Mindguard (5 page)

She also loved
the fact that he was such a contradictory figure, even in appearance. His hair
was almost as long as hers, as opposed to the short hair or lack of hair that
were common to the enforcers. He had an earring in his left lobe. Much to the
amusement of his cadets, it sometimes sparkled. His clothes though, contrasted
strongly with the rest of his colorful aspect. He never once wore an outfit
that was not entirely black. When Tamisa finally worked up the courage to ask
him about that, she expected him to be elusive or, at best, give some sort of a
puzzling answer to deepen the mystery. Instead, he just said that he wore it as
a way of mourning the people the enforcers had to kill in battle. 

She found him
meditating in his favorite spot, a rock on the eastern part of the estate,
overlooking the sea. Enforcement Unit academies existed on seven planets, but
the most important one was the one on Terra Antiqua. This also served as
headquarters for Thomas Liam Anderson and his brother Martin.  Together,
they were the backbone of the Enforcers. The academy had been constructed on
the remains of what had once been one of the many Orthodox monasteries on Mount
Athos. Only two of the monasteries remained and the peninsula was now used as training
grounds for the Enforcers.

Villo encouraged
all of his students to pick out their own private place to meditate. They were
taught to establish a spiritual connection with that place, to make it a vital
part of who they are.

“When you will
find yourselves on dangerous missions all over the IFCO and beyond, I want you
to think about returning to that place,” he taught them. “Think of your chosen
location fondly, as a place of complete peace and serenity. Your greatest goal
at any moment should be to return there. When you are in situations of combat,
the mind must be at peace. There must not be any lingering thoughts - 
important or trivial - clogging your mind. Thoughts are the slippery surfaces
of the consciousness; if you trip and lose your balance, even for a fraction of
a second, you are dead. That would look very bad on our record.” Everyone
laughed; Villo loved making his students laugh.

“You need to
train your mind to go into state of mindfulness in an instant, leaving room for
nothing but the situation at hand.  The mind obviously doesn’t have an off
and on switch and in the case of some of you gentlemen, I only wish there was
an on switch (laughter). Since that is not the case, you must teach it to go
into that state and exercise it as you would your body. Some of your other
instructors have surely told you ‘you are not your body, you are your mind’.
I’m here to tell you that you are
neither
and that you must learn to
control both.”

As Tamisa
approached him, his back was turned to her. It was just like the day of their
first encounter, when he told her to attack. This time, he was merely admiring
the sea. According to him, the view had the effect of strengthening and
inspiring him. Every academy was built in such a way as to highlight the beauty
of nature. Perhaps it served to compensate for the hardship of their day-to-day
training.

“You know,
Tammy, if you’d just use perfume like a normal girl every once in a while, it
would really help me more easily know it’s you when you’re sneaking up on me.”
Villo had been the first who had called her Tammy and, much to her dismay,
everyone else followed; everyone except the commander, who still called her Ms.
Faber.

“You don’t seem
to be having any problems with that anyway. How’d you know it was me?”

“I recognized
you by your huffing and puffing.”

He got up from
his Lotus position, turned around and smiled. “Don’t tell me you’ve even washed
that thing,” he said, pointing at her head of curly hair.

“What can I say,
it’s a special day.” She rolled her eyes. “If the commander wants girly, I’ll
give him girly.”

Villo laughed
and Tamisa was overjoyed. She loved making him laugh.

“Boy, you really
took it to heart, didn’t you?” Villo said. 

“It cost me six months
on the bench. I’ve got a good mind to punch him in the face when I see him.”

“Yeah, don’t do
that.” He chuckled. “So, when is he expecting you?” he asked.

“Well, he sort
of is already.”

“And you’ve come
to me for a last minute pep talk?”

“Well, you’re
the fountain of wisdom around here.”

“Take a deep
breath,” he said, mocking a didactic tone, “think of the distance between what
is
you
and what is
your mind
…and then try not to punch our
commander in the face.”

“That’s why I
always come to you,” she said, smiling. He responded with a wink, one of his
familiar gestures.   

“Seriously
though,” she said, staring off into the endlessness of the sea, “what do you
think he’ll tell me?”

Villo shrugged.
“I don’t think he’ll tell you anything, I’ll think he’ll just assign you to a
team and a mission. You’ll probably be in action the day after
tomorrow.”  

“I can never
really tell what he thinks of me,” she said.

“Well, that’s
sort of the point. Ideally, he shouldn’t be able to tell what you think of him
either. But we all know you like to wear your heart on your sleeve.” She didn’t
answer, she just stared at the ground, lost in thought. “Oh come on, Tammy, I’m
just teasing you. You know I love that about you. It’s your charm. It’s what
makes you stand out among these robots. If anything, I’m willing to bet the
commander likes that about you too.”

“You think?”

“It would
explain why he still keeps you around in spite of yourself.” She smiled. “Plus,
you’re eye candy,” he added, grinning like the big bad wolf from an old
children’s story. She threw a punch his way, aiming straight for his face which
was there one second and gone the next in a lightning-fast movement. She
followed it up with two more hooks, both missing their mark.

“Still faster,”
he teased. It was a game they always played. In truth, they were equally fast
but they had gotten so used to each other’s reactions that one could always
anticipate the other’s attack.

“If you children
are done playing I would appreciate if Ms. Faber would grace me with her
company.” The holosense image of their commander was standing right beside them
in full size.

“Well, sir, I’m
doing impromptu psychological therapy just to prepare her for her meeting with
you. You have a way of bringing that out in people.” As usual, Commander
Anderson had no reaction to Villo’s humor, though he had admirable patience
with it. He didn’t even look at the instructor, but continued to stare at
Tamisa. His blue eyes always seemed sad. Somehow, that didn’t make him any less
intimidating.  

“I’ll be right
there sir,” she said and his holosense image disappeared into thin air without
answering.

Tamisa gave
Villo a look that said ‘Ouch, I really screwed up this time’ but he just winked
and, with a sign of the head, told her to get going. 

●

The commander’s
office was almost empty. It was furnished only with a desk and two chairs,
proof of the little time he spent in it. A very active man, he preferred the
confines of the training rooms and he very much enjoyed the company of his men.
Whenever he
did
use his office it was always for private conversations
with one of his men. These conversations were always brief and to the point.
Thus, he was in no need of additional furniture or decorations. Tamisa wished
there were at least a vase or a painting on the wall, anything to lessen the
anxiety she was feeling standing in front of her leader, waiting for him to
speak.

“I’m glad you
finally made it, Ms Faber,“ he said coldly.

“I am sorry for
the delay, sir. It won’t happen again!”

“That’s fine, cadet,”
he said, his voice gentle all of a sudden. “You were wise to compose yourself
before coming to talk to me. I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t.”

He sounded like
he knew exactly how angry and frustrated she had been before Villo helped her overcome
that barrier.
How could he know?
she thought, but then immediately
answered her own question:
Because in spite of appearances the man is
centuries old and has probably been in a similar situation hundreds of times
before
. She wondered how often he might have called a woman to this office
to tell her to pack her bags. That thought made her knees get weak and she
almost fell down right in front of him. When he smiled, like a loving
grandfather, she nearly let out a sigh of relief. She was glad she didn’t. It
would have been very embarrassing.

“See, that’s
what I meant,” he said, pointing to a rebellious strand of hair which had
fallen on her face during her play fight with Villo. “Your hair is lovely, it
was stupid of you to cut it off.”

“Yes, sir,” she
said, only to please him.

“All right,” he
said abruptly. “As of right now you are on active duty, congratulations!” He
shook her hand and his handshake fit his personality: firm but gentle.

“Thank you,
sir!” she said, still in awe of the very informal nature of the entire meeting.
A handshake, and you’re off to the trenches
, she thought. She wouldn’t
have wanted it any other way.  

“I will assign
you to a team and a first mission. Meet me in two hours in the debriefing
room.”

“Yes, sir!”

“That will be all,”
he said, but his posture and his attitude suggested he was expecting her to say
something. It was like he knew that she was still trying to work up the courage
to ask him one single question.

 “Sir?”

“Mm hmm…”

“I was wondering
if I might ask you something.”

“The reason I
grounded you for six months is simple,” he said, anticipating her question.
“You are not a man, you are a woman. You came here with a lovely head of hair
and then you foolishly shaved it off. You are a girl, not a boy so you must look
like a girl and not a boy. Simple, isn’t it?” He saw that she was not entirely
convinced. “Ms. Faber, if you want to be like the male cadets you are to match
them in discipline, skill and intelligence, not looks.”

“I just thought,
sir, that having no hair is going to prove more useful in hand-to-hand combat.”

“If you are ever
in a situation of hand-to-hand combat where you allow your hair to become a
disadvantage, then we have an entirely different problem. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Now, go!”

“Yes, sir!”

●

“He’s right, you
know, once you are an Enforcer on active duty, you should be able to be
completely naked, with your hair down to your waist, and still be more
dangerous than your enemy.”

To Tamisa’s
comfort, she found Villo in the briefing room, apparently also part of her
team. She assumed he was most likely leading it and wondered if he had already
known they would be partnering up when she had spoken to him outside.

“Do you often
imagine me naked, with my hair flowing down to my waist?” she whispered in his
ear. Villo was the only man in the world with whom she could ever feel
comfortable kidding around this way. She knew he would never think of it as a
weakness.

“I was trying to
make a point,” he said, acting exasperated. Tamisa took a seat next to him at
the big oak table. Usually, the academies used furniture made from a synthetic
material called Moradium, produced on three planets within the IFCO. It
imitated oak from Old Earth. Since this academy was situated on Old Earth, they
had the luxury of using the real thing. She looked around to see who else was
on her team. There were seven others there; six of them she didn’t know very
well, but the seventh was a former cadet she had trained with, named Akio
Tahara. They had initially been called up to active duty together, before
Tamisa had been sent back to the proverbial showers.

Akio welcomed
her on the team. There was no time to catch up, though. Thomas Anderson quickly
made his appearance, joined by his brother. The Anderson brothers were known to
almost never brief the teams personally, which meant the mission was going to
be important.

“Good day,
gentlemen,” said the commander. He paused for a few seconds. Then, looking at
Tamisa: ”Lady.”

Tamisa wondered
if that had been a sample of the commander’s rarely witnessed sense of humor.
She was not amused. Before the commander or his brother even said anything,
everyone’s retinal insertions displayed a life-size, three-dimensional image of
Educator Horatio Miller, dressed in an elaborate custom-made suit, his smile as
confident as it was static. No one said anything. Tamisa was sure that the
others were equally surprised. They waited for their commander to speak.

 “You
should all be familiar with this man but, just to refresh your memories, this
is Educator Horatio Miller: scientist, businessman, adventurer. Take a long
hard look at him. He is the enemy!”

“If I may,
Commander, since when do we get involved in affairs of the private sector?”

The voice
belonged to a young soldier who appeared to be only about six or seven years
older than Tamisa. His face was hidden behind a bushy brown beard which
emphasized his sapphire blue eyes. Tamisa found out that he was the mission’s
timekeeper, in charge with planning and producing mission strategies and timelines.
Timekeepers were an integral part of every unit. These non-combatant enforcers
were effectively the brains behind every mission. They collected data, planned
the strategies, directed operations and coordinated the team’s movements from
the field bases. 

“We don’t,” the
commander answered.

“Sir?” The
timekeeper was twirling his beard as his mind frantically worked to analyze the
situation. “Educator Miller’s involvement in political affairs is strictly
confined to financial support of the Freethink Party.”