Mindguard (36 page)

“Chance is an
agent of hazard,” the commander continued. “A few decades ago, I created the
Peace Preservation Initiative.”

“What the hell
is that?”

“It was a highly
classified subdivision, operating within the frame of the Enforcement Unit. It
was run by our fringe allies, people outside the Unit, who believe in our
cause. Only myself and Villo Kantil had knowledge of this division. The Council
of Presidents didn’t even know of its existence. This shadow division had one
single mission: to create the future High Commander of the enforcers.”

“Create?” Tamisa
asked with a shaky voice.

“A number of the
federation’s most talented genetic architects were involved. They were sent to
research facilities on the borders of the IFCO, where government control is
limited. Their goal was to genetically produce a person who is perfectly
compatible with the requirements of this position, following specific
parameters designed by myself. The perfect commander.”

Tamisa felt
sick. “You have genetically produced human beings?” Though biologically
possible, cloning humans had been banned in the IFCO, for fear that genetic
tampering could lead to further advancements in telepathy. The activity of
genetic architects was closely monitored. Any attempt at cloning human beings
was punishable by death.  Due to the shock of the moment, Tamisa did not
fully realize the implications of the commander’s disclosure.

“Our allied
scientists produced a number of children, whom they raised as their own, under
controlled surveillance.” Tamisa felt a sudden void forming in her stomach.

“Your father was
one of these men.” 

“No,” she said,
slowly shaking her head.

“The most
promising among these children were recruited and rigorously tested…”

She wanted to
throw up. She just continued shaking her head, feeling physically ill, like she
was ready to have a seizure. She felt like she was going to fall to the ground,
grab her head and just keep repeating ‘no’ over and over again, until madness
finally claimed her. Instead, acceptance came with incredible ease. With it,
came a clarity of mind that she had never felt before. Important events in her
life flashed before her consciousness and she gained a new understanding of
them. 

“I am a genetic
experiment,” she said with an empty voice. “I am a
result
.” She thought
of her beloved father, only the love was no longer there. It had vanished
painlessly, as had her love for Villo. It had been replaced by a feeling of
neutral awareness.

“I am not qualified,”
she said calmly. 

Thomas Anderson
smiled. “There is no one more qualified, Tamisa. You are
the one
. There
is no single trait of your character that I did not want. There is nothing
about you I did not foresee. You are perfect.” The love in his voice was
poison. “The Enforcers will accept your passionate and dynamic personality,
because they will perceive it as the antithesis of mine. You are the polar
opposite of their Traitor Commander, they will instinctively trust you.”

“They’ll never
accept me.”

“They already
have. From the moment you graduated your first year at the academy, when your
potential became clear, I started making it seem like I was favoring you. I
intervened on your behalf when some of the instructors wanted to eliminate you
from the program because of your quick temper. Rumors started spreading that
you were offering sexual favors to the commander. They grew louder when I gave
you command of your first mission. But then, when it became clear that you were
sleeping with Villo, another rumor started spreading: that I had tried to sleep
with you, but you had turned me down. So now I was trying to punish you by
sabotaging your mission. I refused to give you all of the information invoking
‘exclusive classification’. I ordered you to use neuralfield scanners. I
suddenly disappeared when you wanted to speak with me. I was trying to confuse
you, to make sure that you fail. And then, the final blow: I ordered Villo to
desert you, to go after Ross himself, just to undermine your authority.”    

Tamisa’s soul
felt soiled, like her mind had felt when the factory worker and Sheldon Ayers
had tried to seize it. “You… you sent Villo to his death…”

“Villo’s main
concern was the safety of mankind. His own life was not his priority.”

“Why Villo?”

“Because you
loved him.”  

“He
made
me love him,” she screamed.

“Your passion
was always your strength, Tamisa. Villo helped you shape it into what we need.
With this strength you will now lead the world’s greatest army.”

Tamisa was
crying. For the first time, she did not care that someone else could see her
tears.

“I knew that
losing Villo would ignite that fire I’ve started inside you. I knew that you
would hunt down those responsible for his death, that you wouldn’t give up
until you got your revenge. I only hoped that you would win. Judging by the
fact that you are standing in front of me now, I think it’s safe to say that
you’ve won.”

In Tamisa’s
mind, Anderson’s words entwined with her own: ‘One of us has to lose!’ - once
spoken with great conviction.

“At this very
moment,” Anderson continued, “a story is spreading among the enforcers,
traveling from one soldier to the next. It is the story of how you overcame the
odds. The deck was stacked against you from the start. You’ve been betrayed by
your commander and by your lover. You’ve been abandoned, beaten, hurt and
manipulated. You’ve been crushed. In spite of it all, you survived. Not only
that: you’ve won. I know my men; they are my children. I know how they think
and I know how they feel. Before the day is over, Gracian Moss will ask to
speak with you. He will tell you that he has spoken to the Coucil of
Presidents, and that the decision was made to elect a new leader before my
impending trial, to ensure that everything will proceed lawfully. He will
suggest you and everyone else will agree. They will choose you because I have
made you my enemy. Your command will revitalize the Enforcement Unit. It will
mean safety for the human race for centuries to come.

Defiance took
over - the last remnant of her former self.  “I won’t do it,” she said
with her remaining hate.

“You have to,”
he gently answered. “The world is in your care now. I know you will take good
care of it, because I know you.”

Nothing else
needed to be said. Tamisa turned around and headed for the exit. She did not
say goodbye. She did not tell him how much she hated him, nor how much she
loved him. She did not tell him that she understood. She left the room without
looking back, leaving behind only her silence like a burden she wished to cast
upon him. She knew that if she turned around she would see him smiling, and she
couldn’t bear that.

When the final
set of doors closed behind her, she let out a big sigh. No one would ever ask
her what she had discussed with Thomas Anderson. She believed that with all her
heart. No one would ever know.

One of the
guards took a step toward her. “We’ve received a message while you were
inside,” he said. “Interim Commander Moss asked to speak with you privately.”

There are some who
believe only what they can see. To deceive their minds, you must merely trick
their eyes.

Kinsey Ayers,
A
New History of Old Earth

The two
travelers stopped at the top of the hill to admire the landscape. It was every
bit as beautiful as they had been told. A world born from joyous memories and
unrestrained imagination.

“It’s even more
wonderful than I expected,” the girl said.

The giant looked
at her and was glad to see her smiling. “I guess there are uglier places you
could call home.”

“I’m afraid,”
she confessed. “I’m scared of how it will feel.”

“I am too… a
little,” the giant admitted. That made her feel a bit better.

“How do you
think it will feel, Mac?”

“Like a mother’s
womb,” he joked.

The girl was not
amused. “I’m serious,” she said.

“I don’t know,
Sophie, I’m just tryin’ to cheer you up a little. Otherwise, you’ll instantly
depress the hell out of the entire Opus Caine.”

They remained
serious for a few seconds and then suddenly burst out with a hearty laughter.
It was the result of accumulated stress and fatigue rather than amusement, but
they still felt guilty. They laughed teary-eyed for a few minutes, before
abandoning themselves to tears of sadness.

They both missed
Sheldon. They couldn’t believe he was no longer with them. His death left a
void that seemed to run as deeply as the very fabric of the universe.

Even though she
hadn’t known him for long, Sophie felt that she had lost a good friend. When
the enforcer woman attacked them in the cave, Sophie froze in place, not
knowing what to do. Even Mac was hesitant. He had dealt with the incredible
speed of these soldiers before and it had almost gotten him killed. He didn’t
want to risk Sophie’s life. Only Sheldon knew exactly what had to be done.
Sheldon always knew.

Mac pulled
Sophie into his all-encompassing embrace and she quietly wept in his arms for a
few more minutes. He was also devastated at the loss of his best friend and the
guilt of knowing that Sheldon would still be alive if he hadn’t dragged him
into this. But, in a strange way, he also felt with certainty that things could
not have happened any differently.

Unconsciously,
he clutched the crucifix suspended from his neck. He didn’t know how to feel
about sharing his mind with an entire race of people. Did God not create all
human beings in His image? Were they not all equal in the eyes of the Lord?
Then why did it feel so wrong?

Perhaps his
faith was simply not strong enough to erase decades of being conditioned to
think that all telepathy was evil, that it was dangerous. After all, he had
dedicated his life to protecting people’s minds from intrusion. He had fought
to guard the very intimacy of their thoughts. And now, his own would belong to
everyone else, and theirs to him. It was against everything he had stood for in
his life. Then he remembered that it was a life he no longer had. There was no
longer a place for him in that world. Sheldon had told him that, and he was
right as always.    

“He knew he was
dying,” Mac whispered to Sophie, hoping to comfort her. “He chose to give his
death meaning.”

“I know,” she
said, but she didn’t sound relieved.  

Sheldon had sent
two final messages before the woman’s sharp, dart-like spikes punctured his
brain, killing him instantly. The first was a message to Sophie and Mac. Mac
had no idea how Sheldon had managed to break the Weixman Barrier, but now he
would never find out. Sheldon’s message could not have been clearer if it had
been delivered by a voice: ‘Sophie, Mac - the woman will leave. Let her go.
After she has left, pick up her weapon. The second the generator is recharged
and you can dial out, shoot at the cave ceiling and then leave immediately. The
cave will collapse. Nobody will look for you. You will be dead to the world.’

A fraction of a
second after his mind had thought its final thought, Sheldon Ayers was dead.
But in that fraction of a second, he had time to get inside the woman’s head,
so gently she had not even known he was there. He took Mac and Sophie with him.
They witnessed how he replaced the truth with his fantasy.

In her mind,
Sophie and Mac were dead, crushed under tons of rock. She had to flee to save
her own life. In reality, she gently lowered the weapon and simply walked out
of the cave, to her vehicle. She drove back to her team, while an entirely
different reality played out in her head. After she left, Sophie and Mac took
another look at Sheldon. Even in death he looked alert, as if his extraordinary
mind continued to function beyond the death of the body.

“Goodbye, my
friend,” Mac said. Sophie whispered ‘thank you’. Then, Mac did exactly what
Sheldon had said. He generated the Muench-Henriksen gateway, fired a few shots
at the cave ceiling and quickly followed Sophie through to the other side, to
the only place in the universe where they would be safe.

With the village
now in sight, Mac started feeling more and more confident that they would be
all right. At first, he was worried that the girl might not adapt, but he had
the impression that she was as tough on the inside as he was on the outside.
After resting for a few minutes, he took the girl’s hand. They started towards
the village, where a new life awaited.

When you say the
word ‘God’ you are referring to a being which brings things into existence.
Instead, you should be assigning the term to existence itself.

Kinsey Ayers,
A
New History of Old Earth

Tamisa’s first
order as the new High Commander of the world’s greatest army surprised
everyone. She demanded to be taken to the former home of Sheldon Ayers.
Everything had happened so quickly she did not even have time to fully realize
that she was now the most powerful person in the man-inhabited universe.

Throughout the
entire inauguration ceremony, even as she was taking her oath in front of the
Council of Presidents, all she could think of was Sheldon Ayers. She wasn’t
sure why she felt such a pressing need to see his home or what answers she
expected to find there, but she felt that the only way to exorcize the demon
that was the dead mindguard was to fully immerse herself in his life. 

“Commander
Faber, would you perhaps like to participate in the initial briefing session
first?” Gracian Moss suggested. 

“No, Sheldon
first!”

The man looked
at her in a strange way, but he promptly followed her order. Anderson had been
right. Their loyalty to her bordered on fanaticism. They truly were all merely
extensions of her own mind. Instruments of her will. She felt the enormous
responsibility pressing on her conscience, threatening to overwhelm her.

She wanted to
isolate herself in Sheldon Ayers’ environment. She wanted to surround herself
with everything that had meant Sheldon’s life, the life she had ended.
Curiously, she did not feel the same burning desire when it came to Isabel
Mensah, Sophie Gaumont or Maclaine Ross.

She kept telling
herself that it had been self defense. Who knows what Ayers would have done,
had he managed to take control of her mind. She had merely protected her own
life, and more importantly, the success of her mission. In spite of that,
Sheldon Ayers’ name commanded great respect and questions would surely arise
regarding his death.

In the aftermath
of Horatio Miller’s assassination and Thomas Liam Anderson’s upcoming trial,
the world did not look very favorably upon the enforcers. She was left with a
great burden. It would take all her strength and determination to regain the
prestige once held by the Enforcement Unit. The first thing she wanted to do
was form a council of veteran enforcers as advisors to the High Commander. This
way, she was giving the enforcers their own voice, encouraging individual
thought without discouraging loyalty. It was something Thomas Anderson had
never done. Only his own brother served as somewhat of an advisor, and in the
eyes of the enforcers, he had disregarded even his brother’s council in the
end.

Tamisa intended
to offer Martin Anderson a spot on the Advisement Committee, since his
innocence in the assassination had been proven, but she doubted he would take
it. In fact, he had strongly hinted that he was planning to retire and leave
behind his life as an enforcer, as well as the memory of his brother’s shameful
downfall. She was still wondering if there was anything she could say to Martin
to make him reconsider, when the vessel reached the building in which Sheldon
Ayers had once resided.

She could have
taken the personal transporter and instantly materialize in Sheldon’s office, but
she somehow felt it would have been disrespectful. An amusing thought,
considering that he was dead and she was just about to violate his privacy.

She was
surprised to see that the personal vessel had parked in front of a luxury
residential high-rise. From everything she knew about Sheldon Ayers, she
expected him to have lived in a secluded mansion, decorated in the style of
Terra Antiqua. It felt strange to see that he had lived among so many
people. 

His large
apartment on the ninety-sixth floor was still in possession of the Enforcement
Unit as long as the investigation of Ayers-Ross was ongoing. In his will,
Sheldon had specified that all his worldly possessions were to go to his
parents, who were still living. Tamisa planned on calling them both in for
questioning, in spite of Timekeeper Kernis’ insistence that they could add no
relevant information to the investigation, since Sheldon had severed contact
with them a long time ago. 

The mindguard
had left his extensive library, as well as any manuscripts he was working on at
the time of his death, to the Ayers-Ross Thoughtprotection Agency. That part
would prove a bit more complicated. Kriss White had been empowered to take over
the reins of Ayers-Ross, but for the moment, White was still in custody of the
enforcers. The company had ceased all operations. Depending on the results of
the investigation, White could be ordered to shut down Ayers-Ross
forever. 

When the door
opened and Tamisa entered Sheldon’s home, she felt like she was transported into
another dimension, one that existed only in the mind of the great mindguard.
The place looked just like she had expected. It was the home of an eccentric.
The interior design was rustic, but not outdated. The apartment felt cozy.
Every object seemed to possess a vast personal history. Many of the artifacts
looked like they had probably been brought back from his many trips to Terra
Antiqua.

The place was
quite large, but not enormous, as it could have been given Sheldon’s wealth. It
was clear that he placed little importance on opulence. Instead, it was a place
designed to stimulate the intellect, with tasteful artwork and stacks of
printed books organized neatly on countless book shelves. They looked very old
and extremely valuable.

When she entered
his office, she felt a unique energy. She was certain it was the place where he
had spent most of his time. A large antique desk dominated the room. Close to
it was a bar which contained all sorts of expensive hard liquor. Underneath, a
wine bar displayed at least fifty rare vintage bottles, most of them from Old
Earth. A sudden, perverted desire she couldn’t explain grabbed hold of her. She
took out a bottle of Pinot Noir and poured herself a glass.

Glass in hand,
she took a seat at the great man’s desk, wondering what it must have felt like
being Sheldon Ayers. She leaned back on the comfortable armchair and felt a
strange connection with him, as if his ghost were there in the room, speaking
to her, perhaps saying, ‘One of us had to lose!’

But Tamisa did
not believe in ghosts. She took a sip of wine and found it exquisite. She
looked down and saw a leather-bound manuscript. It was lying there as if it had
been left specifically for someone to find. She was surprised that she hadn’t
noticed it before. Something about the way it was placed made it feel like the
centerpiece of the entire room. She read from it and it didn’t feel
inappropriate.

It was a
journal. The handwriting was delicate, cerebral and disciplined. Though she
wasn’t sure she had ever heard Sheldon Ayers speaking, at that moment, she
could hear his voice inside her head as clearly as if he were standing right
next to her: 

“Day 1: Today my
grandfather accidentally called me Robert. It is my father’s name. He
immediately corrected himself and tried to laugh it off. An insignificant error
for any other man but, I fear, the beginning of a tragic journey for him. I
think it is best that I record this journey.”

THE END