Kinsey had died an old man, his face decorated with countless lines - a testament to his age and wisdom, but also his status as a prototech. Instead, the demon appeared middle-aged. He was wearing the brown leather jacket, which had been given to Sheldon, and which now rested in the house where they had left their belongings. Only now did Sheldon realize that he would never see that old rickety jacket again. The thought produced a sharp pain in his chest, as if he had lost a human being and not merely a very valued piece of clothing. On Kinsey, the jacket appeared brand new, with the wear-and-tear of the original missing like the soul from a machine.
“Ah, right, Ross... Maclaine Ross, a man of strength and valor, a great warrior. The name resonates. Maclaine Ross!” The old man yelled out Mac’s name with a thunderous voice that would have had the leaves rattling, had it come from a real living throat. He burst out with a bone-chilling laugh. “What is a name but an amalgam of letters, syllables, tones… perhaps visual images, if you write it down somewhere. Sheldon Ayers, that’s a beautiful name right there, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Sheldon didn’t answer.
“Sophie Gaumont, just slides off the tip of the tongue, doesn’t it? I wonder what she likes to slide off the tip of her tongue, if you know what I mean.” He made a gesture with his own ghostly tongue that, on the kind and gentle features of his cherished face, looked downright macabre. Seeing the disgusted reaction of his once-grandson, the diabolical creature left out another crazy laugh.
“Maclaine Ross. Sounds powerful and strong… just like your friend himself. And yet, it’s just a name. What is a name? A symbol… perishable. I can write it down on a piece of paper and then burn it or wipe my ass with it. Kinsey Ayers… do you think I give a dirty fuck about my name? Maclaine Ross, your best friend, the devout Christian, the believer, sent you all to meet your maker… all for the survival of his name. The life of his name has more value to him than any human life, including yours, Sheldon.”
The mindguard just walked on, refusing to let himself be distracted by what was merely his own mind playing a most vile trick on him. This hallucination creature that looked like his grandfather but behaved like the mythical devil from Mac’s religion, was not going to stop. The only way to defeat it, was to outlast it, show no emotion, not get caught up in its web of craziness. He couldn’t get angry at a being that wasn’t real. Instead, he got angry at himself, at his own mind. It was a mind that he had cultivated with the purpose of forming the greatest intellect in the world. Yet, it was the same mind which created this obscene and perverted phantom of the man who meant more to him than anyone else in his life.
As Sheldon walked on, fighting hard to keep his composure in spite of the venom spewed by the satanic mirage, he saw another apparition. Off into the distance, only vaguely distinguishable, were the shapes of Maclaine Ross and Kriss White. The closer Sheldon got and the more he tried to fight off the influence of the Kinsey hallucination, the more substantial the vision became.
Mac and Kriss seemed to be engaged in conversation. From their posture and their body language, Sheldon could tell that the shapes were whispering. There was a secretive air about their exchange. When he passed them, they both slowly turned to look at him. Their eyes were not human. They were eyes of serpents, reptilian and deceitful. When Sheldon looked into their eyes, the figures smirked malevolently and dispersed into the air like a dying breath. Sheldon looked again at Sophie, the agent of reality. He was set on ignoring the old man, but Kinsey spoke again.
“Forget Ross, he is a serpent!”
Seeing that his flesh-and-blood grandson would not reply, he continued talking: “Let us walk on nevertheless, reasoning as we go. After all, we are mindguards, men of reason, of dignity and wisdom. We are superior beings, creatures of the mind we are, not of the simple and fallible body.”
As he said that, Sheldon’s gaze fell on the specter of Isabel Mensah. She was standing near the trunk of a dead tree, which had been struck by lightning and now resembled an erect penis. She was naked, ostentatiously rubbing her bare breasts with one hand and her vagina with the other. Every stroke of her hands produced cuts on her skin, as if she were touching herself not with fingers but with sharpened blades.
She did not stop. She continued the motion smearing blood all over herself. She looked straight at Sheldon, her gaze part lascivious, part derisive. She was as grotesque in specter as she was noble and dignified in real life. Behind her, the dead phallic tree seemed to pulsate with life, as if underneath its bark lay not wood, but erectile tissue. Seeing that Sheldon was just absently looking at the naked ghost of one of his dearest friends, with no discernable reaction on his face, his grandfather decided to react instead, making the same gesture of the tongue he had made when talking about Sophie. Then he made a gesture of the hand that seemed to say ’ah, forget it’ and the Mensah wraith instantly disappeared.
“Unwelcome distractions,” he said, in a tone that was suddenly serious, like a drunkard trying to convince everyone else that he was, in fact, sober. “Onward, Sheldon,” he commanded. For a second, Sheldon thought of stopping at his grandfather’s command of going forward, just to spite the evil entity. He realized at the last second how ridiculous that would be and so he went forward.
It wasn’t long before the third chimerical character appeared. This time it was Horatio Miller, the man who had sent them all on this mission and, implicitly, to their doom. Contrary to the spotless and well-groomed man of culture that Sheldon had met on Terra Nova, this Horatio Miller was dirty and unshaven. His clothes, initially an expensive suit of exquisite craftsmanship, were now tattered, hanging off of his body like rags off a scarecrow. He was breathing heavily and staring at Sheldon with great scorn. His right hand was hidden behind his back. When he revealed it, the hand was holding the severed, bleeding head of Kinsey Ayers. A trick of the mind, as evanescent as the hateful ghost that walked beside him.
“The Devil,” screamed Kinsey Ayers, the Kinsey that still possessed his body, ethereal as it was. But his voice was not his own. It sounded like the terrified voice of a pious old lady.
“Then you know your old friend,” responded the severed head, this time in Kinsey’s voice.
As Sheldon and Sophie walked past him, only one of them aware of his presence, Horatio Miller held Kinsey’s head high in the air. He held it above his own head, as if it were a talisman that could protect him from Sheldon, the very man whose mind had summoned him up in the first place.
“You pay them no mind, my son,” Kinsey said. “Mere hops along the way. They are nothing, just like you’ve known all along. You’re better than everyone else, they can’t be trusted, isn’t that right, son?”
The man’s inexistent taunts fell on deaf ears. Sheldon just marched forward through the almost impenetrable darkness.
“You’re better than them, right Sheldon? That’s why you chose not to tell them that you’re going insane, like me. They don’t deserve to know, they wouldn’t understand anyway. You know I always taught you to be exceptional Sheldon, and I’ll be damned if you aren’t just that: exceptional. And you know it too, you arrogant little piece of shit. Well, very good. The time and energy people waste on modesty can be put to much better use, like furthering your knowledge, strengthening your mind. Your mind is strong! It’s so strong it’s… it’s… coming apart at the seams.” Again the haunting laughter. “You’ve done good work, my son, blessed be your mind! I bless you! I, Sheldon Ayers, bless you!” Laughter.
There was so much laughter that the ghost almost choked. Sheldon stopped walking, suddenly, as if he had reached an unseen wall. He slowly turned towards his grandfather. Instead of Kinsey Ayers, he found himself, his mirror image, identical but for the look in its eyes and the smirk on its face.
“Are you going to back away now?” said the demon Sheldon.
“Sheldon?”
This was another voice. It could be the voice of Sophie, forced to stop when their march ended so abruptly. Or it could be another figment of his
imagination. At this point, Sheldon didn’t even care.
“Sheldon, why did we stop?”
“Are you going to back away now?” the other Sheldon repeated.
Sheldon stared down his imaginary opponent and advanced forward, slowly, only to defy. The demon Sheldon backed away and the real Sheldon felt a strange sense of victory. He thought he heard a faint voice call out his name from behind, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was advancing and the other Sheldon was backing away, disappearing behind the trees. Only his voice could still be heard.
“You may as well fear them, as they fear you!”
As the demon’s last words still hung in the air, Sheldon reached the trees behind which the hallucination had vanished. In the darkness, he could not see that the forest ended abruptly, as did the earth beneath his feet. He fell off the precipice so suddenly he did not even have time to grasp at the air. The last thing he heard was a distant voice calling out his name.
Chapter 25
Whenever he was in the mood for an argument, my father would always taunt my stepmother saying ‘God invented religion and entertainment for the same purpose: to distract us, to make sure mankind doesn’t evolve too quickly. He was afraid we’d catch up with Him.’
Tamisa Faber, The Minds that shaped Me, an Autobiography
He was there one second and gone the next. Sophie froze in place, not knowing what to do. After leaving Ross, Sheldon had become very quiet. It was understandable. She didn’t want to say or do anything that would break his concentration. Surely, he was trying to figure out a solution to their situation. Their mission now depended solely on him. So she just walked onward, letting him take the lead, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the ground, because everything around her was terrifying. The woods, the darkness, the ominous murmur of the trees. The slowly rising fog.
From time to time, she looked at Sheldon. His fists were balled up and his jaw clenched, as if preparing for a physical confrontation. Sophie wished she knew what was going on in his mind, but she had a sneaking suspicion that, even if she could somehow penetrate his thoughts, she would probably not understand much. Then he stopped. It wasn’t a sudden, instinctual stop. He stopped as if he had reached a destination… or a decision.
He turned around and looked to his left, as if he had seen something. She called out his name but got no answer. He kept slowly moving in that direction and was about to disappear into the darkness behind the trees. At the last second, she heard the sound of gravel sliding underfoot. Then, he abruptly vanished from sight.
She called out his name again but to no avail. There was no question about it, he had fallen off a cliff. She cautiously hurried to the place where Sheldon had been just a few seconds ago. She reached the cliff and almost fell off herself, but she hung on to a tree. She could hear the water underneath; a mountain river.
Sheldon had vanished completely, concealed by the darkness, the water and his black uniform. She took a step back, trying to collect herself, but there was little time. If the water flowed rapidly, it could carry Sheldon too far away, out of her reach forever. Why wasn’t he swimming? Could it be that Sheldon Ayers, the world’s greatest mindguard and probably the most intelligent man alive, couldn’t swim? There was no time to waste. She swept the surface of the water with her flashlight, but there was no sign of him. That meant the water was deep enough for him to have sunk. Sophie leapt off the edge of the cliff and into a water that was ice cold.
She sunk to a considerable depth. It took her a few moments to regain her sense of balance and swim up. The second she got her head out of the water, she called Sheldon’s name. Again, she received no answer. An experienced swimmer, Sophie quickly adjusted to the rhythm of the river. A frightening thought came to mind: Sheldon - like her - was a prototech. He was also a lot older than she was. What if his heart had stopped, when his body hit the freezing water? He could already be dead. That realization sent a chill down Sophie’s spine, to which neither the cold water nor the fear of plummeting into the unknown had even come close.
“Sheldon,” she screamed at the top of her lungs. She started swimming forward as fast as she could, hoping to catch up with him. Her body was tired, weak from the stress and the fear and the strain of the last few days. But she was a capable swimmer and a very determined person. She could not let Sheldon die. He was her guardian, her protector, she had to save him!
She had no way of knowing in which direction to swim, and yet she knew. From the moment she had called out his name, a strange feeling had taken hold of her. It was the feeling that she knew exactly where Sheldon was, as if their bodies were at opposing ends of an unseen rope. All she had to do was follow that rope. She swam for a few more minutes and then dove into the water, at a specific location. She couldn’t see anything underwater and yet she knew that he was there. She stretched out her arms and found his. His hands grabbed tightly onto hers. He was alive!
At that moment, though she was in mortal danger, underneath the surface of an alien river and surrounded by an alien darkness, Sophie felt a happiness that she had never known before. She grabbed him from behind, intending to place both her arms around his torso and pull him to safety, but she couldn’t reach around him. She had forgotten that he was wearing the heavy backpack which contained the portable gateway generator; he must have sunk like a rock.
She grabbed the backpack instead and started swimming upwards. Meanwhile, Sheldon remained incredibly calm. He started paddling with his legs, helping her guide them both towards the surface. He knew exactly what to do and didn’t despair. Even in the face of mortal danger, Sheldon remained true to himself - pragmatic, composed and calculated. Sophie swam until she reached blissful air and then helped Sheldon get his head above water. He gasped for air and coughed, but immediately lost his strength and sunk again. Again, she helped him up.
On her back, she started paddling towards shore, pulling Sheldon’s body with her. He never panicked, his movements were intuitive. Their bodies reacted as one. For a moment, Sophie wondered if she was actually pulling Sheldon to safety or if Sheldon was the one pushing both their bodies, using her swimming skills, as if she were only a machine and he the driver. They reached the cliff on the opposite side from where they had fallen, but it was too high and too steep to climb up. They both grabbed onto branches and rested for a few moments.
“Why the hell did you jump off the cliff? Are you insane?” Sophie snapped, when she finally caught her breath. Sheldon looked down at the water, as if it were the first time he even realized that he was in a river.
“Well?” Still no answer. “You’ were supposed to protect me, damn it! You almost got me killed!”
Instead of replying, he looked up. He seemed to be trying to evaluate if there was any chance to climb to safety. They couldn’t see the edge because of the darkness; both their flashlights had been claimed by the river.
“I can’t tell, but it’s tall,” Sophie said, predicting his thoughts. “There doesn’t seem to be any way to climb up.”
Sheldon didn’t seem to notice that she was even talking to him. He just continued looking up as she spoke.
“I don’t know how much longer I can swim with you hanging on to me. I can’t see a damned thing. Sheldon, are you paying attention? Damn it, Sheldon!”
She felt him tell her to be quiet. She didn’t hear him speak the words, but she felt their message. She heard voices coming from above. People were speaking to each other increasingly louder. They had probably heard her and Sheldon talking and were coming to see what was going on. This could be their rescue. She wanted to ask for help but, without speaking , Sheldon was telling her not to.
She heard someone call out to them, before a flashlight illuminated them both just enough for her to see the tension on Sheldon’s face. She understood immediately that these men would not be their saviors.
A rope was thrown to them, landing exactly between their bodies. Thrown with expert precision. She hesitated briefly and the voice
said something. It sounded insistent. She looked at Sheldon for guidance but he had a blank expression. She grabbed on to the rope, there was nothing else to do. If they remained in the water, there was a good chance they would drown. If these men were indeed dangerous, then they might just shoot and kill them as they attempted to swim away. There was no choice in the matter.
She tied the rope around her midsection and then handed it over to Sheldon, who did the same. Very strong arms pulled them up, as easily as if they had been a crate of illegal merchandise. When she felt ground beneath her feet, she fell to her knees. Someone helped her up. Sheldon was next and, when he stood up, the man who had helped him pulled out a knife from a holster at his belt.
To Sophie’s horror, he pushed the blade into Sheldon’s gut. The mindguard let out a short scream and fell to the ground, using his hand to try to stave off the blood gushing from his wound. There were many men there, over a dozen. Their eyes all turned to Sophie.
Chapter 26
It is no secret that, towards the end of his life, my husband became completely disillusioned with the way his work has affected the world. His discovery of the human brain’s ability for telepathic communication and his subsequent studies in this field, had been intended as a way to bridge together minds, to create more empathy between human beings. He wanted to shape a future in which self-destruction would no longer be humanity’s greatest threat. Whitman Caine gave the world the greatest gift it has ever received: a tool for eternal peace. That is his legacy, one that can never be contested. The fact that his gift was turned into the most dangerous weapon of all, that it lay at the root of the most horrid crimes and the greatest war there ever existed, is a terrible tragedy. The responsibility for this and the shame that comes with it, belong entirely to the rest of the world.
Mindguard Page 25