Mindguard

by Andrei Cherascu

  “I am afraid of any event that will come about as a result of a decision made by a great mass of idiots! I will not bow to that decision. But, what is once discovered cannot be undiscovered, you know that as well as I do.”

  “Look at the discoveries we have made together. Look at all the technological advancements we’ve offered the world. They have made it a better place.”

  “And Opus Caine will make it a worse place.”

  “This knowledge was not meant for you only. You can’t allow yourself to be so arrogant.”

  “I’m afraid -”

  “That you have no choice?”

  “No, my friend, that is not what I was going to say. What I was going to say is: I’m afraid that choice is mine.”

  “Then, my dear friend, we must each go our separate ways, and see where life takes us.”

  ●

  “Then, I turned my back. I could no longer bear to look at him. It hurt me deeply that we could have such vastly different opinions on a matter of such vital importance, of moral importance. He was my best friend. I loved him. I was heartbroken.”

  Nikolaos stopped. Now came the part he dreaded the most. The girl had been as silent as a statue ever since he had started speaking. Her empty gaze was frightfully impenetrable.

  “I was planning to leave the planet on a different route,” Nikolaos said. “Somehow, it seemed fitting. We had a backup transporter, so I could use that and we could both go our separate ways. But I had no time. I didn’t hear him come close, I just felt his arm around my neck. He… he grabbed me in a chokehold. He was killing me!” There was no other way to express that last statement than through a scream. Finally unburdened after two long years.

  “He tried to kill me!”

  He was sobbing and screaming, convulsing, but Sophie remained calm. When he regained control, he felt disappointed. He had expected a gesture of compassion from Sophie, as he had shown her. At least an indication that she acknowledged his pain. He received none. Nevertheless, he continued:

  “I could not believe what was happening. I struggled, but his grip was strong. The more I struggled, the tighter he held. I felt myself fading away, but I would not allow it. I did not want to die like that, not by the hand of my best friend. I struggled and fought and clawed and scratched. I think I hit him in the eye because he took a step backward but did not let go. He tripped and fell and I fell over him. Because he was still holding on to my neck, he had no way of cushioning his fall. He hit his head on the ground pretty hard and I could finally break loose.

  I got up and looked at him. He was struggling to his feet and he looked at me too. What I saw in his eyes convinced me that this would not end. It would never end. He would continue to come after me until he finally killed me. I knew of the determination with which my Horatio pursued his goals, and I realized that there could no longer be room for both of us in this world. I was devastated, but I knew I had to flee.

  I dialed out and left, taking a completely new route. I knew that a man like Horatio could not be evaded for long. There would be no escaping him, at least not forever. The third planet I traveled to was Thissaia, this very planet. The name was familiar and I quickly remembered why. The island of Kalhydon is one of four Soixtet’s colonies in the IFCO. I knew I would eventually be found. My only hope was that the disease would kill me before Horatio found me. I couldn’t conceive… I couldn’t accept… death by the hand of my best friend. Somehow, I survived for two years, but the man who attacked me today, the man you… stopped… had been sent by your father to kill me.”

  “That’s not true!”

  Sophie could no longer be quiet. Nikolaos knew how much she loved her father, how she looked up to him. He was certain she knew inside that he had told the truth, but she refused to accept it.

  “You’re lying,” she shouted. The hate in the voice of this girl he loved like a daughter was almost as painful to Nikolaos as Horatio’s betrayal.

  “You’re lying, you son of a bitch!”

  She got up and looked ready to hit him, when Sheldon’s voice startled her. It startled Nikolaos as well. In the tension of the moment, both had forgotten that he was even there. The mindguard’s voice sounded impossibly old.

  “No, Sophie,” he said with great difficulty. “He is telling the truth.”

  Chapter 33

  The heart is heaven but the mind is hell

  Tom Waits

  In his bedroom, Horatio Miller was enjoying a glass of his finest wine. It felt at once like a drink of celebration and one of consolation.

  “Everything is ready, Educator,” Emilia said timidly. He hated being disturbed while drinking wine. It meant he was deeply absorbed in thought and he knew Emilia was aware of that. He nodded slightly but didn’t say anything. He hadn’t spoken much in the last few days, since all the madness had started.

  First, the Anderson brothers publicly accused him of treason. His immediate reaction in front of the media storm that ensued, was to retreat to his private quarters and refuse any contact with the press. Meanwhile, he closely followed the development of the situation.

  The enforcers had given only a single official statement, in which they specified that Horatio Miller was under investigation and was to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. The investigation proved very unpopular with the public. People were starting to believe that the enforcers set out on a personal vendetta against the educator. Then, the Enforcement Unit made another move, that was even more controversial.

  Without a presidential order, they seized the office of the Ayers-Ross Thoughtprotection Agency, shut it down, took the employees in for questioning and declared Maclaine Ross, Sheldon Ayers, Sophie Gaumont and the rest of Ross’ team suspects in a case of treason against the IFCO. During all of this, they managed to break every single protocol set in place for such situations. The people were outraged and Horatio was fascinated.

  He realized that he should be horrified. In a personal attack of unexplainable proportions, Thomas Anderson had acted completely irrationally and unpredictably. And yet, he wasn’t scared. Through his intemperate actions, Anderson managed to garner such massive criticism that Horatio now felt he had the entire world on his side. The citizens were his shield against this madman. They were his own personal army, helping him fight a war for a cause they would never be allowed to know.

  Opus Caine was a nightmare, a flaw of evolution. It could throw humanity into eternal stagnation. Only in individuality could human values truly grow. That individuality was now threatened, as were the rights of every man who, like himself, stood for the freedom of personal identity. He had even specified in his will that he refused to allow the informational content of his mind to be uploaded to the Human Knowledge Archives. Nobody knew that but his brother Marcus, who had drawn up the will, and Marcus was no longer a nuisance.

  The thought that everything he was could be stripped down to little pieces and then encoded, to be shared with a nameless mass of information was appalling. He was the master of his own mind. It was this mind that made him truly unique and he had every intention of remaining unique. Equality was slavery and Horatio Miller would be a slave to no one.

  At first, he had been terrified by the commander’s behavior. There appeared to be no logical explanation for his excessive intervention, especially since it seemed to be backfiring. He saw no reason why the commander would have acted the way he did. Unless…, he thought, Unless he also knows about Opus Caine.

  For a brief moment he panicked, then he calmed down. There was no way the Enforcement Unit could know. Only two other people in the world knew about Opus Caine: Nikolaos Apostolos and Sophie Gaumont. Sophie had just found out, and Horatio knew she was the only person in the world he could trust to keep his secret. In her blind quest for his approval, the girl would do everything he asked of her. If the mission was successful, then in a short time Sophie would no longer be a threat and neither would Opus Caine itself.

  He was sure that Nikolaos had not
told anyone, because he knew his friend better than the man knew himself. Regardless, Niko was probably already dead. Louis Larring was to contact him in roughly two hours with the result, but he had no doubt that Louis carried out his mission flawlessly. He always did.

  Meanwhile, Commander Anderson would fall into the grave he was trying to dig for Horatio. The educator felt overcome by a feeling of calm, as if he were certain that the universe was working just to please him. With that calm, came a sudden solution to his problems: he had to die.

  There was no other way. Horatio Miller could no longer exist. As long as he did, there was a risk that the discovery of Opus Caine would be revealed. The safety of his secret was more important to him than his own life, or the life of his daughter. When Sophie will have finished her mission, destroying herself and the Opus Caine in the process, the very memory of their existence will be erased from history. With Niko and Sophie gone, with Opus Caine itself eradicated, the only link to them would remain Horatio.

  Thus, he also had to die. A man with Horatio’s wealth and influence would have no trouble staging his death. It would be difficult giving up everything he had amassed throughout the years. That would be the ultimate sacrifice.

  In the end, Horatio Miller was but a name. It was a code with which he interacted with other human beings. It was not who he was. His accomplishments, his individuality, did not belong to a name, they belonged to a man. He would have to change that code, become someone else, and start anew. Build new accomplishments, make a new name for himself, one that would surpass the mighty Horatio Miller.

  He would be reborn as someone else and live to see the departed Horatio Miller become a legend, a martyr even. If everything played out perfectly, he might even manage to incriminate Commander Anderson in the process. Perhaps it would be enough to bring down the tyrant. That would be the swan song of Horatio Miller – the name. And the man once known as Horatio Miller would relish in the defeat of an enemy who once appeared undefeatable.

  With that thought, Horatio put down the empty glass and left his bedroom. He headed for a conference room in the western wing, where dozens of reporters awaited his speech like hungry wolves. Those would be the last words of the great Horatio Miller. He would tell them how the enforcers persecuted him, how he felt threatened and wronged.

  When he will have left the conference room, reporters will throw themselves on Anderson like vultures on a corpse. He will retreat to his bedroom and call Louis, the only man he could trust with a mission of such importance. He will tell Louis that the next man who needs to disappear is Horatio Miller. He will vanish from his bedroom, leaving behind only enough blood and DNA to cast suspicion on the Andersons, and he will watch the sun rise on a new planet. The dawn of a new life.

  “Everyone is growing anxious, sir,” Emilia said, when he made his appearance in the briefing room, next to the conference hall.

  “Oh, fuck them,” he replied, much to the woman’s surprise. It wasn’t in his character to use such language, but he didn’t care. It’s not like he will be seeing Emilia again after today. This could even turn into one of those sappy news stories. He could already picture Emilia interviewed by some sleazy journalist, maybe that idiot, Rone Wilson: ‘He was acting very strange right before his disappearance… he… he… used the f-word’. Horatio chuckled and Emilia stared at him like he had gone insane.

  “All right, let’s go talk to those cocksuckers,” he said, just to confuse her some more. He entered the conference room to the sight of a pile of greedy, inquisitive eyes.

  “A great mass of idiots,” he thought. He had invited only the most accomplished names in journalism to witness his premortem declaration, but even so, he had little regard for them. Horatio viewed journalists as people too inept to become writers or historians and never took them terribly seriously. Throughout his career, he had done his best to patronize them, and still he was perceived as a thoroughly polite, media friendly public figure. That served to equally amuse and annoy him.

  He wished he didn’t have to be there in person. He hated the putrid smell of crowded rooms; people with ambiguous hygiene habits simmering together. He could have sent his holographic projection, but he felt that his presence in the flesh would add a touch of drama to his speech and increase the impact of his subsequent disappearance.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, taking a moment to look around the room and make important eye contact with as many of the idiots as possible. He then nodded, as though he had reached a conclusion, perhaps that - yes - speaking to them was the right thing to do. “I’ve called you here today to address my recent seclusion, as well as the accusations formed against me by Commander Thomas Liam Anderson and the Enforcement Unit.” There was a small, predictable murmur in the room. “I would like to begin by stating that Commander Anderson and his brother have contacted me before launching this malicious campaign, in an attempt to intimidate me into -”

  Horatio found himself forced to stop his speech. There was some sort of agitation in the back. One of the reporters, a young blond man with curly hair, stood up from his chair and called out Horatio’s name. He had just enough time to see the man’s face transform into one that he knew all too well, before somebody screamed ‘He’s got a weapon!’

  Chapter 34

  I believe, the major factor that causes the slow mental progress of the human race is found at the very root of man’s existence. It starts with that first mentor in a person’s life: the parent. Historically, parents have failed to be adequately involved in the development of children. That leads to stagnation of the child’s potential. For every child whose mind develops at a lethargic rate, the intellectual advancement of the entire human race is slowed down. Children of early ages are supremely analytical creatures, yet their parents rarely invest more than a necessary minimum in the development of their highly susceptible minds. Their hungry intellects are only provided with enough nourishment so as to not starve, but not nearly enough to grow and develop at an effectual rate. The notion that humanity lives in a scientifically and morally evolved world is a mirage. Mankind is not in the 24th century. It is stuck somewhere in the 19th, at a cognitive level suited only for comprehending the social architecture of a barely industrialized world, if that. Instead, a small intellectual elite has shaped the 24th century and is carrying on its shoulders the burden of an overwhelming, ignorant majority. I believe the solution lies in a highly developed system of mentoring. Only when man assumes the role of mentor for future generations, can mankind truly evolve at the rate that evolution has intended for us.

  Sheldon Ayers, Thoughts, Reflections and Patterns

  Sheldon’s words were the spell that brought her back to the world of the sane. They were also the curse that threw her soul into the pits of hell. It was a heartbreaking revelation. She had refused to believe Niko, even though she knew that what he said made sense.

  She hated him. She hung on to the memory of the father she thought she knew, refusing to let go even as she realized that it was, in fact, a false memory. She didn’t want reason and she refused the truth. All she wanted was to be deceived just one more moment. When Sheldon spoke, that moment passed.

  As much as it devastated her, she found it easier to imagine her father as a murderer than to doubt Sheldon. He was the only person in the world she could truly trust. Though she didn’t understand why, she trusted him with all her heart. Her father, whom she loved and looked up to, was not the man she had thought he was. He was not the man anyone thought he was. The person she imagined she knew better than anyone else in the world became as mysterious to her as a name on a headstone.

  “Why?” she said to no one in particular, and no one answered. With great effort, Sheldon managed to pull himself up into a seated position, to better see Sophie and Nikolaos. He didn’t look well at all.

  “Why?” Sophie repeated. This time, the question was directed at Sheldon, as if the mindguard held all the answers.

  “It appears your father fe
els threatened by Opus Caine.”

  “I have also tried to understand Horatio’s motives,” Nikolaos said. “Perhaps he is desperate. His behavior reveals a man with a powerful phobia, in his case, the fear of losing his identity.” Nikolaos turned to Sheldon. “What is your opinion of the Opus Caine, Mr. Ayers?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sheldon answered. Sophie could tell that he meant it.

  “But then, why is my father sending me to the Opus Caine? I am supposed to make contact with them. My mission is to learn everything about them, so that I can introduce their society to the world. I’m supposed to share information about the current state of the IFCO. I have a holopad with a vast quantity of data, everything they need to know about the last two and a half centuries of our history.”

  “Perhaps he is trying to gain their trust in order to manipulate them. He could be searching for a weakness in their structure, one that would allow him to destroy them,” Nikolaos suggested. Again, Sophie looked at Sheldon in search for answers, but the mindguard said nothing. His eyes were closed. He looked like he was falling asleep, though Sophie felt his very alert presence in her mind. She didn’t know if he was still guarding her, or if he was trying to read her thoughts.

  “Why did you read my mind?” she asked him. Niko’s eyes grew wide. He looked at Sheldon with disgust. What a wonderful paradox, Sophie thought. A man who welcomes the Opus Caine as the ultimate salvation of mankind is still outraged at the thought of mind reading.

  Sheldon said nothing. He just stared at the floor. His shoulder-length hair fell over his face, covering it like a curtain covers a stage.

  “Why did you read my mind?” she repeated. “On Noriado 2, when you… when you defended us from those men. You read my mind, you found out about Opus Caine. Why did you do that? How did you do that? You were supposed to have a… that mental limitation, the Weixman Barrier. Damn it Sheldon, answer me!”