Mindguard (23 page)

“Villo is gone,”
he said.

The woman’s eyes
widened. “What? What do you mean, gone?”

“It looks like
he never came in with us. I noticed he’s missing and went outside to check, but
there is no trace of him.”

The woman looked
like she had just received a hard slap to the face; Isabel couldn’t help but
feel incredibly satisfied. The female enforcer looked around the room like she
was desperately searching for something. It took her a few seconds to regain
her composure.

“Initializing Phase
2. We need to go after Ross right now,” she barked.

In the commotion
that ensued, as she was being grabbed, placed in neurocuffs and pushed towards
the exit, Isabel could think of only one thing:
Mac is still free
.

With every fiber
of her being, with every neuron in her brain, she tried to focus her mind to
send him a message. Though every thought rebelled against this action, she
concentrated her whole entity on communicating with him telepathically. She
needed to warn him of the imminent danger, it was vital! 

With all her
energy, she tried to reach out to him. Her body started shaking from the
effort, but it was all in vain. The Weixman Barrier was impenetrable. Her mind
simply refused to infiltrate somebody else’s. The very quality that made her such
a capable mindguard, would now become their undoing.  

They are
coming for you, Mac
, she thought, though she knew that he could not hear
her.
They are coming to ambush you, to attack you when your guard is down.
Ah, but your guard is never down, is it my cherished friend? They do not know
that about you. They do not know you like I do. You will not be defeated so
easily; you will fight. But you must be aware that these are not warriors like
you, Mac. They must not be fought with honor and respect. They are savage
beasts and they must be slain. Oh Sheldahn, please keep them safe
.

●

“Let’s get
inside, it’s not safe over there,” Mac said. It sounded like an order. Sophie
had been standing on the porch sobbing for quite a long time. Though she tried
to be strong, the events of the last few days had taken a great toll on her.

The moment she
had entered their temporary living quarters and placed her backpack on the bed,
she broke down again. She asked Mac if she could go outside to get some air and
the giant told her to be brief. Sheldon, of course, had to go with her.

The first time
she had been told she would not be permitted to leave Sheldon’s sight
throughout the rest of the mission, she had protested. But she knew deep down
that she was being childish. The events of the last few days had proven just
why his presence was always a necessity. Exposure to the neuraltranscendence
field was the most difficult and traumatic experience of her life. It was like
the emotions of a million people had poured into her soul, all at once. Their
cries were deafening, their fears were petrifying and their hopes
heartbreaking.

The coolness of
the long Noriado night worked its way into her bones, but it made her feel
better. At a respectful distance, hidden in the shadows, Sheldon quietly
observed her. He was completely motionless. So much so, that he himself
appeared to be a shadow.   

But your mind
is racing, isn’t it?
though Sophie. She still couldn’t make up her mind how
she felt about Sheldon. She had grown comfortable around the rest of the team,
but she still felt awkward around him. At times, there was an overwhelming
attraction. She was fascinated by his every move and gesture. Especially by his
eyes, which seemed to communicate so much, only it was in a language he alone
could understand.

Other times she
felt repelled by him. A visceral feeling made her want to back away, as if he
were a reptile or some sort of exotic insect. Still, there was a strange bond
she felt she shared with him, which she did not share with the others. She
could neither understand nor explain it.

As they went
back inside, Sophie thought how awkward she was going to feel having to share
her sleeping quarters with five men. The wooden house was spacious, clearly
designed for large groups. In the middle of the room was a round stove and in
front of the window she could see a desk and a small chair. Aside from that,
the room contained seven cots. She longed for the presence of Isabel but she
had to accept her absence. After all, she herself had requested Sheldon. As if
he had read her thoughts, Ross approached her with an honest, fatherly smile.

“I know it’s
weird Sophie but it’s just for the night.”

She nodded and
smiled back. She was happy that he at least he was aware of her discomfort.

“And it’s
absolutely safe because Francois isn’t here,” he added.

Sophie laughed
for the first time since the start of the mission.

“Try and get
some sleep,” Ross said and winked. He ordered Bayles and Brinks to go outside
and guard the entrance and then walked over to Elden, to speak with
him.  

Sophie wondered
if she could actually fall asleep, given the circumstances. She was exhausted,
but at the same time, she felt very alert. She looked at Sheldon. The mindguard
was sitting on the side of his cot, reading from a leather-bound book. How calm
he appeared, how completely uninvolved in the world around him. The calmness he
projected gave him an aura of unearthliness. Sheldon was an entity that seemed
to exist in its own dimension. She had a hard time picturing him in a normal
environment, doing normal things. Sheldon shopping for groceries, Sheldon
cooking, Sheldon working out. Still, he had to do all those things.

Looking at him
now, she noticed how fit he was. Surely he must engage in some sort of physical
activity. She had never really noticed his physique before, usually because it
was so unimpressive compared to muscular leviathans like Ross, Brinks and the
others. But for a regular person, Sheldon seemed to be in very good physical
shape. Sheldon working out; that thought amused her.

Before, she only
ever pictured him exactly how he appeared in that moment: reading, thinking, as
still and silent as a painting. The stillness he expressed seemed to fill the entire
room, but it felt like a calm before a storm.
What storm?
She didn’t
know why that thought had crept into her mind but she was overcome by a sudden
feeling of anxiety. She felt strange, like she was about to pass out. She
looked across the room at Ross and Elden chatting. They made no noise and the
movements of their hands and lips seemed unnaturally slow, as if they were
under water. She looked back at Sheldon and startled when she saw the mindguard
looking at her with an expression of concern.

Though his lips
never moved, she distinctly heard him say ‘get down’. She immediately obeyed.
She dropped to the floor as if she had been doing military drills all her life.
The second she did, the front door was kicked off its hinges. Something that
looked like a man, moving at an extraordinary speed, entered the room and threw
two devices in the air. They emitted a pulse of energy that sent waves of pain
through her nervous system. If Sophie hadn’t been lying on the ground already,
she was certain that the shock of the weapon would have knocked her down, just
like it did Sheldon, who hit the floor with a loud ‘thump’ before Mac and Elden
could even register what was going on.

Spread out on
the floor, unable to move, she desperately looked at Sheldon. The mindguard was
unreasonably calm and she felt his mind gently shield her thoughts. She
wondered if the attacker was a telepath, though she hadn’t sensed anything. She
didn’t even know if she
would
have sensed anything. She saw Ross and
Elden reacting to the attack. The young bodyguard was dazed by the weapon’s
blast and was trying to keep his balance but Mac effortlessly brushed it off
and fired his gun in the direction of the attacker.

The man vanished
like a ghost and immediately appeared next to Mac, kicking the weapon out of
his hands and then kicking the bodyguard in the gut so quickly that it appeared
to be one single movement. Sophie had never seen any living thing move so fast.
The kick sent Mac flying onto one of the cots.

Elden managed to
regain control of his movements and fired his weapon at the attacker, who once
again disappeared from the path of the blast. Sophie’s eyes could not even
distinguish his movements. All she saw was Elden crashing into the wall behind
him, as if pushed by some unseen force. He was clutching his throat. The
attacker moved as if he possessed control over time itself. In one
lightning-quick strike, he thrust a silver spike through Eldens right eye and
into his brain. The bodyguard was dead before he even hit the floor. Sophie’s
scream was muffled by the fact that she hadn’t yet regained control of her
vocal chords, which were as numb as the rest of her body.  

The spectral
attacker stopped for just a split second and looked at Ross, as if giving him
time to fully comprehend the loss of his teammate. The giant bodyguard let out
an angry roar and swung at the assassin, who was there one moment and gone the
next. He swung again and his fist hit only the wall, breaking a hole in it.
Meanwhile, the attacker connected with two kicks to Ross’ thigh, but the
bodyguard barely felt them.

Given Ross’
amazing strength, Sophie figured that, if he landed one single blow on his
opponent, he would instantly kill him. But that blow never came. Ross missed
punch after punch and kick after kick; the man was simply too fast. For every
blow that Ross missed, the attacker connected with three. After a while, even
the near-invincible Maclaine Ross started noticeably slowing down. A roundhouse
kick to the liver sent him to his knees. Before he could get up, a kick to his
throat finally put him down. The mighty Maclaine Ross, more machine than man,
was lying on his stomach, struggling to get back to his feet.

Sophie knew that
she had to act quickly, or the man would kill Ross just as he had Jason Elden.
She was starting to gain some control of her movements. She reached out for
Ross’ weapon, which had fallen down next to her when the assailant had kicked
it out of his hands. The man pulled out another spike, with the very evident intention
of sticking it through Ross’ eye, when Sophie aimed at his head and fired. She
missed, but the energy blast still caught him in shoulder. His body seemed to
somehow absorb the energy of the shot and then eliminate it, but the unexpected
attack caught him off guard.

Slowed down by
Sophie, the man did not have enough time to back away completely when Mac threw
a powerful punch that caught him in the face. The impact of the blow projected
him a few feet back. If he had caught it at full force, Sophie was certain that
the man’s head and his body would no longer be part of the same person.

The bodyguard
followed with a straight kick that sent the man flying into a corner of the
room. When Ross lunged forward, ready for another strike, there was nowhere for
the assassin to go. With all his incredible strength, Ross punched him in the
stomach. Sophie was surprised his arm didn’t come out the other side, like a
spear. Blood gushed out of the man’s mouth and nose, and he fell to the ground
struggling for air. He was dead before Ross could land another blow.

Sophie was in
shock. She stared at Ross and then at the man she had just helped kill. Only in
death was the attacker motionless, so that Sophie could make out his uniform.

“Enforcers?” she
managed to say after what seemed like an eternity.

Ross didn’t
answer. He looked around the room, trying to assess the situation. Even though
he was breathing heavily, he was amazingly calm. Sophie figured he must have
killed men in far more gruesome ways than this. When he paused upon the sight
of Elden’s body for the first time, he looked vulnerable, like a human being
made of flesh and blood and heart and feelings.

“We need to go,”
he said gravely. 

“That man is an
enforcer,” Sophie said, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that they
had just killed a member of the Enforcement Unit. They would probably all be
sentenced to death for this. A torrent of frightening thoughts flooded her
mind. The most terrifying was the thought that she had failed her father. The
mission was over.

“We need to
leave now,” Ross thundered, snapping Sophie back to her senses. “There’s a
secret passage somewhere on the left side of the room. If it leads to an
underground tunnel, we might have a way to get out unobserved and gain a few
minutes’ advantage. If it leads to a basement, we’re dead.”

“How do you know
this?” Sophie asked.

“Later!”

Sheldon had
already found the trap door. He walked over to Sophie and gently put his arm
around her shoulders.

“Come on,” he said.
Or he might have said. Or Sophie might have just imagined his voice. At that
point, she couldn’t really tell.

She was being
lead by Sheldon, down into the darkness. As the world grew black, she heard
Ross’ voice somewhere above them. It sounded raspy and hushed - broken.

“I’ll get
Jason.”

Remember that
above all else, you are your own mindguard!

Samuel Weixman,
Strengths
and Limitations of the Mindguard

Tamisa felt like
she was in a dream. There was a certain weightlessness which made her feel as
if her soul was no longer joined with her body. Just like in dreams, random
thoughts and images formed bizarre connections, making very little sense,
alternating rapidly to form a structure, a fabric… something. Something that
tried to pass for reality. Something entirely nonsensical. Just like in dreams,
it felt so real.

Random, absurd
thoughts: Villo abandoning his team. One of the most loyal and talented
soldiers in the Enforcement Unit had suddenly gone into business for himself.
He had gone after Ross alone, endangering the entire operation. One of the
commander’s most trusted confidents.
Her
best friend.

Random, absurd
images: the dead bodies of Luther Brinks and Simon Bayles, with spikes through
their eyeballs.
Villo’s
spikes.

Speed. “Speed!”

And then… Villo.
His back propped to a wall, eyes staring towards an exact spot in an inexact
infinity.

As Tamisa walked
back from the house where she had found Villo’s lifeless body, to the ship’s
containment area where the prisoners were being held, she felt as if she were
floating. Her mind registered the world around her in a distorted way.

The faces of her
team members were deformed, like grotesque carnival masks. Their words were
unintelligible clamors, sounds as inconsequential as the memory of her
stepmother’s drunken laughter. There was only one sound that was substantial:
her own heartbeat - pounding, protesting.

Villo was
dead
.

They had killed
him and then they had escaped. Ayers, Ross and the woman. The heartbeat was
deafening. Her heart was telling her that it wanted to beat no more. It would
beat harder and harder, louder and louder until it would burst, explode in her
chest and leave her heartless.

Shock turned to
sorrow and sorrow turned to rage. There was no other way, not anymore. She was
blind and deaf to everything. She could see only Villo’s lifeless face, the
face that loved to smile and would smile no more. His beautiful eyes that
looked at her with such adoration and now gazed out into an endlessness that he
alone could know.
Alone
.  

She was deaf to
her colleagues who wanted to know if she was all right, deaf to whatever answer
she might have given them. Her heart beat a menacing rhythm, predicting nothing
good.

She entered one
of the containment chambers, where Akio Tahara was questioning the mindguard.
The woman was standing with her back straight. Her posture and composure exuded
dignity. Her calm was defiant. She was a proud woman. She was proud that her
partners had escaped, that they had murdered Villo.

Tamisa’s anger
rose to uncontrollable levels. Villo had taught her that ‘anger drains the
energy, necessary energy. When you are in a situation where that energy is
vital, when it is a last reserve, anger is the enemy that can destroy you.’ She
felt it - the anger - beating inside her like another heart. In the past,
whenever she had felt upset, she had thought of Villo, of the things he had
taught her, of his love. It had helped her maintain balance. Now, there was no
more balance and no more love. There was no more Villo.

She had felt
angry many times in her life, but never like this. Yes,
once
! Once
before had she felt
exactly
like this. As Isabel Mensah faced her
captors, calmly confronting whatever future lay before her, Tamisa surrendered
herself to her rage.

With a rapid
movement, she leaped forward and swung at the mindguard’s head, hitting it so
hard she felt the cranium shatter on impact. As the woman fell to the ground,
Tamisa threw herself on top of her. Under the disbelieving stare of her team,
she repeatedly drove her fist right into the woman’s face. She hit her fast and
with great power. She hit her
loud
, as if she wanted to cover the
terrible noise of her beating heart with the noise of her fist obliterating the
defenseless woman’s head. She hit her again. And again. For a very long time.
Tamisa felt like it would have been appropriate to roar, but no sound came out
of her. And no sound came from the stunned enforcers, who could only observe as
Tamisa was killing the woman in cold blood.

She stopped only
when she felt so tired that she could no longer lift her arm. Beneath her, the
woman was unrecognizable. Her skull was shattered, turned to mush. Mauled.
Tamisa just stared at her speechlessly, for it was an image she recognized from
a long time ago.

Isabel Mensah
should have been dead. Yet, the horrible wheeze that came from what used to be
her face, proved that she wasn’t. She was still breathing. The room became
filled with the chilling sound produced by a combination of functioning lungs,
a shattered throat, a battered face, blood and a natural desire to live.

As the last
remnants of life left her desecrated body, Isabel Mensah felt something inside
her released from its hinges. Everything that constituted physical and mental limitations
dissolved. Isabel began to withdraw, at the same time floating and drowning.
With her last effort, the dying mindguard fought back.

Tamisa heard a
voice and she knew it belonged to the woman, even though her face was in such a
state of destruction she could have never uttered words. 

“A gift,” said
the voice.

In the last
fraction of a second, Tamisa instinctively got up, struggling to pull herself
away from her victim. It was useless.  She felt it enter her mind, the
gift she had been granted in return for the horrible murder she had committed.
The gift seeped inside her with rapid violence, drowning her mind. It was
enormous, immeasurable. It was laden with pain and insanity, with confusion and
fear. It was a million voices speaking to her, a million lives reaching out for
her own. Getting up, she lost balance and fell to the ground, grabbing her head
like a madwoman, while Isabel Mensah breathed her last breath.

The mindguard’s
gift had seized Tamisa and it would not let her go  again, for her gift
was a view into a place from which one should not return. It was painful and
consuming. It was final. Tamisa did not embrace it, but it forced itself into
her mind.

The gift was
death.