Mindguard by Andrei Cherascu

performing in one.
    He remembered
how he had left the room crying the first time he had seen one of the sisters
getting ready for her performance. She had placed a blond wig over her own hair,
which had partly fallen off, revealing hideous bald spots covered with boils.
She was looking in the mirror, trying to adjust that wig. She tried to make
herself look beautiful. Her disfigured face was a celebration of homeliness and
yet she tried to make herself as pretty as she possibly could.
    The doctor
remembered feeling a lump in the throat, as though he was about to throw up,
not from disgust but from profound sadness. He smiled at her but then quickly
exited the room. He went behind the small building where he crouched, with his
chin resting on his knees, and cried like a small child. Brother Elias had
found him like that and placed a loving and understanding hand on his shoulder,
as though it was not them but he who was suffering and in need of
comfort.            
    Remembering that
day, he realized how the brothers lived in the company of death every single
moment. They accepted its inevitability. They learned to embrace life. He, on
the other hand, was running from it, hiding in fear like frightened prey. What
was death, actually? Was it not the same for him as it was for them? He
wondered if he might not, after all, be the unfortunate one among them.
    They reached
Brother Elias’ simple white house, carved into the rock for protection against
the blistering heat. From far away, he could already smell the delicious scent
of Anita’s bread soup. It was a scent that survived, that rose up above the
horrible stench of the people. That stench had vanished when his brain had
decided to simply make it disappear. 

Chapter 6
     
    After the Great
Exodus of 2091, which saw 792 of the world’s most powerful telepaths flee Earth
to evade the restrictions set up against the use of telepathy, the United
Governments of Earth, fearing a future attack from these so-called ‘enemies of
mankind’, decided to create a military force to represent all of Earth and the
planets under the administration of the U.G.E (an allegiance between United
States of Eurasia, Free Africa and the United Continents of America).
    In 2092, the
United Earth Army, the most numerous and well equipped military force in
history, was created and placed under the command of Thomas Liam Anderson, then
47 years of age and already a decorated general in the Eastern States Army of
the United Continents of America.
    A brilliant
strategist with an excellent instinct for efficient tactical coordination,
Anderson brought under one roof the greatest military minds on Earth and
elaborated a joint philosophical and strategic framework, which became the key
to the army’s success. In just 13 years the United Earth Army was the ranking
military system on every single colonized planet.
    When the
Evolutionists attacked Earth in 2107 in what is known as the ‘Great War of
Minds’ or ‘Mindwar’, the United Earth Army was instrumental in defeating them,
ensuring the survival of the United Governments of Earth. General Anderson is
credited for having single-handedly influenced the war’s outcome, with his
successful - albeit controversial - decision to include mindguards among the
troops in mandatory military service.
    In 2110, two years
after the end of the Mindwar, the United Governments of Earth became the
Interstellar Federation of Common Origin under First President Manmuhan
Mukerjee and the United Earth Army became the Enforcement Unit.
     
    Kinsey Ayers, A
New History of Old Earth
     
    When the famous
Sheldon Ayers entered the main office of the Ayers-Ross Thoughtprotection
Agency, the air itself felt heavier, charged with some mysterious form of
energy, as if it too were aware of the intense presence of the great man. At
least that’s what Alex Lea thought.
    He had studied
the legendary mindguard for years and was trying to shape his own career around
the