Mindguard

by Andrei Cherascu

  “The whole history of the Opus Caine revealed itself to us with endless generosity and complete trust. They had chosen us to deliver their message to mankind, the message of unity. No suffering, no death, just life and love… forever. This is a message that had been announced to the world once before, a long time ago. They wanted us to tell the world. They feared that, if they tried to make first contact with mankind in their current form, it would be traumatic and intrusive. Even as they made contact with us, they could have immediately integrated our minds into their own, but they chose to reveal themselves gradually, like a flower opening its petals to the sun. For all they had become, the Opus Caine cherished free will.

  It was free will that had resulted in their existence. They wanted mankind to freely choose to open up to them. They wanted to gain our trust. When their story was finished, it felt like years had passed for us. In reality, it had been merely minutes. They asked us to tell their story to their brothers. It was time. The Opus Caine were numbering thousands and yet they had achieved so much in so little time. The course of their evolution over the past two and a half centuries had followed an exponential trajectory. For all they had achieved - with thousands of minds working as one - there was one thing that had eluded them. That was their ultimate goal.

  “Time,” Sophie said, her words hanging in the air for what felt like an eternity.

  “Yes, Sophie, time. The extraordinary evolution of the Opus Caine was still one-directional, spreading out only into the future. If they could gain control of time and bring their evolution in the direction of the past, the Opus Caine felt that man would finally reach the pinnacle of his destiny: unification. Not only unification of man with man, or man with space, but also the unification of man with time. If man and time become one, if they become inseparable, the Opus Caine believe that mankind will have fulfilled the destiny it had created for itself since before existence. Do you understand? To control time means to come full circle, it means to be united with yourself, with the universe… with God. Create the universe that created you, give birth to the God that birthed you…” Niko’s voice was trembling. He could finally share this incredible burden with someone.

  “The Opus Caine believed, that if their evolution had been so rapidly accelerated by the collective force of a few thousand minds, then a supermind formed from nearly fifty billion brains, could eventually transcend the barrier of time. They offered the very core of their being to us, hoping only that we would accept to reunite with them - our brothers - as one. I… I was crying then as I am now… I was so grateful that I, of all people, had been chosen to bring this wonderful message to the world. It is ironical that such vainglorious thoughts should come to mind at that moment, but such is the nature of man. That is not the nature of Opus Caine.

  Nevertheless, at that moment, I knew a joy that I had never known before. But I also felt sad. The Opus Caine were asking us to return to our kind and spread their message, but all I wanted to do was stay. I wanted to become one of them. Again, selfishness prevailed, for I wanted peace for myself instead of being the herald of peace for my brothers. But I prayed to God for strength and I overcame this selfishness. I turned to look at your father and what I saw in his eyes was so different from the joy I felt I my heart.”

  Sophie felt it: now came the part of the story that would change her life. She dreaded hearing it, even though she did not know what exactly what it was that she feared. Nikolaos looked at her for a few seconds and nodded understandingly.

  “Sophie, I feel that what I am going to tell you now is different from what you believe to be true. Please, tell me what you have been told.”

  “No, I want to hear -”

  “Sophie, please. You are like a daughter to me. Believe me, I have nothing but your well-being in mind. Please tell me what your father has told you.”

  Sophie was shaking and breathing heavily. She tried to speak but she couldn’t bring herself to say a word. She felt that once she would start talking, she would trigger a chain of events that promised nothing but pain.

  “Sophie, please…”

  Sophie tried to imagine that it wasn’t her speaking the words, but someone else. Perhaps Sheldon. Yes, Sheldon was speaking, not her. It helped.

  “I… he said… my father told me… everything that happened. He said the same thing you did. Everything was identical with what you just said.” A voice in her head whispered ‘Until now!’

  “Go on, please Sophie!”

  The girl rocked back and forth in her chair. The very fact that she was now telling this story to Niko meant that her father could not possibly have told the truth. Niko allowed her a few moments to compose herself.

  ●

  “You arrived back on Carthan but the personal transporter left you on a mountainous area.”

  Niko nodded. Now he could now see where this was heading. For two years, he had wondered what Horatio Miller told the world about his disappearance. Now, he was almost disappointed that his long-time friend had chosen such an unimaginative story.

  “It was very cold and you had landed in the middle of a snowstorm. The terrain was risky and visibility was poor, so you decided to stop and wait for it to pass. You were both so excited he… you… you kept talking about the future of mankind. When the snowstorm passed and the weather cleared up, you were so excited to return home and you… he said…”

  She choked up as the story advanced. Her words became almost unintelligible.

  “…you were so excited you got… you got overconfident… you were still talking, but you weren’t paying enough attention to your surroundings and you… you… he said…”

  Nikolaos put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and she completely broke down. She hugged him as tightly as she possibly could, this man who had been as much a father to her as Horatio Miller. She hugged him until they both could barely breathe. Still caught in his embrace, Sophie spoke that which had been unspeakable: “He said you fell down a crevice… he said you fell…”

  It was a few minutes before Sophie stopped sobbing. Nikolaos held her tightly throughout.

  Though she was visibly exhausted, the girl wanted to continue the story. She wanted to face her fears. Nikolaos loved and admired her more now than he ever had. He also felt sorry, so sorry, for being forced to cause her heartbreak. She let go of him first, took a deep breath and continued speaking. Her voice was a lot calmer, she had no energy left for emotion.

  “He said you fell so far down that he could barely see you. He said he struggled to get you out but couldn’t, that he continued speaking to you for the next forty-six hours, just so that you’d answer and he’d know you’re still alive, even though it became clear you wouldn’t survive. He said at one point you must have either tried to move or you might have lost consciousness because you slipped and fell farther down, farther than he could see. He spent the next six hours calling out to you but he got no answer. In the end, fearing for his own life, fearing he himself may never live to tell the world about Opus Caine, he went on.”

  “So why didn’t he tell the world about them?” Nikolaos asked, in the way of someone who already knew the answer.

  “He said they wouldn’t understand.” Nikolaos clenched his fists but Sophie couldn’t see.

  “He said we had to go back, gain knowledge and evidence first. He wanted me to go because… because his absence so shortly after your… death, might arouse suspicion. He told me to gather as much information as I could about the Opus Caine and come back with proof. He told me we had to do it… for you!”

  Now Sophie was shouting and, though she was shouting at him, Nikolaos knew that the anger was directed at her father. “He said we… we can’t let your death be for nothing.”

  “Sophie,” Nikolaos said, ”I know how incredibly hard this must be for you. It hurts me so much to upset you, I wish -”

  “It’s not true.” Her words carried the weight of a sentence. Nikolaos didn’t know how to reply.

  “You’re goin
g to tell me it’s not true, aren’t you?”

  “Sophie, I’m so sorry…”

  “You’re going to tell me that everything my father said was a lie.”

  Chapter 32

  Holy Brother Torje, our departed Protector, our healer and most valued friend, bless this day and help us carry on forward, so that we may live on and praise you and the God to whom you have dedicated your life’s work. Please mend our suffering from the world beyond, as you have done on Kalhydon , be with us and guide us through the darkness of sorrow and suffering, towards the deliverance of love and the absence of pain. So may our prayer be heard!

  Prayer to Holy Brother Torje, patron saint of Kalhydon and Suffering, originated five years after Brother Torje’s death, on the occasion of his sanctification. Brother Torje is not recognized as a saint by any Christian denomination other than the Christians of Kalhydon

  Nikolaos had been quiet for an uncomfortably long time. He didn’t know how to begin. Sophie was just silently staring at him. She sat on the floor next to Sheldon’s bed, as though the unconscious mindguard were a watchdog, guarding her from a dangerous intruder. Nikolaos imagined how she must be feeling: angry, confused. He kept searching for a right way to phrase what he was about to say, but he found none. He decided to speak from the heart.

  “Sophie, please believe that I am telling the truth. I know why your father said what he said, and though I do not understand his intentions, I am certain that I understand his reasons.”

  No reply from the girl. Nikolaos sighed and looked away. He found it easier to tell the story if he wasn’t looking at a face whose expression he could no longer decipher.

  “I told you what I saw in your father’s eyes. It was not the joy that I was feeling in my heart. You have to keep in mind that we had stopped right at village entrance, as if hypnotized. We had never even set foot in it. It might as well have been a mirage.

  Communication was established directly in our minds, we had neither seen nor met a single member of Opus Caine. We don’t know what they look like. Everything was planted in our heads and we had no way of knowing if… it was even true. As a scientist, I know that you should disregard all feelings, but Sophie, I felt it.

  I felt that the Opus Caine spoke the truth. I saw it as a revelation. But your father… he was a better scientist than I. At first, I didn’t understand. I said nothing and we both headed back to the meadow where we had initially stepped out of the gateway. Your father was unusually quiet. We traveled back to Carthan. The weather was… the same as before. The very second we set foot on Carthan, your father stopped me and said he wanted to talk.”

  ●

  “Niko, hold on!”

  Nikolaos had felt from the beginning that there was something wrong with his friend. Why wasn’t he ecstatic? Today was the most important day in the history of mankind. It was the day that announced the end of suffering and greed, the beginning of a love that knows not the boundaries of flesh.

  “Horatio, what is it?” It was as much a question as it was criticism.

  “We need to think exactly how we’re going to proceed.”

  “What do you mean?” Nikolaos felt confused but his friend radiated a frightening determination and clarity of mind.

  “We will go back home,” Nikolaos said, “ and we will announce the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of a better one.”

  “A better one?” Horatio hissed. Nikolaos was familiar with that tone. Horatio always used it to ridicule anyone he felt was making a laughable statement.

  “Do you even doubt it?” Nikolaos asked. He was trying to tread carefully, for he always feared angering his friend. There was a dormant fury inside Horatio, like a volcano that could erupt at any time. Though he had never seen him angry, Nikolaos feared his rage in the way man can fear only the unknown.

  “It seems to me that you’re a bit confused, perhaps intoxicated,” Horatio said. “It would be understandable after what these… creatures… have done to us, but we need to carefully plan out what to do next. I can’t allow your credulous beliefs to sway your judgment now, not in the face of this important matter.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What these men have become is an abomination.”

  “Abomination?”

  Nikolaos couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Opus Caine were the culmination God’s work. Even if Horatio did not believe in God, how could he not view them as the culmination of human evolution? For the first time in his life, he felt like his closest friend was actually a complete stranger to him.

  “Niko, open your eyes! Try to regain your strayed reason. This creature that calls itself Opus Caine is a threat to mankind.

  “A threat?”

  Horatio was visibly starting to lose patience with the way Nikolaos just repeated his statements.

  “Yes, damn it,” he yelled. “This thing… is the offspring… the creation… of the seven hundred ninety-two traitor telepaths! They are - legally and morally - enemies of mankind!”

  “Enemies? Horatio did you not see, did you not feel?”

  “Feel?” Horatio spat out the world like the crudest obscenity. “What exactly was it that we have seen, Niko? For all we know, we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes. We haven’t seen anything but what may very well have been an elaborate holoprojection. The Opus Caine might be setting out to destroy everything we stand for, and using us to do it.”

  “Why? Why would they want that?”

  “Why did they flee in the first place?”

  “They fled so that they can become what they are now. They fled because Old Earth would not allow them to evolve. Mankind was refusing its own salvation.”

  “And what does this ‘salvation’ consist of?”

  “Harvesting the power of the mind without the boundaries of the body, becoming one with -”

  “What, God?”

  “No, this is beyond becoming one with God. The Opus Caine want to become one with themselves.”

  “That is such a load of shit, Niko!”

  “Humanity -”

  “Humanity? That multi-brained beast that tried to cast a spell on us is not human. It has become something else, something we were never meant to be.”

  “It is us, Horatio. It is us in our most evolved state.”

  “No!”

  “Opus Caine gives us -”

  “No, Niko! It gives us nothing! It takes from us! It takes away our individuality, our solitude… it takes away our achievements.”

  “Is this about your own ego?”

  “This is about everything I have worked for all my life. Everything I have ever struggled to achieve, everything I’ve sweat, bled and cried for, while others have just sat merrily by doing nothing. This is about what I’ve given the world, while others have given it nothing! I have fought for who I am, I have worked for everything I have and others simply have not. I am not willing to share and neither should you!”

  “It’s more than sharing your… your individual accomplishments, Horatio. You share love. You share a common goal, a common interest. This will be the end of suffering for everyone.”

  “Well, perhaps not everyone deserves an end to their suffering.”

  “My God, Horatio, how can you not see -”

  “You are the one who cannot see, Niko! If every man were absorbed by Opus Caine… then those who have given the most will have the most taken from them, and those who have offered nothing will have everything granted to them!”

  “You can’t think like that. Please, try to look beyond yourself!”

  “I am who I am because of the choices I have made in life, because of how I chose to accept certain beliefs and reject others. Life is a game of choice, not a parade of equality. Without choice and without struggle, everything you do becomes meaningless. Perfection becomes trivial. I would choose dynamic chaos over static order, a thousand times.”

  “Have you never felt pain? Have you not known despair?”


  “I have felt more pain and known more despair in my life than I will ever allow you to see. That’s because they’re mine! My pain! My despair! Not the world’s, mine! You always claim to be a charitable man. When you pass a beggar, you stop and offer him bread to eat. But do you open your home to all beggars everywhere? To come and live with you, share your meals and partake in everything you have? Do you do that, Niko? No, you do not! You do not open your house to all vagrants of the world and say ‘come live with me, my home is your home’. You do not set the table and say ‘share my every meal with me!’ No, charity must come with moderation. If you open your doors and share your life with all tramps of the world, then you become one of them. Charity, my friend, is a very fragile system. And make no mistake, this is what the Opus Caine want from us… charity! They offer nothing, they want only to receive. They have become something that is static, unmoving, consumed by its own repetitive existence. Boredom, Niko, the ultimate downfall of the all-powerful. Boredom. They want us, the tens of billions of us, merely for one more second of entertainment. Because of what they are, they are tortured by everything they have. An eternity of everything means an eternity of nothing.”

  “Better still than an eternity of pain.”

  “Here is where we disagree, my friend.”

  “We will let mankind decide for itself then, when we bring them the message.”

  Horatio’s voice became a secretive whisper. “We can’t do that. Mankind can never know about this. The history of our species is burdened with foolish decisions and costly mistakes. More often than not, the masses are a catalyst for catastrophic events.”

  “You are afraid mankind will disagree with you, that they will embrace the Opus Caine.”