The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  Goodbyes were said and a small launch, carrying Fye, Grandyn, and Twain, was sent to shore.

  Just before they left the Moon Shadow, Deuce had connected Twain with his sister and mother. They had tried to talk him out of going back into the redwoods. Grandyn had watched as they cried, and it brought back memories of his mother. The AOI had killed her thirteen years earlier . . . they had taken so much of his life, but he would not let them take any more. He and Fye were going to work their way to the List Keepers City, where he hoped to be able to convince them to use their power and resources to help PAWN win the war.

  Grandyn had contacted Parker, the TreeRunners leader, and she’d arranged for Fye and himself to join a combat unit of the TreeRunners who could help them get through the area. Three or four hours after they’d left Twain in the redwoods, they met up with members of the TreeRunners. There were six of them, and Grandyn was disappointed that he didn’t know any of them. The one in charge made introductions, and then told Grandyn, “We’ve got a POP about three kilometers from here where we can sleep tonight.”

  “Appreciate the help,” Grandyn said. “This is a bit west of my old stomping grounds, but I suspect we’ll get into familiar territory sometime tomorrow.”

  “Our orders are to get you as far as Mt. Shasta,” the TreeRunner said. “Our clan leader will be here in the morning. She’ll have the latest information on what’s going on out there. With all the fighting in the Oregon Area, we may have to lay low for a few days.”

  “We can fight if need be,” Grandyn said, looking at Fye. “Who’s your leader?” he asked, wondering if it might be one of his old clan mates.

  “You probably don’t know her. She just transferred into the area recently,” the TreeRunner said. “Her name’s Zaverly.”

  Chapter 28 - Book 3

  Miner opened the connection and allowed Blaise’s hologram to appear. “What happened?”

  “We lost them for the moment,” Miner admitted, shrugging at Sarlo.

  Blaise wasn’t surprised. Deuce was not an easy target. It was the reason he’d enlisted Miner’s P-Forces in the first place. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s vanished into thin air,” Miner said. “Before we could get backup to his islands to aid our jumpers, he’d gotten BLAXERs there and they outgunned and outnumbered our people.”

  “Anyone make it out alive?”

  “No. In the interests of speed and surprise, we’d dropped them in without a retreat option until we could get reinforcements there . . . They ran out of time.”

  “Have you checked satellite tracking to see where Deuce went?” Blaise asked, but he already knew the answer.

  “Deuce controls many of the satellites, and he’s got some kind of stealth technology. I’m telling you he vanished out there.”

  “The Imps will find him.”

  “Can we use them to locate him?”

  “They might be too smart for that, but you can try,” Blaise said, looking at his reflection in a polished silver column and checking his hair. “I hope to implement a surprise for the Trapciers before they get that far, and when the time comes I’ll need a few thousand P-Force troops to help pick up the pieces, but I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  “I assume the Imps have moved out of Denver?”

  “Yes, and obviously the AOI is not pursuing them. It was a brilliant alliance they forged. Unless the Chief is smarter than we think.”

  “She’s never impressed me,” Miner said bitterly.

  “He’s biased,” Sarlo said. “I don’t think we should underestimate her. She seems to be doing a damn fine job executing the war so far. Especially when this is, allegedly, something the Chief never wanted.” Sarlo gestured toward the VMs, showing endless destruction and very little pushback from anyone. “And her two natural enemies are taking the blame. Publically, PAWN is responsible for the trouble, and within the Council, Lance and P-Force are the bad guys.”

  “It’s just the first day, love,” Blaise said. “We’ll see how she’s doing a week from now.”

  Sarlo looked back at the VMs and shuddered, trying to imagine what horrors would come in the next week.

  What will be left? she wondered. And where the hell is PAWN?

  The Chief, Deuce Lipton, Lance Miner, and Blaise Cortez were all asking the same question. Thus far, Chelle and PAWN had been almost silent. All the parties were making the same assumption. That the war they’d been hoping for all those decades had caught them by surprise.

  Blaise speculated that it might be some kind of strategy. Miner thought perhaps PAWN had been overestimated, although Sarlo thought just the opposite. Deuce had been almost too busy to give it much thought, but after he’d regained control of his situation, worry about Chelle crept in. He’d never been entirely sure he trusted her, but he always thought her a dangerous foe, and one to be feared by all her adversaries.

  They were all correct. Chelle had been surprised by the start of the war, but less about the timing and more about the AOI’s rapid and lethal methods. Most of her day had been spent strategizing and making sure PAWN would be in a position to handle the AOI’s tactics. She had also been worrying, mainly about Drast and Osc, but also about Nelson and Grandyn. Chelle was, above all, a warrior, and although the stress had torn at her unrelentingly for years, she used it to strengthen her focus. There were times when that technique wore thin, but there was no other choice.

  She was also part of a strong team of revolutionaries who’d mostly hammered out their differences and were united in their opposition to Aylantik. However, they all knew their biggest threat might not be the AOI, but rather the Trapciers. Also, making the multifarious situation even more complex, were the List Keepers.

  The Imps may have been a late surprise into the conflict, but PAWN understood that challenge, and knew whom they were dealing with. The List Keepers, a mysterious group that had longed vexed them, and were only now beginning to get attention from Deuce, Miner, and the AOI, had been an entity they’d been wrestling with for years. Yet even in all that time, they had only confirmed two members. Fye, who with her relationship with Grandyn, had direct influence and connection to the disposition of the Justar Journal, and Munna, who seemingly controlled the prophecies, made the List Keepers even more crucial to the fight.

  Chelle believed them to be a friendly group who should side with PAWN. However, she had little to base those assumptions on, and now that the war had begun, anything was possible. At least, she thought, with the outbreak of hostilities, we’ll finally know where the List Keepers stand. Chelle was also counting on Grandyn. If he was involved with Fye, he must know much more about the group, and he was as loyal to the revolution as anyone.

  She concluded a Field-view, utilizing infinite-encryption that had linked representatives from the Creatives, the Rejectionists, as well as PAWN leaders from around the world. As expected, everyone had fallen in line and were fully committed to a unified front against Aylantik. That news was good, but there had already been heavy losses. The Chief was seemingly fighting the war solo, orchestrating all sides so that she could inflict huge losses on PAWN and P-Force. So far the BLAXERs had remained neutral, but all the INU and DesTIn generated simulations had shown Deuce’s initial response. Chelle still expected him to join their side, although some of her peers weren’t as convinced.

  Finally alone, Chelle stared at more than forty VMs floating in her private conference room. The constant images of the vicious blitzkrieg being pounded in unending furor by the AOI had left her traumatized. Still, she reviewed every strike and adjusted her plans accordingly. During the moments in between, Chelle searched for word of Osc and Drast. Communications in and from that quadrant of the Pacyfik, which included Hilton Prison, Portland, Ryder and Runit Islands, and a series of known PAWN strongholds and revolutionary sympathizers, had been sketchy all day.

  Then, she spotted a report that stole her heart. The Flo-wing that had been sent to rescue them from Hilton Prison had been shot down. It had
been a laser-blast strike. She knew that meant a fireball, which would result in almost no wreckage, and definitely no survivors. Chelle read the report three times, trying to wring a different meaning from the cold words.

  How can I lose my son and Polis in one day? She couldn’t believe it. The cruelty of the stars could not waste such a harsh sentence on someone so unworthy. I’ve been tortured enough. I cannot give enough of a reaction to make this anything but a simple tragedy. I have no blood remaining, no tears available . . . I have been trampled and spent. Damn you! Torgon damn you!

  An aide found her a few minutes later, sitting silently, trembling.

  “Chelle, are you all right?” she asked.

  Chelle shook her head, but said, “Fine.”

  The aide looked around, unsure if that answer was good enough. Chelle’s face looked as if it had been deflated, and her scratchy voice didn’t belong to the once beautiful woman, but when Chelle didn’t say any more, the aide remembered she had news that might help.

  “We’ve just received a signal from the Glade safe house. It’s the closest to Hilton Prison. Someone is inside. They’ve used the INU.”

  It took a second for the words to register, but then Chelle sprang back to life. She pulled up the details of the Glade safe house, then checked the report of the Flo-wing again and realized that it could have been shot down after it had dropped Osc and Drast to safety. There was no way to contact them directly yet, but they could be alive.

  They are alive! I know it. She breathed oxygen into her lungs and felt her heart beat again.

  Chapter 29 - Book 3

  Sidis marveled at the maps before him. Battles across the globe were shown above the outlines of cities, areas, and regions in three dimensional live views.

  “They’re actually hardly battles,” he said to the other Imps and CHRUDEs that had gathered. “It is difficult to describe them as battles when no one is fighting back.”

  “The day has exceeded our expectations,” Galahad said.

  “Thanks to the ruthlessness of the AOI Chief. It turns out that woman is even more nasty than our models showed her to be.”

  “But tomorrow promises to be something different, when the shock wears off and PAWN, P-Force, and the BLAXERs are able to regroup and strike back.”

  “Yes, but that’s precisely what we want them to do. Have you seen the latest DesTIn predictions? The war will last eight more days until both sides collapse. Then, in our victory, our vision will begin, and we will have more than won. We will have accomplished what no one in world history has been able to achieve: the end of war. The Trapciers will be able to redirect the future of humanity and this planet. Imps and CHRUDEs will have saved the Traditionals and the world.”

  “It’s her,” Morholt said, allowing a holographic version of the Chief to enter.

  “Still at work?” Sidis said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Yes,” replied the Chief, looking around at the gathered misfits who always appeared to her as skeletons wearing clothes. The one called Percival actually looked more like a suit on a clothes hanger. Then there were the “healthy ones,” who seemed like normal Traditionals, although she assumed they were some kind of elaborate android. She didn’t really know who, or what they were, and that bothered her. The AOI was still well behind on understanding CHRUDE technology. Her typically stern face looked even more gray and chiseled. “It has been going well, but I’m concerned‒‒”

  “Concerned that PAWN has yet to react? That Miner has regained control of P-Force and that Deuce Lipton is not truly on our side?” Sidis said, finishing the Chief’s statement as if he’d read her mind. “Of course you are, and right you should be. Allow me to tell you what tomorrow will bring. Or, better yet, I will show you.”

  Sidis ran a simulation that had P-Force pulling back and PAWN taking surgical strikes against AOI tech centers and troop-heavy bases.

  “You believe Miner will back down?” she asked, surprised.

  “He has to. Miner is an Aylantik loyalist. Although he’d like to see you fired, or more accurately, tortured and slowly killed, he has no desire to alienate his friends on the Council. He will seek to reconcile with them and to rejoin our alliance.”

  “Hard to believe, but plausible,” she said. “And Deuce?”

  “Deuce will eventually swing the other way. He is a problem because his BLAXERs are more numerous and better trained than P-Force, but most troublesome is the fact that they are equipped with more superior weapons and technology than the AOI.”

  “Our assessment doesn’t draw that conclusion,” the Chief said.

  “No, it wouldn’t. You see Chief, in order for AOI assessments to present a true picture of the BLAXERs’ capabilities, the basis and input data would have to be accurate, and they are not.”

  “Really?” the Chief asked indignantly.

  “It’s worse than that. Deuce Lipton controls a significant number of AOI suppliers.”

  “Impossible. We review ownership, conflicts of interest, affiliations, and connections quarterly,and maintain‒‒”

  “Tell it to the Council, Chief. I’m not here to judge you, just to prepare you. I’ll flash you a list of the ownership, conflicts of interest, affiliations, and connections you missed. But don’t punish yourself. We can deal with most of it.”

  “Most of what?”

  “Deuce will have planted back-doors and the like,” Sidis said. “When he turns from you, it will be easy to spot. It’s while he is still an ‘ally’ that presents the greatest threat.”

  “I’ll put a team on it,” the Chief said.

  “We’re already working on a program.”

  “I’m also worried about a group called the List Keepers. We don’t know enough about them, but there is increasing chatter on KEL and flash.”

  “Yes,” Sidis said gravely, “we are also concerned. It is precisely because that chatter is so infinitesimal that tells us they are dangerous.”

  “Our records show mentions of them, like PAWN, all the way back to the Banoff. We have enormous amounts of data on PAWN, but with the List Keepers, the references and instances are very rare. Our conclusion is they are either very small, or very powerful.”

  “We believe they are actually both small and powerful. The List Keepers are a mystery we have been wrestling with for some time. They are the one factor that makes our forecast difficult. If we leave them out of a scenario, it is rendered accurate only to seventy-eight percent.”

  “And if you include them?”

  “Because of the dearth of information about them, those results become inconclusive,” Sidis said, deciding not to tell her that they had run two simulations which both showed the Aylantik falling because of the List Keepers.

  Sidis and Galahad believed there was more information about the List Keepers within the Field than was visible, using typical data claiming techniques. “It’s as if the Field is wrapped inside something much bigger than itself,” Sidis had told Galahad, “and we can only scrape the data from the larger pool. From where it touches the Field.” If that larger pool really existed, who created and controlled it was an extremely troubling matter because, they agreed, it could only be the List Keepers.

  “The one person who may be able to unlock the List Keepers’ secrets is Blaise Cortez,” Sidis told the Chief.

  “Ah, Blaise. Good. A man with a price. I’ll track him down in the morning.”

  “Excellent. And Chief, you do know Blaise cannot be trusted?”

  “Of course,” she said in a clipped tone. “In my job, I know whom I can trust . . . no one.”

  Chapter 30 - Book 3

  On board the Moon Shadow, Deuce continued to monitor the war into the night. The AOI’s assaults had been building in intensity with each passing hour. It was like a volcano that had built pressure in an underground magma chamber for years until, one day, it blows a mountain apart. The Chief seemed to be counting on a short war, and wanted to take out as much opposition as possible. Deuce
contacted the A-Council Chairman.

  “Deuce, it’s nearly midnight,” the Chairman said, opening the image-only zoom.

  “Yes, I guess it is in your time zone. But I know you are usually up even later, and with the war, I assumed you might not sleep at all.”

  “All true. What can I do for you?”

  The Chairman was also a wealthy man. He owned multiple companies, including the largest manufacturer of LEVs, but even with his hundred billion-digis net worth, he didn’t come close to Deuce’s massive wealth.

  “You can call off your dog.”

  “The Chief is just doing her job,” the Chairman responded. “It’s a difficult charge to keep the peace.”

  “Especially when you’re starting a war.”

  “Deuce, come on, you know we’re a peaceful government. That’s the first item in the Constitution. The Aylantik has reigned over the longest period of peace in history.”

  “I know what the Aylantik has reigned over Chairman, but I’m telling you that the AOI started this war.”

  “PAWN started this. And perhaps Lance Miner got a little overzealous, but the AOI is only responding to the actions of others. The Chief will end this thing before it gets out of hand.”

  “Have you been watching the news? It’s already out of hand. The Chief is using this as an excuse to wipe out dissidents on a massive scale.”

  “You know we have a no-tolerance policy for revolutionaries. This may seem harsh to some, but it has proven to be the secret to peace. Troublemakers have selfish agendas that are not for the better good.”

  Deuce knew the Chairman believed some of what he was saying. The Council members had been isolated in their cocoons of wealth and privilege for so long that they were completely out of touch with the reality of what the world was like for everyone else. True, they had created a utopian-appearing society, and maybe it couldn’t have been done without their “no-tolerance” policy, but that same policy had directly led to the growth of PAWN and other revolutionary factions.