The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “One does not have to read the prophecies to understand them.”

  Nelson laughed out a cloud of smoke. “Sorry,” he said, as Munna brushed the air clear.

  “When you find the prophecies, you will know what I mean.”

  “So we’re going to find them?”

  “I certainly hope so, or we may all die in a terrible war.” She stared at him sternly. “Would you mind putting that thing out? There are no trees here to clean your polluted air.”

  He nodded, took a last drag, and crushed it under his heel.

  “Thank you.” She smiled. “I spoke with Lance Miner, and he‒‒”

  “Wait, you talked with PharmaForce-Miner?”

  She smoothed the front of her soft, hemp dress. “He shares my goal.”

  “What goal? Lance Miner is the devil!” Nelson said.

  “Lance Miner is certainly misunderstood, by himself most of all, and his methods are deplorable, but he is not the devil.” She patted Nelson’s arm. “More than anything he wants to avoid war.”

  “Because he knows he’ll lose!”

  “With war we all lose.”

  “Munna, we can win this war, and‒‒”

  “And what? You and your sister, Grandyn, and so many of the others seem to think if the revolution somehow succeeds in ending Aylantik rule and the AOI is dismantled, that all the wrongs of the past will be undone . . . but they won’t.”

  “Of course not, but at least we’ll know that the wrongs won’t be repeated. The repression and the AOI reign of terror will end.”

  “To be replaced by what?”

  “Maybe by Cope’s vision of the world, or yours. Wouldn’t you like that? Do you think it could ever happen with the Aylantik left in charge?”

  “Perhaps . . . anything is possible.”

  “But you’ve seen, you’ve glimpsed, something of the future, or you feel it, or someone told you enough that you know what the prophecies might say.” Nelson stood, his arms flailing. “You don’t want us to find the prophecies, do you? Because they show that we can win, that we do win. Or, as Chelle believes, they show us how to win. Don’t they?”

  “They may show all of that, but what good will that do?”

  “What good?” Nelson shook his head in disbelief and lit another bac. “Why are you so opposed to war? How can you say it is wrong to stop such atrocities as the AOI carries out by whatever means necessary?”

  “Our society is on the wrong track, we have been for millennia, and we cannot get back on the right path if we keep walking in the wrong direction. Violence, in any form, for any reason, always takes us in the wrong direction.” She frowned. “Put that thing out.”

  “But this is the real world,” he said, absently extinguishing his bac.

  “How can you say that after your time in the forest with Cope?”

  “How could you talk with Lance Miner? What did you discuss?”

  “I told him that I was his best chance to avoid war.”

  “But Munna . . . this war has been coming for a hundred years. Didn’t you see what was going on in Portland? The war has already begun.”

  “No wonder you’re so determined for a revolution.” Munna shook her head as if ashamed of a child. “If you think what we saw in Portland is the beginning of a war, you obviously have no idea what war really is.”

  Their argument was interrupted by their captain docking. “Prescott,” was all he said.

  Two tough looking men in tight Tekfabrik suits, which if you didn’t focus hard enough made them seem almost invisible from the neck down, awaited them. They each carried lasershods and continuously scanned the area. A small VM floated near their heads, but its contents were not visible to Nelson and Munna.

  “Ma’am, Mr. Wright, you’re to come with us for a rendezvous with PAWN at the beachhead.”

  “And who sent you?” Nelson asked, trying to sound like he might have a choice as to whether or not they would go with the men.

  “We’re BLAXERs,” one of the men said, assuming that would be enough. And it was.

  Chapter 52 - Book 2

  In the steamy jungles of the southern Pacyfik Region, the explosions and flyovers had decreased substantially during the past hour, but the Amazon still burned out of control.

  “Grandyn,” Zaverly said quietly, grabbing his arm and pulling him down.

  They were each wearing sensors which picked up on human activity or mechanized actions. Hers had gone off first, as she was a step ahead, but as they hit the damp ground and sank into vegetation more than half a meter deep, his was blinking.

  “It doesn’t look like grunges,” she said.

  “Probably not, since we haven’t been shot yet. Their sensors would have picked us up at least at the same time,” he said.

  “They’ve stopped,” Zaverly said, noting what he could see on his own VM. “Eight of them.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “They could be friendlies. They know we’re here and we’re outnumbered.” Her INU lit up before she could finish. She smiled, popping her thumbs. “TreeRunners.”

  They verified with each other, and five minutes later the newly formed band of ten TreeRunners was moving in the only direction not burning. “It’s probably why the fighting has died down,” one of them suggested. “How can anyone do anything in all that smoke and fire?”

  Less than one thousand meters later, mosquitoes forced out by the suffocating smoke suddenly grew thicker. They braced for the bites of one of their natural enemies, a price of living in the tropical jungle.

  “They’re not mosquitoes!” someone yelled. “They’re torgon swarm drones!”

  They’d all been pursued before by the camera-equipped, bug-sized drones, but not like this. There were at least five swarms, each with hundreds of bug-sized drones.

  “They have lasers!” one of the other TreeRunners yelled, as at least sixty of the flying weapons attacked him. Zaverly shot a pulse above him, trying to disperse the drones, but they’d already focused enough of their beams. A second later, the pain of cutting flesh and bone overwhelmed him as his severed arm dropped off, and the TreeRunner crashed to the ground, screaming.

  A second wave flew over, using concentrating beams to slice open his head in a grotesque scene of modern warfare. Absolute terror and wrenching agony, then he was gone. Hundreds of new swarm drones appeared from the treetops.

  “I’ve never seen so many!” Zaverly yelled.

  “There are thousands!” another TreeRunner added as they fled, shooting pulses above them.

  “It must be the fire that’s forcing them all into one area.”

  “The fire!” Zaverly shouted. “We can use that.”

  Another TreeRunner went down as they fled.

  “Run toward the burning trees!” she yelled. The others quickly figured out her plan and headed closer to the fire line.

  For the next fifteen minutes they ran at full speed, years of training put to the test. The swarm drones couldn’t navigate the close trees and tangled vegetation as well as the TreeRunners, and the remaining eight were able to keep the flying bug army at bay by spreading out, firing pulses, and weaving in and out of the trees.

  Soon the smoke was so thick that breathing became difficult and they had to slow. The swarm drones had problems with navigating and began to drop off. Some crashed into trees or other drones.

  “Shoot them!” one of the TreeRunners yelled.

  With their lasershods set to pulse, they were able to pick off up to a hundred at a time as the confused drones were unable to deal with the combination of flames, heat, smoke, and pulses. The TreeRunners were also having trouble and had to move away. The remnants of the drones were able to kill another TreeRunner before the battered team brought down the last of the drones and stumbled out of the smoke zone. The river and any hope of escape were still hours away.

  Chapter 53 - Book 2

  Ander Terik watched the live feeds coming through his INU of another skirmish in the Am
azon. The AOI had more than two hundred fifty Collins-HG3s in the Amazon basin, and hundreds more in forests around the world. The Chief may have been confident that they had killed Grandyn in the Olympic forest, but she was keeping the drones and other mechanized autonomous weapons deployed. In fact, Terik’s high-level AOI clearances showed him that the Chief wasn’t slowing down at all since Grandyn’s death. She still had Chelle Andreas, Nelson Wright, and Munna to find, but it wasn’t just that. The Chief didn’t need the massive number of units she had sent into the forests to capture three revolutionary leaders.

  She was preparing for war.

  He moved several VMs into position so they could be linked and viewed at once. In spite of her rhetoric to the contrary, he believed the Chief had resigned herself to being unable to stop the revolution from turning into a large scale, potentially worldwide uprising. She had strained the AOI with all the wilderness occupations. Terik could tell that her strategy was to keep the war where the rebels were hiding.

  Smart, he thought; if the rebels get into the cities, they might find more sympathy from the populace than the Aylantik would care to admit. At the very least, violence in the streets would make life uncomfortable for the overly comfortable and complacent masses.

  The images on the VMs changed to current KEL compilations, and even though Terik hadn’t been trained in the Drone Tactics Division, he could tell that the sheer numbers of drones over most cities had to be almost twice the normal traffic. There was also a noticeable increase of AOI agents donning light-jetpacks and flying the skies around the smaller towns. The Chief was doing everything right. She was maintaining the peace by preparing for war.

  Pulling up several more VMs, he could see that the AOI was monitoring the movements of BLAXERs and P-Force. Both groups, heavy in the Amazon, were listed as allies, but he was certain the Chief had contingencies for either or both of them going the other way. Unfortunately, his clearances didn’t allow him access to that data.

  Still, the size of their forces continued to surprise him as he expected the war would rely on technology-based weapons. But all the sides, including the rebels, seemed to be anticipating something like pre-Banoff style battles when people were used as weapons. There hadn’t been a war in the modern era, and it had only been in the two decades prior to the Banoff that weapons became sophisticated enough that large number of soldiers were no longer required. But it had been the brutal Banoff war which had brought the Aylantik to power and showed just how dominating tech-weapons were.

  So why the troop build-up? he wondered. Perhaps the Chief and the other leaders are worried about something, or someone, else. Maybe they know more about the List Keepers than they’re admitting.

  He scanned the profiles of Deuce Lipton and Lance Miner. It was part of his daily ritual, as the AOI constantly updated files and Terik wanted to be sure he knew every detail and each change concerning all the key players.

  There were dozens of new entries for the two moneyed men, but nothing of importance. If he made it to his next promotion before the war broke out, he’d have more clearances, which could help him in his rise to power. Prison officials, top Aylantik leaders, AOI officials, the Chief herself, and even the identities of the Council members were all in there somewhere, he just needed the right access. But that would come. In the meantime, there was dirty work to do.

  He moved the VMs to the side.

  Terik looked again over the list of purported Grandyn Happerman sightings over the past three years, then he reviewed the reports of Grandyn’s death – seven, including the one in the Olympic forest. He knew none of it was true.

  A marvelous distraction, he thought.

  Sitting in the parking area of Hilton Prison, Terik took his most drastic step in achieving his goals. He’d thought about it enough. He’d calculated every possible ramification. It was time.

  He took the contents of the thread he’d received from Drast with the location of the AOI “burned” books and transferred the data to Grandyn’s INU. Then he sent Drast’s message to Chelle.

  “Not a bad day’s work,” he whispered to no one. He spoke the address and his LEV instantly charted a course to his destination. “Now things are about to get very interesting.”

  Chapter 54 - Book 2

  As they continued toward the Amazon River, Zaverly and Grandyn had merged two units of PAWN fighters and a group of TreeRunners.

  They ran between trees, as they’d been trained, but the swarm drones had improved. The DesTIn-enabled autonomous mechanical trackers no longer crashed into trees, and, as they dove into a ravine, they found out something worse. This new generation could fire death lasers with extreme accuracy.

  The neon-blue heat-beam hit him on his side while he was jumping one meter off the ground. Another purple heat-beam struck his waist area before he landed. As he went somersaulting down the steep bank, Zaverly was convinced the strikes had been fatal. She hit the medic button on her communicator, but knew they couldn’t come in the middle of a firefight. It would be too late.

  A Collins-HG3 flew in from above and she feared it was over for her as well. There was nowhere to hide. But then the large metal monster started picking off swarm drones. It shot an electro-pulse that wiped out a group of at least twenty. She spotted a fellow TreeRunner concealed nearby, working controls. Somehow they had commandeered a Collins-HG3 and they were using it to kill swarm drones.

  Zaverly slid down the ravine. Deep below thick vegetation of giant green leaves, she found him. “Oh, Grandyn.” She panted and tried to slow her breathing. “Are you . . .” She saw life in his eyes. “You’re still alive.”

  “I’m going . . .” he whispered.

  “Don’t talk, baby. We’re going to get you out of here. Dorey got a Collins and turned it on them. We’ve stopped the swarmers!”

  “ . . . to die,” he finished.

  “Grandyn, you can’t die! You’re too important to the cause. We need you, damn it!” she cried.

  He looked at her and tried to smile.

  “You’re too important to me. I love you! Don’t go, baby, please.” She cradled his head and pounded her medic button.

  “I have . . . “

  “Don’t talk, save your energy. Someone will be here any minute.” Zaverly looked up the ravine and saw nothing. It was too steep to take him back up, but she had to try. “Come on Grandyn. I’m going to carry you.”

  “Not . . .”

  “Yes, I am, and you’re in no position to stop me.” Her voice trembled as she saw the burned and bloody flesh where the strikes had hit, both on his torso.

  “I’m not Grandyn,” he said faintly.

  “What? I’m getting you out of here.”

  “Not Grandyn,” he repeated, a little stronger.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wan-ted to tell . . . you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I’m bait, to pro-tect real . . . Gran-dyn.”

  She had heard him, but couldn’t believe it. All this time she’d resented that he was getting everyone around him killed because he was Grandyn, and now he was saying he was never Grandyn at all. She looked into his eyes and shook her head.

  “It’s true,” he moaned.

  “Why?”

  “Pro-tect.”

  “No. Why would you take such a suicide assignment?” She cried as she said suicide.

  “I didn’t know I’d meet the love of my life.” His eyes closed

  Her tears came harder. “Please, baby, don’t die. Don’t leave me.”

  “Love.”

  “Tell me your real name. I want to know who I love.” She kissed his lips, and then screamed. “I hate you Grandyn Happerman!”

  More than two hours later, when she arrived back at the bunker with his body, she found her supervisor.

  “Did you know?” Zaverly demanded.

  “Know what?”

  “He’s not Grandyn!”

  “What? Who said that?”

  “He
did . . . just before he died because they thought he was Grandyn, because they’ve been hunting Grandyn, because he was just bait!”

  “I don’t know anything about this Zaverly. I’ll see what I can find out . . . but if he really isn’t Grandyn, then the real Grandyn is still alive somewhere.”

  “I don’t care about the real Grandyn, I only care about the man I’ve fought beside and loved all this time. I want to know who he was, his name, where he was from, his family . . . I deserve to know who I loved.”

  The supervisor nodded and left the room.

  It would be three weeks before she got her answer and his name. “It wasn’t easy,” the supervisor said. “It’s all very classified. They’ve been using stand-ins for years in order to protect the real Grandyn. I don’t even know if the real one is alive anymore, or if he’s just a big piece of propaganda.”

  “How dare they!” Zaverly said, still bitter. “Asking innocent young men to sacrifice themselves for the coward Grandyn Happerman. Where is this famous TreeRunner? I’d like to tell him what a real man is, a man who died for him.” She could not hold back the tears. “It was not a fair trade!”

  Chapter 55 - Book 2

  The following day, Grandyn sat by the window. The view of the Cascades across the verdant rolling valley could not compete with what he saw inside the former restaurant. He really didn’t ever expect to see them again, especially not these. It took a few minutes for it all to register in his brain.

  His father’s books had really survived. The day of his father’s death, PAWN had tried to move the more than fifty thousand books still in their possession to a safer place, but most of those had been intercepted by the AOI. They were burned two days later, or so the reports had said. In fact, there had even been eyewitnesses, but somehow, Drast had saved them.

  Grandyn had no idea how he’d done it, but they’d eventually been secretly parked in the old log building where he now sat. Apparently the place had once been a fancy restaurant. The structure must have been a hundred years old, maybe older. Who owned it, or why it remained empty, was unknown, but it was an ideal location to hide something.