Chapter 11
The only conceivable way a religion could ever survive is to treat man and God as equal; codependent and inseparable entities. Any religion that does not assign the same spiritual value to man as it does to God and does not place both beings on the same celestial hierarchy is condemned to eventually crumble and become nothing more than mythology. That is why every religion in history has failed.
Kinsey Ayers – Religion and the Mind, a complex hierarchy
When Tamisa entered the timekeeper’s laboratory, she was not surprised to find him working. He rarely left the confines of his lab. When he did, it was just to eat or work out. All enforcers were required to be in peak physical shape, whether they were field agents or, like the timekeepers, base allies.
Timekeeper Kernis seemed especially dedicated to his work. He had little interest in anything else and was always immersed in the rivers of data flowing through his workstation - analyzing, calculating, rendering timetables for the missions. Tamisa found him positioned in front of two enormous holomonitors which rapidly displayed symbols she didn’t even attempt to understand. She was aware that, aside from the giant holoscreens, the timekeeper also received volumes of information on his retinal insertions, sifting back and forth between the screens and what was meant for his eyes only. Villo was also in the room. When he saw her, he grinned.
“Let me guess, he didn’t give a crap.”
“Shut up,” Tamisa said and instinctively looked at Kernis. Predictably, the timekeeper remained focused on his data, looking like he didn’t even notice that she was there.
“I’ve done the math; we’ll go ahead with the same course of action,” he said, proving that he did, after all, acknowledge her presence.
“Same?” she asked, perhaps louder than intended.
“Same,” replied Kernis flatly. Villo tried to explain: “Father Time over here believes that, no matter what, the transportation will go ahead as planned. In fact, he is one hundred percent sure.”
“Ninety-Seven percent,” said the timekeeper, who either didn’t pick up on the sarcasm or just pretended not to.
“How’s that?” the woman asked.
“Educator Miller is aware of the legal ramifications of his actions. As I understand, the commander chose the unconventional approach of openly threatening the educator.”
“Openly threatening him? What do you mean?”
“He threatened the educator’s life.”
If, for a single second, Tamisa would have suspected Timekeeper Kernis of being capable of humor, she would have thought he was making fun of her. But timekeepers were analytical creatures who shunned the cursory nature of wit.
“Has he ever done anything like that before?” she asked.
“No such approach has been recorded before.”
Villo noticed the evident concern on his partner’s face. “Tammy, it’s a delicate situation,” he said. “The commander is adapting, he is doing something he has never done before. That’s the sign of a master strategist.”
Tamisa did not seem convinced. “What was the Educator’s reaction?”
“He threatened back.”
“What?”
Villo started laughing like he had just heard the funniest joke. Tamisa was annoyed with his monkeying around. It was distracting and she needed to focus.
“Basically, he held this dramatic speech saying the people were behind him, that there would be hell to pay if we tried to intimidate him,” Villo said.
“Wow, he’s ballsy.”
“He’s also right. Going after him too openly or too strongly for something that, frankly, doesn’t warrant it, could end up hurting us. We’re not as popular as we used to be.”
That last statement was news to Tamisa. She had personally always held the enforcers in the highest regard and viewed them with the greatest respect. She automatically assumed that everyone else did too. In reality, opinions about the Enforcement Unit were divided. Like every other historical force, its stability depended on achieving balance between its supporters and its detractors.
“So, what do we do?”
Villo shrugged. “You’re in charge, you tell me. Basically, Miller just called our bluff.”
“How determined is he to go through with this?”
“That all depends on the nature of the information package. That’s the one thing we haven’t been able to find out. Indications are that it’s really big.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh yeah, it turns out the source the commander wouldn’t tell us about was the educator’s own brother, Marcus Miller.”
“The educator’s brother was working with the commander?”
“Seems like it. Miller figured it out during the meeting. I mean he is one of the smartest people in the world.”
“Hold on, what are the odds that this can work in our favor? I mean, surely it must have been a shock to Horatio, right? His own brother working against him. Maybe it will throw him off his game or make him question his actions. What do we know about his current emotional state?
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you about the educator’s emotional state, but it seems he’s killed his brother.”
Now Tamisa really thought Villo was making fun of her. She was about to snap at him when the humorless timekeeper interjected himself into the conversation. “Right after the meeting concluded Marcus Miller left his brother’s estate through the transporter in the front yard. It’s likely that his brother forced him off the premises. Allegedly, he was returning to his home on planet Malar, but he never made it there. It seems the gateway malfunctioned and just didn’t deliver him to the other side.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Tamisa said. How often does that even happen?”
“It doesn’t,” the timekeeper said. “Odds of such a malfunction in the gateway generators are 0.000000000000068%. I calculated this myself, since I believe it’s of importance to us. The accident happened right after Marcus Miller’s betrayal was revealed to his brother. The educator has extensive knowledge of Muench-Henriksen gateways. I suspect he also has the necessary knowledge to sabotage these highly complex devices. There is no doubt in my mind that the educator murdered his brother. I also believe this gives us valuable information for our mission, about the psychology of Horatio Miller but also about the importance of the information package that was entrusted to his daughter. We now know the Educator would kill his own brother in order to protect it.”
“So let’s have the law enforcement agency on his home planet arrest him. That would give us an enormous advantage.”
“We can’t. We have no proof beyond my personal analysis, which is not accepted as evidence by any federal law enforcement bureau. It would also reveal our involvement and the commander doesn’t want that.”
“Why?”
“He refuses to specify.”
“Goddamn it!”
Tamisa was getting frustrated with the whole situation. She was facing a monumental challenge: commanding a field unit on her first ever mission. That alone was unheard of. On top of that, she wasn’t being given full information, which was not the way the Enforcement Unit usually operated. Though she knew she had no right to question the commander’s decisions, she was unsettled by many aspects of the mission, especially by the Commander’s unusual behavior.
The unbending loyalty of the enforcers had always stemmed from an undaunted faith in Commander Anderson. Though Villo had called it ‘adapting’ and being a ‘master strategist’, Tamisa could not help feeling a bit uneasy about the commander’s unpredictable behavior. She was also unnerved by the discovery that Horatio Miller had murdered his brother. She didn’t know why she felt so scandalized by that; she had never met the man and all she knew about him was from the media. Still, he was well-known and respected businessman and politician, an inspiration to so many people.
In a silly way, Tamisa felt personally disappointed by the Educator’s actions, as if they offended her direc
tly. Why is it that we always feel that the very famous owe it to us to be perfect? she wondered. Commander Anderson, Martin Anderson and even Villo were all men who had countless kills under their belt. Yet, she viewed the deaths for which they had been responsible as necessary, even honorable, while the educator was a monster for killing his brother. What made one crime acceptable, but not the other? Hadn’t she herself killed a human being? Yes, it had been in self-defense, but what about the horrible way in which she had massacred that man, disfiguring him like a wild animal, turning his cranium into slush? Was Horatio Miller then more of a monster than Tamisa Faber?
“There’s something about this mission that doesn’t make sense to me,” Tamisa said after a long pause. “We’ve established that this information package is vital to Educator Miller. In order to protect it, he not only killed his brother but he is willing to go to war with the Enforcement Unit. Clearly, this information means more to the educator than perhaps even his own life. But what about Maclaine Ross? From what I’ve found out about Ayers-Ross, this is a high-end thoughtprotection agency that is always very selective when it comes to the cases it takes on. How is it possible that they wouldn’t foresee the legal consequences of this mission?”
“I believe Maclaine Ross does, but that he is withholding the information from the rest of his team,” the timekeeper said.
“Why would he do something like that?” Villo asked.
“Because there is more to this than you know so far.”
“I’m all ears.”
Timekeeper Kernis displayed a hologram of Maclaine Ross, as if the life-size image could stimulate them into better understanding his psychology. The visual fidelity of the three-dimensional model made it seem as if he was really in the room, a silent and dangerous observer. Tamisa was impressed. She had prepared for the mission extensively, researching the company, its employees, its history and business patterns. She never thought to pause upon the physical appearance of any of the men. She had seen a few images but she’d been more focused on their intellects, on what she could find out about their behavioral patterns. Now, with Ross appearing to stand in front of her, his holographic frame towering over them, she felt as if she understood him better just by studying his physique.
Sometimes the physical appearance might reveal things about one’s character, she realized, thinking about her own efforts to diminish her natural beauty. Maclaine Ross was an impressive physical specimen. Only from his life-size representation could one really get a sense of how intimidating he actually was. An extremely tall man, taller than any of the enforcers Tamisa had met, he was also remarkably muscular. His immense arms were battering rams and his legs were like tree trunks. He seemed to make an effort to accentuate the visual impact of his massive body by wearing skin-tight clothing that looked ready to burst at the seams. His crew cut completed the image of Ross as the quintessential warrior.
And yet, Tamisa knew that Maclaine Ross was the only person in history who had simultaneously been a mindguard and a bodyguard. That meant that he was by no means just a mindless thug. He was purposefully advertising this image, no doubt in order for his adversaries to underestimate him. In fact, it was the complete opposite of what Tamisa had done when she had cut off her hair. She had tried to deemphasize her womanhood, so that she wouldn’t be underestimated. It had never occurred to her to use it to her advantage.
Tamisa was beginning to respect Ross. She realized that she herself had fallen into his trap. She had underestimated him. She had thought of him as nothing but a brute, an unworthy adversary. Although he was the Head of Operations, she had always given little importance to him, choosing instead to focus her attention on the legendary Sheldon Ayers. Now she realized that she was dealing with not only one formidable foe, but at the very least two, probably more. Ross was as dangerous to them as Sheldon and Tamisa knew now that it was vital to remember that.
“Maclaine Ross,“ Irvin Kernis started, with the tone of a museum guide. “At fifty-seven years of age he is in exceptional physical and intellectual condition. That is due, in part, to his extensive and costly geriatric treatments and his countless muscular and neurological enhancements. It is evident that Ross is incredibly strong, but there is more to him than meets the eye. Below the surface, you will find hundreds of thousands of credits worth of physical enhancements of all conceivable sorts: from genome advancements that make him more resilient against disease or biological toxins, to improvements of the muscular and osseous tissue making him borderline unbreakable, to neural and memory enhancements that increase his perceptive capabilities and give him considerable control over his own physiological functions.”
“To what degree?” Tamisa asked.
“Well, to our knowledge he has control over his breathing, he can slow down his metabolism, can change the way nutrients are dispersed in his body, can actively choose which physical functions to favor at a given time, can -”
“It means he’s a freakin’ weapon,” Villo said. He was staring at the image of Ross with a look of disgust. The enforcers always stressed the development of the body’s natural abilities, taking them far beyond what anyone had ever achieved, with very little aid from technological enhancements. Tamisa could only imagine what a veteran Enforcer like Villo Kantil thought of a man like Maclaine Ross, who was a veritable ode to scientific and biological improvements. To Villo and any other enforcer, a man like Ross was an abhorrent insult to nature. Tamisa sensed that, just as she had chosen Sheldon as her own personal adversary in this mission, Villo had picked Ross.
Perhaps that’s a good thing, she thought. Perhaps it will allow me to focus more on Sheldon Ayers.
Kernis continued with his presentation: “It is a well known fact that Maclaine Ross has spent more credits on genetic advancements than any other bodyguard in history, perhaps any other human being. We have been able to find out that he spends roughly eighty-five percent of his income on such modifications.”
“Wow,” Tamisa said. Her reaction had the effect of irritating Villo.
“Yeah, well, these so-called investments saved the guy’s ass multiple times,” he said, with undisguised resentment. “Many years ago he got knocked out by a two ton rock that fell straight on his head. The rock broke in half, his head didn’t. That’s what ended his career as a mindguard. Then, a while after that, he was caught in a confrontation that started a massive fire in a building complex. He suffered fourth-degree burns on his whole body. It took him out of commission for nearly eight months but he returned without a single scar. Once, on a mission, some idiot desert dweller caught him by surprise and drove a spear – a spear, can you believe that? – straight through his chest. Ross swiftly killed him with the thing still impaled in him.”
“This guy’s not human,” Tamisa said, impressed.
“No, he’s not,” said Villo, with obvious malice.
Tamisa had heard many stories about Maclaine Ross’ incredible strength and nearly indestructible body, but they continued to surprise her. Ross had turned himself into the absolute warrior, a soldier in every sense of the word, no different than any of the enforcers, just differently molded.
The enforcers were exceptionally skilled fighters, with bodies trained to endure tremendous punishment and perform incredible physical feats. As a unit, they were unparalleled. But taken individually, Tamisa wondered if any of her fellow soldiers could match this man in a one-on-one fight. Their strength lay in their teamwork, in dynamic efficiency and speed, while Maclaine Ross was a one-man army, his body a weapon of destruction. If his other bodyguards came even remotely close to matching his incredible power, then the entire mission could prove more difficult than she had foreseen.
She wondered if she should request more men on her team, but she didn’t want to appear hesitant or weak before the commander. She turned to Villo, hoping to ask his advice, but she stopped when she saw the way he looked at Ross. She had never seen him so tense. There was a frenzied determination in his eyes. She wondered what w
as going through his mind, why he seemed to hate Ross so much.
“There is one more relevant fact we have managed to find out about Maclaine Ross,” the timekeeper said, by which he meant himself and the seven adjunct timekeepers working under him, working round-the-clock just like he was. “It seems it’s something he keeps hidden from everyone, and for good reason.”
“What is it?” Tamisa asked.
“Ross’ family has a criminal background. His father, Jensen, was a firm believer in the beneficial attributes of telepathy. He fervidly advocated its legalization, invoking freedom of expression. That put a great strain on his marriage to Amanda Ross, who was a devout Christian - as Maclaine also appears to be - and who rejected telepathy because, in her conception, it would nullify the mythical sacrifice of the Christian prophet.
His efforts proving fruitless, Jensen Ross eventually joined a subversive group known as the ‘Martyrs of the Mind’. They were involved in a number of terrorist attacks throughout the IFCO. Eventually Jensen Ross was caught, prosecuted and, after his wife testified against him in court, found guilty and sentenced to death by telepathic assault. This was one of three times in history when this method of execution was employed.
Mere days after Jensen’s death, members of the Martyrs of the Mind murdered Amanda by cutting her throat and then lobotomizing her, which was the group’s signature. The entire experience greatly affected Maclaine, who was sixteen at the time. He turned to drugs and violence and was charged with and convicted of aggravated assault on three different occasions. He was sent to prison where he served five years. During his incarceration, he seems to have underwent a ‘spiritual awakening’, in which he has adopted Christianity, maybe in an attempt to honor his deceased mother.
Once released, he set out on a quest to clear the Ross name, which he considered corrupted by his father’s actions. He probably decided to become a mindguard as a direct protest against his father’s beliefs. He joined the ‘Thames-Rhys-Johnson’ agency as a bodyguard. At the time, they were very famous for employing the services of Kinsey Ayers. It seems that, during his stint at the agency, Maclaine Ross studied to become a mindguard, under the guidance of Kinsey.”
Mindguard Page 13