
she said gently but the giant didn’t reply. He had turned his back to them
again and was now on his knees, digging a hole in the ground with his bare
hands. And so, she left Ross behind and carried on with Sheldon Ayers, her sole
guardian, moving on towards a goal that now seemed unattainable.

If I say to you
that we are equals, because I allow you to be my equal, then my statement
contradicts itself and you have gained nothing. Equality is gained by force,
when you leave the other party no option but respect.

Commander Thomas Liam
Anderson

It was with
great difficulty that Tamisa regained full consciousness. The first time she
woke up, she didn’t have a chance to realize where she was, or what had
happened, before she passed out again. This transpired several times. She
oscillated between sleep and wakefulness, but her periods of consciousness
lasted merely a few seconds.  The first time she could stay awake for more
than a minute, she looked around and saw that she was in the infirmary of the
Enforcement Unit spacecraft. She slipped back into oblivion with at least a
feeling of relief.

When she woke up
again, she saw that she was strapped to the bed, but she didn’t have the power
to call anyone. The next time, she saw that she didn’t need to call anyone,
because Tahara was there at a respectful distance, watching over her.

“Ma’am?” he
said, but sleep reclaimed her before she could gather the strength to reply.

Death is either
man’s final journey, or his last destination. Nevertheless, death should be
final and it should come last. Once that journey is over and one has reached
that destination, one is not supposed to return. In her state, neither asleep
nor awake, Tamisa’s tired brain tried to remember the events: Villo’s dead body
staring out into a distance that did not exist - her anger - the woman’s
battered face - a gift.

Somehow, the
mindguard had managed to link their minds together as she died. Tamisa not only
witnessed the woman’s death, with all the pain and the fear it entailed, she
was
part
of it. She lived it. The pain and the fear were her own. The
desperation of being thrown into the final abyss. The horror that ultimately
ends in blissful peace -  in the absence of emotion. Only, for Tamisa, it
did not end. It was as though she was, at the same time, dead and alive. She
experienced the trauma of death without the sweet relief of whatever awaited
beyond.

Isabel Mensah’s final
gift for Tamisa Faber had been death - her own death - which Tamisa was forced
to experience alongside her.

The human mind
was not designed to experience death. Death was the finality of everything. It
could not be processed by the brain, nor accepted by the mind. Mensah’s
telepathic connection hit Tamisa with brutal force. She sprung up and grabbed
her face in her hands as if she wanted to tear it off, screaming in horror as
her colleagues could do nothing more but helplessly watch and wonder. Enforcers
helpless for the first time. Because of her. She fell to the ground, fell on
her ass – how humiliating – clutching her head, overcome with grief and
overwhelming pain. The infernal pressure of a death in which she was forced to
partake.

She couldn’t abandon
herself to the void, as human life was designed to do, so instead, the void
became part of her. Tamisa was unmanageable, screaming and banging the back of
her head on the wall behind her. She was unresponsive. There was nothing her
colleagues could do but immobilize her and take her to the infirmary, where she
was strapped down and sedated with the hope that at least a small part of her
mind was still salvageable.

When she
regained consciousness, she told Tahara what had happened and, in return, he
told her what  had taken place after she had had her ‘seizure’. She found
out that the team, now without Villo and herself, had turned to Dieter Muench,
but the man had refused command. He had wanted to wait and see if Tamisa would
recover. He had faith in her, he told the others that he believed she will pull
through. Hearing that brought tears to Tamisa’s eyes. Only then, did she think
to ask: “Akio, how long was I out?”

Her heart was
racing. How long had she been in that state? Could it have been days? Weeks?
Could it have been months? Had the mission already failed? She quickly regained
her composure when she deduced that, since she was still in the ship’s
infirmary, it couldn’t have been more than a few days.  Then, she realized
that, since she wasn’t intubated, or connected to any other sort of feeding
mechanism, it couldn’t have been very long. Then why was Tahara staring at her
so strangely?

“Akio, damn it!
How long has it been?”

He swallowed, as
if he had trouble pronouncing the words.  “Three… uh… three and a half
hours, ma’am.”

Tamisa couldn’t
believe it. Her body was telling her that she had been lying in that bed for an
eternity. Only three and a half hours?

He saw her very
evident confusion. “I know, we… we really thought, I mean we weren’t even sure
you were ever going to be back… as yourself, you know. The reaction was so
violent it looked like… well, it looked like your brain had gone into overload
and fried itself. We weren’t even expecting you to ever recover… Well, some of
us weren’t.  Muench
said
you’d snap out of it. But it looked awful…
the seizure I mean. And we pumped you full of sedatives, by all accounts….
Tammy…. Uh, ma’am… I’ve never seen anyone -”

“Untie me, Akio,
quickly,” Tamisa ordered.

“Tammy, I’m
really not sure if that is such a good -”

“That’s Field
Unit Commander Faber and that was an order!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The man
complied, but not wholeheartedly. He helped her to her feet and Tamisa found
that she could barely stand. Akio seemed surprised that she could stand at all.
He expected her to lean on him but she pushed him away and took a few shaky
steps. She almost lost balance and had to lean against a wall instead. Her body
quickly protested to this overconfident strain and she had to throw up. That
didn’t stop her. The second it was over, she struggled back to an upright
position and exited the infirmary. Akio sprang after her, afraid that she would
collapse any moment.

“Field Unit
Commander Faber,” he said. “I mentioned before that Muench refused to take
command and gave a standing order to wait for your recovery, but he did give
one
other order.”

“He told Kernis
to track Maclaine Ross’ neurosignature,” she guessed.

“That’s right,”
the young man said with admiration. Clearly, he had not expected her mental
capacity to be fully functional yet. Clearly, he had been proven wrong. Tamisa
had to struggle to suppress a smirk.

When she entered
the holochamber, where Kernis was involved in a deep conversation with Muench
and an enforcer named Adrian Lucas, everyone turned towards her, looking like
they had seen a ghost. The only man who didn’t seem surprised was Muench. He
greeted her with a proud smile.

“Field Unit
Commander,” he said, wasting no second. “We tracked down Ross.”

“Where is
Villo?”

The man
hesitated for a few seconds. “We brought him back to the ship. His body is in a
vacuum container and will be transported back to Terra Antiqua when we leave.
There, he will be given his proper military burial.”

Tamisa felt her
heart break at the word burial, but her face remained impassive. “All right…
Ross… I’m listening.”

Kernis took
over: “For a short while he disappeared from our radars, so to speak. We assume
he must have used an underground tunnel to escape. We were about to dispatch
Lucas back to the building to investigate, but there was no need. Only a few
minutes later, his neural signature resurfaced somewhere close to the town’s
landfill. He began to move rapidly towards the woods and kept a fast pace for
thirty minutes. Afterwards, he reached an open space, probably a meadow, and
they stopped.”

“
They
,”
Tamisa echoed. “So we’re assuming Sheldon Ayers and Sophie Gaumont are with
him.”

“A logical
assumption. We’ve analyzed the blood and brain tissue from the house and
determined it belongs to Jason Elden, but we didn’t find the body.  We
think Ross took it with him.”

“Why?”

“To bury it,”
said Muench this time. “Ross and Elden were both practicing Christians. I
figure that’s why Ross bothered to burden himself with the lifeless carcass of
his young employee.”

“I assume we’ve
dispatched a ground vehicle after them.”

“Affirmative.
They’re close by and awaiting your orders.”

“Ross has not
moved since he stopped,” said Kernis. “We’re not sure what he’s doing but I
think he is burying the body.”

“That’s crazy,”
Tamisa said, almost amused. She was already starting to feel a bit better. “All
right, tell the men not to make a  move unless he does. Tell them I’m
coming over there.” 

“I don’t think
you need to hurry,” Kernis said. “He wouldn’t have stopped and risked losing
distance if Ayers and Gaumont were still with him. I think he’s on to us.”

“How’s that?”

“I think he
knows that we are tracking him with the neuralfield scanners. Sheldon Ayers and
Sophie Gaumont are probably no longer with him.”

Tamisa looked
unconvinced.

“If he
did
realize that he’s the only one of them we can track,” the timekeeper continued,
“then he will know that they are at greater risk with him than without him. My
conclusion is that they will continue on their own.”

“So what’s he
doing now?”

“Waiting.”

“For us?”

“I think so.”

Tamisa had fire
in her eyes. Though she looked pale and fragile, at the same time, she appeared
ferocious, like a demon or a wraith.

“Let’s not keep
him waiting then,” the demon said.

●

They reached the
first land vehicle shortly. Ross was still at a considerable distance but
Tamisa decided to continue on foot, until she was close enough to see him. He
had his large back turned to them and, from his movements, they couldn’t really
tell what he was doing.

Tamisa used a
pair of old hologoggles;  her retinal insertions were useless in the
desert. She got a close-up view and saw that he was planting something into the
ground. When he took a step back, she could see that it was a cross, made from
two tree branches. All five of the Enforcers who were with her proceeded
towards him with their energy weapons armed and pointed at his massive frame.
They only started to approach him when Tamisa  gave the signal. Now they
obeyed her entirely, without reserve.

As they drew
nearer, Ross still had his back to them. If at first they thought he had not
heard them, now they were close enough to be sure that he had. He was simply
not paying any attention to them. 

“Maclaine Ross,“
Dieter Muench shouted. “By order of Commander Thomas Liam Anderson, under the
power granted to us by the Council of Presidents, I hereby command you to turn
around with your hands up!”

Ross did not
obey. He fell on his knees near the self-dug grave. When he spoke, he did not
address them.

“Heavenly
Father, You have not made us for darkness and death, but for life with you
forever.”

The enforcers
looked at each other confused. Muench repeated the order.

“Without You, we
have nothing to hope for; with You, we have nothing to fear.”

Muench armed his
weapon and the others followed. Tamisa raised her right fist in the air. She
immediately had their undivided attention.

“No,” she
whispered, “let him finish. Don’t shoot!” Nobody questioned her order. 

“Speak to us now
Your words of eternal life.”

The giant’s
speech carried an unexplained graveness. Even nature seemed to have gone still,
as if anticipating his every word. A strange chill ran down the spines of the
enforcers, all but Tamisa, who patiently waited. Patiently and emotionlessly.

“Lift us from
anxiety and guilt, to the light and peace of Your presence,”

The trees
rattled in a murmur that  sounded like they were silently repeating his
words.

“And set the
glory of Your love before us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen!” the
trees responded. Ross stood up and slowly turned around. He looked at each of
his captors, pausing upon the face of Tamisa Faber. For a fraction of a second,
the universe was engulfed in a respectful silence. Then, Tamisa’s voice was
heard: “Now you can shoot!”

The
weightlessness of the moment was broken by the sound of all of the weapons
going off at the same time.