Professor Carly Caine, at the one year anniversary of the death and integration into the Human Knowledge Archives of Doctor Whitman Caine, 2065
In the face of life-threatening danger, some people have the instinctive reaction to flee, while others stand their ground and welcome the fight. The rest just freeze in place, unsure of what do to. Sophie was disappointed to discover that she belonged to the third group and not the second.
Sheldon was down, perhaps mortally wounded, but he was not dead yet. She could still feel his mind protecting hers. She looked around and saw a campfire, whose light revealed a wooden building in the distance. A small shed. The men were clearly desert dwellers, probably waiting for a shipment of black market merchandise. The one who stabbed Sheldon looked at her with piercing blue eyes and then said something in his native language. When she didn’t answer, he came over and slapped her across the face so hard, it sent her crashing to the ground. He shouted something to the other men and then pinned her down by placing his boot on her head. From that position, Sophie saw another man hurrying inside the small shack, probably to get something. She did not want to find out what that something was.
This was the end, they were both going to die. She felt it as clearly as she could feel her racing heart. “I’m sorry,” she cried out to Sheldon, as if she were the one who should have protected him. The man who rested his foot on her head studied her very carefully, his icy stare absorbing every detail of her face. She soon understood why. He was trying to read her thoughts. His mind was seeping inside hers, like sewage down a drain. It felt horrible, like being infected with a disease. She felt his thoughts, knew his horrible secrets. She started crying.
Suddenly, the man’s mind retreated, like storm clouds being cast away by the soothing sun. She was surrounded by a pleasant numbness, not unlike the feeling of waking from a deep sleep and wanting to remain in bed for just a little while longer. She felt safe. Her mind hadn’t been so calm since she had been a child. She knew that the man could no longer harm her. She wasn’t sure how, but she knew.
Then she understood: the Weixman Cube - Sheldon was protecting her. The feeling of comfort was Sheldon, the manifestation of his mind surrounding hers, guarding it from intrusion. Even as he was dying, he was keeping her safe. She felt so grateful that her thoughts would remain her own, that the horrible men could no longer lay claim to everything she had ever experienced and everyone she had ever loved.
She also realized that, while her mind may be safe, her body was not. They were still going to kill them, but the thought no longer bothered her. She welcomed it. Her only hope was that she would die before Sheldon, so that she might die protected.
As he was fighting to invade her and failing, the man’s face contorted into the most unpleasant grimace. He looked at Sheldon and yelled out an order to a member of his crew, a man who appeared very young, except for his hair, which was completely white. They must have figured out that Sheldon was the reason they couldn’t read her thoughts. The snowy-haired man pulled out a knife of his own and looked ready to strike the fallen mindguard. Instead, he took the blade to his own throat and slowly slit it, his blood gushing over Sheldon’s face. As the other men looked on in shock, the man with the hole in his throat wheezed his last words and fell to the ground dead.
There was agitation among the men. They ran around left and right, not really knowing what to do. Even the man who had slapped Sophie, who appeared to be their leader, took his boot off her face and looked at his fallen comrade, stunned. Sheldon struggled to his feet, his left hand placed over his bleeding wound, and began to stare down the man who had stabbed him.
The blue-eyed man yelled something at Sheldon and the mindguard responded in the man’s own language. Under his terrified gaze, Sheldon’s wound healed and closed up entirely. The leader of the desert dwellers started breathing heavily, as if being choked. His eyes grew wide, and Sophie could not tell if that was because he was choking, or from the shock of seeing Sheldon instantly heal from a mortal wound. She had the strange feeling of finding herself in a bizarre nightmare. Perhaps she had died in the water and this was the mythical hell many religions spoke of.
If it was indeed hell, then Sheldon was its ruler. His eyes started glowing fiery red as the blue-eyed man fell to his knees holding his throat, strangled by an unseen hand. His eyes started bulging out and his skin turned purple. Every vein on his head and his hands was visible, creating a sinister map of his blood circulation. Sophie had no idea what was happening to him, but it seemed to come from the satanic creature that had possessed Sheldon Ayers. She screamed when blood started gushing out of the man’s ears, eyes and nose. When he finally succumbed to death, Sheldon grinned. His teeth were not those of a man, but of a beast - as sharp as the knife that had only minutes ago been thrust through his abdomen.
Sophie backed away screaming. Yet, even in her sheer terror, she could still feel a remnant of that pleasant numbness in her mind. Sheldon turned his glowing eyes to the other men and they each had different reactions: some fell to their knees yelling something - most likely prayers - in their native language, others tried to come at Sheldon with knives and torches. One of them, however, turned around and started attacking his colleagues instead, stabbing them over and over again. All the while, he looked like he could not believe what he was doing. Sophie was sure that Sheldon was actually doing it for him. After killing his friend, the man turned the knife on himself. The other men cursed and yelled as best they could but Sheldon remained characteristically emotionless.
Then he did something completely out of character: he produced a pair of enormous, leathery, bat-like wings that ripped straight through the black jacket of his uniform. His skin turned into something that looked like tree bark. He tilted his head back and produced a thundering roar that had nature herself trembling. The remaining men started choking and quickly succumbed in the same way as their blue-eyed leader.
Sophie was certain that she was going insane. She placed her hands over her eyes and waited out her fate. She waited for a very long time, until she realized that there was silence. She opened her eyes and it was like waking from a dream. She felt different, like a veil had been lifted from in front of her.
The campfire lit up a gruesome scene: dead bodies everywhere, covered in so much blood. Sheldon was on the ground again, holding his bleeding wound. Gone was the winged creature. In its place was the very human, very dying Sheldon. In an instant, Sophie realized what had happened.
He broke the Weixman Barrier!
“You… you were in my head…” she whispered slowly.
Sheldon tried to stand. The second he did, he lost his balance and fell on his back. He was ghostly pale. Sophie felt the Weixman Cube weakening, until she could feel it no more. Sheldon was dying.
“No,” she screamed and ran to him. She put his head in her lap and brushed away a few strands of hair from his face. He was still awake, but quickly fading. Sophie felt helpless; the feeling was overwhelming.
“Don’t… don’t leave me alone… Sheldon please…”
“Sophie…” His voice was faint.
“Sheldon, don’t die, please! Sheldon…please…”
“Sophie,” he repeated and looked into her eyes. His gaze was not one of goodbye, but accusation.
“I know about the mission. I know about Opus Caine.”
Chapter 27
Some of history’s greatest disasters were caused by human error. Indeed, to err is human. So why entrust your most valued possession to faulty flesh and blood? Kento Corporations presents the new Model Y Nanoguards, the fastest and most secure artificial mindguards in the world.
Do not err – choose Kento!
Commercial for the Model Y artificial mindguards by Kento Corporations. First aired in 2324AD
Sophie was outraged. He had read her mind. He knew about Opus Caine. Not only was this a breach of contract, but from everything that Sophie had learned, it was impossible for mindguards to read someone’s tho
ughts or take control of another person’s mind. It was a capital crime, punishable by death.
He had projected terrible hallucinations inside their heads. He had driven the desert dwellers to madness and her to despair. The Weixman Barrier was a mental limitation that no mindguard should be able to cross… and yet, he had crossed it. How?
She felt betrayed. She hated him for what he had done. In a way, she hated him even more than the dangerous men who had almost killed them. But she did owe him her life.
“You’re dying,” she said coldly.
“I’m not,” he answered, though he already looked like a corpse.
“What do you mean you’re not?”
“Not right now. The wound is painful, but it is not as bad as it appears. I may have up to a few hours until I die of blood loss.” His way of speaking was odd. It was as if he weren’t talking about himself, but someone else, someone he did not particularly like.
“How the hell do you know that?” she yelled. She didn’t know why, but Sheldon’s lack of concern for his situation made her incredibly angry.
“I study medicine.”
“Of course you do,” she replied sarcastically.
“What do you mean?” He had a tone of genuine curiosity.
“Nothing! So, what difference does it make? You’re still dying, we’re both dead! The mission is over.”
“Not yet!”
“How much do you know about Opus Caine?
Sheldon tried to switch his position, but he couldn’t. He was clearly in a lot of pain. “We’ll talk about that later, we need to leave. The transporter is in my backpack. Hand it to me, please.”
“We’re nowhere near a cave,” she shouted. “I thought the whole point of this deadly hiking trip was to get to a cave so we can dial out without the enforcers tracking down our destination!”
“We’re not going to Ganthic anymore.”
“Where the hell are we going then?”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds and Sophie thought he had fallen asleep… or worse.
“Sheldon, don’t sleep!”
“I’m not sleeping,” he said calmly, but with a weak voice. “I’ve memorized the stellar map. I’m trying to think of an alternate route. We got a planet close by called Thorka. We’ll go there, then we’ll quickly dial out. The planet’s atmosphere is toxic to us, we can’t be exposed to it for longer than a few minutes. From there we can head to Thissaia, a federation planet right on the desert border. We’ll try to find a doctor there. Hopefully the enforcers won’t be able to track us further than Thorka… for the moment.”
“Can you even walk?”
“That will be difficult.”
“Why are we going to the toxic planet? Isn’t there another place from where we can get to Thissaia?”
“Thorka is a giant desert. Travel via portable gateway generator is very risky when you don’t have the exact coordinates. This way, we’ll know that at least we’ll rematerialize on land. Thissaia, on the other hand, will be a big risk, but we have no choice.” He punctuated his statement with a fit of coughing that caused him so much pain he almost passed out. Sophie got the backpack and retrieved the device. She activated it and its screen produced a spectral, ill-boding glow. As the fire had almost completely gone out, the small device was now their only source of light. She handed it to Sheldon.
“Do your thing and get us out of here! Meanwhile, I’ll check out that shed and see if I can find something for your wound.”
“I doubt you will, but go ahead.”
Sophie gently placed his head on the backpack and hurried to the wooden building, trying to ignore the fact that she was stepping over dead bodies as she did. The main reason she wanted to get away from Sheldon was that she couldn’t stand seeing him like that: bleeding, dying.
Just as she was about to enter, she had a quick moment of panic. What if there was still one of them in there? What if Sheldon hadn’t killed them all? She calmed down when she realized that Sheldon’s mind would have sensed anyone else, just like he did when they were in the river. She opened the squeaky door, but couldn’t see much in the darkness of the small room. An ancient gas lamp was conveniently placed on a shelf right by the door, for easy access. She recognized the object from a holomuseum and was thankful for that primitive piece of technology. She picked it up and lit it with the gas lighter she found next to it. The faint light was almost beautiful, as it cast its orange hue over the contents of the small room. There were crates full of weapons, old weapons, some with blades and most with bullets. Sophie wondered why the desert dwellers had attacked them with knives and not guns.
They underestimated us, she figured. They looked at us and saw no reason to worry. Ammunition for these old guns is probably scarce, so they use them sparingly. They thought they wouldn’t need them to subdue a single man and a woman. If Maclaine Ross had been here, they’d have probably come at us with cannons and tanks. By the time they realized who they were dealing with, it was already too late, Sheldon had trapped them all in the maze of his mind.
She studied one of the antique weapons, placing her delicate hands on the crude object. In a way, it was almost beautiful. Modern weapons that fired energy blasts felt too cold and clean, like surgical instruments. Compared to them, these old guns that fired bullets almost seemed to possess the burning passion of intention. How deadly it was, how easily it could have killed them. But it didn’t. Perhaps we weren’t yet meant to die, she thought. Perhaps the unseen hand of destiny is guiding us. Maybe the gods of human evolution are watching over us as we help bring forth the age of Opus Caine, so that there may forever be peace.
She decided to take the shotgun with her, though she wasn’t sure what she actually planned to do with it. Still, the thought that it was one of the weapons that could have killed them - but didn’t - made her feel like it was some sort of good luck charm. When she picked it up, it didn’t feel as heavy as she had expected. For some reason, that made her happy.
She searched the shed and found some water bottles, which she didn’t take, because they still had some of their own in the backpack. She also found a slab of some sort of smoked animal fat and used one of the knives to cut off a chunk and take it with her for nourishment. From the moment she had laid eyes on it, disgusting as it looked, she realized how hungry she felt. Sheldon must also be starved. She discovered some rags that she could use as bandages and some sort of hard liquor that would have to serve as disinfectant.
When she walked out, Sheldon was lying motionless. She desperately called out his name and hurried to him, forgetting all about the gods of human evolution that were supposedly protecting her mission. He didn’t answer. With tears streaming down her face, she kneeled next to him and gently stroked his cheek. When he opened his eyes, she let out a big sigh of relief. He looked at the shotgun in her hands and seemed neither surprised nor worried.
“I placed in the coordinates for Thorka,” he said. “We can leave.” It was obvious that he was making a great effort to speak.
Sophie put down the shotgun and took the portable gateway generator. She had received a short preparatory course in operating it, so she knew the basics. First, you had to enter the exact space-time coordinates of the destination, so the device would know where to materialize the wormhole. It was much safer in the vastness of space, but that was not the case with a portable device, which only allowed one person to pass through at a time. The second set of coordinates told the device where to generate the gateway on the planet of departure, in relation to the travelers. Everything had already been introduced by Sheldon, before he had passed out. All she had to do was type the confirmation code. She looked at the mindguard one more time and he glanced back at her calmly - too calmly - which terrified her. She had to hurry.
“Off to the poisoned planet,” she told herself wryly and entered the code. The Muench-Henriksen space-time gateway emerged. Sophie struggled to help Sheldon to his feet, as he leaned on her with all his weight. With her mind�
�s guardian leaving his body in her protection, she stumbled through the portal.
●
Alex Lea had no way of knowing what was going on in the world. Ever since the enforcers had shut down Ayers-Ross and taken Kriss White into custody, Alex had decided to lay low. He too had been interrogated, like everyone else who worked at the company, but he had been released after only a couple of hours. It seemed that they didn’t have a great deal of interest in him, probably because he was still a newcomer. He didn’t know what had triggered this extreme investigation, but a gut feeling told him it had everything to do with Sophie Gaumont’s mission.
Since he was currently unemployed anyway, he quickly left Anderra and moved to the nearby Tagatha 3, a small planet with a very mild temperature, beautiful beaches and a great number of tourists. Though he knew he had no reason to hide, he felt the need to disappear for a while. Blending in among the tourists made him feel safer.
Of course, it was all an illusion. As long as he had neuroinsertions and was connected to the holocloud, he could easily be tracked down by the enforcers. Only prototechs could actually benefit from isolation. That made him think of Sophie, who was one as well. How odd. Normally, the only people who were prototechs were criminals who wanted to be harder to locate and people with a strange philosophy about the human biology. Weirdoes, people like Sheldon Ayers. But Sophie didn’t seem like a weirdo at all.
Alex discovered that he missed the vigorous and intrepid young woman. He often thought of her, wondering if she was safe. If the enforcers had shut down Ayers-Ross and imprisoned White, then surely an arrest warrant had been placed for Maclaine Ross and his team. Only a few days had passed since the shutdown of Ross’ company but ever since then, Alex avoided using the holocloud.
He had the foolish fear that, the moment he used it, the enforcers would appear, out of nowhere, and really make him disappear. He knew it was stupid, but he was scared. That’s why, since coming to Tagatha 3, all he did was lay low in his rented overwater bungalow on the lovely Samaro Sea and take occasional walks through the Mayu beach resort.
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