The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “Rejectionists . . . there used to be more.”

  Nolan shook his head. “They can’t really hide with that many AOI down there.”

  “Very few were caught,” Deuce said. “We managed to warn them, and most escaped into the mountains before the build-up.”

  Nolan smiled, then pointed to a large section lit in yellow. “Miner has us outnumbered down there.”

  “Just recently. Miner is completely on edge and desperate to find Grandyn.”

  “Has he authorized force?” Nolan asked.

  “That would be my guess.” Deuce had little doubt that P-Force would engage his BLAXERs, but he’d suspected for quite a while that Miner had already authorized his P-Force personnel to fire on AOI troops. Deuce brought up more VMs, showing the many forested regions where the three armies were bumping into each other. The VMs floated all around Nolan and him as both men silently studied the images.

  Most major forests around the world were in varied states of chaos as multiple sightings of Grandyn, and the hunt for him, intensified. Scientists were working diligently in an effort to uncover the reasons behind lack of Field coverage, monitoring failures, and communications issues that had plagued heavy wilderness areas around the world, and the AOI was pouring more troops into most forests

  Whether war began in the Amazon, in Oregon, or in some other area, Deuce knew that when the real war broke out, the P-Force would join with the AOI to fight PAWN, the TreeRunners, and whatever ragtag band of Rejectionist and Creatives could be pulled together. But there were two questions that even the AOI couldn’t answer.

  If the List Keepers really existed, how big were they, and what capabilities did they have? Although most AOI analysts assumed that Deuce’s BLAXERs would join PAWN and the other rebels, some speculated that Deuce might try to remain independent. Miner and the Chief believed there was even a chance to recruit him to their side. The thinking was that Deuce had too much to lose.

  Chapter 27 - Book 2

  Munna pointed at Grandyn.

  “What do you think Grandyn? Each of us is born with a death sentence. An unknown moment in our future when we’ll be snatched from this human world, breath surrendered, lost to those who cared for us.”

  “All but you, it would seem.”

  “Grandyn, do think I will live forever?”

  “I guess it’s not possible.”

  “Anything is possible, but forever is a very long time . . . the way we view it, anyway. But I may live longer than I care to. You see, I have assumed a certain role in trying to mediate something between those who want change and those who want revenge.” She looked at him carefully. “We’ve all done things.”

  “We must come to some kind of agreement,” Chelle interrupted.

  “Is that possible?” Munna asked.

  “War is coming,” Chelle began.

  “Unless you can show us another way to unseat Aylantik and dismantle the AOI,” Nelson added in a tone meant to calm his sister.

  “The AOI must be more than dismantled,” Grandyn said.

  “See?” Munna said. “Three different and quite rigid positions.”

  “And your position?” Chelle asked.

  “My position is illumination.”

  Chelle squinted at Munna in annoyance. She was tired of the old woman’s philosophical responses and questions. Chelle needed practical and decisive answers. Sometimes she even wondered if Munna was as old as they said she was. How could it be possible? And to look like she was half that age… “What does that mean?”

  “Easy Chelle,” Nelson chided his sister.

  “Nelson, I understand you worship her,” Chelle said.

  “Respect is different from worship,” he responded.

  “Whatever. But Munna, with all due respect, you say illumination and yet you keep the prophecies from us. You say war is wrong and yet you have been a figurehead for the oldest revolutionary group in existence. We have waited long enough. We’re ready. We can win. How can you stand in the way of this revolution when you know the atrocities the AOI has committed for decades and decades?”

  “I do not have the power you imagine Chelle. If you can find the prophecies and understand them, I cannot stop you. If you have cause and a willingness for war, I cannot stop that either.”

  “But you can,” Chelle said, rising from her seat and stomping toward Munna. “How can you say you can’t stop it? You know there are those in PAWN, the majority, in fact, who will not act without your blessing.”

  “I will never give my blessing to war, and I know of your plan to incite my followers. Your tricks are not new. Do you know how many wars in the pre-Banoff days were started under false flags? You’ll allow the AOI to destroy an enclave of women and children somewhere and suddenly the outrage will be impossible to contain. You’ll have your war.”

  “I don’t need a false flag. The AOI gives us cause every single day. It is you causing innocent lives to be lost by delaying the war, which is inevitable anyway!”

  “It is the same war.”

  “If you had allowed war three years ago, before the Doneharvest cut our numbers and strategic advantages, we might have already won and the AOI might already be history. Do you know what that time has cost us?”

  “Time is a funny thing . . . do you know what that time has cost?”

  “She’s impossible Nelson!” Chelle slapped her hands together and stormed to the door.

  “I’m sorry,” Nelson said to Munna as Chelle left the cabin. “She’s so passionate. She’s lost so many . . .”

  “I know, Nelson. It’s all right.” She waved dismissively.

  Nelson followed after Chelle.

  Munna winked at Grandyn.

  “I’m with Chelle,” Grandyn said. “I want the prophecies so we can win the war.”

  “The prophecies are not the only answer,” Munna said, smiling knowingly.

  “Then why does everyone want them?” he asked.

  “People want the short answer, but when you’ve lived as long as I have, and partly how I’ve lived this long, a kind of knowledge seeps into your mind.” She looked at him as a parent does a child when trying to find a way to explain a complicated topic. “We accumulate experiences in life that people believe teach us things, that give us wisdom. But actually, those things only unlock, or awaken, the latent knowledge already within us. Do you see?”

  “I think you’re saying that we learn from within rather than through the material world,” he said slowly.

  “Yes, yes, you got it.” She beamed.

  “But how does that explain why people want the prophecies if they can get the answers elsewhere?”

  “People don’t trust the things they hear inside anymore, but if they see the same information written down, they have no trouble moving armies based on it.”

  “But the prophecies are remarkable,” he said in a voice filled with awe. “I mean, hundreds of years ago someone wrote down these things that are happening today. They even knew about my parents, and me. That is nothing short of miraculous. Don’t you see how anyone would take that as pure magic?”

  “Yes, that is my point. But what if you could sit in meditation and learn far more than the prophecies could ever tell you? What would that seem like to you?”

  “It would feel like I was magic, a wizard or something. Is that really possible Munna? Can you do that?”

  “We have lost so much to the Aylantik. They promised a utopian society, something humans had always longed for, but we sold our souls for gadgets and fake food.”

  She stared at him. He noticed for the first time that her eyes were unlike any he’d ever seen. The depth of them astonished him. It was like looking into one of those mirrored booths at a carnival where the reflections seemed infinite. A thousand eyes filled with trees, ocean waves, and stars stared back at him, a million, more. Looking at the impossibly old woman caused a warm sweep of serenity to envelop him. It was the gentlest experience of his life, and even without her answer, he k
new Munna could do anything.

  Grandyn wanted to ask her so many questions, but the first one to escape his lips seemed oddly simple. “I’m sorry to ask you this, but do you know? I mean, how long you’re going to live?”

  “I will live as long as is necessary to do what I’ve come to do.”

  “And that is?”

  “To change the direction of our people.”

  Grandyn nodded, wanting to understand, thinking he did.

  “Sometimes I think the prophecies are but another distraction,” Munna continued. “It is hard to know who made such great decisions in the past and to what ends. There have been such great manipulations of so many . . . the masses can be swayed very easily, and those with power and wealth have learned the tricks well enough that they can perform them effortlessly with little more thought than they would use to spray a nest full of bees to stop the buzzing.”

  “But they can help us, and they can show people what is possible.”

  “Yes, if anyone notices the root of it. Prophecies have come to light many times in the past, and parts of these prophecies have even been seen before. Does anyone care? Does anyone even remember? And when these that are sought now, when they appear, will people only marvel at the fact that predictions came true? Or will they wonder how they could have been made so accurately, so long ago?”

  “You tell me,” Grandyn said, smiling. “You can see the future. Can’t you?”

  “The future is a murky place, always moving, ever-changing.” She rubbed her wrinkly fingers across his forehead. They felt like warm crepe paper. “This is why the final Clastier prophecies were so remarkable, so powerful. He figured out a way to leave prophecies that could change as the circumstances and forces of the world ebbed and flowed.”

  Munna moved her hands together in circular motions, seemingly delighted by this part of her talk.

  “Nostradamus, Malachy, Cayce, and others have all made great prophecies, many of which have come true, but with the passage of time the accuracy of their furthest predictions fades. This is because each passing day exerts tremendous pressure on the one to follow. If someone predicts a happening, even one hundred years into the future, then the events of thirty-six thousand five hundred days are all pushing against the prediction. Surely that will move and gray what was once a very accurate forecast.”

  “Nelson told me they change. I didn’t really believe it. I guess he got that from you.”

  “No, I suspect he learned that from Cope,” she said. “But his sister has been told the same thing. She wants the power of the prophecies, so desperate to win her war, and yet she doesn’t trust the power from which they originated. That mistake will cost her more than a look at the prophecies, it will deny her the very thing she wants most . . . victory.”

  Chapter 28 - Book 2

  Grandyn found Chelle and Nelson leaning against a large and twisted madrone tree about ten meters from the cabin. Nelson lit a fresh bac from one he just finished as Grandyn walked up.

  “Munna said the meeting is over,” Grandyn said.

  “What meeting?” Chelle asked. “This was just a waste of time.”

  “What are you going to do?” Grandyn asked.

  “I’m going to finish what your parents helped to start,” Chelle said. “Thirty days from now we’ll be at war, and the world will finally learn that their history, their precious world of comfort, is all a lie.”

  “Then we still have time to convince her,” Grandyn said.

  “She will never change her mind,” Nelson said. “I think you could tell her that the Aylantik was about to execute another billion people and she still wouldn’t agree to use force against them.”

  “How can she be so resolute?” Grandyn asked.

  “She has seen things none of the rest of us has,” Nelson said.

  “Please,” Chelle said. “She’s an old lady who has spent too much time in the woods, just like you have Nelson. The AOI must be stopped.”

  Grandyn nodded.

  Nelson took another drag and looked back to the cabin.

  “Deuce is close to getting all the books back together,” Chelle said. “If he does, do you think that between the two of you you’ll be able to find the prophecies?”

  Nelson nodded.

  Grandyn shrugged. “We better get going. We’ve been here too long.”

  “You’re going to vanish again, aren’t you?” Chelle said.

  Grandyn pursed his lips and nodded, mostly with his eyes, as he looked at Chelle, anticipating her disapproval.

  “We won’t stop looking for you.”

  “I know.”

  “Please come with us,” Chelle implored. “Once the action starts, it’s going to get really ugly out there.”

  “It’s pretty ugly right now.”

  “No, I mean the world is going to implode. You won’t recognize it. Food could get scarce. Anything that was reliable before will be dangerous,” Chelle said.

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Okay,” she said, giving him a hug. “Just make sure you stay in touch with Deuce. When he gets the books, we’ll need you to help with the prophecies.”

  “I won’t be far,” he said.

  Nelson had said goodbye to Munna, but Chelle refused. It wasn’t until the two of them were ten minutes away from the cabin that Chelle even spoke.

  “Do you think Grandyn will really help with the books?”

  “How many Grandyn Happermans are there?” Nelson asked.

  “What?” Chelle understood the question, but was having trouble putting it all together. “You mean the Grandyn we just met might not have been the real Grandyn?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Oh, come on Nelson. That was Runit’s son or you’re not my brother.”

  “It very well may have been our Grandyn, but we don’t know for sure.”

  “Then who in the hell was it?”

  “It could be some kind of advanced android.”

  “There you go with that writer’s mind again. I can tell an android from ten meters away.”

  “Not if there is a new generation of them.”

  “Has Deuce told you something? Has one of his companies developed these human-like androids?”

  “He hasn’t, but I’m planning on asking him about them as soon as I can.”

  “Then where is this coming from?”

  “Just look. Over the past few years there have been four different and credible reports of Grandyn’s death. Our spies have logged six more separate Grandyn-alerts within the AOI where they have deployed extra manpower to move on verified sightings of our young friend.”

  “So the AOI isn’t perfect . . . in fact, we’re counting on that.”

  “No, they aren’t perfect, but these sightings are sometimes simultaneous and thousands of miles apart.”

  “The List Keepers?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “As you’re aware, we don’t know a lot about them, but from what we do know, they could be capable of something like that. It would explain how they’ve kept him alive all this time. Put ten Grandyns out there and confuse the hell out of the AOI, especially if you put them all in the forests where their normal surveillance equipment doesn’t work.”

  “Right. Either that or Grandyn has discovered some secret network of portals.”

  Chelle rolled her eyes. “You spent too much time in the woods with Cope Lipton.”

  “Maybe,” he said tentatively.

  “But could that technology really exist to make an android so human-like that it could fool people? Fool us?”

  “I’d say yes.”

  “And you think the Grandyn who came here might not have been the real one?”

  “What if the real Grandyn isn’t even alive anymore? What if the AOI never let him out of custody?” The shadows of the trees seemed to close in around them.

  “Polis was in charge then. He let him go.”

  “Was Drast really in charge?”


  “Stop it! Stop right now! I don’t need you laying all your paranoid conspiracy theory plots on me.”

  “Maybe there are advanced android Grandyns running around out there, but Polis let our Grandyn go and the Grandyn we spoke to today was the same one, the real one.”

  “If you’re wrong, or even only half-right, we’re in serious trouble. We talked an awful lot about our plans and the prophecies today.”

  “If you think that Grandyn was some kind of a robot spy, why didn’t he kill us all?”

  “Do you think if we died, the revolution would stop?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why kill us when you can have access to all the inside information of your enemies?”

  “I can’t talk to you when you get like this. You’ll make me crazy!”

  “Like what? I’m sober. You know what the AOI is capable of. They could do this. And it doesn’t have to be them. It could be Blaise Cortez, or Lance Miner. He’s got his own army out there looking for Grandyn.”

  “If this is true, then it could be Deuce behind it, or the List Keepers for that matter. Everyone has a stake in this revolution. Everyone wants something different. And everyone wants to find the lost TreeRunner.”

  “And no one can be trusted . . . not even Grandyn.”

  Chapter 29 - Book 2

  Chelle glanced at her brother as they approached the clearing where the Flo-wing would pick her up. What he said might be true, she thought. What if Grandyn hasn’t been lost all this time? What if he’s been hiding within multiple copies of himself? The variables and scenarios played out in her exhausted mind. Maybe I should run back to the cabin and try one more time with Munna. I should have had a PAWN team ready to grab Grandyn. Maybe I could still get one to catch up to him, find out if he was real. We could hold him prisoner until we have all the books.

  Nelson lit a bac and looked back at the way they had come. “I’m not sure I should stay there any longer. It probably isn’t safe.”

  “Munna is still there,” Chelle said, looking nervous.

  “Her people are coming soon, but she wants to talk with me before she leaves. She’s been trying to convince me to take her to find Twain Lipton.”