The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “Do not start the war today. We need three more weeks. Do not let it begin now, or our war, and all our work will be lost for sure.”

  Chapter 49 - Book 2

  Deuce, sitting next to Twain as he regained consciousness, felt as if he’d been holding his breath for hours. He might never know what had worked, the doctors, the healers, the prayers, a last piece of mystical magic from Cope. It really didn’t matter. He could speak with his son again.

  “Dad?”

  “I’m here, Twain.”

  “Where…?” At first Deuce was afraid Twain couldn’t see since he was right in front of him, but then Twain finished. “Where’s Mom?”

  “She’s talking to one of the doctors,” Deuce said. He called his wife. For the next five minutes she held Twain’s hand and answered his quiet questions. They were on Ryder Island. His prognosis was good.

  “You’ll be fine,” his mother said. “Dehydration, malnutrition, and some minor abrasions and contusions. You must have fallen out of a tree and knocked yourself out or something. Do you remember what happened?”

  Twain remembered, but he wasn’t going to talk to his mother about it. He wasn’t going to tell anyone. Some of it was still fuzzy, but he knew two things for sure.

  He hadn’t fallen out of a tree, and he needed to get back there as soon as possible.

  Deuce watched his son very carefully while he and his mother spoke. There was a look in his eyes, a knowing that had not been there when he went to the redwoods. He wondered what Twain had seen and experienced during all that time. Had he found whatever it was that had held Cope to those trees for so long?

  In a way, the entire family had become slaves to Booker Lipton’s vision. His grandfather had somehow known what the world was going to become, and had prepared not only for his family’s safety but for his family to be able to save themselves from the future he saw. Booker knew three things would be needed to shape or reverse what the world would be in 2100: financial dominance, technological power, and quantum knowledge. His two sons, his grandson, and great-grandchildren had been bred into that determination, that cause.

  Deuce stared at his injured son and wondered how it could have been different. He didn’t know another way because this was all he had ever known. All that I am, and all that I ever was, was for this, he thought. Forgive me, my son. You were sacrificed to this fight long before I knew you. If I could have undone that, if there were any way to save you from this pain, any pain, this suffering, this war . . . I would do anything to stop it.

  Twain turned his eyes away from his mother and met his father’s as if he’d heard his thoughts. The two men conveyed much in that glance, their mutual love, respect, trust, and an urgency that the last hundred years of their family’s struggle, a thousand years of muddy history . . . it was all intersecting at this moment.

  There is not time! Twain screamed with his look.

  Deuce nodded, as if understanding everything. “Excuse me,” he said to his wife. “I have to check on the people who saved Twain.”

  Down the hall, Deuce moved his hand quickly over a nano scanner that verified his identity. Almost instantly, a heavy door slid open and he walked into a darkened room already filled with dozens of VMs. As with most of his offices, the ceiling was filled with stars, this one showing the night sky as it would appear from a planet in the Canis Major Overdensity Galaxy. Sometimes he would stare at this close “neighborhood,” a mere thirty thousand light years from our solar system, but today he didn’t even glance up as the VMs immediately stole all of his attention.

  He jumped among the screens like a battle commander and took control of multiple skirmishes, redirected troops, drones, weapons and other resources. At the same time, he tried to raise Chelle.

  It took longer than usual to get a connection with her. The infinite encryption system, contrary to its name, was limited in how much data it could protect at once. Efforts were underway to expand capacity, but a day like today was showing the limitations of the current system. As he tried to locate Munna and Nelson through KEL and other means, he continued to create diversions wherever large concentrations of AOI agents were detected.

  The most disturbing thing he witnessed was the amount of P-Force personnel in play, both in Portland and in the Amazon. He had numerous ways to deal with the AOI due to years of providing the agency with equipment through his secret subsidiaries, and even with that the AOI was a formidable foe. But P-Force, with its mercenary mentality and guerilla tactics, was going to be extremely challenging.

  Then, his warning maps began lighting up in red and yellow points of light. Yellow showed potential threats of conflicts within twenty-four hours, red indicated something much sooner, possibly in the next eight hours. What tightened his stomach was that these lights were blinking in more than sixty areas around the world.

  “It’s beginning, damn it,” he whispered to the room.

  He tried to think back on all he knew of the prophecies, the letter from his grandfather, everything Cope had ever told him, the strategies he’d studied for years, and any other stray thought that could tell him what to do next. He’d never imagined that the war would start this way. The act of kindness by Nelson and Munna to save his son had been the final spark to ignite the world war that would change everything and everyone.

  Just then, his zoom to Chelle went through. “Are they safe?” he asked as she appeared.

  Chelle had stepped into a side room to take the zoom while the other members of the revolutionary committee, known as the Exchange Board, continued their debate.

  “Not yet, but they are outside of Portland.” She further explained the details and their efforts to escape down the Willamette River. Deuce was able to zoom in a satellite on their location. He immediately used the data to move more BLAXERs toward Munna and Nelson.

  “How’s Twain?”

  “Improving. It was touch and go there for a while,” Deuce said while shuffling VMs, trying to get more help to them on the river.

  “I’m glad. Any idea what happened?”

  “None,” he lied. “I haven’t had a chance to dig deeper into Grandyn’s death. Have you picked up any intel?”

  “I’m afraid all of our sources indicate that this time it was him. If it wasn’t, he should have contacted someone by now.” She worked a VM, trying to pinpoint areas where she could safely pull PAWN units back to minimize the escalation.

  “There’s still a chance. I’ll look right now.” His finger moved though the air as if he were playing an invisible piano and more VMs of various sizes, some three-sided and some filled with holograms and 3D images, appeared. “If he is alive, he might be lying low with all the action right now. The people he would most likely have contacted, Munna, Nelson, or me, have all been out-Field.”

  “Maybe,” she said, doubtful. “How close are you to having the books?” Chelle wanted to get back to the Exchange Board before she talked to Deuce about Drast’s recommendation to hold off the start of the revolution.

  “We have all the books accounted for, other than what Drast hid. Do you think you can help with those?”

  “Me?”

  “I have feeling he’d tell you,” he said, watching more yellow and red lights fill his screens.

  “Even if we get them all, without Grandyn it could be pointless.”

  “We still have Nelson . . . and we could employ an Imp.”

  “I don’t work with vampires,” she said.

  Deuce ignored her comment, distracted by what he saw on one of the swirling VMs. “The AOI is convinced they killed Grandyn. An unbroken Neuro-cap was found in his mouth. An on-site FRIDG verified his identity. He’s being taken to Seattle AOI for a Said-scan. Once those results are in we’ll know for sure, but it looks like we may have lost our TreeRunner.”

  Chapter 50 - Book 2

  Miner sat alone with Sarlo, the smoke from the Amazon clearly visible from the rooftop suite of PharmaForce building in Manaus. Below them, the solar-powered tower of
green glass and nano-tech-composite metal was a beehive of activity. P-Force had already secured the airport, and was in air combat with StarFly jets, Flo-wings, and drones, but Deuce’s BLAXERs weren’t their only concern.

  PAWN had proven unexpectedly resilient. They were engaging the AOI and P-Force in the air, on the river, and, of course, deep in the jungle. Reports were still infrequent and vague, but it seemed obvious to Miner that Deuce had not been the only one supplying the rebels. They had weapons not manufactured or possessed by Deuce’s many companies.

  “This is not war,” Miner said, watching two drones dogfight in the far distance.

  “What would you call it then?” Sarlo asked. “A tennis match?”

  “It is not war until Aylantik declares it, which they will never do. But more importantly, it is not a war until the people know about it!”

  “There are more than a million people living in Manaus, who may not have quite the same nice view that we have, but they can certainly see there is fighting in the forest. And what about the trouble in Portland? Another million people up there are going to be gossiping about the explosions and general mayhem.”

  “Rumors may leak out, but we’re conveniently isolated down here, and the media will make no mention of so much as a traffic accident in Portland, at least to the rest of the world. As for the residents there who have obviously seen the violence, it will all be blamed on terrorists and the hunt for them,” Miner said, looking at her as if she should know all this, but he reminded her again. “When people are afraid, they will believe anything the government tells them.”

  “You’re inviting distrust of the media. You know what comes next . . . talk of corruption in the government will increase,” Sarlo said. “I think we’d be better off leveling with the populace, telling them there are rebels threatening stability, wanting to take away their way of life. If people think their utopia is about to be destroyed by a bunch of selfish nonconformists with weapons, they’ll stand with Aylantik.”

  “I wish that were true, but the AOI is not particularly loved.”

  Sarlo laughed. “That’s for sure.”

  “And anyway, the opposition will not be.” Miner spun his silver dollar on the desk in front of him and watched it surprisingly fall on heads. He stifled a laugh. “It’s okay for them to be afraid of a small wild band of terrorists, but talk of war, real war, that is too much.”

  Visuals began streaming in on two large VMs. Live audio feeds tracked three P-Force units canvassing Portland. “We’re outnumbered by AOI agents,” a P-Force leader announced. “We’ve just received word that the city is about to be put under martial law.”

  The smoke-filled streets, burning cars, and brigades of AOI in full riot gear punctuated the earlier reports of deteriorating conditions. Miner shuddered. The scene looked more like a pre-Banoff urban war zone than a shining city in his beloved Nusun, the single nation utopian earth his family had helped to found and that he’d nurtured his entire life.

  “This war cannot happen,” he fumed.

  “It looks bad,” Sarlo said, “but we can still stop it.”

  He swept an arm around to include the VMs showing Portland and the windows overlooking the burning Amazon. “If we do something in the next five minutes, maybe.”

  “Stop. Why did this all suddenly erupt?”

  He looked at her and slowly smiled. “Sometimes I forget how smart you are,” he said. “This is all a smokescreen to make sure Munna and Nelson Wright escape.”

  “Exactly. So let them go.”

  “As if I have a choice. They seem to have slipped through anyway.”

  “Zoom the Chief and tell her that if the AOI stands down in Portland and in the Amazon, we may be able to put this genie back in the bottle.”

  Miner nodded and quickly got hold of the AOI Chief. Her face filled a VM, and Miner noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Her always-rigid expression seemed to have a few more creases. Although sixty-two, her dusty brown hair, kept in a military crop, made her look younger, and Miner had heard she still did one hundred push-ups and fifty sit-ups every day. He’d also been told many times that she didn’t like him much, and on at least one occasion she was the one who had told him.

  “What is it, Lance? I’ve got half a world on fire and the other half running from me,” she snapped.

  “You’re looking for Munna and Nelson Wright.”

  “Look Lance, I know you’ve got boots on the ground in the two hot zones right now, and you’re racing for the same prize. So far your P-Force AOI-wannabes haven’t gotten in my way, but if they do, they will be removed.” She glared at him. “So why don’t you just tell me why you’re bothering me.”

  “I’m proposing we stand down and allow Munna and Wright to get away.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” She did a double take and both glances were incredulous. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I’d end this conversation right now, but maybe you’re going to say something else even funnier, and I could use a laugh today.”

  “Hear me out Chief. One thing you and I completely agree on is the need to avoid an open war with the rebels,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Things have escalated rapidly, but the rebels obviously weren’t planning to start their uprising today. They are just trying to protect Deuce’s son, Munna, and Wright. But we’re about to see the accidental start of the first war in seventy-five years . . . a war we may lose.”

  She stared silently.

  “Once the peace is broken, once blood is tasted, a cycle of war will begin that may never end.”

  She knew the warning. It had been made by Axel Doneharvest, the first head of the AOI, and the man the current crackdown had been named for.

  “We’re on the brink,” she said, mulling over his words.

  “But we can walk away. If we stop pursuing, they will collect their heroes and retreat into the woods to live to fight another day.”

  “They may see it as a sign of weakness.”

  “But it is not, and if they take it as one, it will be at their peril.”

  That made her smile. “It might just confuse the hell out of them.”

  The screen went black.

  Miner, confused, looked at Sarlo. She shook her head and shrugged.

  The Chief reappeared a few seconds later. “I’ve given the order. But so help me Lance, if I get wind of any advancement by P-Force in the next few hours, I will wipe them off the face of the earth.”

  “You’ll have no trouble from me Chief.”

  With the zoom ended, Miner and Sarlo watched the VMs and the windows. Within half an hour, there was a noticeable change. Most of the fires in Portland were brought under control. The Amazon would be another matter. It might be weeks or months until the burning stopped there, but at least the large scale fighting had subsided.

  “We’ve got to stop the forest burns,” Sarlo said. “Can you get the weathermakers to move in some rain?”

  He eyed her as if she’d suggested murder. “That, as you know, brings in a whole other mess.”

  Chapter 51 - Book 2

  Munna and Nelson sat inside the small cabin of a solar-powered pleasure boat, slowly moving northwest up the Columbia River toward the ocean, toward freedom. They just missed a checkpoint at the confluence as they came off the Willamette, but the Columbia still had plenty of AOI vessels to contend with, any of which could seize or board their tiny craft.

  ”By saving Twain, we may have inadvertently begun the war,” Nelson said. “Was his life worth trading for all the others that will be lost?”

  “This day will end quietly,” the old woman said, smiling.

  “How do you do it Munna? I spent a year with Cope, and all that I saw and learned amazes me. It’s better than any fiction I ever wrote. As you know, I’ve compiled many of Cope’s views, and now I’m writing about my experiences with him and Twain, but even with all that I don’t have that blind faith that Cope did and that you and Twain have. What am I missing?”
/>   “Your problem is bacs, and alcohol, and sugar, and‒‒”

  “I get it,” Nelson said.

  Munna smiled. “Knowing the truth is never about faith. It is about remembering, accepting, and, most importantly, it is about living. If we live as if we know there is more, then there will be more.”

  “Maybe if I ever‒‒” Nelson was interrupted by Chelle coming through on his INU.

  She told him Deuce’s BLAXERs were going to meet them at a small town along the river called Prescott. An AOI island checkpoint was set up around the next bend beyond Prescott, so the BLAXERs would continue them on by road until they could connect with a Flo-wing at the coast. But that didn’t worry him nearly as much as what else she told him. They kept the zoom short, and afterwards Nelson filled Munna in on the new plan and then told her the rest of Chelle’s news.

  “The AOI thinks they have killed Grandyn,” he said with a shaky voice, reaching for his now empty flask.

  “Death is not always the end.”

  “Listen Munna, I appreciate your belief in the afterlife, but Grandyn was like a son to me. I loved his parents, and I’ve known him his whole life. So if you don’t mind, I don’t need to hear your rainbow and unicorn story about seeing him in the next incarnation or whatever.”

  Munna smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He looked at her, confused, and lit a bac.

  Munna motioned to the window, which he opened to exhale his smoke. “I think we should not believe everything we fear,” she said, but before he could launch into another protest of her philosophical reaction, she continued. “The prophecies talk of Grandyn beyond this time.”

  “But you said you haven’t read them, and you also said they change.”