Antler Plan (A Konrad Loki Thriller Book 1)

by Joonas Huhta

  “You’re poisoned!”

  “Man can’t make the right sacrifices unless forced to do so. I need to perish for the sake of progress. They’ve already won.”

  “They represent an idea that is genocide. Please, put the gun down. You can still choose.”

  “No,” Ruut said. “I can’t.” She aimed the gun at her throat.

  The agent began pulling his hands and legs apart.

  “He’s getting away!” Konrad shouted.

  “Good-bye, Konrad.”

  A sour taste of iron flowed into Konrad’s mouth, muffling his voice.

  The agent freed himself, but a weapon was placed on his temple.

  A quick finger pulled the trigger. Like a puppet cut of its strings, the agent fell face down on the ground.

  Konrad fell to his knees at the spray of blood.

  Ruut spun around, taking aim at…

  Gideon.

  She released her fingers and dropped her weapon. A chasm stood between Ruut and Gideon. Konrad held his breath.

  The Parabellum that was supposed to be disabled.

  Ruut turned to him, and pieces started filling the puzzle. The weapon had been loaded and working on the day he collided with Oona. He had been going to his own funerals, never reaching his destiny that was set up.

  Gideon threw the weapon at Konrad’s feet while Ruut was still reasoning the shock, and Gideon bolted. As Ruut ran after him, she yelled and begged her son to stop with all of a mother’s means of love. Konrad picked up the Parabellum.

  The enemy was planning something big. Why else would they use such an advanced technology?

  He missed his office. The Parabellum belonged there on the shelf. He missed lecturing and the students reaching the state of intellectual excitement. The dryness of chalk on his fingers. The innocent chalk-talks.

  The Russians could not directly invade Finland without a major conflict at the borders or if the Finns oppressed Russians within their borders. They couldn’t invade Europe. NATO would respond. Unless its weapons were somehow made useless. Again, all weapons still worked at the command of the human mind. If those human minds were somehow turned against themselves…

  A clench hit him in the pit of his stomach.

  Was Newton’s bestial warning concerning the end of morality?

  Konrad glanced at the dead Russian agent, who had probably killed more people than the average human being meets and greets. His father’s words about Russians echoed in his ears. After tons of enemy contacts with no end in sight, still rising to his feet in battle after battle, the ultimate question pierced his father’s mind like a hollow bullet.

  Don’t they ever learn?

  31

  “NO SIGN OF HIM?” Konrad asked back in the glade.

  The empty gaze in Ruut’s eyes was a driftwood in an ocean. A woodpecker was flying above her, settling itself on the limb on the alder tree.

  “For all my adult life,” Ruut began, “I have been trying to keep Gideon on a safe path. How could he just take the man’s life…?”

  Konrad was the worst at giving consolation.

  “…I have been living in a lie, Konrad. Netta isn’t my biological child. I have been taking care of her more than my boy, whom I forget to hug any more now he’s grown taller than me. His father provides the only sense of touch he has. Kaspar was his gate to the world.”

  “You still are the other half of it.”

  “He doesn’t even take part in my youth group.”

  “Maybe,” Konrad pondered, “maybe it’s the truth that there’s distance between you two. But you’re reaching him through his friends who you’re teaching.”

  She paused for a moment, forcing courage into her voice. “I’m not used to bleeding my heart out, but I need to share something with you.”

  Konrad nodded.

  “I’m not a doctor. I do care for and tend people, but my work in the army is a bit more complicated. I design weapons.”

  “No shit. The way you handle weapons…” And even as a student, you were a hell of a mathematician. Addressing the questions of weight and shape, velocity and aerodynamics without effort… It wouldn’t surprise me. Konrad folded his arms. “But how much of the stuff we went through did you already know?”

  “I wanted to hear those things from you. I still view you as my teacher. I hope you didn’t get offended.”

  “You’re about to be the definition of ‘full of surprises.’”

  Ruut blushed. “I’ve always been on this particular job because I thought I was securing the future. Hunters need ammunition to keep wild animals in check, and law enforcement is all about having reliable firepower. Only a handful of people knows how unregistered money is diverted to army weapon maintenance and inventing ways to hit the target more efficiently with less collateral damage. But men are motivated by the smell of gunpowder. Every bullet shot makes men thirsty for more. Adrenaline junkies think missiles rival God’s dick.”

  “How serious an addiction are we talking about?”

  Ruut gathered her thoughts. “I’m building a donkey bridge to what we are probably facing. You and I could be prototypes for the next generation of warfare. I don’t believe the agent could make me aim the weapon at myself with poison. Why did it lose its effect? What if we have been compromised by nanotechnology?”

  “Elaborate.”

  “Our body and brains are circuital systems. When there’s only us inside us, we’re in control. Even when cancer’s spreading in our brains; it is still part of us. Cancer wants to stay alive. Cells are programmed for survival. But we also consist of bacteria, and we need most of them. When a bacteria-sized nanobot moves inside us, it can be either an ally or an enemy. For our enemy, the thing that might be flowing inside us is their ally, responding to particular stimulus as wanted. Consider the world if such technology falls into the wrong hands.”

  “No one possesses the knowledge of such technology. Even the material decisions…”

  “What if Oona was forced to share her knowledge? What if she knew the requirements for such technology?”

  Konrad folded his arms. “We would need a blood test in a lab to verify any intrusion.”

  “You think we would find any traces?”

  “Men like silicon. I’ll bet they would be made out of it.”

  Ruut riveted her gaze. “What if it is biodegradable?”

  Konrad rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Suppose,” Ruut said, “that the assisted suicide is the extreme of the nanotechnology. What would be the ultimate good?”

  Konrad noted a black woodpecker edging near the alder, looking for a place to slam its beak.

  “Moral enhancement,” Konrad said. “Humanity lacks morality. We’re weak. If the technology could bring people up to the level where the most morals are, that would put an end to the cycles of violence. A total rise above our animal bonds.”

  “See any side effects?” Ruut asked.

  “Don’t even get me started.” But before Konrad managed to sort out even the smallest disaster on wheels, the woodpecker slammed its beak against the trunk.

  A dull clang.

  Their foreheads puckered into perplexed frowns.

  Clang-Clang-Clang.

  “Is that tree metal?” Ruut gasped.

  The woodpecker tilted its head on both sides, tried to hit tree again, then took wing.

  “Isaac Newton,” Konrad said with great satisfaction. “I’ll be damned for the Giant of the Occult. Newton wasn’t tinkering blindly!”

  “What?”

  “In the cold metal burns. Now we are getting somewhere.” Konrad grinned. “I’ve always preferred looking into an exceptional scientist’s mind than God’s.”

  The woodpecker screamed.

  “That bird freaks me out,” Ruut murmured.

  “No wonder, for the Finns the black woodpecker has been the foreteller of rains and cold and beautiful winter weathers.”

  “Any negative meanings?”

  Konra
d released his words like the blade of a guillotine.

  “Only the bringer of death.”

  32

  DISCOMFORT IN THE silence of the woods drilled a gaping hole into Gideon’s heart. The thought of being a murderer pained him with every step he took. Had he felt like this when his father disappeared, he would have gone to take his enemies all out, even though he didn’t stand a chance in pure combat. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing helped him to stop his mind reinforcing the idea weighing down on him.

  I’m the enemy of the society.

  He deserved this slow torture, being a conflicted stranger to himself and others. The way he treated himself was unjustified, but he couldn’t get rid of it like others could.

  I’m wired up wrong.

  As he started hearing traffic noises behind the trees, he realized there was no reason to help his mother and Konrad. He couldn’t lose his mom’s acceptance. Her love was solid. It was painful to admit that he could never trust his father’s acceptance in the same way.

  The headlights of the cars danced with tranquilizing melody. A police car whizzed by, sirens on, and he quickly stepped behind a pine. From the shadows, he stared at the spray of snow rising at the taillights.

  Gideon hit his fist against the trunk of the tree, leaned against it and leveled his gaze down.

  “Gideon,” a powerful voice surprised him from behind.

  Before even moving a muscle, he heard a safety mechanism taken off a weapon. He found himself looking into the black hole of silenced handgun.

  “Who are you?” Gideon snarled. “If you’re the coward who killed my father, I’ll kill you.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Your father’s very much alive.”

  “At the bottom of the river?”

  The man lowered his weapon. Nothing changed on the man’s stern features.

  “My name is Patrick Praytor. I’m an American elite soldier. If I had wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing there toughened by blind hatred. My team pulled a play that we assassinated your father. He had enemies on his trail and would have been killed if we hadn’t reacted.”

  “Don’t you taste the shit coming out of your mouth?” Gideon asked.

  “When a man hears or sees things that aren’t in accord with his core beliefs, logical thinking shuts down. The brain prepares for battle. Believe me; I have witnessed it too many times.”

  “Did it happen to you too? When you ate ape shit and killed child ragheads?”

  Patrick closed his eyes for a second. “In the Middle East, some men prefer using kids’ headwear as a good place to carry explosives. I disagree.”

  Gideon gulped.

  “Believe me. Taking a man’s life for the first time stays with you longer than your first kiss.”

  Gideon blew out a noisy breath. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want what you want.”

  “I have no fucking clue what I want.”

  “When the pain is most extreme, you’d rather die,” Patrick replied. “Part of you is doing so right now. Silent screams. Self-hatred is even worse than loneliness. Everything seems ugly, dark, and uncontrollable.”

  Gideon dropped eye contact. Then pointed at Patrick with his finger. “You killed my father and are after my mother. I’m going to either walk away or scream if you take any step closer.”

  Patrick reacted like a shadow coming into life, closing the distance between them in a second.

  “I’m in your personal space,” Patrick said dryly. He offered his weapon, the grip up for grabs. “If you speak the truth, you’ll never hesitate.”

  The weapon in Gideon’s hand felt lightweight, perfectly balanced. He took aim at the lone, arrogant soldier.

  “Gideon,” Patrick said. “The world we’re living in is growing darker with each passing day. You see it, you feel it, and you hate it. You also want to make it better. But deep inside you know that pulling the trigger would never make that happen. Hatred makes more and more people draw their guns.”

  “What makes you so different?” Gideon said.

  “I happen to know that the man and the machine are becoming one in heart. Missions that once were handled by Special Forces’ soldiers are now handed over to machines. There’s no honor, dignity or loyalty anymore. But there’s a solution to all our problems.”

  Gideon leaned back, creating space. He looked away. “What difference does it make? Why should I care?”

  “The exact reason why you don’t pull the trigger,” Patrick said. “You do care.”

  Gideon stayed quiet, then aimed at Patrick’s forehead. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”

  “Yes, I am. But only to help you stop denying the truth.”

  “No. Life’s a bad game. Maybe it’s better that it ends.”

  “There’s a way to change the course of humanity,” Patrick said. “When moral and psychological barriers to killing are about to vanish, it is better to hand love and care over to the machines as well. The world doesn’t care about right or wrong anymore. It’s all about power, arrogant abuse, and dominance. But in the world I’m building, none will be in control anymore. Humans can’t let anyone pull strings in the shadows if they are to thrive in harmony.”

  Gideon tested the metal of the trigger.

  “Gideon, we have been fighting this war so long we don’t feel comfortable in our skin anymore. My mentor who calls himself the Veteran knows how to end the war, all war. There can be a fresh start.”

  Gideon aimed at a pile of snow. “I’d rather kill myself than become your slave!” He pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the hiss of melting snow made him angrier. He pulled the trigger again, and again.

  Until the click.

  Patrick took the steaming weapon and hid it inside his coat.

  “Come. I’ll show you how to recreate the world in seven days. We are on the sixth day, but what separates us from God is that we don’t rest on the seventh.”

  Gideon swallowed rapidly. “Prove that my father’s alive.”

  Patrick produced a pad, danced his fingers on the screen. It took several seconds to register what Gideon was looking at.

  Kaspar was in a dim room in a hospital bed. Somebody carried a laptop or pad closer to Kaspar who looked weary and ghost pale. His lips barely moved when he spoke.

  “Gideon?”

  Hiding his total mayhem inside his body, Gideon quickly wiped off a tear falling onto his cheek.

  “Dad?”

  33

  “THE TREE OF DIANA,” Konrad said, his palm flat against the rough bark concealing metal. “Philosopher’s Tree.”

  “You don’t look convinced,” Ruut noted.

  “This only grows in a solution of silver nitrate in a glass jar. Under the right conditions, metallic crystals build up a treelike structure. It’s simple chemistry, but in the eyes of the alchemists, this was nothing less than magic. Metal growing like vegetation, tiny, twig-like branches of solid silver. Newton believed that metals could be made to grow, and from the Tree of Diana the alchemists concluded that life existed in the kingdom of minerals.”

  Ruut grew confident. “Unusual divine powers are at work here.”

  “Let’s think this through,” Konrad said. “Three fundamental physical laws are off-balance. Time—when the agent tried to shoot us, the noise came with delay. Space—when the rope started snapping. Light—the laser in the agent’s gun, it shouldn’t have spread.”

  “What if this place is a parallel universe?”

  “Multi-universe theories are media tricks for the masses,” Konrad deflected. “It’s possible they do exist. Like it’s possible we are living in some Mad Konrad’s computer program. But what’s drummed up by the media has nothing to do with science.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Zero value.”

  “I thought science was about being arrogant, aggressive, and radical. Playing with ideas. Even if ideas are just ideas, t
hey might prove useful later.”

  “Are you challenging me?”

  “You made yourself stupid enough already,” Ruut said. “I’m beginning to see that Alchemy and God have much in common. A blacksmith forges a piece of shapeless metal—useless becomes useful, nothing becomes something. Like the Big Bang Theory. If God didn’t plant this tree here himself, it was one of his Messengers who knows the human mind. First message is expressed, then repressed, but expressed again.”

  Konrad exhaled an ugly laugh. “Explaining everything away with God?”

  “I’m not the one explaining anything away. Clearly, Newton’s study of nature and Scripture were two halves of a whole: the discovery of the mind of God. And the mind of God manifests through Messengers. They have taught about love and potential of man and substance. We have been invited to take part in something no one has ever done before. God’s creation needs our protection. That’s why He bends the laws of physics around us. He had sent Oona to prevent something bad.”

  “Before your ecstatic prophecy finds its way into fortune cookies,” Konrad said, “how is Oona’s death going to help us?”

  “Self-sacrifice. It’s the ultimate expression of love,” Ruut said, her voice pearl and jade. “My best guess is she didn’t leave The Wicked Bible only for you. It’s a will to the world. Oona must have seen your potential. She’s backing you up.”

  Konrad recoiled but bit through the internal ache in his stomach. “Let’s move on. ‘Menstrual blood of the sordid whore’… According to Lennart, one can get the color on the drum map from an alder tree like this.”

  “If you look at the skin map,” Ruut said, “you can’t help think what a rainbow a human being is. Feelings of rage and uncertainty are mottled in red on it. Blue for coldness. Organ failure makes skin color blossom in yellow and green. You turn white at the sight of...”

  “Blood…”

  “Skin color gives clues to health, but in your case, it doesn’t apply. Whether you liked or disliked what you saw, the reaction is beyond your control.”