by Brandt Legg
“Twain? What’s going on with Deuce’s son?” Chelle asked.
“He’s missing.”
“He is?” she asked, surprised and concerned. “We’re all lost in the damned woods.” She felt suddenly sad, as if she couldn’t go on much longer.
“Maybe, but don’t worry. In spite of what Munna says, we’re going to find the prophecies, and they will show us how to win.” He patted her shoulder
“What if she’s right and we never do win the war?” Chelle asked. “That woman makes me crazy, but there is something about her.”
“You have no idea. We’re all arguing about who owns what, the price of peace, the cost of medicine, whether we want revenge or something more noble, and all the while Munna may have quietly discovered the greatest secret of all time.”
“What’s that?” Chelle asked, feeling queasy.
“Immortality. Munna may have figured out how to live forever.”
Chelle laughed nervously. “As if such a thing were possible. And if it were, who the hell would want to live forever?”
Nelson shrugged. “Sure, write it off to my author’s mind. She hasn’t aged a day in more than fifty years. She outlived everyone else who lived pre-Banoff by decades, and aren’t you amazed she can do all this travelling through the woods when it wears me out?” He took another drag from his bac.
Hearing the Flo-wing, she looked up. “Everything wears you out. I sometimes worry you won’t live long enough to even see the revolution.”
“Nice change of the subject, little sister.” Nelson smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a writer. My books are out there making sure I’m going to live forever.” Although the AOI had banned most of his earlier works, he’d released many others under pseudonyms.
“I hope so.” Chelle hugged him and kissed his cheek. “When Deuce finally rounds up all the books, can’t you find the prophecies in them without Grandyn?”
“I wish I could, but the truth is I’m not even sure we can find them with Grandyn.” Nelson saw the concern flood her face. He worried about the strain on her. “Can we win without the prophecies?”
She forced a smile. “I’m not even sure we can win with the prophecies.”
He watched the Flo-wing carrying his sister fly off until it disappeared far beyond the treetops. Still he waited until the sound of the engines faded completely. He always worried that the Flo-wing carrying her would explode into a fireball. His writer’s mind again, he told himself, but these were the worst of times, and it felt as if danger had replaced the oxygen in the air.
By the time he reached the cabin, Grandyn was gone and Munna’s people were waiting. He suspected they had never been far away in the first place. Even Chelle had a PAWN combat unit minutes away on standby. For all he knew, Grandyn had a forest full of TreeRunners camouflaged in the trees surrounding the cabin.
Danger, danger, they lived in a world of lies built upon fabrications atop a foundation of crimes and deceit too vast to acknowledge. Or, as Nelson had once written, “The unknowing masses don’t realize they are trapped in a tangle of subterfuge and slowly suffocating inside a counterfeit paradise.”
“I’m concerned about Twain,” Munna said, greeting him.
“I’m concerned about a great number of things, and our dear friend Twain, I’m afraid, is far down on the list.”
“Nelson, don’t be like your sister. The state of the world is not everything. Twain is a rare soul. You’ve spent enough time with him to know that he is more like his uncle Cope than his father. We need him and, I suppose, if you want to look at it in terms of the revolution, you need his father not to be distracted. Even now, Deuce is heading to the redwoods to look for his son, and you know he’ll never find him. He may know those woods better than most, but you and I both know there’s more to it than that. There’s a reason no one can get a solid signal in the forests, and there’s a reason no one ever found Cope Lipton, just like they’re never going to find Twain.”
“I know,” Nelson said, still uncomfortable with the knowledge he’d obtained during his time spent in the redwoods with Cope and Twain. He took a swig of his favorite drink, a blackberry brandy moonshine made in Oregon. Munna shook her head disapprovingly.
“You were allowed that time with Cope in order to convince your sister to abandon the war, but you haven’t even told her what you discovered there, have you?”
“No,” he said, taking one last pull before screwing the cap on the flask and putting it away. “She’s not ready. She’d have to have been there. Chelle hardly believes me when I tell her ordinary stuff that I truly believe. Something like this, something I’m not even sure about… she’d probably have me locked up.”
Munna smiled. “The truth is the truth whether someone believes it or not. It will not change, but truth has an interesting way of working. It stays the same and waits patiently while everyone else changes.”
“Chelle isn’t ready for change.”
“Then she’s in for a big surprise, because the revolution is going to change things more than she can possibly imagine.”
Chapter 30 - Book 2
Chelle sat in an isolated room in the sprawling underground bunker buried deep in the mountains south of Eugene, in the Oregon Area, and read the message from Terik a third time. Just like the first two readings, she shivered and involuntarily looked over her shoulder.
How the torg did he get into my INU? “And how did he get to Drast?” she whispered to herself. “I don’t know who you are Ander Terik, but I do know you’re trouble.”
She flicked her finger and Drast’s message played again. It wasn’t his voice, rather a computer-generated audio, but there was no doubt this message was from him.
“Jingles,” it began, with a name only he had ever called her, and not for almost twenty years, during the earliest days of their friendship. Upon their first meeting he had called her “Sea-Chelle,” but after getting to know her radical, unstoppable personality, he changed it to “Jingles,” after a silvery shell that resembled the handle of a lasershod, an advanced handgun, because Chelle was a fighter. “You’re, no doubt, surprised to hear from me after more than two years of silent absence, and I trust you’re pleased at my survival. I hope you knew I had lived. Mr. Terik has agreed to help us communicate. In exchange I have done certain things for him, but neither what, nor why is open for discussion per our arrangement. Please respect that, as any investigation on your part as to his methods or motives could prove disastrous for our cause.”
Chelle thought about that for a minute. If Drast trusted him, that would have been good enough for her prior to his arrest, but now that he resided in an AOI prison, anything was possible. He might have been tortured or coerced in any number of ways. But as the voice continued, it became more difficult to imagine that Drast himself had not sent the message freely and secretly.
He talked of a coordinated prison break across all AOI facilities and the importance of the books. Drast claimed that Runit’s books, which the AOI had intercepted, were not destroyed, and that he could provide the location. But it was what he said next that made her desperate for Drast to be alive and well, for his words meant they had a real chance to win the revolution.
“Jingles, there are cracks in the system. The AOI is not unlike the rebels. There are factions, much smaller than what you deal with, but there are pockets. I’m not talking about low-level informants or spies. These are people near the top, people with a conscience.”
When had he discovered them? she wondered. If it had been before his arrest, why hadn’t he told her? Although it had been too risky for them to communicate much, they did manage occasionally to have a direct conversation. If it had been after his imprisonment, how had he accomplished that trick? Chelle decided that since she was listening to a recording made by the greatest traitor the Aylantik had ever known, originating from within the walls of one of the most secure facilities on the planet, run by the most intrusive and lethal organization in existence . . . ther
e were two possibilities.
Either Drast was even more powerful than she imagined, or he was dead.
“Said-scans,” she whispered to herself.
The AOI used Said-scans, which gave them the ability to read the brains of dead people. No one understood exactly how much information could be retrieved from a person’s memory, but apparently it was extensive. Certainly it would have been easy enough to find out that Drast used to call her “Jingles.” She needed to think of a test to determine if it was really him, or just an elaborate scheme to get inside the hierarchy of PAWN on the eve of revolution. Depending just how deep they could go, figuring out something that could prove without a doubt that it was Drast presented a great challenge.
The experts within PAWN told her that the current thinking was that Said-scans could not detect emotions. Drast loved her. There must be a way to use that information to test if it was a trap. But what if they could detect the memory of emotions? Surely Drast’s brain had thought about his feelings for her, and he would have remembered that, leaving a traceable imprint.
Chelle borrowed an INU from PAWN, no longer trusting her own, and zoomed the one person who might know how to beat a Said-scan, a person who might just be willing to help, and the last person she trusted.
“My stars, if it isn’t Nelson’s younger sister,” Blaise said as he answered her zoom.
“How do you know that?” she asked, shocked she’d been so quickly recognized and that he knew it was her when the zoom had been from an unidentified and unregistered INU.
“Your brother is a chubby, scruffy fellow. Where did your startling beauty come from?” he asked, as his holographic image bounded out of the INU and circled her body, inspecting it as if he were shopping for a prostitute.
“How did you know it was me?” she repeated, moving away, uncomfortable with his virtual presence.
“Darling . . . may I call you darling?”
“No.”
“Lover then. Lover, I’m an intelligent man, I’m sure you’ve heard. And an intelligent man always knows when a beautiful woman is present. An extraordinarily intelligent man and an extraordinarily beautiful woman, as in this case, even more so.” He smiled, brushed his long hair aside, and moved closer to her. “Why did it take you so long to zoooom me?” he said, pronouncing “zoom” as if it were two syllables, and the second one was shifted into fifth gear.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wait longer,” she said.
“Of course you’re joking, but you’d never admit that. Please, play through.”
“I have a problem, and I thought you might help.”
Blaise laughed hard. It seemed a genuine laugh, almost friendly, but Chelle couldn’t tell and, not knowing, decided to be offended.
“I made a mistake.”
More laughter. “Oh, lover, you’ve made many mistakes and you have many problems. Let me guess which one prompted this zoom.” He stopped and stared at her. Then he gasped quietly, catching himself. “Forgive me lover,” he whispered close to her face, “but your eyes… they are exquisite, los que siempre he estado buscando.”
“What language is that?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, I spoke to you in the native tongue of my ancestors. Spanish comes to me in moments of passion.” His eyes never left hers.
“And what was it you said?”
“Your eyes, I spoke of your eyes.” His virtual hand reached to touch her face. She stepped back, slower this time. “Your eyes are the ones . . . the one I have always sought.”
She nodded, smiling. “You are, I have always heard, a man of extremes. Rude, yet charming. Helpful, yet dangerous.”
“Yes, lover, that’s me. My reputation is often a wall that protects me, and sometimes it is one I must endeavor to climb over in order to achieve my aims. Is this one of those times? I’m afraid you think me disingenuous.” He brought his hands to his heart. “Must I climb the wall to prove my affection for you?”
Chelle laughed. “You’re a caricature of a leading man in a romance novel.”
Blaise made a sad face. “I am wounded.”
“You want to please me?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then help with my problem.”
“Which one?” He paced and, before she could answer, began to rattle off a list. “The location of the books? No. The AOI closing in on Grandyn? I think not. The growing tensions in the Amazon, a place where you would least like war to break out? Perhaps, but what could I do? Deuce’s missing son, ah, a personal situation, possibly tragic if the AOI has him, but that’s not it either.” He pulled VMs through the light stream and presented them to her, each showing images of what he had already mentioned. He continued flipping them, and the next showed Nelson. “How can you get your brother to lose weight, quit drinking and smoking . . . it is more important than you think, but we don’t have time for poor old Nelson at the moment.” He made another sad face.
Chelle sighed.
“Weapons? You’re so close to war, but you are ever so outgunned. Weapons should be what you’re asking about, but it’s not.”
“I could just tell you and stop wasting all this time.”
“Where is the fun in that?” he asked. “And how can I impress you with my amazing powers unless I guess exactly what’s on your mind?”
She shook her head, now almost amused by his theatrics. “Go on.”
“No for weapons . . . a shame. But don’t worry lover. For you, I will let you come back to that one. Deuce, you know, cannot be counted on as you think.”
“Really?” she asked, as if his statement were the silliest thing she’d ever heard.
“Oh yes. I would never lie to you. But again, we’ll do that dance another time, perhaps naked.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, come on!”
“Okay, I know you have a world to conquer, so I will get to the end of something other than your patience.” He stared again into her eyes. “Mmm, that blue.”
She frowned.
“Your problem is with Ander Terik, and whether you’re able to believe the message he has brought to you.”
With all the cliché the moment called for, she stared open-mouthed, even a little dizzy.
Blaise bowed.
Chapter 31 - Book 2
Grandyn had left the meeting with Munna, Chelle, and Nelson feeling strangely optimistic. He wanted war, and Munna was all that stood in the way. Even with all her supposed power and knowledge, it seemed she would be unable to stop it. Chelle had spent years forming alliances and laying the groundwork. What’s more, even though Munna might have it within her power to stop the war by a pronouncement, she did not seem willing to try without Chelle’s agreement. In fact, Munna wanted everyone to concur that violence was the wrong path to change, and she implied the importance of that during their conversations, but Grandyn was still trying to understand it.
Why would Munna, who so badly wants to avoid war, be willing to let it happen rather than insisting it didn’t?
Already a thousand kilometers away from Nelson’s cabin, Grandyn sat, unafraid, in an ordinary house in an ordinary residential neighborhood. It reminded him of his father’s place, his childhood home. He missed that life and the old librarian more with each passing day, as if each hour he grew closer to his father’s age brought more understanding as to who his father really was, how great a man, and a further recognition on just how much he’d lost.
He thought back on their final night together. Runit, a Shakespearean scholar, had quoted Hamlet.
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish�
��d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come . . .”
Grandyn had played the passage over in his mind hundreds of times over the past three years. They were lines that contained new meaning in each reading. They were, in fact, vital to everything because his father had told him they were the key to finding the eight books. The eight books which contained the prophecies, or at least, led to them somehow. A treasure map? A coded key? Something else entirely? No one seemed to know for sure. Yet in spite of all that was at stake, it was the words of Shakespeare that his father had whispered that final night to the darkness when he thought Grandyn had fallen asleep.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
Those were the words that haunted Grandyn, that made him want to cry. Tears, though, were difficult to come by. They’d been used up on his mother, his father, his girlfriend Vida, and countless TreeRunners who had been taken from him by the darkness which shadowed his once sunny world.
He looked at the AOI logo. Its cold, sharp pyramid piecing the circle of earth, or was it the sun, the “I” for intelligence symbolically appearing to support the entire Aylantik structure, a subliminal arrow formed by another pyramid, the wealthy elite, and a third tiny pyramid set atop the “world,” a secret for the power elite, the A-Council. Though they were not acknowledged or even known, Grandyn had studied this emblem, just as he’d studied everything about the AOI and their Aylantik government. He’d been taught always to look beyond the obvious.
I, like everyone, was born innocent, unaware that the world I’d arrived in, the paradise I’d been promised, was a lie, he wrote to Fye, punching the virtual keys with his fingers as if they could erase his turmoil. The promise of Aylantik had been so great that it blinded me, and almost everyone else. The entire society has been created to keep us in our place, to feed the rich, but the old lady is right. There is something inherently wrong, more than just their greed. He paused to listen as a LEV went by. One at a time was okay on the quiet street, more than that could mean an AOI raid. They had a chance to fix everything that was wrong with the pre-Banoff world, and they did, but sadly, they fixed it only for themselves.