by Brandt Legg
“What will I have to do?”
For the first time, she smiled. “Change the world, Grandyn Happerman . . . that’s all.”
END OF BOOK ONE
JUSTAR JOURNAL BOOK TWO - THE LOST TREERUNNER
Chapter 1 - Book 2
June 2101
“Grandyn!” Zaverly yelled. “This way!” Her screams were tainted with tears, strained with bitterness and regret. At twenty-three, she was among the younger surviving TreeRunners. Three years earlier, at the time of the government’s “Doneharvest” crackdown, she’d fled with many other TreeRunners, a group of elite wilderness survivalist experts after the organization had been banned and its members rounded up for execution. Now the Aylantik Office of Intelligence (AOI), the state’s feared enforcers, hunted the survivors, and Grandyn Happerman was wanted above all the others.
“Grandyn!” she shrieked again, tensing her gymnast muscles as the swarm drones closed in on him. Counting the seconds before she would swing down into the fight, she hovered more than thirty meters above, concealed in a man-made “tree-base” attached to one of the Amazon’s giant kapok trees. The area was filled with stealth locations constructed of materials and wired-in technology that made them nearly impossible to detect.
He heard her calling his name as he ran barefoot through the thick jungle, dodging trees, his breaths coming in the controlled manner the TreeRunners had taught him since childhood. The chemical taste of a neurological-voiding-capsule, or “neuro-cap,” in his mouth required added concentration to avoid swallowing, but TreeRunners were practiced in focus even more than in physical skills. Still, this being only the second time he’d prepared for the “final defense” as they called it, it took everything he had learned.
If killed or captured, the neuro-cap would dissolve and quickly mutate the cells of his brain, in a sense erasing his mind so that no knowledge would pass to the enemy, and if not already dead, the pill would kill him. Postmortem brain readings, known as said-scans, were one of the AOI’s best sources of intelligence. In the era of androids, cyborgs, and Imps, humans implanted with computer-like processors, neuro-caps had been developed to work even on non-organic “people.” At that moment, Grandyn wished he were not human, for then he wouldn’t have to feel the certain death. But that eventuality, and ingesting the neuro-cap, might still be a minute or two away.
Before resorting to the cap he had other counter measures to try. TreeRunners acquired countless skills during their many levels of training, but this specialized knowledge had to be used sparingly, both to preserve resources and to avoid tech-tracing, the AOI’s ability to track the fingerprint of any electronic device from the web of satellites monitoring the Earth’s two point nine billion inhabitants.
As the hundreds of insect-sized drones closed within centimeters of his dirty, sweaty skin, the lanky twenty-one-year old dove through a deep root hole and released a Phantom-Shield Nano-device. It sent a perfectly replicated holographic version of him, including heat signature, into the same path and trajectory he’d been on. If the swarm drones followed it for at least three minutes he’d be safe. Temporarily.
The fall had not gone well. The location was familiar, as he knew every square meter of the forest. He’d even slept in this root hole more than once, but trying to time the drop and the deployment of the device while running at full speed made it a hazardous move. His medical sensor quickly told him he’d cracked several ribs, broken two fingers, and fractured a wrist. If the swarm drones returned, escape would be impossible. Hopefully Zaverly, the woman in the tree, had been able to call for help. He shifted the neuro-cap with his tongue, letting it rest against his cheek, and maintained his breathing.
Muddied and broken, shaking beneath twisting roots with leaves and bugs stuck to his sweaty body as the seconds pulsed slowly by, he recounted what had brought him to this desperate point.
Grandyn Happerman had helped his father, the world’s last librarian, move the physical copies of more than one hundred thousand so-called “dangerous” books out of the Portland library before the AOI burned the last known remaining collection of printed books. A longtime family friend and well-known author, Nelson Wright, had helped them, but unbeknownst to Grandyn, Nelson’s sister, Chelle Andreas, who was also assisting with the almost impossible task, was a highly placed revolutionary.
In the days following that successful book rescue, Grandyn’s girlfriend Vida, and then his father, were killed by the AOI. He also learned the AOI had been responsible for his mother’s death years earlier.
Without time to recover from those horrendous events, he and Chelle were arrested. Normally execution would have been instant, but apparently he had a guardian angel because inexplicably, Grandyn found himself released. Thus began the three-year saga of fighting, not just for his own survival and for the chance to avenge his parents’ and Vida’s deaths, but mostly because he was determined to destroy the AOI and bring down the Aylantik government.
As the tree guarded the TreeRunner, he silently recalled the decisions that had brought him to the Amazon.
The AOI had been searching forests around the globe for years, but the Amazon was the most difficult place for them to penetrate. He should have been safest there, but as the revolution grew nearer, possibly only weeks away, the AOI had stepped up its search efforts.
He stopped thinking as the pain took his concentration. He needed a plan. His breathing slowed, each noise analyzed, considering if it belonged in this jungle? Did he? The neuro-cap tasted bitter.
Damn it, Zaverly probably doesn’t know where I am now, and I’m not sure my injuries will allow me to climb out of this hole, he thought. What an irony . . . I escape my closest call yet with the AOI and end up starving to death in a root hole.
Chapter 2 - Book 2
Ander Terik fingered his gold AOI lapel pin and tried not to appear bored as the tall, severe-looking woman speaking circled back around to a topic he knew better than anyone. He’d been studying and searching for the fugitive Grandyn Happerman since he joined the AOI several years before. The AOI had kept the peace in the world for seventy-five years following a massive plague and war, which wiped out sixty percent of Earth’s human inhabitants. The AOI acted as police, army, secret service, and intelligence for the Aylantik regime, which came to power in the aftermath of the horrible Banoff years and had ruled the world under a single government ever since.
Grandyn – the authorities simply referred to him by only his first name – was the son of two dead revolutionaries famous within the AOI, but quite unknown to the general population. He’d disappeared three years earlier and now occupied position number three on the Most Wanted List behind two women and ahead of his surrogate uncle, Nelson Wright. But Terik, assigned solely to Grandyn, had also researched the other fugitives to the extent that they might aid in his search for Grandyn, who at twenty-one was the youngest on the list and, according to their files, only two years younger than himself. Their closeness in age and Terik’s degrees in forestry, botany, and arborist sciences had helped earn him the important assignment. Grandyn just didn’t have the vast networks of revolutionary groups like PAWN, the Rejectionists, and the Creatives behind him. Grandyn Happerman was a TreeRunner.
The TreeRunners had once been a proud organization that had spawned great leaders and created lifelong friendships among many leading citizens. But that was before the events of the winter of 2098, when an uprising had nearly stolen the peace for the first time in more than seventy years. The AOI instituted something similar to martial law, called “the Doneharvest,” which meant anyone even suspected of involvement with the rebels was executed or imprisoned. Because of Grandyn’s involvement, the TreeRunners had been outlawed and all members immediately sentenced to death. Most were rounded up within days, and even former members as old as sixty were terminated. But the most wanted of them all, Grandyn Happerman, had disappeared without a trace, and Terik was determined to lead the chase for the troublemaker whose entire family seemed
bent on destroying the greatest society and longest era of peace in human history.
Terik looked up as the AOI Chief switched to English. It was her way of checking to see if everyone was paying attention. The Chief, a tough, cunning woman in her sixties with close-cropped gray hair, was always ready to win a fight, never imagining the possibility of a loss. Terik caught her switch immediately. He, like most upper level AOI agents, had been studying many of the dead languages because certain rebel groups used the old ones instead of the computer-created language known as Com that had been the official dialect of Aylantik for more than seventy years. It had been largely based on English, but much more logically arranged. Other than for AOI agents, learning anything else was illegal.
After struggling with some of the more obscure dead languages like German and Chinese, he couldn’t imagine why the world would ever need more than one. He’d written a paper on the subject at the AOI Academy, showing the inefficiencies and cause for conflict of multiple languages and currencies, arguing they had done nothing more than complicate and divide citizens’ lives. He’d illustrated that crime rates had plummeted once physical currency had been outlawed and replaced by virtual funds known as “digis.” The corruption of exchange rates and the elimination of untraceable deals made transactions fairer for everyone.
Now the Chief said something in Japanese and he heard a nearby agent say, “Torgon,” which was profanity in the new language, because he couldn’t open a VM to translate fast enough and obviously didn’t know a bit of Japanese. “Can’t the Dragon Lady stop showing off and just speak Com like the rest of us?” the agent said under his breath. Terik ignored the insubordination.
Many saw Terik as too ambitious, too regulation-driven, and too vain. Some of that was true. He did everything “strictly by the book” – military haircut no more than twelve millimeters, Tekfabrik uniform, all-purpose-tread-transforming boots, and an intense workout regime that included live weapons, obstacle courses, and cliff climbing. Terik wanted to rise as far in the AOI as he could, and was willing to do anything to get what he wanted. In fact, he knew the only flaw in his records was the lack of a wife. The AOI liked family stability, and he planned to work on that part soon. The lean, six-foot tall, highly fit, and intelligent young man had no shortage of prospects.
Terik’s AOI virtual-ID and personnel files showed his flawless record and rapid climb through the ranks. The twenty-three year old was everything the AOI looked for in agents and a rising star within the Aylantik system. He had enlisted with the AOI in the early days of the Doneharvest and had performed heroically on several of his rookie cases. He’d also quickly distinguished himself in both physical and mental challenges, outperforming more seasoned agents on academic as well as field tests. “Just the type of agent needed to track down these revolutionaries,” a superior had noted. Another recommended him for the Grandyn Happerman hunt because of his seemingly natural endurance and closeness in age to the fugitive.
“Grandyn Happerman is a symbol to the rebels, and he possesses information which must be suppressed.”
Terik nodded his head, his determination intensifying with each word the AOI Chief uttered.
“Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen. Your future depends on capturing this dangerous man.”
Chapter 3 - Book 2
Lance Miner, the super-rich member of the A-Council, looked up when Sarlo, his assistant, walked in. The attractive and fit brunette had been with his company, PharmaForce, for twelve years, and had a mind perfectly matched for Miner’s controlling, scheming ways. Sarlo also had higher principles than her boss, not that Miner was a bad man. She had once told her mother, “It’s just that he sees such a big picture that he is willing to take shortcuts to improve the outcome.”
Sarlo, like Miner, believed that he had the “weight of the world” on his shoulders, and that he alone could keep society from crumbling into something even worse than the pre-Banoff world.
Sarlo looked at the view. She adored most world capitals but called Buenos Aires her addiction. The culture, history, and beauty spoke to her, but it was the dance, passion, and fire that captured her. The city had grown dramatically in the previous twenty-five years, in part because of PharmaForce. Miner let her have the moment as she gazed out over the old historic district to the ocean. “I love my job,” she said. The travel, a big perk, appealed to her, but Sarlo liked the proximity to power most of all. Miner might not be as rich as his nemesis Deuce Lipton, but he knew how to leverage his position so that most would agree he was more powerful.
“I know you do,” Miner said, flashing one of his charm-drenched smiles. “We’ve been spending a lot of time down here this past year, but I think we might finally be close to getting him.” He flipped an antique American silver dollar. It came up tails, which told him things wouldn’t go smoothly. As if I need a coin to tell me that, he thought, slipping it back into his pocket.
By “him,” Sarlo knew he meant Grandyn Happerman. Miner, desperate to maintain the peace, had become obsessed with his capture. Of course, he also wanted Munna, the one hundred thirty-three year old woman who served as the rebel’s inspiration, captured. He would also have been happy to see Chelle Andreas arrested and executed, but Grandyn had more significance . . . much more. For months Sarlo had waited patiently for Miner to fill her in completely, long ago learning not to push. He revealed facts to associates as if they were rare gold coins. But today he had promised a full update. Today, which usually meant he’d hit a wall in his own thinking and needed her help to unlock more options.
“You still believe he’s hiding in the Amazon?” she asked.
“The AOI is pursuing him there as we speak.”
“But is it him?”
He frowned. Sarlo was obviously referring to the other times they’d “captured” Grandyn, only to discover it was an imposter. It seemed the TreeRunners were a loyal bunch. As part of their initiation and training, they’d repeatedly taken a blood oath of loyalty to one another. That oath had caused many of them to pretend they were Grandyn in an effort to confuse the AOI, and it had been working.
“We don’t know for sure,” he answered,
“But you said AOI. What about the P-Force?” she asked. The P-Force, Miner’s private army, had grown to more than forty thousand as he tried to keep pace with Deuce’s army, the BLAXERS, thought to number fifty thousand. He had the P-Force shadowing the AOI in more than eight locations around the world in a quest to find Grandyn before they did. Although Miner was the most powerful person on the A-Council, the secret committee which ran the Aylantik government, including choosing the “elected” World Premier, Miner couldn’t make the AOI do what he wanted. Three years earlier things had been quite different.
Back then Miner had been on the verge of being elected Chairman of the Council, and he was ready to install Polis Drast as World Premier. But it had been Miner’s greatest mistake, one of the few miscalculations he’d ever made.
Drast turned out to be a traitor. He’d been caught in time, but not before severely damaging Miner’s credibility and standing within the Council, effectively erasing two decades of work. Miner had been extra-sensitive to being questioned since the Drast episode, so instead of pushing, she asked another question.
“The Force is working some good leads, but the little bastard is like a ghost.”
Sarlo wanted to ask why this twenty-one year old “kid” even mattered, but waited. The hint of rainbows around window edges caught her attention. The special glass harvested solar energy, producing an almost imperceptible prism of light at the edges. It always relaxed her to watch the faint colors dance.
“I’ve read the reports, the sightings, and all the recon data,” she said, unable to avoid walking to the window. Miner’s private office, a mostly glass-enclosed penthouse, occupied the entire seventy-second floor of the PharmaForce Buenos Aires headquarters. “He’s been spotted or pursued in Alaska, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Russia, Germany, and in
many parts of the Amazon. We know those aren’t all him, but why are you so certain he’s down here somewhere?”
“I’m not, but even the Imps agree that he’s got the highest chance of surviving in the Amazon.”
Sarlo, surprised by his admission, had been expecting a concrete data point that Miner had been relying on to keep them almost exclusively in the region for all this time. She also didn’t like Imps, or “vampires” as she called them, people who had been implanted with DesTIn artificial intelligence systems, but Miner had increasingly relied on them during the past three years, perhaps questioning his own judgment after the Drast event.
“But is his survival more important to him than his cause?” Sarlo asked carefully. “After all, both his parents were killed by the AOI.”
An android brought in drinks. They each liked citrus, lime for him, orange for her, with bubbles. He’d had a double shot of a caffeine-like stimulant added to his. He’d been up with nightmares again. As usual, they were of war. Recently they’d let up a bit and had been happening only at night. Sarlo thought they were more like visions. Miner didn’t like to talk about them.
“Damn that Drast. He concealed the fact that the librarian’s wife had been a revolutionary, or we would have been all over that closing. I should have known Deuce was involved. Hell, I wish Drast would talk to me.”
“Even if the AOI would let you, and even if Drast would see you, he wouldn’t tell you anything, and . . .”
He paced nervously. “What?”
“Could you stop yourself from killing him?”
“I would love to kill that torgon snake, but right now it’s a few lines down on my to-do list. Nothing is more important than getting Grandyn.” Waiting for her question, after a long pause, he smiled when it didn’t come.