by Brandt Legg
“Chairman, the Chief started this war. Do you want proof?”
“No, because even if what you say is true, it wouldn’t matter now. This will turn out to be a good thing. In a few days it will all be over, and the world will be rid of PAWN, the Rejectionists, and all the other problems. Think of it as a cleansing. It’ll guarantee us another fifty or a hundred years of peace and prosperity.” The Chairman smiled perfectly. “Every so often a little revolution is a good thing. It allows us to exterminate all the rats, and rid the world of the disease and destruction those rodents carry.”
“Okay Chairman.” Deuce was at a loss. The man he’d been hoping to reason with didn’t understand how dangerous a position the world was in. He wished he could show him the Justar Journal, but that would be too risky. The Aylantik would simply use it to advance their own objectives. Deuce realized sadly that Munna thought the same thing of him. “We’ll talk again in a few days. Perhaps then you’ll realize that the Chief is leading us into an inferno that may be impossible to escape.” He looked at a city, in what used to be known as Spain, burning on another VM.
“Don’t worry, Deuce. No flame burns forever.”
After the zoom, Deuce checked in on Munna and Nelson and told them of his conversation with the Chairman.
“What if we can’t stop it?” he asked Munna.
“It must stop,” she said quietly.
“But what if it’s not in time?”
“Time is a funny thing,” she said, smiling slightly. “We are still just at the beginning of the end.”
That didn’t make Deuce feel any better. He believed Munna knew what was going to happen, or at least, what could happen, and she had the ability to show them what to do. He’d already decided not to fight her anymore about the prophecies, but somehow he needed to convince her to lead them.
“The news is awful. It’s as if the war has been going for a month,” Nelson said. “The AOI is crushing everything. Can’t you help?”
“I can do a lot, but if the Chief sees me as an enemy, I won’t be able to do much except defend myself,” Deuce said. “None of us were expecting this kind of annihilation, and the late entry of the Trapciers has changed things. They are mechanical, cold, calculating creatures. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Chief was one of them.”
The stealth luxury yacht flew through the water toward the south and into the open seas. There was a small Flo-wing on board in case of an emergency. Deuce’s wife and daughter were secure on his safest island: a man-made, floating fortress constructed of the most advanced materials which rendered it virtually invisible while allowing it to feel like a well-stocked resort.
Deuce would stay as far away from it as possible so as not to lead any enemies to his sanctuary. The Chief would be working hard to track him. He’d already seen evidence inside the AOI system, and had been working to thwart those efforts. He worried about Twain, out there alone in the woods. He wanted him on the island with his wife, but he knew that Twain was not the same as the rest of them.
He turned back to Munna. “Please, tell me about the List Keepers . . . Who are they? What do they do? Where can I find them?”
“The List Keepers are our last chance,” she said, staring out one of the abstract-shaped windows to the starry sky. Deuce had noticed Munna didn’t look at the images of the war on the VMs.
“That’s why I need to talk to them.”
“You want the Justar Journal, you want the List Keepers, you want to keep Twain away from the redwoods,” Munna said, facing him and smiling. “You have so much already, do you really need more?” She turned back to the window. “Use what you have Deuce.”
“Do you think P-Force came to the islands by accident?” Deuce asked, frustrated. “They were coming for the prophecies. They were coming for you and your secrets.”
Chapter 31 - Book 3
Fye and Grandyn stayed up talking well into the night. The POP was small, but they had a private room, and felt safe being deep in the forest.
“I wish we were already at the City,” Grandyn said, as the already low lights dimmed further. They lay close to each other. He could see her face. What they said about women’s faces glowing when they were pregnant seemed extra-true with Fye. “If only we could get in a Flo-wing and fly there.”
“You know it’s way too dangerous right now.”
“It’s going to take forever to get there on foot.”
“They said we’ll meet up with Zaverly tomorrow. She’s supposed to be a real hotshot TreeRunner commander,” Fye said. “Maybe she can hook us up with an off-road vehicle, or at least a couple of AirSliders. Then we might make faster time to the City.”
“I hope so, but we may see some fighting as we get closer to the edge of the forest. They said the AOI is sending scrap units of grunges into all the wilderness areas that are close to towns.”
“I’m surprised they’re using resources that way. It would seem smarter to protect the larger populations.”
“When I was Terik, I saw AOI plans for just this scenario. They raid the forests looking for pockets of rebels on the move, hoping to hit them before they can strike the towns and take territory. The AOI is terrified that PAWN will capture a major town with access to weapons, communications, and transportation hubs.”
“It’s all so awful,” Fye said.
“The List Keepers can stop this war, can’t they?” Grandyn asked.
“I think they can,” Fye said, “but I don’t think they will.”
“Why the hell not?” Grandyn asked angrily. “If they can stop it and they let all those innocent people die, they’re no better than the AOI.”
“You are forgetting I am a List Keeper. I am the ‘they’ you’re talking about. And so are you.”
“I can’t be a List Keeper until they approve me in the City, but I’ll tell you this. If the List Keepers won’t do everything they can to help us stop the AOI, then I don’t want to be one.”
“One of the reasons the List Keepers have survived this long is that they know their purpose. They are the watchers, the keepers of information.” She looked at him lovingly. “At great cost, the List Keepers will remain silent as the innocent fall . . . It isn’t because we don’t care, it’s because we care more than anyone. We can’t be concerned about saving a few when our mission is to save everyone.”
“Why can’t you do both?” he asked softly, his voice breaking.
“That isn’t one of the choices. What if you were crossing a raging, flooded river with your parents and suddenly the three of you were overwhelmed and about to go under. You had a hold of your mother but your father was slipping. There was only a split second to decide whether to let him go, knowing he would drown, or hold onto him knowing that if you did, it would mean the three of you would all die?”
“I’d find a way to save us all.”
“There isn’t one, and you only have a split second.”
“The List Keepers have had at least seventy-five years, maybe a hundred.”
“But that is only a split second.”
“What does that mean?”
“Time’s a funny thing Grandyn,” she said sweetly, as if patiently explaining something to a small child, but in no way sounding condescending. “When one is trying to save all of humanity, one hundred years is the blink of an eye.”
He stared at her, and saw nothing but love in her returned gaze. He felt so angry and helpless. The world had seemed to worsen every day since his mother’s death, and it kept getting worse, faster and faster. Now it was all coming apart. The last report they’d heard, before disappearing into the information void of the forests, was that more than a million people had died today. One single day.
“Why can’t anyone get the Field in the forests?” he asked. “No communications, or monitoring systems, or satellite, or Field-based weapons, nothing works here.”
Fye didn’t answer.
“It’s the List Keepers isn’t it?” Grandyn asked. “When I was yo
unger, I’d be camping in the woods with my TreeRunner clan and we would come up with these crazy theories as to why nothing got through in the wilderness areas. Aliens, Earth’s magnetic field, secret government experiments, but we liked most of all to believe that nature just ruled supreme over technology. Then, in the past few years, I became convinced it was Deuce. But when Twain vanished, Deuce would have lifted the suppression if he were in control.” He looked at her with his most serious expression. “Tell me the truth. I know it’s the List Keepers, and I want to know why.”
“It’s not intentional. It’s more of a byproduct.”
“So I’m right?”
“Of course you’re right.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “You’ll know when we get to the City. If we get there.”
“What do you mean? Just tell me. Why so many secrets?”
“Grandyn, even if I were allowed to tell you, I couldn’t explain it so you’d understand it. You have to see it.”
“See the City?”
“Yes. And the List Keepers.”
“But you’re a List Keeper. I can see you. I understand you.”
“There are different kinds of List Keepers. I’m not one of the special ones.”
Her admission instantly softened him. “Baby, you’re every kind of special.” He took her hands. “I love you.”
“I know. I love you too. It’s just so hard not to be able to tell you what you want to know.”
“The List Keepers can block all transmissions in or out of the forests and they’ve been doing it for decades, even as the smartest scientists try to figure out what’s going on, even when the AOI is desperate to know every move that every citizen makes and to root out the rebels hiding in the forests. Don’t you see what kind of power that is? We need them. If they help, we might win this thing in a week.”
She touched his hand. Her eyes filled until a single tear streamed down her cheek.
“Oh, Grandyn . . . there’s no chance that this war will be over in a week.”
Chapter 32 - Book 3
Thursday, July 14
Drast woke in the safe house, completely disorientated. It was his first night away from prison in years. He lay in complete silence, waiting for a guard to come around, waiting for the din of inmate noise. Then he remembered . . . he was free. Then something more entered his tense mind, further loosening the tightly wound defenses he’d built at Hilton Prison.
He was alive.
Today was to have been his “date with death.” The execution had been scheduled and signed by the Chief and the warden. Looking at the sun trying to push in around the window shade, he smiled: executions were always at sunrise. He would have been dead by now. Instead, he was out, the war was on, and he was with Chelle’s son, presumably heading toward her. It might take some time, but he could wait. Prison had taught him patience, but so had waiting a lifetime for the revolution.
Today was a good day to be alive.
The place was sparsely furnished, and what there was‒ a pine table, two spindly wooden chairs, and the cots they had slept on ‒ looked to be more than one hundred years old.
Osc stirred as a stray stream of sunlight found him. “Are we still alive?” he mumbled.
“So far,” Drast said. “Come on, get up. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
They’d found a small closet the night before with a two-week supply of provisions. Most of them were close to expiration dates, which didn’t bode well for them because the freeze-dried foods were meant to last a decade.
“How long since anyone’s been here?” Osc asked as they rummaged through the packages.
“Years,” Drast said. “We’re here only because some hack looked at a list and saw this was the closest safe house to the drop point. Here you go.” Drast tossed a silver packet to Osc. “It says bacon and eggs. Told you I’d buy you breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Osc said. “It may be old, but I bet it beats prison food.”
“Dirt beats prison food,” Drast said with no trace of humor.
They ate in front of several VMs showing war coverage. By the looks of things, the night had not seen any let up in the violence. The war had expanded to every continent, and had only increased in intensity. Sections of hundreds of cites had been destroyed, and homes of “rebel sympathizers” were raided with instant executions shown live on the Field.
“It’s a shocking response,” Drast said. “We never imagined this kind of Armageddon.”
“Why are they doing it?”
“I think it’s not they, it’s just the Chief. Remember, the AOI’s charge is peace at any price. I believe she’s convinced that if they act swiftly to crush any possible opposition and portray PAWN as terrorists, peace can be restored in a few days.”
The VMs showed thousands of bodies lined up in the streets as the deadly virus, allegedly unleashed by PAWN, continued to spread rapidly. An announcer said the death toll, from just the outbreak, was estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, and went on to report that the airborne pandemic, thought to be related to the Banoff plague, had an incubation period measured in minutes, and that after the initial onset of symptoms, a patient would die of seizures within a few hours.
“PAWN didn’t do that,” Osc said.
“Of course not. That kind of insanity and efficient killing could only have been ordered and carried out by the government.”
“Health-Circle?”
“You got that right. The AHC is supposed to protect us from every kind of illness and ailment, and yet they have no cure for this. They aren’t ready? Like hell they aren’t. As soon as the specific portion of the population which the Aylantik wants removed is gone, the Health-Circle will miraculously save us. ‘Just come in for your shots, folks. We’ll keep everyone healthy and it won’t hurt a bit.’ Torgon bastards!”
The VMs switched to more images of bombed-out cities, and lines of refugees made it appear as though the conflict was in its second month, not its second day.
“You can bet that some member of the Council owns the construction companies that will get the contracts to rebuild all of that,” Drast said, motioning to the destruction. “But the Chief is playing a dangerous game. One wrong calculation and there won’t be enough taxpayers left to pay for it all.” He watched more bloody images appear. “We have to leave now.”
“We’re supposed to wait until they contact us. Someone will probably be here today.”
Drast made an appalled face. “Look at it out there!” He pointed to the never-ending stream of utter destruction. “Do you really think PAWN gives a torg about us? Do you think anyone is coming?”
“My mother won’t abandon us.”
“She doesn’t even know where we are. She’s trying to save the torgon world. The Chief, that wretched woman, has decided to try to make Adolf Hitler look like a nice guy.” Drast shook his head. “How in the hell is Chelle supposed to fight back against that kind of callous evil?”
“She’s not alone.”
“Neither is the Chief.” Drast scarfed down the last bit of his Styrofoam-tasting pancakes and sausage. “Chelle has enough to do just trying to avoid the complete annihilation of PAWN. We need to get to her.”
“How do you suggest we do that?”
“If I can get to the real world, I can contact her. You stay if you want, but I’m going.”
“I’ll miss the great food, but I’m coming.”
“Miss the food?” Drast asked. “You better bring it with you. Who knows what we’re going to run into out there. I don’t want to have to think about looking for a meal.”
They loaded up half the food into the LEV, deciding to leave some of the stash for any future visitors. “Now we’ll need to override the navigation program,” Drast said.
“Not a problem,” Osc replied. “We did a whole course at the academy on improvising technology.”
“I know,” Drast said, smiling. “I’m the one who added that to the curriculum.”
Osc nodded. He kept forge
tting Drast had been head of the Pacyfik AOI. He still thought of him as inmate Evren. A minute later, Osc had the LEV started.
“It’s ready to program. What address should I put in?” When Drast gave him the information, Osc thought he was joking. “That’s AOI headquarters in Vancouver. What do you have in mind? Surrendering?”
“One thing you should know. I never, ever surrender . . . ever.”
“Then what’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. Let’s get moving. Every minute we waste is another thousand innocent people dead.”
Chapter 33 - Book 3
Chelle had slept less than two hours, but not all at once. She’d set her INU to wake her twenty minutes after it detected sleep. Some of the other PAWN leaders had slept even less.
Two of their top commanders were dead. More than twenty POPs had been located and destroyed. They had never lost a POP before yesterday, and they had no idea how the AOI was finding them. PAWN had hardly been able to do anything but duck and run. The overwhelming force that had come at them, around the world, was staggering. But they had resources and plans that had been in place for years, waiting to be implemented.
As the AOI continued to pound them from every direction, killing anyone who even might support them, PAWN was coming alive and surfacing from its underground existence.
Her first zoom that day was to the last person she wanted to speak with. He was the least likely to help PAWN, but the most likely to hurt the AOI, for the moment anyway.
“Lance, I thought we should talk,” Chelle said as Miner accepted her voice-only zoom.
“Well, well, what a surprise you’re still alive Chelle. I guess the Chief isn’t quite as efficient as she seems.”
“It’s early in the day,” Chelle said. “Neither you nor I is in a position to joke about being targets of the Chief.”
“I wasn’t joking. I really thought you were probably dead. But I must say, I’m happy you’re still with us. You owe me a favor.”