Mindguard (22 page)

“That increases
the risk,” Villo said sharply. He was clearly not happy with the turn of
events. “Proceeding this way gives Ross more time to mobilize. He could get
away. Attacking them simultaneously reduces the risk that Mensah’s team could
somehow communicate with Ross and announce our presence. It’s the safer
approach.”

“It’s the more
violent approach,” Tamisa said in a conciliatory voice. She was taken aback by
Villo’s passionate dismissal of her plan. “We reduce the risk of any
fatalities. We neutralize Mensah’s team quickly and efficiently. Then we use
Mensah as a bargaining point to subdue Ross. Instead of immediately attacking
Ross, we surround his team and announce that we’ve captured Mensah. We threaten
to eliminate her unless they lay down their weapons.”

“What?” he
snapped. The outrage in his voice offended Tamisa. Why was he getting so worked
up about the change of plans? On the one hand, she felt the need for her former
mentor’s approval, but on the other hand she was growing tired of his friction.
She feared that his attitude would make the others also doubt her plan.

“Look, the
important factor is that we have prepared for them, while they haven’t prepared
for us.”

“You can’t know
that for sure.”

Kernis seemed to
want to say something, but in the end he decided against it.

“Even if Ross
suspects that we would interfere, the rest of his team surely doesn’t,” Tamisa
said. “There is no way for them to coordinate effectively under these
circumstances.”

“So Ross will
just pull out the white flag if we threaten to kill Mensah?”

Tamisa could
sense the sarcasm in his voice and it only served to anger her. She made a
great effort to stay calm. Luckily, the timekeeper spoke for her.

“We know that
Sheldon Ayers is very close with Isabel Mensah. Even if Ross would be willing
to sacrifice her for what is most likely going to be a losing effort anyway, we
have reason to believe that Sheldon Ayers would refuse to go along. Without
Ayers, the battle is lost. If he decides to surrender, then their mission is
over. At least in that respect, he is the leader of the team.”

“And you think
Sheldon Ayers has more scruples than Ross,” Villo said. Tamisa could not decide
if it had been a question or a statement, but Timekeeper Kernis continued
unfazed. 

“We know that
mindguards are vital to the success of a mission. Even if Ross figured out that
we would not kill Mensah, and even in the extremely unlikely event that he
could somehow manage to get away before we reach him, it would still leave his
team severely incapacitated. Without Mensah, the minds of Ross and the
bodyguards remain unguarded. He could choose to go on like that, but it would
be a very unrealistic scenario. The other option would be to have Sheldon guard
the carrier
and
the bodyguards, thus significantly weakening his
defense. Either way, their mission is compromised.”

“And,” Tamisa
continued, encouraged by Kernis’ support, ”even in the unlikely case that Ross,
Ayers and the carrier escape, they will be caught off guard. They can’t travel
to Carthan under the circumstances, they’ll have to stop somewhere to regroup
and set up a new route. That’s when we use the NF scanners to locate and ambush
them.” She smiled as if she had just given Villo the best possible news, but
the expression on the man’s face made it clear that he did not share her
enthusiasm.

“I’m afraid you
might be underestimating Ross. You are also downplaying his eventual escape.”

“Villo, the
mission is as good as done. And we will have completed it without any
casualties.”

Villo looked at
Kernis.

“I believe Unit
Commander Faber’s plan is sound,” the timekeeper said.

Villo shook his
head. “Our mission is to stop Maclaine Ross.”

“Our mission,”
Tamisa said, “is to prevent the delivery of this information package. We are to
intercept and apprehend Maclaine Ross and his team. Our orders explicitly state
to use deadly force
only
as a last resort, if the risk of failure or the
threat to our own lives becomes too great. I am looking to reduce that threat
and thus the necessity of excessive force.” She spoke slowly because her voice
was trembling. She could barely contain her resentment. She didn’t know what
had gotten into Villo, but she had clearly underestimated his obsession with
Maclaine Ross and the hatred he felt for the bodyguard. Villo again looked at
Kernis; that was the last straw for Tamisa.

“You need to
stop looking at him and start looking at me right now!”

He reluctantly
looked away from the timekeeper and faced his field unit commander.

“I’m sorry, but
I don’t agree with -”

“I don’t require
you to agree with my order, Mr. Kantil.”

Tamisa was
beside herself with rage. She immediately regretted lashing out at him in front
of the whole team, but by then it was already too late. She was past the point
where she could control herself. He had it coming. Timekeeper Kernis cleared
his throat.

“Because time is
of essence and we need to wrap this up shortly, I would like to once again go
over the mission timetable,” he said. He looked at Tamisa and three other
members of her team - Akio Tahara, Adrian Lucas and Winston Calladan - all of
whom were dressed in clothing that was indigenous to Noriado 2.

“Field Unit
Commander Faber and Enforcers Tahara, Lucas and Calladan will infiltrate the
establishment where Isabel Mensah, Ray Manner and Francois Gaultier are
currently positioned.  The innkeeper and the patrons have already been
informed of our presence by Enforcer Muench. They have assured him of their
full cooperation.”

Tamisa couldn’t
help but feel proud that even on a barbaric planet such as Noriado 2, the
influence of the Enforcers was evident.

“Field Unit
Commander Faber will intercept Francois Gaultier, which will be your signal to
incapacitate Ray Manner and Isabel Mensah,”  the timekeeper said. He
looked at the others who were dressed in regular combat uniforms. “It is most
likely that the offensive will be over very quickly and your assistance will
not be  required at this stage. Advance only if backup is requested. After
this first stage of the mission, Enforcer Tahara will take the prisoners to the
ship’s containment area, while the rest of the team will mobilize towards the
position of the carrier. You will attack the building using a three layer
formation. The first layer, consisting of Enforcers Calladan and Lucas, will be
assigned with immobilizing Simon Bayles and Luther Brinks while,
simultaneously, Enforcers Kantil and Muench, alongside Field Unit Commander
Faber, will enter the building and subdue Maclaine Ross and Jason Elden.
Enforcers Harris and Hemmers will stay concealed in the proximity of the house,
on the northern and eastern sides, in case of an eventual escape. You are to
interfere only if anyone from the other two layers calls for back up.”

“Is everything
understood?” Tamisa asked. She purposefully looked at Villo, but the man was
staring at a spot on the holomap, as if hypnotized.

“Yes, ma’am,”
answered everyone but Villo.

“Dismissed,” she
said. She was about to request to speak with Villo privately but he left the
room in such a hurry that she never had the chance to say a word. She decided
to put it off for after the mission. 

When a beloved
person dies, things change for us for a short time. We become more aware of
life and our surroundings. We look differently at the world around us. At the
sky, at nature, at people, aware for just a moment of our own place in the
world and our own transience. It is a singular feeling, like being woken from a
dream and getting reaccustomed to reality. It is a feeling that offers a
painful, yet comforting clarity. When a beloved person dies, we feel as though
our eyes have finally been opened to the true nature of life; we feel changed.
In reality, we are not changed, and the feeling disperses very quickly.
Therefore, we must cherish it.

Sheldon Ayers,
Thoughts,
Reflections and Patterns

Francois
Gaultier was sitting at the bar, drinking a local beer and silently swearing in
his native tongue because it tasted like complete shit. Were it not for the
enhancements to his immune and digestive systems, Francois was sure the
insalubrious ale would put him in the hospital. He was also sure this planet didn’t
have anything that even resembled a hospital. These people probably killed
their ill and their elderly.

He couldn’t wait
to ditch the hot girl and get the hell back to Anderra, where there were parties,
beer that didn’t taste like it was brewed from horsehide and chicken shit, and
women who didn’t look like they were put together from horsehide and chicken
shit. Desert planets had the worst looking women in the universe, which was
understandable, since they lived in abject poverty. They probably carried
venereal diseases that would frighten the most time-tested gynecologist, but
Francois was immune to such maladies, so that didn’t bother him.

What
did
bother him was that they were ugly and reeked to high heaven. He had an
impressive sexual appetite and usually found someone to fuck on every mission.
Even if the women weren’t always good looking, during intercourse, he’d have
his retinal insertions display a hologram of a beautiful woman, so that problem
could easily be fixed. 

The one thing he
could never get over was the stench. Even when he had his neural insertions
transform their smell into the most pleasant odor, he still didn’t feel
comfortable just knowing it was there. Since their holocloud was disconnected
in the desert, his neural and retinal insertions were of no use to him. After
taking a look at the selection of prostitutes, he decided to stay away.

He was sitting
at the bar because he didn’t much care for the company of Ray Manner, who was
at a table with Isabel.  He felt like he always made a great effort to get
along with the former prison inmate, but the man had a very unpleasant
personality. Francois had asked Ross to put him and Manner on different teams
whenever possible. On this occasion, the Head of Operations had insisted on
this particular formation. Francois didn’t have the authority to refuse a
mission and, even if he did, he wouldn’t have walked away from this impressive
pay. So all that was left to do was to put up with Manner, the bad beer and the
lack of sex possibilities for a little while longer, then kick back and enjoy
the money.

He was thinking
of the pretty, young carrier, Horatio Miller’s daughter. He would have really
liked to sleep with her. She wasn’t his usual type, but she was very athletic
and had a cute little way of smiling. She also seemed very sensitive and
Francois loved going to bed with sensitive women. Of course, it would have to
remain a fantasy, because Mac would fire him on the spot and then probably hand
him out a good beating.

Francois
wondered if Mac was going to chew out Alex when they got back. The kid seemed
to have taken a liking to Sophie, and he had made no effort to hide it. But Mac
was known for being a lot tougher on his bodyguards than he was on his
mindguards, that’s why Sheldon Ayers could get away with bloody murder.

He took another
swig and decided to give up on the beer altogether. Perhaps he should try the
local hard liquor. He was about to signal the bartender, when the door slowly
creaked open. Francois looked in the direction of the sound and almost fell off
his barstool.

She was
gorgeous. A crimson dress accentuated her curvy figure. Her full lips were the
color of red wine. Her curly hair made you want to run your fingers through it.
He wanted to grab a handful of that hair and just throw her on the nearest bed.
She was dressed like a local, but everything else about her suggested she was
not from there. For one, she looked clean. She also possessed a confidence that
he hadn’t seen in any other woman in Kamona.

Everyone’s eyes
followed her, like an actress on a stage. Francois was intoxicated. Who was
this woman?  If she was a traveler, what the hell was she doing in a place
like Noriado 2? Something felt very wrong about the entire situation. Francois’
gut feeling struggled to send alarm signals to his brain. Unfortunately, his
brain was in over its head.

The woman walked
right up to the bar and ordered a drink. She received a brown beverage, from
which she took a sip. How an angel like her could stomach any liquor served in
this bad-luck tavern was beyond Francois’ comprehension. A voice inside his
head desperately screamed that something wasn’t right, but it was muted by his
heartbeat and the noise of blood rushing to very important parts of his body.
From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Manner and Mensah. He noticed that
Mensah looked tense.

Within a
fraction of a second, he felt the gentle contact of his teammate’s mind,
building protective walls around his own. Did she believe the woman was a
danger to them? How could she be? She seemed like a princess from a fairytale,
not a desert dweller. He looked at her again as she placed her sensuous lips on
the rims of the glass and took another taste from that unworthy beverage. He
couldn’t fight it any longer.

Screw Ross
,
he said to himself.  I’ll just take my chance. Ain’t much of anything
going on around here since Brinks scared these peasants.

He smiled at her
and she repaid him in kind. Her smile was seductive and vicious. “Can I pay for
that drink?” he asked. She measured him from head to toe, as if trying to
decide if he was worth her time. She got closer to him until he could feel her
breathtaking perfume.

“There won’t be
any time for drinks… Mr. Gaultier,” she whispered.

It took him but
a brief moment to break her spell and realize he is in danger, but that moment
was his undoing. With incredible speed, she placed a hand on his crotch. In it,
she was holding a small circular device.  He had just enough time to realize
it was a neurostunner before the intense pain confirmed his suspicion.
Normally, his body’s physiological enhancements should have been able to absorb
and, to a certain degree, repel the effects of a neurostunner. He was certain,
however, that a device such as this had never before been employed directly on
someone’s genitals. Unfortunately, for all his advancements, titanium testicles
were not yet available.

He fell to the
ground paralyzed. From that position, he could only helplessly follow the
events that unfolded in the room.

●

From the moment
the beautiful woman set foot inside the pub, Isabel Mensah knew that danger
was  imminent. A short while before her spectacular entrance, three men
had come in and proceeded to sit down at one of the tables close to Isabel’s.
They were dressed like locals, but the mindguard noticed how nervous the other
patrons were around them.

When Manner
looked at her, she moved her gaze around the room in a coded pattern which they
used to signal a threat. Manner signaled back that the message had been
understood. In a few minutes, so as to not raise suspicion, he would stand up
and casually walk to the bar to deliver the message to Francois. Unfortunately,
the woman walked in before Manner had a chance to warn their partner.

From the start,
Isabel’s instinct had told her that the three men were there because of them.
It was clear that their purpose was to intercept the information package. What
she couldn’t figure out was who they were. They were not desert dwellers, that
much was immediately evident. She thought perhaps they might be from another
thoughtprotection agency, hired by one of Horatio Miller’s competitors for the
purpose of industrial espionage. However, that behavior was very uncommon among
thoughtprotection agencies. No matter what many in the IFCO believed about
them, they were not mercenaries.

Also, Isabel did
not sense the presence of mindguards - human or artificial - so she quickly
dismissed that possibility. She feared that they might be enforcers, but then
the woman walked in. That left her with a great mystery regarding their
identity.

She projected
her mental defense procedures on her teammates. She saw Francois turning to
look at her for a moment but then quickly returning his attention to the beautiful
woman. He was hypnotized. Isabel came to a frightening conclusion: the woman
must have specifically targeted Francois, knowing about his crippling sexual
appetite. That meant, that whoever these men were, they were already on 
the offensive.

The woman got
closer to Francois and said something. It was like the sound of a trigger. With
lightning speed, she grabbed his crotch and he fell to the ground in tremendous
pain. Immediately, Manner got up and positioned himself in front of Isabel, to
shield her. He pulled out his weapon and fired at the assailant, but she moved
away from the energy blast with such incredible speed that she seemed to vanish
and then reappear somewhere else, as the shot pulverized part of the bar.

Iasbel had never
seen a human being moving so fast. She knew of only one group of people who
allegedly possessed the ability to move at such incredible speed and whose
trademark weapon was the neurostunner.

Manner was about
to fire another shot at the woman, when the three men at the nearby table got
up and spread out. The bodyguard quickly adjusted his aim and fired at one of
the men.  He did not have time to get out of the way. Instead, he simply
absorbed the shock of the blast and seemed to release its energy through a
technique Isabel had never seen before.

The other two
men simultaneously threw neurostunners in the air. The combined effect of the
devices knocked Isabel to the ground, along with a few of the bystanders, who
hadn’t had time to take cover. The attackers themselves were as immune to the
neurostunners as they had proven to be to the energy blast. Manner was dazed
but he was still standing. A powerful kick from one of the men sent him
back-first into the wall behind him.

The resilient
bodyguard quickly recovered and went after his attacker with punches but the
man easily dodged them all. When a left hook missed him by an inch, the
attacker grabbed Manner’s head and drove it into the table with such speed and
force that the wood broke on impact. A slight modification in Manner’s thought
timbre told Isabel that he was unconscious.

Francois was
trying to wobble back to his feet. The woman delivered a swift kick to the back
of his knee that sent him back to the floor. She then quickly mounted him and
placed his hands in neurocuffs. By now, it was clear who the disguised
attackers were, in spite of the fact that they had a woman in the team. The way
they moved, at such amazing speed that the human eye could barely follow, the
way they seemed immune to energy blasts and neurostunners and the way in which
they had made short work of the two bodyguards, left no room for doubt. A few
seconds later, the door opened and a few more men walked in, all wearing
Enforcement Unit uniforms.

Isabel was
horrified by them. She knew that the enforcers were notoriously opposed to
artificially enhancing the body’s natural abilities. Somehow, they had taught
themselves to move at lightning speed and to repel energy attacks. She thought
about the vast sums of money Maclaine Ross had spent on advancements that
allowed him to achieve what these people had apparently accomplished just
through pure training. She wondered if they had also attacked Mac. It made
sense that they would. If the enforcers had them in their sight, then surely
their primary target was the carrier.

She wondered if
her other teammates might already be in captivity. What were the odds that they
had fared better against these ruthless soldiers? Mac was the fiercest warrior
she had ever known, but these were
enforcers
. He was prepared to fight
desert dwellers, mercenaries or bounty hunters, not the most powerful military
in the universe.  

She tried to
move, but her body was numb. She was still lying helpless on the floor. After
they finished immobilizing the two bodyguards, the enforcers cleared up the bar
of any customers who had not already fled. They also ordered the innkeeper to
wait outside until they finished and the man begrudgingly complied. Nobody paid
any attention to Isabel, as if she weren’t even there. They clearly considered
her completely harmless.

She struggled to
her feet, fighting the pain in her muscles and nerves. She knew that they were
right, there was nothing she could do. But she wanted to look her enemies in
the eyes as a gesture of defiance. The mysterious woman seemed to notice her
for the first time.

“Make sure you
immobilize the mindguard,” she told the others. “They can be deceptively
dangerous.”

So, the woman
wasn’t only a soldier, she was also in command. To Isabel’s knowledge, there
weren’t even any women in the Enforcement Unit. How could she possibly be a
field unit commander? Who was she? Like a threatened beast, she exuded raw
aggression. An older enforcer with a long goatee approached her with a worried
face.