The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “Grandyn inherited that from his mother. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I’m not going to involve him in this. It would destroy his life. Do you think Harper would want that?”

  “I think she’d want her only child to have a meaningful life, not one chosen by an overly cautious father.”

  “Damn you, Nelson! You know I’ve been gutted. Ten years raising Grandyn, trying to do what she would have wanted, hoping to get it even close to right. How dare you cite her name? And then dumping this ‘save the books’ trip on me. Who the hell am I to save the books? Why would I question the government? They seem to be doing a fine job keeping the peace. The world is pretty damn wonderful, if you ask me.”

  “Who are you? As soon as the library in Belgium closed, your fate was sealed. You’re the last librarian. It’s up to you. It’s not just books. Movies and music are also being changed and disappearing.”

  “Oh, I suppose you want me to save them too?”

  “No, the music will have to fend for itself. Songs have long been lost in digital wastelands.”

  “I’ve got a meeting to prepare for. Just leave me alone.”

  “Go then. I’ll be here when you finish.”

  A couple of hours later, Runit found Nelson in a corner of the grand building.

  “How’d the meeting go?” Nelson asked.

  “Not good,” Runit said. “‘Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.’”

  “Why are you quoting Thoreau?”

  “They’re going to burn all the books.”

  “A real-life Fahrenheit 451.” Nelson pounded the table, glaring out of bleary eyes.

  “Yeah, too expensive to move them. They said they’re obsolete anyway. Still, they don’t want the plan announced or acknowledged in case there are any sentimental bibliophiles out there who might raise a ruckus.”

  “Obsolete?” Nelson roared.

  “They stated it as an obvious and emotionless fact. The same thing was done at the other libraries. A laser-controlled interior burn is conducted, and then the building is leveled. This one is almost two hundred years old. It’ll be replaced by a fifty-two story glass tower.”

  “Are you going to let them burn the books, Montag?” Nelson asked, calling Runit by the name of the protagonist in Ray Bradbury’s classic.

  “Is your Whistler still active?”

  Nelson nodded.

  “Would it really be possible to get them out?”

  Nelson, calm for the first time since they had started talking, nodded slowly. “I have a plan.”

  Chapter 4

  Lance Miner, the ultra-wealthy pharmaceutical tycoon, looked into the lights of his INU and smiled, pleased the world’s last library would finally be dark. He flipped an old silver dollar, a relic of the pre-Banoff days when physical currency still circulated.

  “Hell,” he said as it landed on tails. His old routine told him the library situation might require more work than it should. Heads meant easy, tails meant work. But the coin was sometimes wrong. No one cares about books made of paper, they don’t even read the digital ones that much these days, he thought. And he’d seen the data. The AOI traced every sentence read, when a reader started or stopped, what they highlighted. In 2098, there is no privacy, and secrets are only good for a trip to prison or a death sentence.

  If all went well, the library closure wouldn’t even make the news. They didn’t need any sentimental rabble-rousers getting in the way. Portland wouldn’t miss the old relic. The world didn’t need physical books anymore, and keeping the place open was an outrageous waste of money.

  That was what the Aylantik government had told the county officials. In reality, the closing had nothing to do with budget cuts or progress. Rather, shutting down the last library would bring to fruition a scheme to consolidate power that had been decades in the making.

  “We must fight for peace,” Miner said to himself. “Stability has to be maintained at any cost.”

  He moved a few fingers near the glowing orb and a three-dimensional full color world map appeared. After expertly manipulating the projected light, Miner quickly scanned through the twenty-four regions into which the globe had been divided by the founders of the Aylantik government.

  Miner’s friend, Polis Drast, was the AOI Pacyfik regional head. Although their friendship had always been a strategic relationship, he actually liked the guy, and Drast did a more than competent job in a difficult position. The Pacyfik included the western portions of what were formerly known as Canada, the United States, Mexico, and extended down through the South American continent. For some time, the Pacyfik had been a source of concern for the government. While there hadn’t been any recent trouble, the area held a large population of readers, writers, artists, and other creative occupations, long known to contain a higher percentage of non-conformists. Miner referred to them as “Creatives,” and always pronounced it as if he was using profanity.

  The Pacyfik also had its history held against it. The Banoff consisted of two events: The nearly two-year pandemic, and the three-year war, which started during the second year of the plague. The major pockets of resistance had come from within the Pacyfik region, and they rallied mightily against the Aylantik coalition, which had been comprised mostly of former US and NATO militaries. The Aylantik were eventually victorious, and had since presided over seven decades of peace and prosperity.

  Miner’s interest in politics and world affairs had served him well. A fourth generation billionaire, he had expanded his vast family fortune in the world’s leading industry, pharmaceuticals, through lucrative deals and patent fights. At his birth, PharmaForce, Inc., the conglomerate controlled by his family, had been the world’s ninth largest drug company. It now ranked number one.

  Miner waved his arm through the air and a series of virtual monitors, or “VMs,” lit. The holographic VMs, like just about every other digital component, were touch-controlled and linked to the “Field,” the name given to what the Internet had evolved into‒ an all-encompassing grid that connected each aspect of daily life across the planet.

  Miner flicked his pinky slightly through a view of global news and rolling rows of up-to-the-millisecond updates on the world financial market. The world basked in wealth. Some had more than others, and some a lot more than others, but things were good for almost everyone.

  Sarlo, a fit woman in her thirties, entered his office, ignoring the breathtaking Parisian skyline filling the window behind her boss. PharmaForce had offices around the world, and when people commented on them, Sarlo liked to say, “Lance collects panoramic views.”

  Working for one of the world’s wealthiest men might sound like a dream job to some, but Sarlo knew the reality – stress. And although her good-looking boss often said, “Money comes cheap,” she disagreed, believing the cost of wealth to be high. It’s just paid for by body and mind.

  “Yes, Lance?” she said, attentively. In her nine years at PharmaForce, she’d gone from star-struck to disillusioned to great respect and admiration, but lately it had caused her some anxiety. Big things were happening, or about to, and Lance Miner was a “Force.”

  They traveled together regularly, but he had never made even the slightest inappropriate gesture toward her. Miner had long been happily married, with three children. His thick gray hair seemed to make him more attractive, but it was his face that made the fifty-eight-year-old command the attention of both men and women.

  His features appeared so perfect that rumors abounded about his billionaire parents selecting each gene. He’d heard the talk, and it amused him because he knew it wasn’t true. “I’m just naturally handsome,” he’d say, whenever there was an opportunity.

  Sarlo had married and divorced during her time employed by PharmaForce, but she now had an understanding boyfriend who could handle her crazy schedule. Or, at least, so she hoped. Sarlo worried that it would get old for him too, but she wanted her job more than any man. The power, action, and
stress were irresistible. She’d been a cheerleader and model before being recruited to be Miner’s assistant. He preferred to be surrounded by beautiful people. Insisted on it, actually. But he also demanded brains, and Sarlo did not disappoint in that department either.

  “Are they here?” Miner asked.

  “Yes. Everything is ready,” she answered.

  Lance Miner’s grandparents had been among the founders of the new world immediately following the Banoff. The founders had, in fact, saved the world from certain destruction.

  When the pandemic began in 2025, eight billion people lived on Earth. By 2029, with the plague controlled and the subsequent war ended, the population had been shattered, with fewer than three billion remaining. More than two billion had died during the first year of the pandemic. Nearly three were lost in the next. If it were not for the inoculations developed jointly by the nine pharmaceuticals, including PharmaForce, the human race may have become extinct. The current population stood closer to 1950 levels. Strict controls had kept it steady for decades.

  “I ought to be nervous,” Miner said, smiling. Admiring Sarlo’s perfect bronze skin and long brown hair was a good distraction from her lips and peanut-butter-colored eyes.

  “That would be a first,” she said.

  When her boyfriend had asked what the legendary businessman was really like, she told him that Lance Miner possessed two traits that made him successful: brilliance and vision. She left out the third secret ingredient. Miner could be startlingly ruthless. Today would be one of those times. They’d been preparing for it for more than a year. In the end, whenever she doubted his motives, Sarlo repeated her boss’s mantra. “The ends justify the means.” The world had become a wonderful place. She, like most, understood they were living at the pinnacle of human history.

  Miner’s family, along with the other founders, hadn’t just stopped the pandemic that was wiping out humanity. They had won the final war, drafted the new Aylantik constitution, and had restored order to a world spiraling toward anarchy and Armageddon. But maintaining the peace, even with a single government ruling an united Earth, was surprisingly far more complex than it had been in the pre-Banoff years.

  The economy drove everything. In her college economics classes, Sarlo had learned about the old systems of capitalism and socialism after which their full-opportunity economy had been modeled. “The economy keeps the peace,” Miner always said, “and pharmaceuticals make the economy.” She knew it to be true. The pre-Banoff world had churned with poverty, hunger, desperation, revolutions, and war. They had none of that now. Even crime was almost nonexistent, and her boss was a major reason things were so ideal.

  Miner still sat on the A-Council, and regardless of the other global governmental titles including the World Premier, the A-Council still held the real power.

  “The General?” Miner asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And the Premier?”

  “Yes, Lance, they’re both here, and waiting. Being late isn’t a good start.”

  “Then let’s see if we can make history.”

  Chapter 5

  Nelson looked around the room to make sure no other library patrons had entered. The library’s staff of seven employees and a dozen volunteers were spread throughout the building. The big room was empty except for Runit and Nelson.

  “We can’t take all the books. While I’m making the arrangement to move them, you sort and decide which are the most important works to preserve. No sense taking a copy of a pro-government history book, romance novels, nature books, or other stuff that they’ll never change.”

  “How is it going to be possible to move them undetected? It would take a million trips in LEVs.”

  It was the first time Runit had wished for the days when automobiles still drove on concrete and asphalt, and fossil fuels could power giant engines capable of carrying large heavy loads. Instead “LEVs,” or Levitating Electro Vehicles, pronounced “lev” as in levitate, were light, driverless, car-like machines, equipped with small wind turbines and solar panels, that floated above solar powered roads embedded with more solar panels.

  “We’ll need trucks, which means using the magna-lanes,” Runit added. “That means permits.”

  The outermost lane of most roads were reserved for trucks, which required more energy and magnetic-assisted generation to allow them to carry bulk and weight.

  “There’s a bottling company next door. I know a guy there. He’ll help us. The trucks sit empty for some hours during the night before the predawn loading for their early deliveries. We should be able to get it done in three or four nights, depending on how many trucks we can use.”

  “You’ve already talked to someone?” he exclaimed in his loudest whisper.

  “There isn’t much time.”

  Runit paced away, hands in the air.

  “We can do this, Runit.”

  “We’re going to prison.”

  “No.”

  “Okay then.” Runit stormed back to the table. “You’re the mastermind. We have the trucks for a few hours. Where are we taking all these books?” he whispered.

  “To the Interstate. There’s a freight service center where we can transfer them to empty fruit trucks.”

  “Fruit trucks? Another friend?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Why will they be empty?”

  “Heading south, back to the orchards.”

  The Aylantik government had contracts with several major companies in the space industry to control weather. They’d been doing it successfully for more than fifty years, but advances were slow. The best case was in the regions with mild winters, where they could maintain a year-round growing season, adjusting temperatures a few degrees and increasing rainfall.

  “I’m no transportation engineer, but don’t companies backload trucks once the cargo is offloaded so they don’t drive empty trucks hundreds of kilometers?”

  “Usually, but not with fruit. Some kind of health regulation.”

  Runit suddenly stopped as it all caught up with him. Something had been amiss for so long that he’d almost accepted it as normal, but it never felt right. Perhaps it had been his late wife’s independent spirit, or the fact that his was one of the few jobs tied to the last century, but he never felt he fit in, and the world seemed like a giant jigsaw puzzle with the last piece missing.

  “Charles Dickens,” he began in a whisper.

  “What?” Nelson asked, thinking Runit had said, “Call all chickens.”

  “Dickens could have been talking about 2098. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ There’s such a thing as too perfect.”

  “Yes,” Nelson agreed. “How do they keep it so good?”

  Runit looked down the rows of bookshelves, thinking for a moment that the ghosts of all those dead authors might wander in and tell him the answer, how to make it right, what to do. Long seconds passed, during which he returned to the present reality.

  “Okay. Tell me this,” Runit said, turning to Nelson. “If we take four nights to move the books out, what do we do during the day when someone comes in to request a book?”

  Nelson waved his arm in a sweeping motion. “Do you see anyone here? I think we can risk it.”

  “That’s a big risk.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Nelson said, as if placating a child. “There’s no choice. We have to do this.”

  “Of course there’s a choice.”

  “What? Let them burn the last books on Earth? Cede control of the intellectual and artistic legacy of human history to an elite few whose aims we don’t even know? Shoot, I’d rather do self-immolation.”

  “Why us?”

  “Because we’re here. Because we understand the stakes. The collective works of our species must be preserved.”

  “At great risk.”

  “Yes.”

  “We could lose our lives to an AOI laser, or land forever in an Aylantik prison.”

  “Yes, but what else
would you do with your life? Finish your book? Or, like most people, be content being babysat, left to watch and generally obsess about sports and entertainment stars? It’s all fluff. People waste their lives on fluff.” Nelson opened a view into his INU. “But you’re one of the bright ones, aren’t you? You follow politics and the news. Well, I have some news for you. It’s theatre. Sports heroes, film celebrities, rock stars, politicians, controversies of all sorts on the news, they’re all just different channels of the same show. Distract and keep happy.”

  “What are you even talking about?”

  “Save the books, and your life will have meant something. Let them burn, and it was just frittered away.”

  “Grandyn means something.”

  “What do I mean?” Runit’s son asked, entering the cavernous room.

  He looked like a younger version of his father. Thick sandy hair, worn a bit longer, a bit wilder than his dad’s, but with the same intense look, like something had bothered him, perhaps more angst in his expression, but not much. They both had gray-blue eyes, keen and expressive, but what people always remembered was the Happerman smile. If it could be coaxed, seeing Grandyn or his dad smile was like going to a party.

  “Grandyn, great to see you?” Runit said, shooting Nelson a “shut-up” look.

  “Dad, did you forget we’re having lunch today?”

  “Yeah. No. I guess I did.”

  Grandyn laughed. “Nelson, want to join us?”

  “No,” Runit answered for him a little too quickly.

  Grandyn looked from his dad to Nelson, who’d been like an uncle to him his whole life. He wanted Nelson as a buffer, knowing he and his father would have the same argument about him going to college in the fall. Applications were due in a few days, and Grandyn was trying to stall until the deadline passed.

  “I’d love to,” Nelson said, grinning at Runit.

  Nelson loved Grandyn, loved seeing that smile, and he saw it a lot. Nelson had been the counter to Runit’s attempts to reign in his rebellious son since his wife died. He had been almost a surrogate mother, not because he and Runit were best friends, but because Nelson had loved Grandyn’s mother too.