by Brandt Legg
Maybe there isn’t a way to avoid war, and that’s why she won’t let us see it.
His INU lit up, interrupting his thoughts. The zoom had not been expected but didn’t surprise him.
“Deuce, we need to talk,” the Chief said as she holographed into his space. She looked above, unsmiling. “Interesting stars.”
“I’ve got two minutes.”
“This won’t take that long. I know you have Munna and Nelson Wright somewhere. You’re probably also hiding the TreeRunner.” She hesitated, then added bitterly. “We’ve killed Grandyn at least half a dozen times, yet he still keeps running like a stupid dog looking for a soggy tennis ball.”
“Are you accusing me of a crime?”
“Oh, not you Deuce. Give me some credit. I know you’re above the law. I’m merely warning you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I will not allow this to turn into a war. Do you understand what I mean by that? If your BLAXER army even appears to be helping the rebels, I will crush them. I think you know we have weapons at our disposal that are not meant to fight a war, but rather to end it.”
“I understand.”
“Don’t let this start,” she hissed.
“Is that all?”
“For now.” She faked a smile. “Peace prevails, always.”
After the zoom, Deuce walked into his son’s room. Twain, still weak, but talking more now, smiled when he saw his father. “How are you feeling?” Deuce asked.
“Better than you,” Twain replied, smiling with his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Your pal Munna is playing a dangerous game with me.”
“That doesn’t sound like her.” He studied his father for a moment. “She might be trying to save you from yourself.”
“Really? I don’t need a crazy old lady to interfere with‒‒”
“Dad, Munna is not some freak. She’s us.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She is the example of what we could be if we’d taken a different path. Instead of following money and things, we could be there. We could be her.”
“I know,” Deuce said, sitting on his son’s bed. “It’s why I’m in this thing. PAWN wants to get rid of Aylantik so we can go back to multiple governments around the planet. Grandyn wants revenge . . .” Deuce paused and thought of his own father, killed by the AOI, and fought his own lingering wishes for vengeance. “Chelle and Drast want to right the wrongs of the Banoff . . . the Creatives, the Rejectionists, they all have differing reasons for the change, but I’m after the same thing Munna wants. I’m trying to bring Booker’s vision into reality.”
“Booker sent Munna.”
Deuce looked at Twain, surprised.
“She knew him, they worked together.”
“That much I knew.”
“He told her that one day she would need to help you and me, to show us how to get through.”
Deuce nodded slowly. After a few moments, he spoke. “Then why isn’t she showing me? Why won’t she let me see the prophecies?”
“Because you’re still looking at things the wrong way. You still think that power is external,” Twain said softly, looking tired again. “The real power is inside. Look at her. Can’t you see it? She is showing you.”
Chapter 66 - Book 2
Grandyn arrived, looking beleaguered, dirt-covered, and with bits of leaves, twigs, and bark in his hair. He fell into Fye’s arms.
“What happened?” She asked, kissing him, crying tears of joy. “Are you hurt?”
“Did you hear about Terik?”
“Yes, I thought it might have been you.”
“It was the CHRUDE.” He kissed her softly, and then rested his forehead on hers, staring into her eyes. “I’m alive. Nine lives, remember?”
She wiped her tears. “I think you’ve used them all up.”
“I’ll have to be careful now then, won’t I?”
She patted her belly and gave him a serious look.
“I know,” he whispered. “I promise you I’m not going to die.”
She looked at him quietly for a long moment.
He nodded, acknowledging the seriousness of his promise.
Finally, she spoke. “But how did you hear about Terik?”
“Drast.”
“How?” was all she could manage, hoping he would answer all of the questions contained in that single word. How did Drast know about Terik already? How did Drast get word to Grandyn, the real Grandyn? And how did Grandyn escape from whatever ordeal he’d been through?
“We now have our case for the masses.” Grandyn looked at her for a moment and then slid into a chair by the window. “The Terik execution was recorded. The unit relayed a digital capture showing Lance Miner killing Ander Terik at a PharmaForce facility.”
“Incredible. I had no idea it could‒‒”
“It gets better. After Terik ‘died,’ they were taking his body to a medical room for a brain scan and it exploded. Killed three people and partially destroyed a wing of the building.”
“Miner?”
“No, he was in another part of the facility. But it gets even better. A team of rebels stormed the building at the same time, did some more damage, and escaped in a Flo-wing before one of Miner’s P-Force units could overpower them.”
“What were they doing there?”
“Getting Terik’s body so it couldn’t be brain-scanned.”
“But it blew up.”
“Right, but Miner doesn’t know it blew up. He thinks the rebels sent in explosives to cover their extraction of Terik.”
She looked at him and smiled. “So Miner doesn’t know that Terik was a CHRUDE?”
“Exactly. But it still gets even better . . . Miner thinks Grandyn Happerman is really dead.”
“Yes!” she squealed. “So Blaise sent the rebels?”
“I would have thought so too. But it wasn’t him.”
“Then who?” she asked genuinely surprised. “Only Blaise, you, and I knew about Terik.”
“Drast.”
“Polis Drast?” she whispered, as if it was too unbelievable to be spoken out loud. “How could he send an attack from prison? How did he know? Who is still taking his orders? How did you find out? What‒‒”
“Slow down. I’ll tell you.”
“But you’re such a mess. Are you really okay?”
“I’m a mess because after what happened to Terik I couldn’t risk a LEV, so I ran here, through the forest, from the coast. It’s more than seventeen kilometers.”
“Good thing you’re a TreeRunner,” she said, smiling sweetly, happy he was all right, happy he was back with her. “Now tell me everything.”
“It’s really quite amazing.” He poured a glass of water and gulped it down. “Once Chelle convinced Miner to bring rain to the Amazon, I knew the prophecies would change again, but I didn’t know by how much, so I still had to go through with our plan to stop the prison uprisings.”
Grandyn thought back three years earlier when the List Keepers agreed to protect him. They went through a difficult and tedious process to erase every photo or identifiable trace from all AOI databases, then inserted new photos and identification so that the AOI was searching for someone who looked nothing like Grandyn. Then they created Ander Terik and gave him Grandyn’s true appearance so Grandyn was free to move around and even become an AOI agent. But as he thought about the controversial part of the plan, his heart sank.
Eight people had died for him. Look-alikes were dispatched around the world, not just to throw the AOI off his trail, but to take resources and distract the agency. It had worked perfectly, but the deaths were hard for him to live with.
“There was another Grandyn death in the Amazon,” he said.
“Oh no . . . I’m so sorry,” she said, knowing what it did to him.
“Drast, of course, knew about Terik,” he said, returning to the subject as to not dwell on the loss. “But he wants a war, so our decision to not ask him to stop the
uprising was right, at least until Terik was destroyed. That’s when I deviated from our plan.”
“How?” she asked, gazing in amazement at the man she loved. Oddly, in that moment she smiled, realizing again what a wonderful father he would be and wishing she had met Grandyn’s dad.
“I was halfway to the AOI’s prison in the Illinois Area to talk to Drast’s inmate buddy Tiger, when my INU lit up with the news of Terik. Now, I couldn’t very well go into an AOI prison as AOI agent Ander Terik when he’d just been killed by Miner. I didn’t know that the AOI didn’t know yet, so instead I went back to Runit Island.”
“You could have told me.”
“I didn’t want to compromise you, or the baby,” Grandyn said. “I was traveling as a dead AOI agent. It was too risky.”
Fye nodded. “Why do you still have that?” she asked, pointing the AOI pin he was mindlessly fiddling with.
“It’s a symbol,” he said, “of something we can’t ever forget. I’m keeping it until all the lies and corruption are exposed.”
“You might have it a long time . . . ”
“I know.” He thought of his parents, then gently touched Fye’s belly and resumed the story. “On the way, I had to take a chance on Drast.”
“How?”
“I got into Osc’s system using Terik’s credentials, and Osc arranged a double-blind zoom.” The term described a non-visual zoom of very short duration so that a satellite lock on the location of the INUs could not be determined.
“So you had eighty-two seconds.”
“Yes. I told him we’d seen the prophecies and that if his war started in the prisons, he would lose. He believed me, at least enough to delay things until I can get him more information. That’s when he told me about the raid on Pharma-Force.”
“All that in eighty-two seconds?”
“We talked fast.”
“Chelle is going to want to get him out,” she said.
“Probably, depending on the Justar Journal,” he said. “Anyway, I got back to the island and found Nelson and Deuce in the middle of a huge argument and Munna still freezing the screens. I told them about Terik, and about the raid and Drast. Munna opened the VMs again, and everything had changed.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was messy, we were still at war, years and years of war, but it had gone much better. Munna was still alive, PAWN was winning. But . . .”
His hesitation worried her. “What?”
“Chelle was dead, and . . . so was I.”
“I’m not losing you,” she said, holding her belly.
“There may be only one way to avoid it.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s the one thing that you’ve sworn never to do.”
“Is there no other way?” She shook her head in disbelief. “How has it come to this?”
“I don’t think so,” he looked at her with his gravest expression, as if the crushing weight of the entire corrupt Aylantik system were pushing him. “The List Keepers must come forward and show the world the truth.”
END OF BOOK TWO
JUSTAR JOURNAL BOOK THREE - THE LIST KEEPERS
Chapter 1 - Book 3
Monday, July 11, 2101
The AOI Chief had issued the execution order twenty-four hours after Ander Terik’s death had been broadcast around the world via the Field. If she could have, she would have issued a second one for Lance Miner, the PharmaForce CEO who’d killed Terik, but he had too many friends on the A-Council. For now, just the one for Miner’s former protégé and her former AOI Pacyfik Region Head, Polis Drast, would have to do.
That didn’t mean Miner was out of trouble. She’d launched two separate investigations, one into the entire Ander Terik affair, ending with his untidy death at the hands of the PharmaForce CEO, and another into the specific connections and relationships among Terik and Drast, and Drast and Miner. The latter had been the subject of a previous investigation, but in light of recent events, the Chief decided she was no longer satisfied with those earlier, benign results.
“I swear I will kill that woman!” Miner shouted to his assistant, Sarlo.
The Rocky Mountains, visible from the massive windows on the top floor of the Denver PharmaForce building, were bathed in alpenglow. The dramatic view calmed her in the face of the greatest tirade she’d ever seen from her boss. There would be a chance to help him see the strategic benefits present in this problem, but for now, silence seemed imperative, dutifully serving as a surrogate for the real focus of his rage.
“If I don’t kill her, she’ll wish I had once I finish with her. I’ll take her career, her identity, I’ll banish her to sewage monitor in Bangladesh! Damn her for sending investigators in here. My family built the Aylantik! I’m on the torgon Council!”
Miner would have been more than just “on” the Council. If it hadn’t been for Drast’s betrayal, he would have been its Chairman.
Sarlo had not berated him for leaving her behind when he went to meet Grandyn Happerman, aka Ander Terik. If she had been there, she liked to think that it would have gone differently. Perhaps Grandyn would have talked, or he would have been held, maybe even turned over to the AOI, but Miner had wanted it all for himself. The glory, the information, the power, he couldn’t bear sharing it with the AOI, or even Sarlo. He also knew she’d never have approved of his tactics, which was absolutely true. She understood how he worked, and agreed with his motives, but it frustrated her that Miner didn’t realize that he was at his best with her.
Sarlo knew his anger was reserved not only for the AOI Chief. He was equally furious at Drast, Blaise, and Chelle Andreas, all of whom he believed had elaborately orchestrated his public humiliation. Most of all, Miner was outraged at himself for falling into their web. He’d been so desperate to win, but, blinded by his competition with Deuce Lipton, he had missed the real enemy. In all the years he’d been fighting against the war, he had failed to realize that the rebels weren’t just seeking to overthrow the Aylantik for the sake of power, or even simply to effect change. Now he knew that the revolution mattered to these people. They were discontent, they felt oppressed, they’d been wronged. And that realization, that he was fighting people fueled by passion, terrified him.
“They aren’t ever going to stop . . . they’ll keep coming until they win,” he whispered.
Sarlo heard him and took the opening. “There are many ways to win,” she said. “For them, and for us.”
Grandyn Happerman, long at the center of the storm, was now dead, at least to those who had spent years relentlessly pursuing him. Fye looked at his serene, yet troubled face, even at “death,” and smiled the beautiful smile of relief. The kind that comes only when the brutal weight of fear has been lifted.
“We’re free,” she said. “We’re at least a little free.” Fye patted her belly, four months pregnant with their child. “Grandyn Happerman is dead.” She laughed with the words – simultaneously nervous and joyous.
The two of them were in a small safe house near Mount Shasta, in the California Area. They couldn’t stay long but, for now, it gave them a rare sense of normalcy.
“For now,” Grandyn replied. “But there are no secrets in the Aylantik. Deuce and Munna know I’m alive, Drast knows, Nelson and Chelle . . . that’s a lot of people. The AOI will discover it soon enough. And then there’s Blaise. He may already be peddling the information to the highest bidder.”
“But there are secrets,” she said.
“Sure, there are plenty of secrets, but none long kept. And a secret told changes to something else. It becomes a danger.”
“There are secrets long kept,” she said. “I’m one of them.”
“The List Keepers?”
“Yes.”
“But even the List Keepers are rumored to exist. People know about them, they just haven’t proved it yet.”
“List Keepers are more secret than that. Whether we exist or not isn’t the real question. List Keepers are actually more secre
t than secrecy itself.” She put her hand on her belly.
He looked at her. “Tell me.”
“You know I want to, and I will, but I can’t yet.” Her lips pursed and her eyes darkened.
“Why not?” he asked, so tired of the mystery. “We’re going to have a baby, we’re in love, we’re building a life together . . . and all that has to start with trust.”
His hurt look tugged at Fye, but the loyalties to the List Keepers had been present since birth, bred into her. “I can’t, but I will,” she repeated, giving him a pleading look. “This is not something I can tell you, it’s something I have to show you . . .” Her gaze was drawn to an open window and the trees that stood strong, as if guarding them. Always the trees, she thought.
“When?” Grandyn asked.
“We’ll go there together.”
“To the city?”
“Yes, as soon as I get approval.”
“Approval? Is that going to be a problem?”
“No, you’re Grandyn Happerman. They’d probably invite you even if you weren’t with me.”
“Do they know Grandyn Happerman isn’t really dead?”
“The List Keepers know everything.”
Chapter 2 - Book 3
For eight days, Munna had held the INUs dark so that the Justar Journal could not be read. She and the prophecies remained on Runit Island, but they might as well have not existed.
Deuce had tried everything he knew to overcome her mysterious ability to block the prophecies. He even attempted to run the programs on systems in other parts of the world, but nothing worked. At one point he had her moved away from the books and temporarily held on his Seattle Office Campus, but it made no difference, so he returned her to Runit Island where he believed she’d be safer.