The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “It’s extraordinary,” Grandyn said as they started walking again. Although he kept thinking about the urgency of the war, something about the City soothed him, as if his stress and worry had been sent on vacation.

  “Home,” Fye said.

  “It does make an impression,” Cogs added.

  Grandyn couldn’t stop looking at the beautiful waterfall.

  “It’s called a rain vortex,” Fye told him.

  “How can this be open to the sky and not be seen from the air?” he asked.

  “It’s done with mirrors and all kinds of projection technology that I don’t understand,” Fye said. “Like the stone wall we walked through.”

  “How do they do it, Cogs?” Grandyn asked.

  “Well, I do understand it, but I have no idea how to explain it.”

  Grandyn didn’t press. It was a minor detail when compared with how Cogs had lived to be one hundred seventy-three. Grandyn noticed dozens of other old people wandering the trails or sitting by the pool. “Are all List Keepers old?” he asked.

  “Most of the young ones man the outposts or work outside,” Fye said. “But, yes. The majority are over one hundred.”

  “A couple thousand Munnas?”

  “Something like that,” Fye said.

  “I can’t believe this place exists,” Grandyn said, “and that all these old people have been here all this time, that they all survived the Banoff, and who knows what else before that.”

  “I fought in World War II,” Cogs said. “Ever hear of it?”

  “Sure,” Grandyn said, proud of his knowledge of history. “Europe or the Pacific?”

  “Europe,” Cogs answered.

  “Was Hitler or the AOI Chief worse?”

  “Would you rather die by drowning or by getting shot? Burn to death or be decapitated?” Cogs asked. “You can’t compare evil. Evil is evil, whether it kills a thousand, a million, or a billion. Evil is the illness that has prevented humanity from reaching its true potential.”

  Grandyn nodded. No one spoke for a few minutes as they made their way along the edge of the Great Hall. They passed several people on their trail. They smiled as if it weren’t unusual to have a stranger in their midst. A few of them stopped and waved to Fye like old friends, but no one slowed their progress.

  “Where are we going?” Grandyn asked.

  “Someone wants to meet you,” Cogs said.

  “Who?”

  “I’ll let him introduce himself.”

  Grandyn hoped it would be whoever was in charge. He intended to demand the List Keepers use whatever resources they had to help PAWN end the war, and judging by what he had already seen, they had considerable resources.

  “What powers all this?” he asked.

  “The trees,” Cogs said.

  “These power this whole place?” Grandyn asked, pointing to the trees in the Great Hall.

  “No, not these,” Cogs said. “We use the trees out there. Ever wonder why the Field and other transmissions are blocked in wilderness areas? It’s because the List Keepers use an organic energy source to power the City, the outposts, and all the monitoring we do.”

  “How?”

  “Trees put off an energy that we harness for a clean, silent, and limitless power supply, which requires only mental collectors. But once the source is tapped, it blocks all unnatural waves, which includes the spectrum used by the Field, weapons systems, communications, etc. Sort of a nice byproduct, would you not agree?”

  “Yes,” Grandyn said enthusiastically, recalling how many times he’d escaped because the AOI couldn’t use their sophisticated weapons or even communicate while in the forests. He was about to ask what mental collectors were when they left the Great Hall and entered a hallway, which once again took his breath.

  The floor beneath was solid and dry, but it seemed as if they were walking on top of water, a tiny river, deep and rushing. Grandyn stumbled, and actually walked into one of the smooth white walls.

  “Don’t look down,” Fye said as she helped him steady himself.

  Instead, Grandyn focused on the rounded walls and curved ceiling. They were a soft white, with occasional circles of various-sized colored glass projecting out. Light came in from all of them, making the bright white hall extremely colorful, and the river gave off the pleasant sound of rushing water. By the time they reached the next room, Grandyn thought he was prepared to be dazzled.

  He wasn’t. Even if he had tried with all his imagination and the sum of his dreams to create a vision of what he now saw before him, he could never have even conjured a whisper of it.

  Chapter 71 - Book 3

  Sidis was not likable, even as Imps went. With his constantly superior attitude and blatant arrogance, Miner outright hated him. But when Sidis spoke of the end of the war, Chelle, Deuce, and even Miner were captivated. Blaise and Sarlo had suspected some of what he told them prior to hearing it, but they, too, were astounded by the sheer certainty of his words.

  “The war is already won,” Sidis began, “and while we all have contributed to this victory, it is the AOI that will deliver it.”

  “The AOI? But the Chief is fighting against you. Against us all,” Miner said.

  “Ah, you could so benefit from an implant,” Sidis said. “Even though I fear there would be gaps. Let us not bother with the details of how the conflict ends. It should be enough for you to know that it will . . . in less than two days. And there will be survivors . . . enough so that the human race will continue. You might also like to know that this really is the final war, at least as far into the future as the computers can see . . . and that is quite far.” His hologram changed colors, as if he had passed through a rainbow, although he hadn’t moved. “The promise we have had since our small beginnings is ready to burst forward.“

  Deuce, attending the meeting holographically like the others, happened to glance across the main room on the Moon Shadow where Munna was sitting quietly, staring out to sea. Her lips were moving, but she was not talking. It took a minute to realize it but Munna was mouthing the words Sidis was saying at the exact moment he was saying them.

  Deuce muted his image for a moment and asked, “Munna, are you making Sidis say these things?”

  She smiled, and Deuce saw that Sidis had paused and was also smiling. Then her lips began moving and he started talking again. At the same time, she spoke to Deuce, but her lips continued moving in synch with Sidis’. The words directed at Deuce appeared to be dubbed, like in one of those old, translated, “foreign” movies in the pre-Banoff days when there was more than one language.

  “I am not making Sidis speak,” Munna said. “But I know what he’s saying. I know this because he is speaking a great truth, a long buried secret of our people. Somewhere deep in the City, at this precise moment, someone is saying the exact same words to Grandyn, because we made it.” She smiled, and so did Sidis, before they both resumed. She returned to silence, and he to a meeting of the most powerful people in the world.

  After Sidis finished explaining all the wonderful things that would happen post-war, he offered more sobering news.

  “Not everyone in attendance here will live to see the marvelous times ahead. The great computing machines can see the end of the war and what lies beyond, and predict with such pointed probabilities that the great Justar Journal, which you all so desperately sought, is now relegated to a relic, or at least made redundant. However, all these insights and miraculous things to come belie the fact that the most brutal war in human history is still underway. I repeat: it will be won, but the price will be painfully high.”

  Deuce looked back at Munna. She was crying now.

  “Who will die?” Miner asked.

  “In a very real way, all of humanity dies,” Sidis said. “So don’t worry yourself with the details, rich man. You won’t like the outcome either way.”

  Sarlo placed her hand lightly on Miner’s. She knew he was about to blow up at the new alliance. He took a deep breath and scowled, te
lling himself that at least the horrible war would be over in a couple of days, and that he could then deal with Sidis without consequences. In spite of the astounding things Sidis had told them about the post-war world, he still believed he’d be able to operate in the traditional manner.

  It would be a rude awakening.

  Drast oversaw the taking of eight more Keys by the Allies, and then regular AOI headquarters began to fall. After the meeting, Chelle was able to get in touch with Drast, and told him all that Sidis had said.

  “Well, he’s right about the AOI winning the war,” Drast said. “My Allies are the real AOI, and we’re taking the power away from the wolves.”

  “He described that to us,” Chelle said, still awestruck by all that Sidis had predicted.

  “The rest of what he said sounds farfetched,” Drast continued. “But if he’s gotten everything else right, then maybe . . .”

  “The Chief doesn’t know how many headquarters you’ve taken yet?”

  “No. They’re falling like dominoes,” Drast replied. “She’ll know soon.”

  “And she’ll attack.”

  “That will be her mistake, but it’s all she knows how to do. That’s why the war has been so catastrophic. She actually believed that if she came out hard and fast and attacked every possible threat with overpowering force, she could end the war in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  “Her miscalculations almost wiped us out.”

  “I’m counting on one more mistake. When she attacks us, it will be a signal to all the other sleeping Allies within the AOI, and even to the wolves who have had enough of the Chief’s brutality. A civil war within the AOI will end with me in charge.”

  “I hope so,” Chelle said.

  “Nothing to worry about. Even the Imps have preordained it. Why don’t you come to Seattle and we’ll command together, as we always dreamed.”

  “I can’t leave PAWN Command yet. Can you come here?”

  “As soon as I am able,” Drast promised.

  The Imps provided constant intelligence, and Deuce wreaked havoc on the AOI operations from space. Even with the agency’s vast superiority in well-armed soldiers, weapons, and geographic dominance, the AOI was stretched thin in the face of such overwhelming, unified opposition. The Trapciers’ hierarchy continued to stay on the move, never remaining in the same place for more than a few hours. The Chief was hunting them as if victory relied on their destruction.

  The AOI Allies fought invisibly, taking over more AOI wolf facilities and sabotaging hundreds of wolf missions. Still, thousands of new battles erupted across the globe as the Chief fought bitterly to destroy the Aylantik’s many enemies. P-Force and PAWN suffered heavy casualties throughout the day, losing more than half their numbers. The BLAXERs and Trapciers were luckier, but still lost nearly a third of their fighters. By the next morning, Deuce thought that Sidis might have gotten it wrong, but then the Chief discovered the insurgents within her ranks and attacked the AOI Allies.

  Chapter 72 - Book 3

  Grandyn stood transfixed as a giant series of colored globes, ranging in size from six to nine meters in diameter, put on a light show that left him feeling that he’d discovered an underground factory where rainbows were manufactured. The magnificent orbs glowed turquoise, golden yellow, and a vibrant purple, and slowly rotated in a way that made them appear to be floating.

  Maybe they really are floating, he thought as he watched them spin. The room was silent except for a faint melodic tone that made him want to cry.

  “What is this thing?” he asked Fye as Cogs disappeared into the shimmering glow.

  “Do you feel nostalgic?” she asked.

  “Painfully so,” he confirmed.

  “That’s because it’s our history.” Fye looked into the yellow light as if searching for something. “You can see it all. Everything that’s ever happened.”

  “How is that possible?” he asked, more fascinated than skeptical.

  “We’re the List Keepers,” she said proudly. “We record each moment.”

  “Have the List Keepers been around forever?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But we were able to go back.”

  “How?” he asked while his mind swirled, feeling the combination of feeling so much history and the confluence of the lights.

  “Someone else will have to explain that to you.”

  “I thought you were going to answer all my questions.”

  “Other people are better qualified to give you some explanations, but don’t worry. You’ll get them.”

  For the first time, he noticed the walls. It looked as if the globes and their lights had eroded the space around them. He imagined them shifting and shaping over a millennium, the same way wind, sand, and water carved slot canyons in the Arizona Area. They were smooth, and might have once been white, but were now smeared with pastel shades of the same colors as the lights. With no pattern, and at varying heights, the holes appeared in the walls as if caressed and molded by a mystical potter. Light escaped into the openings like water pouring into a drain.

  “Where does the light go?” he asked.

  “Chambers,” she answered casually. “To places where people can’t go. Tunnels and chambers made by the light. No one really knows, but some of it comes out in the staircase where we were.”

  “This place is magic,” Grandyn said, his voice filled with awe, his eyes dazzled.

  “Yes,” she replied, smiling.

  “But magic isn’t real,” he said, as if distracted.

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “Magic is the only thing that is real. How else do you explain a star? Or a blue planet flying through the vastness of space? Or a heartbeat? How do you explain love?”

  He nodded. Even if he wanted to debate the premise, in his current surroundings, he had no plausible argument. “What powers it all?”

  “The trees, remember?”

  “But where is all the history stored?”

  “That’s our next stop.”

  He looked around, wondering where they would go, and realized that he hadn’t seen Cogs.

  “Where is Cogs?” he asked.

  “Playing,” Fye replied.

  “Playing?”

  “He plays in the light. He’s lived a long time. So he likes to go back for visits.”

  “Time travel?” he asked skeptically.

  “No, not really time travel. More like feeling the energy. The energy is always there. It connects with his conscious mind, and it’s like being back there. It can be addictive.”

  “Sounds depressing. Like you can look but you can’t touch.”

  “Actually, it’s wonderful really.” She looked at him lovingly. “You can go back and feel your parents. It will be just like it was. You can experience that. Would you want to?”

  “You mean now?”

  She nodded.

  Grandyn thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure. The idea that he could feel all the goodness there had once been and then having to endure losing it again sounded too painful.

  “Maybe another time.”

  “I understand.”

  Cogs suddenly emerged, smiling. Grandyn wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but it seemed as if Cogs looked younger. “What do you think so far?” Cogs asked.

  “I think I’m dreaming,” Grandyn replied.

  Cogs laughed. “Aren’t we?”

  Fye urged him on through the cavern. As they walked through the light, Grandyn noticed it changed temperature depending on the color. Yellow was much warmer than turquoise.

  “I still don’t understand why it takes all the trees on the planet to power this place,” Grandyn said to Cogs.

  “We intercept, track, and store every piece of data of every occurrence of the most minute event. Every event. Can you imagine the energy that that requires?”

  “Okay, but why? What do you do with it? Why do you allow the world outside to burn? To destroy itself?”

  “Ah, the great debate,” Cogs said
, rubbing his hands together. He stopped as they came to the entrance of the next room. “There are those older List Keepers who believe we should remain neutral and impartial, but many of the younger ones want us more involved.”

  “Who’s winning?”

  “We do a little of each, but I suppose the younger ones have pushed us toward being more active.” Cogs looked at Fye and smiled. “Still, there is only so much we can do.”

  “As the List Keepers intercept data,” Fye began, “we can delay or divert it for a millisecond, sometimes a fraction longer. In that way we can change the outcomes of certain events. But it’s a tedious task to change the world, and it takes a grand vision. We can’t just meddle without understanding the ramifications.”

  “And think of the current war,” Cogs interjected. “That is too short a situation for us to deal with now. We would have had to have started decades ago, even a hundred years back, in order to hope to change the outcome of the war.”

  “Did you?”

  Fye looked at Cogs. He nodded.

  “Then why did it happen?” Grandyn asked, his anger showing.

  “Because in order to have prevented the war altogether, we would have had had to start making changes a thousand years ago, maybe more,” Cogs said.

  “If we hadn’t done anything at all . . .” Fye said.

  “What?”

  “We’d already be extinct.”

  Chapter 73 - Book 3

  Sunday July 17

  Drast had moved almost all his personnel and captured AOI assets in the night, so that the Chief was shooting at empty targets. The wolves were fighting too many fronts, and they had also suffered substantial losses and had taken serious beatings overnight. The Allies managed to defeat the battered AOI, and slaughtered their former brethren in one siege after another.