Mindguard (11 page)

She confidently
continued: “While your agency in itself is reputable, and certainly deserving
of the highest praise, the reason my father chose Ayers-Ross was specifically
to acquire the services of Sheldon Ayers.”

Sheldon suddenly
looked very tired, like the entire weight of the world had been placed on his
shoulders and he wanted none of it. He felt worn out, perhaps consumed by this
profession, by the folklore created around him. Alex found that very troubling.
 

“All right,”
Sheldon hesitantly agreed. “But you are exposing yourself to more risk this
way.”

“I have every
confidence in your ability… Mr. Ayers.” Again, the way she pronounced his last
name seemed meaningful. This time, it sounded like a military rank or a title
of royalty. Alex could not help but wonder: if Sheldon’s grandfather were still
alive and an active mindguard, would Horatio Miller have insisted so hard on
getting the services of ‘the great Sheldon Ayers’, or would he have gone
directly to Kinsey.

“All right, so
now we finally got this out of the way and we know the individual roles of each
team member.” White’s raspy voice set things back on track. “Now we have to
talk about the route.”

The tension
vanished and the bodyguards and mindguards returned their attention to the old
man’s presentation.

“The route is
going to be extremely dangerous. As I mentioned before, once you get to Lusia,
it’s no more fun and games. First, you will need to board a ship that will take
you near Korall, a planet right on the edge of the Djago Desert. It can’t be a
normal passenger ship, for obvious safety reasons, so we have to arrange for a
smaller cargo vessel. For the right amount of money, our contacts on Lusia will
lend us one, though they are usually wary of this for various reasons. You
obviously won’t be allowed to take the ship through the gateway towards the
Djago Desert, so you have to get off on Korall, which is not as dangerous as a
desert planet but also not a pleasant tourist destination, if you get my drift.
From there, you need to acquire means of transportation to Djago, which means
dealing with the locals and that’s always risky. But there’s no other way. You
need a vessel for Djago since there’s no way in hell you’ll ever find a
personal transporter in that region of space.”

“Hold on a
second,” said Ray Manner, a dark haired, brown skinned man, whose arms were
completely covered in tattoos. “Can’t you talk to your dad t‘get us one of his
company’s carriers? Milagro, was it?”

White looked at
him like he was the village idiot. “No, he can’t and that’s a stupid question,”
he said. Then, to Sophie: “I guess now you get my comment about the ‘dumb
elements.’”         

Manner puffed
and shook his head before White addressed him with the tone you would use on
someone who asked the same question four times. “The mission is classified,
smart guy - you don’t want the freakin’ company’s logo on the ship. And it’s
Mylonas not Milagro. Plus, you send a Mylonas craft in the Djago Desert, it
will survive about as long as a kitten in a dog pound. You might as well have a
bull’s-eye on it for desert dwellers.”

“Desert
dwellers?’’ Sophie asked.

“The natives,
that’s what people call’em. They’re all a bunch of no-good inbreds and they’re
dangerous. Anyway, we’ll have to scrounge for a ship on Korall. Now, once
you’re in the desert region you have to cross four planets in order to get to
your destination.” The old man turned to a glowing blue dot on the holomap.
With a gesture of the hand he made the image zoom in on a planet that managed
to somehow look menacing, even on the map. “Carthan,” he announced. Sophie
smiled and nodded as if she were saying “Correct.”

The old man took
a deep breath, let his head down and looked at her as if he were trying to see
over a pair of sunglasses. “I know that’s your final destination and it’s
company policy not to ask and it ain‘t even none of my damn business… but the
contract specifically states that we
drop you off
there.”

“Correct,” she
said, this time out loud. Alex was confused; he didn’t know the details of the
contract. They were only available to Ross, Kriss White and the active members
of the mission. This short young woman, with her ponytail, her big eyes and her
funny smile, wanted to be dropped off alone on a planet in the Djago Desert.
And then what?

“And then what?”
White said, echoing the young mindguard’s thoughts. The woman said nothing and
the old man finally understood that he would not be receiving an explanation.

“That’s crazy,”
Alex said. Everyone in the room turned to look at him at the same time, as if
they had forgotten he was even there. Sophie smiled affectionately. She seemed
to appreciate his concern, but she still remained silent. The others also said
nothing, which made Alex feel slightly embarrassed.

“All right,” the
old man continued. “You drop off the nice lady and then get your asses out of
there as fast as possible. And try not to attract anyone’s attention. Francois,
that means no shacking up with the locals!” Everyone laughed, except for
Sheldon, and for Alex, who was still worried about the young woman’s safety. He
looked at her again; how fragile she seemed.

“So you don’t,
uh, you don’t want us to pick you up at a later date or something?” he asked.

“No, the
contract is for a one-way journey only.”

●

Sophie was
touched by the young mindguard’s concern for her safety. He seemed more human,
more vulnerable than the others. She secretly wished he could accompany her
instead of the polite but distant Isabel Mensah. She measured him with her gaze.
Clean-shaven, athletic, with a boy-next-door look; he seemed out-of-place in
this group. The others were either muscle-bound, tough-looking brutes like
Ross, Ray Manner and Luther Brinks or distant, withdrawn, hyper-intellectuals
like Sheldon and Isabel.

Alex was not
like that. He seemed emotional, almost shy at times, in complete contrast with
the other two mindguards. She discovered that she was very fond of him. She
wondered how he would fare in bed. His careful, protective nature predicted
only good things. The sudden thought of sex drew her attention back to Sheldon.
As if through some sort of magical magnetism, her gaze was pulled towards the
man and she couldn’t fight it. The famous mindguard was looking directly at
her, which startled her a bit. She suddenly felt very awkward.

“How do you use
telepathy to protect the information?” she asked White, without taking her eyes
off Sheldon. “How does it work?”

“They don’t use
telepathy, not directly,” the old man answered. ”I mean, obviously mindguards have
to be powerful telepaths in order to do what they do but their method is
completely non-invasive. You don’t have to be worried about that.”

“I’m not,” she
said, somewhat hesitantly.

“I’m sure you’re
familiar with the legal repercussions for using telepathy,” White said, hoping
to put her mind at ease.

“Of course.”

“Well, for
mindguards the punishment is more severe.” He waited for a few seconds. “That
means
death
, the punishment is death.”

“Without the
possibility of ever having your memories uploaded into the Human Knowledge
Archives,” Ross added.

“I’m not worried
about that, I’m just curious about how it works,” Sophie said, managing to
finally ply her eyes off Sheldon. Ross took on a very didactic tone that did
not fit him at all. “Well, technically it is a singular, intricately developed
form of telepathy. You see, telepathy in itself is intrusive. When the
mindguards work, they
do
access the carrier’s mind, in order to build a
defense mechanism around it. However, they do it from a distance, so to speak,
without exposing any of the carrier’s thoughts. They interact with the
carrier’s mind without ever accessing the thoughts, if that makes any sense.
Basically, mindguards use their own minds as protective shields between the
carrier’s thoughts and the aggressor’s.”

“Thank you for
explaining that,” Sophie said. “I’m just curious about one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I’ve
heard rumors that mindguards possess the ability to plant thoughts into
somebody’s head, like dreams or hallucinations. Supposedly, the victim can then
no longer discern reality from the mindguard’s projection. I know regular
telepaths can’t do this, but what about mindguards? Can
you
do it, for
example?” she said, turning to Sheldon. The mindguard said nothing.

Ross answered
for him: “Yes and no, it’s very complicated. As you can imagine, becoming a
mindguard takes intense training. This profession requires a more complex study
than any other in the world. During this training period certain
particularities of the mindguard’s brain are nurtured. Not everyone can be a
mindguard, only people with a unique type of development in a number of key
areas of the brain. Those are unofficially called Weixman’s Areas. As a result
of their extensive training, mindguards’ brains naturally develop the ability
to project synthetic thoughts into other people’s minds. This is dangerous and
highly prohibited. When the first guarding techniques were developed, leading
to the appearance of the first mindguards, the government allowed this
profession to exist only on the condition that this ability would never be
used.”

“So no one ever
used it?”

“No. Years of
training are dedicated to subduing this ability, until the brain learns to
naturally suppress it. From then on, it’s practically impossible. Blocking it
off becomes a natural reflex. It’s like trying to let yourself fall
face-forward. At the last second, your arms will always attempt to break the
fall.”     

“Hell, if only
it were so easy to fight off those scumbag desert dwellers we’d have Sheldon
here make’em all cluck like chickens and be done with it,” White said, drawing
a round of laughter. Sheldon found no humor in the remark.

“I understand.
Thank you for clearing things up.”

“All right,” the
old man said. “Now, one more thing and then we can wrap this up. You will be
spending a total of two nights on two of the four desert planets. It will
probably be Noriado 2 and La Khez. On Noriado 2 crime rates are high but there
is certain political stability. Translation: you can mingle with the locals. In
fact, it’s wiser to advertise that you are a thoughtprotection team, it’s more
likely to keep you out of trouble and keep the assholes at bay. It’s not the
same with La Khez. On that planet, you need to stay away from the locals, wear
camouflage gear – even you Isabel – and camp out. Unfortunately you have no
choice but to spend the night there, but I want you out of that shithole as
quickly as possible.”

“Understood,
thank you, Mr. White. Barring any other question, the meeting is over,” Ross
announced.

Sheldon was the
first to leave the room and Sophie quickly followed. She caught up with him at
the end of the hallway that separated the briefing room from the main office.
She put her hand on his shoulder. Since the mindguard always seemed lost in
thought, she half expected him to startle, but he didn’t.

“Mr Ayers -”

“Sheldon,
please.”

“Sheldon -” She
was searching for her words. She didn’t want to alienate him more than she
already had. “I’m sorry if I came across as rude, or if I came on too strong.
The truth is that, yes, my father and I have a deep respect for your reputation
-”

“Reputation?” he
asked, as if it were the first time he had come across that word. 

“We know that
you are the absolute best, no matter what anybody says. Before choosing to work
with you and, implicitly, with Ayers-Ross, we did an extensive research on the
history and the records of many agencies. We didn’t just choose you on a whim.
It took four months for us to decide we want to collaborate with you.”

“Ok.”

“We also
considered Jack Nemeth and Kendall Webber.”

“Yes, both are
very good.”

“Ok, yes, but we
knew it had to be
you
. This information package, as I’ve mentioned
before, is
extremely
valuable to us.”

“Yes, and all
mankind, I remember.”

Sophie couldn’t
tell if he was making fun of her. She chose to continue speaking, regardless.
“It had to be you. We admire your work and we feel like we can trust you.”

Sheldon’s
expression remained exactly the same, as though he were a holographic image
that someone had paused.

“That’s why I
was so… that’s why I
am
so insistent, you understand?”

“Well, you got
your request. I will be the primary guardian of the information package.”

He said that
with complete indifference, as if she had not spent the last few minutes
complimenting him. She searched for something else to say but found nothing.
This Sheldon was truly a difficult character. Merely speaking with him was very
tiring, as if he had the ability to drain her energy with nothing more than his
quiet apathy. However, in a strange way, she enjoyed being in his presence. She
had an unusual attraction to him, not necessarily physical, but rather
intellectual. She felt like they were somehow connected on an almost spiritual
level. “Soulmates?” she wondered and immediately felt ridiculous.

●

With nothing
left to say, Sheldon excused himself and retreated to his private office. It
was an almost exact replica of the one at home. He felt exhausted, like the whole
meeting and especially the conversation with the young woman had completely
drained him of his energy. He had a bad feeling about the entire mission but
Sheldon was not the man to believe in feelings, signs or premonitions.

He took off his
leather jacket and hung it on the hanger next to his door, turning his back to
the huge moradium desk that imitated Carpathian elm. When he turned back around
he startled. A man was sitting at the desk with his back turned to him. That
person had not been there a second ago. Sheldon was starting to panic. From
behind, the figure looked familiar. Dark hair was flowing to its shoulders,
covering part of the collar on the worn-out light brown leather jacket. Sheldon
felt his pulse hasten. The chair squeaked when the figure turned to face him.