Mindguard

by Andrei Cherascu

  “Impressive,” Sophie agreed. Paradoxically, the more she found out about Sheldon Ayers, the more mysterious he seemed.

  “Tell me about the planets,” she said, trying to change the subject.

  “Well, you already got a small glimpse of Lusia, by looking out the window. What you see is what you get. It is a small planet, with very few inhabitants, because the climate is always cold. A constant winter can get very tiresome after a while. Most of the space on the continent is bought by large companies, such as your father’s, for storage. Thousands of acres of land are covered in warehouses that contain merchandise and the powerful servers of large IT companies. Lusia’s few residents are mainly factory workers. The planet is a great source of Telarium, a chemical substance used in medical practice for genome rejuvenation. The others are scientists, stationed in the many laboratories and astronomical observers that study the Djago Desert. Tourism is non-existent because of the inhospitable terrain and weather.”

  Sophie already knew all of this. She had studied every aspect of her mission, but she felt the need to make conversation. She suspected that the mindguard was aware of this and was just trying to help her overcome her anxiety. Babysitting my mind, Sophie thought with amusement. Isabel’s voice and her personality were very calming.

  “What about the others?” she asked.

  “Korall is very crowded and noisy, but it is not very dangerous. Fardhi, the city where we will be landing, has some wonderful open-air markets. We will only be there as long as it takes for Mac to procure a spacecraft. Then, once we enter the Djago Desert, you need to be prepared. It will be a very difficult and traumatic transition for your mind.”

  “Yes, I remember from training. Acute depression, anxiety and panic attacks, manic-depressive reactions, all within a very short timeframe.”

  “You will pull through. Whatever you are feeling, you have to remember that it is normal. Desert planets are wild places. Telepathy is not under control, so everyone’s mind is vulnerable to attack. As you know from training, there are many telepaths and they are very dangerous. Their minds create a physical field, similar to the electromagnetic field of a planet. When this field comes in contact with an unprotected mind, the experience can be quite overwhelming. It will take some time for your brain to adjust. If we are assaulted by telepaths, Sheldon will instantly project a Weixman Cube and guard your mind.”

  “How does that feel?”

  “Peaceful,” the mindguard said without hesitation. “It is a sensation of weightlessness of the thoughts, like the feeling you get after a powerful headache has passed.”

  “Then why can’t Sheldon just project that cube from the start? Why do I have to go through all of that? I can’t remember this being covered in the training sessions and I didn’t think to ask back then.”

  Isabel’s expression became very serious. “Because, Sofia, it can be very addictive.”

  “Addictive?”

  “The carrier forms an unnatural attachment to the mindguard. Physical addiction follows, with all its clinical manifestations. “

  Sophie looked at Sheldon, who was still reading. He seemed so calm, completely uninvolved in the reality of their situation. He looked as if he were in his living room, sitting in his favorite armchair, in front of a fireplace, with his dog curled up at his feet. He seemed unaware that he was on an alien planet, heading towards the most dangerous territory in the known universe, with the wellbeing of another person’s mind in his care.

  Addicted to Sheldon Ayers, she thought and shook her head.

  Isabel insisted they all grab something to eat. “We need strength and energy for our trip,” she said. No sooner had they finished the deceptively delicious protein and carbohydrate snacks, than Mac’s armored behemoth was heard roaring in the distance.

  “Got it, leaving in two hours,” the giant said as he stormed into the room in typical dramatic fashion.

  “Mac found us a spot on Kurume Industries cargo vessel,” said Francois, who followed right behind him.

  “Kurume? They transport Lusian whale meat.” Jason Elden had been quiet so far and everyone looked at him as though they were surprised he even spoke the language.

  “Oh, beautiful,” said Ray Manner. ”Nice going, Mac. What’s the matter, you couldn’t hook us up with the waste craft that hauls away the whale shit?”

  “What, you require luxury transportation?” the giant answered, “Maybe I’ll assign you to a desk job from now on, you’re so damn sensitive.”

  “I’mma smell like fish,” Manner protested.

  “You always smell like fish,” Francois said.

  “Go fuck yourself, lover boy!”

  “Hey!” As usual, Ross’ voice silenced all others. “Shut up and take the stuff in the car. Now!”

  He turned to Sophie and put a hand on her shoulder in a very affectionate way, like her father would always do when he wanted to encourage her. Isabel had also shown a protective attitude towards her. Sophie realized that, to these people, she must appear like nothing more than a vulnerable child. Meanwhile, her guardian Sheldon Ayers had walked right past her and out the door without even giving her a single look.

  “All right, Sophie,” Ross said, “the show’s about start. How’re you feelin’?”

  “Good,” she lied, determined to appear as confident as possible.

  “It’s gonna get uncomfortable from now on. If it ever feels like too much, you need to let one of us know, ok? There’s no shame in sayin’ you need some time out, all right?”

  “All right,” she said, a bit irked at being babied.

  They got in the car. It was even more spacious on the inside than it appeared from outside. They advanced through the snow and a tunnel of trees. Sophie was growing more nervous by the second. The darkness of the forest was ominous and the branches of the trees seemed to menacingly stretch towards them, as if they tried to capture the vehicle. Her mind started playing tricks on her. She could imagine the trees trying to cling on to them, to hold them in place, to stop them from carrying out their mission. The car was like a living creature trying to escape their grasp. What if it couldn’t and the trees would finally get a hold of them? Would they be lost in this eerie forest forever?

  She felt cold sweat dripping down her spine and she started to feel claustrophobic. Eventually, she managed to calm down. In fact, those threatening thoughts seemed to have just evaporated out of the blue. It happened almost too quickly. She looked at Sheldon who was seated in front of her. He was looking out the window, pondering the view. As if it were responding to her sudden mood swing, the dense forest opened up to a beautiful view of a lake, surrounded by hills. Even the elusive sun briefly peeked out from behind the thick clouds. On the other shore, she saw buildings. She assumed they were the workstations where Telurium was being extracted from the water.

  They drove for more than twenty minutes and arrived at the spaceport. Hundreds of spacecrafts, most of them cargo ships, seemed to be competing in size. They headed straight to the largest one, a dirty, white, almost cubic vessel, with an intricate red logo that sort of suggested a dragon. Under the logo she read the word Kurume. They left the car at the checkpoint and Mac gave it the vocal coordinates to return to the Ayers-Ross office. The unmanned vehicle drove off.

  As the group approached the spacecraft, a large man with a long, white beard wearing a spaceport uniform walked up to them. Ross just nodded and the man nodded back.

  “That’s our guy,” Francois said. Ross directed the team to the entrance with a gesture of the head. Though the enormous cargo ship was full, there was still more than enough room for all of them to be comfortable. Sophie didn’t mind the smell coming from the meat containers. If anything, it gave her an appetite. Ray Manner didn’t seem bothered by it either. Sophie wondered if the bickering at the base had been put together just for her entertainment. She wouldn’t put that past Mac and his team. She discovered that she was growing very fond of them and she dreaded the moment when she would
have to continue on her own.

  The ship took off and the flight was surprisingly comfortable, given the circumstances. Once they crossed through the Muench-Henriksen gateway, it took them only half an hour to land and debark on Korall. The crowded and smoggy city of Fardhi was a welcome change from Lusia. Even though she had spent only a few hours on the wintry planet, she felt as if it had been a week. It was good to see people, it made her feel less isolated. The team remained behind in one of the crowded bazaars of central Fardhi, while Ross and Ray Manner went to a nearby used spacecraft yard. Their plan was to purchase something deteriorated enough so as to move undetected and yet solid enough to not obliterate them in the vacuum of space.

  The bazaar was fascinating, a melting pot of different cultures. She heard the most varied languages and dialects from all over the IFCO. Sophie felt like a tourist. They looked at clothes and spices, objects whose purpose she could not even make out. After a while, they reached a merchant who was selling goods from Isabel’s home planet. She saw dresses and headbands in the style in which Isabel wore hers. The mindguard was delighted to be exchanging small talk in her native tongue, a beautiful language that had great depth and a pleasant fluidity.

  Sophie felt that she admired Isabel more and more. There was a grace and a dignity to her which greatly attracted the young woman. In a way, she felt sorry that she had insisted for Sheldon to guard her instead of Isabel. She was worried that she might have offended her. But it had been her father’s orders. She looked for Sheldon but couldn’t see him in the sea of people. She hadn’t seen him in a while. He seemed to have vanished right around the time Isabel started speaking with the merchant.

  Where could he be, wasn’t he supposed to be protecting her? They were not in the desert yet, but her mind was still supposed to be under his supervision. Could he even guard her mind if she wasn’t in his field of view? Sophie had never thought to ask. Where the hell was he?

  She looked after him again, in all directions, but he was nowhere in sight. She started to panic.

  Chapter 15

  He used to say to her ‘I wish you would stop shoving that book in my face all the time!’ He wasn’t really angry, though. He never raised his voice. My father was always gentle and kind, a sweet man who never had anything but warmth and love for those around him. Still, that was not enough for my stepmother. She figured he couldn’t really be a good man unless he also prayed to her Christian God. In her mind, she was just trying to look out for him, for his soul, I guess. Whenever she’d get the chance, she would pull out the Christian Bible and try to quote from it. That really exasperated him. I remember one time, she told him ‘What good is it that you do the work of God, Alan, if you do not acknowledge that it is His work you are doing? How can you be a healer and not believe in God?’ He raised his index finger and said ‘Ah, but I didn’t say I don’t believe in God.’ Then, pointing at the book in her hand, he said ‘I just don’t believe in man.’

  Tamisa Faber, The Minds that shaped Me, an Autobiography

  “Do you understand the accusations, Mr. White?”

  Kriss White was staring at an imaginary spot on the wall. He had his back turned towards the holographic image of Commander Anderson. He hoped his gesture would be interpreted as an act of defiance. In reality, the legal advisor of what had, until that moment, been the Ayers-Ross Thoughtprotection Agency, did not want the leader of the enforcers to see the helplessness in his eyes.

  It was over. Everything had changed in an instant. Everything they had built was collapsing in front of him, offering no more resistance than a sandcastle, wiped away by a wave.

  “I failed you, Mac,” he thought, holding back tears. “But how could I have foreseen this?”

  He had been in his office working on the files for a mission analysis, when his retinal insertions announced that he was about to receive a call from the most powerful man in the IFCO, Commander Thomas Anderson. Before he even had the chance to authorize the call - because really, what other option did he have? - the commander bypassed the firewall and his hologram just appeared in front of White. That was unheard of. Unauthorized access to someone’s retinal insertions was illegal. It was basically breaking and entering into someone’s communication channels.

  The commander surely had the means to violate a citizen’s intimacy, but even he was not above the law. At least, that was what Kriss had thought until then. When he started speaking, the sound of his voice was completely unemotional, like this was all just routine. It sent chills down Kriss’ spine.

  “Kriss White, former bodyguard, current Legal Advisor, interim Head of Operations and co-owner of Ayers-Ross, through the power invested in me by the Council of Presidents and the government of the Interstellar Federation of Common Origin, I hereby order you to shut down all operations of the Ayers-Ross Thoughtprotection Agency. You are charged with treason and intention to overthrow the Council of Presidents. As of this moment the Ayers-Ross Thoughtprotection Agency is denied its right to operate within the boundaries of the IFCO.”

  Kriss was completely stunned. The blood flowing through his veins felt like ice. When he started shaking he didn’t know if it was from the cold or from terror. He felt dizzy. With great effort he struggled to maintain his balance, afraid that his old body would just collapse.

  He had warned Mac that this could happen. He had told him that, in the worst case scenario, they could invoke an IFK7. But this was beyond their imagined worst case scenario. This was madness. It didn’t make any sense. Even in the case of an IFK7, there were legal procedures that had to be followed. The enforcers could go after Mac’s team and try to prevent the delivery of the information package. But they couldn’t just shut down the entire company like this. The agency would be called to court and the owners would have to face prosecution. An investigation would be started and certain internal records would have to be released to the Court of the Federation. Only if the owners refused to cooperate could the prosecution call for a preventive shut down of operations. But that would take months. It seemed that the commander had decided to just take the law into his own hands.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said Kriss, finally composed enough to articulate his outrage.

  “All connections to the holocloud will be severed, communication between Ayers-Ross employees will be restricted. All archived information will be seized by the Enforcement Unit’s Information Taskforce.”

  “The hell it will,” White snapped. “This isn’t legal. I don’t know what kind of game this is, but you’re violating a respected company’s privacy and hindering its activity. On whose goddamn authority are you acting?”

  The commander’s calm behavior intensified the madness of the moment. Kriss even started wondering if he wasn’t perhaps hallucinating. Maybe I had some sort of a stroke and now I’m seeing things, he thought. This can’t possibly be real.

  “I have the authority to temporarily act without DNA-encoded approval from the Council of Presidents in situations of terrorism.”

  “Terrorism? What the hell -”

  “Mr. White, I suggest you personally inform all employees currently present at the office.”

  White felt the veiled accusation like a knife to the heart. ‘You are the Legal Advisor, it was your responsibility to prevent this! You let them down! You sent them to their deaths!’

  “All active members of mission AR16997418, including Sophie Gaumont, the daughter of Educator Horatio Miller, are from this moment on considered fugitives. A call for their arrest will be given out to all Enforcement Units across the IFCO. The employees who are not taking part in mission AR16997418 will not be held under arrest, but they will be taken in to Enforcement Unit headquarters on Terra Antiqua for questioning. You however, are placed under arrest, Mr. White. An Enforcement Unit Detachment will be there briefly to take you in. Please do not try to leave the premises, because it will only worsen your condition.”

  At that moment, White had turned his back to the commande
r, for he couldn’t stand staring at his face anymore and it would have been ridiculous to spit at a holographic projection.

  “Do you understand the accusations, Mr.White?”

  Kriss said nothing. He refused to take part in this set-up any longer. He felt paralyzed. The only power he had left was defiance. He waited like that for a while, his back turned to his enemy, until he wasn’t even sure if he was still there. Before he could turn around to check, he heard the commander’s voice.

  “Mr. White, glory is life’s greatest reward. Because of that, it requires a willingness to sacrifice what is most precious. When one is willing to sacrifice anything for glory, one displays, at the same time, enormous courage and crippling vanity. Within this paradox lies the tragedy; for every great man’s destiny must end in tragedy. It is an end one can escape only if he is willing to sacrifice the unthinkable: glory itself.”

  With those words the commander disappeared, leaving White incapacitated, unable to decide on any course of action. He knew that time was short, surely the detachment of enforcers would waste no second.

  Glory; was the Commander speaking of Mac? It seemed like he was. He must have somehow discovered Mac’s true reason for accepting this mission. Or was he speaking perhaps of Sheldon, whose intelligence and experience should have chosen prudence over personal ambition? Indeed, he could also be speaking of Horatio Miller, unstoppable in his ardent obsession with transporting this valuable information package, even at the risk of severe legal repercussions. Still, neither Horatio Miller, nor Maclaine Ross, nor even Sheldon Ayers could have predicted this turn of events.

  White felt his neural insertions being forcefully disconnected from the cloud. He was now just a man of flesh and bone; a tired, scared and very old man, cut off from the technology that was the beating heart of the human civilization. Mac was now entirely on his own. Aware that he had but very little time, he left to speak with his employees, to give them the grim news.