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.
PART 3: DESTINY
Chapter 22
When danger presents, the mind reacts first and only afterwards it thinks. It is my goal to teach you to think first and only then react.
Villo Kantil
“How did you know about the underground tunnel?”
Sophie finally managed to catch her breath, after a few minutes of rest. The secret passage had indeed led to a tunnel, a long and very narrow one. She wasn’t usually claustrophobic, but she found it very difficult to suppress a panic attack. Sheldon seemed unfazed, though that didn’t surprise her. She was amazed, however, that Ross managed to remain calm. The bodyguard barely fit through and had to resort to crawling on his stomach. On top of that, he was also dragging behind him the lifeless body of Jason Elden.
They resurfaced somewhere close to the town’s landfill, after which they started running, to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Kamona. After half an hour, they needed to stop, when Sophie and Sheldon got tired. Ross wasn’t even breathing heavily, even though he was carrying Elden’s body on his shoulders, as well as a backpack that contained what little they had managed to save from their personal belongings.
They all sat down and rested, Sophie with her back against a tree, as they tried to assess their predicament. When she finally managed to catch her breath, she decided to ask Ross about the tunnel.
“I sensed a faint anomaly in the room’s air currents,” he answered. “ Some of the desert dwellers use tunnels to smuggle merchandise in and out of the city. Also, to be able to move freely from one place to the next, shielded from telepaths. Physical limitations like walls or the earth weaken the signal of the thought timbre.”
She just nodded absently. There was something else she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t know how to phrase it. She caught Sheldon looking at her, like he knew what she was thinking. The look on his face seemed to encourage her to speak. She cleared her throat and looked at Mac, hoping she wouldn’t upset him. Then, she looked at Elden’s body.
“He, uh -”
“He is deceased. I intend to bury him,” the giant said, anticipating the question.
“But, I mean, perhaps some of the others -”
“I have no way of knowing who lived and who died,” Ross said. “Jason was there with us and… he is a Christian.”
Sophie looked away; she didn’t know what to say. Sheldon stared at Ross, like he was provoking him. Ross continued to explain, but his attitude got defensive. It was the tone of a man who was used to being
chastised for his beliefs.
“His body belongs to God, not to those beasts. He deserves a proper burial.”
“Beasts…” she repeated. “The way that man moved… the speed…” She felt a lump in her throat. “The enforcers are after us,” she said, more to herself than to her companions. Suddenly, a rush of adrenaline kicked in. She jumped up. “We can’t… we can’t stay here… we have to move… if they…” Again she looked at Elden. “There is, I mean… there’s no time to waste…”
At the last second, she realized that she might have offended Ross, but the bodyguard just stared at Elden’s body, unable to say anything. He seemed to be searching for his words. Instead, Sheldon spoke for him: “Mac is not coming with us.”
“What?” Sophie couldn’t believe her ears. Why wouldn’t he come with them? She had hired him to protect her! All for a stupid religious ritual? They had been incredibly fortunate to escape the enforcers once and she was finally regaining hope that there might still be a chance to carry out the mission. Without Ross, their chances were basically zero. Ross looked up at Sophie with sadness and guilt.
“The man who attacked us, the man we… the man I killed, was Villo Kantil.”
Sophie did not recognize the name.
“He was one of the most important enforcers is the world, an adjutant to Commander Thomas Anderson, the leader of the Enforcement Unit.”
“Him I know,” Sophie said.
“Villo Kantil is the commander’s right-hand man, his closest advisor. If Kantil is involved, then this must be of very high priority to them.”
“All the more reason I need you with me. Mac, with all due respect to your team mate, and your beliefs, I -”
“No,” he said gravely. “It’ s not that.”
Sheldon stared at his partner intensely. Sophie could not recognize the emotion in his eyes. Were it any other man than Sheldon, and were he looking at any other person than his best friend, she would have thought it was a look of disgust. Mac noticed, but he didn’t react. He just continued speaking with Sophie, perhaps suggesting that the only person to whom he thought he owed an explanation was her, not Sheldon.
“Villo Kantil came after us alone. That is completely unusual for the enforcers. I can see no reason why they’d send him without backup. But the fact that Kantil himself came after us is important. Also, he knew exactly where we were.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Genetic tracing has its limitations. It can’t locate the position of a person with such accuracy. Best it can do is reduce the search area to a few miles. There’s no way genetic tracing could have told him that we were in that particular building. Even if they captured Isabel, Ray and Francois first, none of them would have given the enforcers our location. I can vouch for that with my life. They could not have used a telepath, because Sheldon would have felt it. This only leaves one other option: neural tracing.”
“What’s that?”
“They use devices that decode and catalogue brainwaves, recognizing patterns. It’s a very effective form of locating a person within a few feet.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“That’s because the Council of Presidents outlawed it about a decade and a half ago. They said it’s dangerously similar to telepathy.
“That can’t be. That would mean the enforcers are acting against the order of the Council.“
“I see no other explanation. I am familiar with every type of tracing technology there ever existed and I’m always up-to-date with what’s in development. There is no other method they could have used to know I was there. If the enforcers are breaking the very laws they vowed to protect, then this is a lot more serious than we could have ever expected.”
When Ross pronounced the word ‘expected’, Sheldon’s jaw clenched. He looked like he was trying very hard to hold back his words. Ross noticed that too and he turned away from his associate with an expression that somehow managed to contain both guilt and accusation.
“That’s exactly my point,” Sophie said. “If they’re acting this crazy, then we’re in even more danger than we thought. I need you to carry out your -”
“Let him finish,” Sheldon said with venom. Sophie did not understand the mindguard’s animosity, but Ross seemed like he did.
“They could not have found you or Sheldon,” Ross said. “Only me. Kantil came after me.”
“What? Why? How do you know that?”
“Because you two are prototechs.” There were a few moments of silence, then he continued: “Neuralfield scanners can’t trace the thought timbres of prototechs. The neuroinsertions in regular people modify the brainwaves and create a certain pattern, which is what the neuralfield scanners pick up. That pattern doesn’t exist in prototechs. The scanners are blind to you, you can move freely. If I come with you, they will track me down, no matter where we go. It’s only a matter of time. Given that we are dealing with the Enforcement Unit, I think it will happen sooner, rather than later. As of this moment I am basically a security threat to our own mission.”
Sophie had tears in her eyes. This was getting out of hand so quickly, she felt like she couldn’t keep up anymore. She was living a nightmare. A sudden scary thought materialized: if the enforcers had come after them, perhaps even her father had been targeted. She feared for her father’s safety and now also for the safety of Maclaine Ross, the man she had involved in this potentially fatal mission.
She felt a terrible burden. It was the bond of the promise she had made to her father clashing with the guilt of having put these men’s lives in danger. But wasn’t that what they had signed up for? These men knew the level of danger they were getting into when they accepted the mission. Or did they? After all, going up against the Enforcement Unit was something that nobody could have predicted. Why were they even targeting them? Could it be that they somehow knew about the purpose of her mission? How? She was the only other person in the world her father had entrusted with this. She couldn’t take it anymore. She decided that she owed them an explanation.
“Look, the information package I am carrying -”
“No!” Ross thundered. “That is not according to regulation. We don’t have to know and we don’t want to know the nature of the information package we are guarding. That hasn’t changed, the mission is still going forward only… without me.”
“But -”
“Look, kid,” he said, and for the first time Sophie was not annoyed at being addressed like a child. “I get that you’re scared and worried, you probably feel guilty and all that. But you need to suck it up. Being scared I can understand but feeling guilty is ridiculous, it’s childish. We are a thoughtprotection agency, this is what we do. This is exactly why we are required, because protecting an information package is very dangerous. It’s a risk we are aware of and one we’ve decided to take. No matter the cost, it’s our profession.”
Ross’ words snapped Sheldon back out of whatever trance he had entered while staring into his friend’s eyes. The mindguard’s voice was so cold and hateful it frightened Sophie. She had never heard him like this. This was not the same Sheldon Ayers she had come to know over the past weeks. His voice was pure emotion. “Don’t worry Sophie, if anybody has reasons to feel guilty, it’s Mac.”
“What?” Sophie cried, but Ross’ face betrayed no surprise. He had expected this.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Sheldon said viciously. Ross sighed but he did not look away. His face revealed the dignity of a man taking responsibility for his actions.
Sheldon raised his voice: “The attack… you knew it would come to this. You knew the Enforcement Unit was going to get involved!”
“What are you talking about?” Sophie asked. As scared as she was because of everything that had happened, nothing unsettled her more than this argument between the two men. Sheldon continued his passionate tirade:
“There’s no way White didn’t predict this. He warned you about this, didn’t he?”
&n
bsp; Ross remained silent but he never took his eyes off Sheldon.
“You knew the enforcers might get involved and you didn’t tell us. You son of a bitch! You went ahead with the mission. You’ve killed one of the most prominent enforcers in the world. You’ve signed a death sentence for all of us!”
“We all accepted the risk.”
Ross’ voice was calm, but underneath, a terrible storm was brewing. Sophie shuddered as she remembered how it only took one angry strike from Maclaine Ross to kill an enforcer. What if Ross lost his temper? She feared for Sheldon’s safety, but the mindguard did not back down.
“No! No, we didn’t accept the risk because we were unaware of the mission’s true implications. You lied to us. You did it on purpose. You killed us all to save your company!”
The faintest hint of a smile ghosted over the bodyguard’s lips.
“We need to go, Sophie,” Sheldon said. “We have to defend the honor of the great Ayers-Ross.” The bitter sarcasm in his voice was directed at Ross, not her, though that didn’t make her feel any better. Ross nodded like he were giving permission. He took off his heavy backpack and handed it to Sheldon.
“The portable gateway generator is in there,” he said and turned his back to them. Then, in a soft voice: “Good luck.”
Sheldon, however, was not finished. He looked at Elden’s body. “When you’re praying for your god to take his soul, to be merciful, keep in mind to also ask for forgiveness for yourself. After all, he’s dead because of you.”
Sophie didn’t even have time to let out a scream. Ross instantly turned around and grabbed Sheldon by the throat with his right hand. He shook him a few times until the mindguard fell to his knees. Sophie knew for sure that he wasn’t applying much force, otherwise Sheldon would have been dead within seconds.
Sheldon Ayers remained defiant. Though on his knees, he never took his eyes off Ross’, while the bodyguard looked at him with an expression that seemed to declare ‘I could kill you in a heartbeat.’ It was as expression that had, no doubt, never before been meant for a friend. He quickly regained his composure and let go of his former partner. He took a step back as Sheldon got up.
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