Mindguard (4 page)

No matter your
place or your point in time, the study of history – if performed correctly –
will teach you that you are in the most fortunate possible time, in the best of
all possible places.

Kinsey Ayers,
A
Brief History of the Mind

Tamisa’s
determined walk left angry echoes on the hallway of the administrative
building. She had resolved to control herself this time.
This time
she wasn’t
going to let her temper dictate her actions. It wasn’t easy - her heart pounded
with rage. Tamisa’s problem was that she was absolutely gorgeous. Her tall,
curvy body, dark brown eyes and wild, curly hair exuded a raw sexuality that
had been a constant thorn in her side, ever since she had enrolled in the
Enforcement Unit Academy. She hated her beauty and tried her best to hide it.
That was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

“You look
lovely, sweetheart,” said Martin Anderson, who had just bumped into her. If
those words had  been spoken by anyone other than Marty, that person would
probably have gotten punched. Anger was boiling inside her, but she knew that
she could not afford another slip, for fear of getting a dishonorable discharge.
Also, she knew that Marty wasn’t making fun of her. The man was all heart. He
would have never been disrespectful to any of his cadets.

Martin was
Thomas Anderson’s brother. He had two things in common with his sibling. The
first was that, although large and physically imposing, his otherwise
benevolent appearance gave him the aura of a loveable grandfather. The second
was the fact that he was an extremely dangerous soldier who had, in his
lifetime, killed more men than most people meet.

Martin noticed
that Tamisa didn’t say anything. “You’re not going to go talk to him like this,
are you sweetheart?”

“I’m fine,
Marty,” she lied. “I just need to get back in the loop, that’s all.”

The old man gave
her a smile one would normally offer a five-year-old trying on her mother’s
shoes. “You know, if Tommy sees you like this, he’ll send you right back home
for another six months.”

“Like what?” she
asked, with a lump in her throat.

“Come on, you’re
angry as hell,” Marty said, laughing. “Hiding your feelings was never your
forte.” Tamisa let out a frustrated growl. Marty just continued laughing,
irritating her even more.

“Look,” he said,
“I don’t even know what you’re angry about. You look much better now anyway.”

“Damn it, Marty,
I lost six months!”

“You haven’t
lost them, you trained… with
me
. That’s hardly lost time. You know, most
people don’t even make it to this point.”

Marty was Thomas
Anderson’s first lieutenant and was also in charge of training the cadets in
the final stages before active duty. And he was right, most cadets never made
it this far, especially women. She let out a deep breath. “I know. Thanks
Marty.”

“Don’t thank
me,” he said in a reprimanding tone. “You shouldn’t be thanking me at all,
because I shouldn’t have to tell you this, not at this point. You have come
further as a female cadet than anyone in the past two decades. Now you’re doing
exactly the things that get others kicked out in the first place. You’re too
easy to provoke. If Tommy decides that can’t be fixed -”

“He’ll send me
home?” she asked, her voice trembling at the thought that the last decade of
her life might have been for nothing.

“No, not at this
stage,“ Marty said. “But he
will
probably assign you to a desk job for
good and you’ll never see any action as long as you live.
Then
those six
months won’t seem like such a long time.“

Marty was right
and Tamisa knew it. She had been taken off active duty right as she was about
to embark on her first mission, as punishment for shaving her head. She had
always struggled to do everything right. She had been the most determined, hard
working cadet in her group. She was obsessed with becoming the first female
Enforcer in over twenty-four years, proving that she can be just as efficient
as her male counterparts.

The system was
so biased against women that it deterred most of them from even joining. Those
who did, ended up dropping out because of the brutal training. Tamisa
considered her childhood on Aanadya brutal training. Nothing the Enforcers
could throw at her could ever be worse than what she had already endured.
Consequently, she hadn’t dropped out. Instead, she proved to be an excellent
cadet. She trained to become just as strong, as fast and resilient as any of
her male counterparts.

Tamisa believed
that her only weakness was her extraordinary beauty. She feared it might
distract others from her accomplishments, so she struggled to reduce
it
in any way she could. She made sure her clothes were fit in such a way as to
deemphasize her curvy body.  She even practiced her speech to be as raspy
and sharp as possible, hoping it would grant her a more masculine image. Then,
right before her first scheduled mission, she decided to get rid of the last
feminine trait she felt had left: her voluminous curly hair.

When she had reported
in front of Thomas Liam Anderson with a shaved scalp, the commander had sent
her packing and told her to return only when her hair was back to at least a
third of the level it had been before.

“That’s
ridiculous, sir, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” she had protested.
Anderson just nonchalantly shrugged. “I would suggest training.” That evening,
the punching bag in the training room was nicknamed Commander Anderson.

Many times she
had felt that she hated the man with a passion. More times still, she felt she
loved him like a father. Such was the nature of the High Commander of the
greatest military in human history. Whatever her personal feelings toward him
at any given time, she knew better than to question his judgment. So she trained
for another six months, knowing that she should actually be on field missions
instead. She waited for her hair to grow back a little. Now, she was returning
for a private consultation with him, at his request. Marty was right, she
needed to get the anger out of her system first. Luckily, she knew just the way
to do that.

●

Tamisa decided
to put off her talk with the commander for a few minutes. First, she had to
talk to a friend. She had promised herself that she would not get close to
anyone at the academy. She didn’t want to create any emotional bonds which
could be perceived as weakness, but she had no choice when it came to Villo.

He was one of
her trainers, in charge of mental conditioning and meditation. The Enforcers
focused on enhancing the body’s fighting ability with a natural approach. They
lacked any of the neural or muscular insertions that other fighting units used
to enhance strength or speed. They didn’t download any fighting techniques into
their memory insertions. Instead, they developed their own.

They were not
prototechs because they used technology to compensate for abilities that were
not natural to the human body, like retinal insertions for thermal recognition
or the solar positioning system. However, they didn’t technologically enhance
the body’s natural abilities: strength, speed, balance and endurance. Those
were trained and perfected using flawless control of the mind and nervous
system.  

“The mind can be
taught to do amazing things,” Villo had told them, smiling like he always did.
“You don’t have to technologically advance your body in order to be invincible.
You can
teach it
to become invincible.”

Those were his
first words to his students, on their first ever lesson with him. Since then,
Tamisa had lived her life according to the wisdom of those words. Without any
trace of neuroinsertions, muscular insertions or memory enhancements, the
enforcers had become the most effective fighters in the man-inhabited universe.
They were near impossible to defeat in battle, whether it was tactical warfare
or hand-to-hand combat. While the planets of the IFCO all had their individual
militaries, the enforcers were at the top of the hierarchy, responsible with
the protection of the entire IFCO.

On their first
lesson, in order to exemplify the power of the mind, Villo Kantil challenged
any of the twelve cadets in the group to engage him in a fight.

“All you’ve been
doing for the past three years is physically training. Your bodies should be in
pretty decent shape, right?” he said, taunting the cadets. The entire group
agreed; some laughed. Only Tamisa remained silent.

“Now, look at
me,“ he continued, smiling in his usual cheerful fashion, “I’m not very tall
and not very muscular, right?” Nobody said anything. He seemed amused at their
reluctance to admit the obvious. Next to a bear like Martin Anderson, or
Jeanette Lukad, one of the weaponry instructors, Villo was positively petite.

“Since you’ve
been training with guys twice my size, it shouldn’t be all too hard for you to
go toe-to-toe with me, correct? So who is willing to try? The rule being that
you must stay on your feet for ten seconds.”

None of the
eleven male cadets stepped up. They all knew that appearances could be
deceiving, especially with Villo Kantil. He was the youngest instructor at the
academy on Terra Antiqua and also the only one who was at the same time an
active field soldier. None of the cadets had ever managed to find out why but
they assumed it was a testament to his ability.

Tamisa took one step
forward but Villo just chuckled and looked around. “Any
boys
willing to
try?” he said, paying no attention whatsoever to the woman. “Come on lads, are
you going to let yourselves be upstaged by the girl?”

He looked at
Tamisa. The then twenty-year-old woman said nothing but it was clear from the
look on her face that she was fuming. That seemed to amuse the young instructor
greatly. “All right then, this is your lucky day baby-girl.”

She stared into
his eyes, wishing she could knock him out with her gaze.

“Take a deep
breath,” he said, “then relax and when I say ‘go’ you can attack.” He turned
his back to her, which added to the affront but also fueled her anger. “All
right, go!” he said.

Before he had
even finished pronouncing the last vowel, she lunged at him with lightning
speed. He did not defend himself. He did not hit her or throw her to the
ground. He just moved out of the way so quickly that he almost seemed to
disappear, right as she was about to grab him. As she passed the spot where his
body had been just a fraction of a second ago, his agile defense surprised her
so much that she lost her balance, tripped and fell to the ground with an
impact that retained the force of her attack.

She found
herself lying on the ground on her stomach, her mouth open in astonishment,
feeling completely humiliated. 

“Two seconds,”
Villo announced.

The other eleven
cadets started laughing. Tamisa couldn’t even find strength to stand up. At the
sound of laughter, Villo suddenly lost any trace of his smile.

“Is this funny
to you?” he asked. Silence immediately ensued. “Is this funny?” he repeated.
“Do you think she embarrassed herself? I’m an active field agent in the
Enforcement Unit and I have been one for fifteen years. This is your first
mental conditioning class and I am your trainer. Realistically, what else where
you
expecting
to happen? The way I see it she is the only cadet who had
the proverbial balls to answer my challenge. The ones who should feel
embarrassed are you eleven gentlemen, for being too scared to step up.” He
looked at Tamisa. She was still on the floor, breathing heavily, more from
anger than from the impact of the fall. “Her quick defeat just put her
way
ahead of you, with your lack of participation. It just made her the cream of
this particular crop.”

Now, Tamisa’s
colleagues seemed ashamed.

“Get up!” Villo
ordered. Tamisa appreciated that at least he didn’t humiliate her further by
extending his arm to help her up. “Thus,“ Villo addressed the others, paying no
more attention to the defeated woman, who was scrambling back to her feet, “she
will be the one cadet I will tutor privately, while you gentlemen will have the
privilege of enjoying each other’s questionable company. She will have learned
in three months what you will learn in three years.” He looked at Tamisa and
saw that she was hesitant. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I do this every year with
the most promising student. You are not special in that respect.” Tamisa nodded
but said nothing.

“So, what’s your
name?” he asked.

“Tamisa Faber,”
she said proudly.

“Tammy Faber.
All right then, you are excused from this particular session. Come back in two
hours when I’m done with these losers and we can start the really cool
stuff.”            

After that day,
Tamisa and Villo quickly bonded. Now she was just as strong and as fast as he
was. He trained her with the dedication of a consummate mentor and she absorbed
the information with incredible speed. He was, by far, her favorite instructor.
She wanted nothing more but to become his favorite student.

She loved his
company, the constant smile on his face and the glimmer in his eyes. His whole
demeanor was so different from that of the other instructors. Villo would
always joke around, wink at his cadets when they did something right and sigh
theatrically whenever they screwed up. In the rare moments when he became
serious, all his students walked on eggshells, a sign of the incredible respect
he commanded.

What Tamisa
loved most about him was what he represented. He was unusually young for an
instructor just like Tamisa always felt ‘unusually female’ among the others.
She was, at that time, the only female cadet dispatched to the academy on Terra
Antiqua. She feared that it could become a problem for her. Still, the fact
that Villo had been accepted as an instructor, in spite of his young age, and
that he was also a field agent, were signs that the rules were not as strict as
everyone expected. Or, at least, that exceptions were made for the truly
exceptional. Tamisa had every intention of becoming exceptional.