The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  Chapter 13

  Tuesday, January 30

  Runit arrived at the library early so he’d have an hour before staff showed up, and another hour until the public would be allowed in at ten hundred hours, but it was usually closer to lunchtime before patrons straggled in, and rarely more than a few.

  Runit walked through the canyons of books, wondering which ones contained secrets that the government wanted silenced. He hadn’t slept well, imagining the holocaust that awaited the 1.4 million volumes in his care. The books had, at times, been a burden to him, but never more than now. Yet he believed in them, and in what they offered humanity.

  “Books are more than words, they’re dreams, ideas, and answers, and that is why they fear them,” he said to himself.

  Perhaps he wasn’t as devout a follower of books as Nelson, probably because he’d never published one himself. His resentment of that fact caught in his throat, taking him by surprise. In his own way, he’d shared the wisdom of the books with thousands through his role as head librarian, but that hadn’t been enough, even if it had led him to this point in time where innocence could fade into the intelligence of disobedience, and thus change his destiny. Maybe now, with the library closing, he could finally write his own book. A single story always festered in him: a hero of the pre-Banoff wars realizes peace is unattainable in the corrupt world. No one would buy it, but he could write it anyway.

  As he descended, he counted the ninety-two steps of the main staircase, as was his habit. A kind of silent meditation. He scoured the shelves for important work, filling boxes, but after almost an hour the task overwhelmed him. It would be impossible to find and save the books that mattered most, the ones that could change people, transform a society, and threaten a government.

  At zero-nine hundred, as other staff members streamed in, he zoomed Nelson over flash, waking him with a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald.

  “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

  “Reading Gatsby? Always a good idea. What time is it?” Nelson asked sleepily. His INU glowed with Runit’s image. Nelson didn’t motion on his video link, so Runit could only hear him.

  “Just past nine.”

  Great, less than fourteen hours to live, he thought. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep much.” He slid out of bed, still groggy and stiff. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  As the zoom ended an older volunteer, a woman in her sixties, told Runit there was a large delivery at the back door. Runit was puzzled, as nothing was expected. The loading dock went months with no action. The truck driver had already unloaded six large cartons. Four of them were one meter by one meter. The other two were slightly smaller. Runit had never heard of the company from which they originated, but he signed for them anyway. As the truck pulled away, Runit opened one of the bigger ones and saw some sort of machine. He was looking for a manual or paperwork when a man climbed up on the dock, startling him.

  “Runit Happerman?” The guy checked his INU and confirmed Runit’s ID. All INUs had a built in Facial Recognition Identification Grid system, or “FRIDG.”

  “Yes,” Runit answered hoarsely, scared the AOI was already on to them.

  “Message for you.” The courier handed him a plantik sleeve. The naturally derived plantik had replaced plastic sixty years earlier. The sleeve had a tamper-proof code.

  Runit thanked the courier and waited until he was out of sight before taking out his INU. There was a code waiting on his flash-view. He touched the plantik code panel in the proper sequence and it opened, allowing him to pull out the paper inside that otherwise would have turned black and disintegrated.

  Strapping machines delivered. Best way. Approximately twenty-five books per bundle. No signature.

  It took Runit almost half an hour to unwrap and wheel in the four strapping machines. Each was about the size of a three-drawer filing cabinet turned on its side. Luckily, they had legs and casters, so once unpacked they were easy to move. The other boxes contained large spools of black, one-inch-wide plantik strapping. He assumed that the “gift” was from Deuce Lipton. Nelson must have made contact.

  Things are looking up, he thought. The strappers were actually a huge gift, since part of his fitful night had been spent trying to figure out where to get thousands of boxes, and then how to get them into the library without attracting notice. Problem solved.

  Once back inside, the same volunteer found him and reported that Nelson was waiting. He checked the wall clock and saw that it was quarter to ten. Nelson made good time, he thought.

  But the man waiting wasn’t Nelson. It was another courier. And he wasn’t waiting to see Runit, the volunteer had misunderstood. He was waiting for Nelson.

  “He’ll be here soon,” Runit said. “If you want to leave the message with me, I’ll be sure he gets it.”

  The courier tried to suppress a smile. “I prefer to wait and deliver it myself.”

  Runit nodded, not surprised.

  It was twenty minutes before Nelson pulled into a space half a block from the entrance. Runit had been pacing out front and helped Nelson, who was juggling two cups of hot something and a box of doughnuts.

  “Aren’t you worried about the weight limits?” Runit asked, motioning to the doughnuts.

  “It’s the last thing I’m worried about. In fact, if I hadn’t been so distracted about being executed for treason before the government could send me to a fat farm, I’d have bought a second box. Maybe some ice cream.”

  “There’s a courier waiting for you.”

  Nelson stopped. “Why? Who sent him?”

  “I have no idea. You know how couriers are.”

  “Blaise Cortez wants ten million digis.”

  Runit felt sick. “What?”

  “By tonight . . . or he’s selling the program, and us, to the AOI.”

  “I knew that bastard was a bad idea,” Runit said as he put his foot on the concrete bench etched with “Mark Twain.” Twenty-two benches surrounding the giant library were inscribed with the names of great authors.

  “He’s more than a bad idea. Blaise is psycho.”

  “I’m getting Grandyn out of town.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to drive back to Seattle and talk Deuce into giving us the money.”

  “He was there?” Runit asked.

  “Yeah. You won’t believe it. He tried to do the same thing in Belgium.” Nelson shuffled his box and picked out a doughnut, offering one to Runit.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, shaking his head to the pastry.

  “When they closed the library in Belgium. He tried to get the books.”

  “That explains the strappers.”

  They were walking again. Runit told Nelson about the delivery, and he agreed that they had to be from Deuce. Certainly Blaise hadn’t sent such a gift. They stopped at the steps. Nelson was nervous about what the courier’s message would say and who had sent it. Just then, Runit reached the same conclusion Nelson had the day before.

  “If Deuce Lipton couldn’t save the books . . .”

  “This time it’s different.”

  “Dangerous words for gamblers, investors, and criminals.”

  “Good thing we’re none of those.”

  “We’re all of those.”

  “What are we investing in?” Nelson asked, conceding that they were in fact gamblers and criminals.

  “The future,” Runit said. “You may be doing this for the past, but I’m doing it for the future. Grandyn’s future.”

  Nelson nodded. “When Deuce went for the books, he thought the government had considered them to be just trash. That no one cared about books anymore. We know differently.”

  “And that makes it easier?” Runit asked.

  “If we can get the DesTIn program, we can do this.”

  “Assuming Cortez doesn’t turn us in just for his own amusement.”

  “Yeah, assuming that.”

  They headed up the outside steps. A minute later
, the waiting courier successfully FRIDGed Nelson, delivered his message, and departed.

  Nelson read the paper silently, stunned by the message. He read it again. Then, as if to see if the words were real, he spoke them out loud to Runit.

  “Funds received. Even untraceable. Impressive Baker-Boy. Fully operational DesTIn Program will be delivered by sixteen hundred hours today. Do you trust me?”

  Chapter 14

  Miner looked over at Sarlo and clicked his old US silver dollar on his desk. She knew the coin well. It had belonged to his father and grandfather before him. The worn date could still be read “1988,” the year his family reached billionaire status after buying up cheap stocks following a stock market crash in ’87. They hadn’t looked back since.

  “Hell, there is so much they don’t know,” he said, responding to her assertion that the Council knew everything. “As advanced as our tech is, there’s plenty happening that we know nothing about.”

  Sarlo looked out over Paris, perhaps the least changed skyline since the Banoff. The Eiffel Tower still dominated. It’s one of the things she loved most about the city. The rest of the world had moved on to laser-lit, silver polymer, space-age-inspired malleable skyscrapers, but Paris remained Paris.

  “Risky to assume they’ll miss something that could . . .” She paused to choose her next word carefully. Although Miner had a board of directors, a staff of attorneys, and other advisors, because she had been involved so closely with his deals and strategy for all these years, Sarlo occupied a unique position. “. . . potentially destroy you.”

  Miner squinted at her and quietly slapped the silver dollar, which had been spinning on his desk. There is also a lot that Sarlo doesn’t know, he thought.

  “And just how do you see that playing out?” he asked, adjusting his custom-made Tekfabrik slacks. He preferred to wear his in the old style so that he looked how a businessman would have in his grandfather’s era at the beginning of the century.

  “A portion of the Council, one of their many ‘subcommittees’, would convene an emergency meeting and debate your unilateral action. Because there are those who already deem you dangerous, they would likely rule that you’re indeed a threat to the Council’s power and they would remove you from the Council.” She took a sip of water, his favorite, imported from the Arctic at one hundred thirty-one digis a liter. “And then, after a few tense weeks, maybe a month, you would die in your sleep.”

  Miner nodded. “I suppose it would go something like that . . . if they found out.” He smiled smugly. “If I hadn’t made a fortune on secrets, if there was anyone better at controlling secrets, if they didn’t know I was already more powerful than they are.”

  “Well, Lance, that’s one of the differences between us. I don’t like playing with ifs.”

  “You might, if you were as good at it as I am.” His smile widened.

  “So you’re going to have Deuce Lipton killed?”

  “Of course not. I don’t do that sort of thing.”

  She ignored his unconvincing denial. “Why now?” She looked out over the view of the city and watched as two of StarFly’s mighty space vehicles broke from the distant horizon and headed for orbit. Another sign – or warning – she thought. No one was ever far from Deuce Lipton’s influence.

  “We are at a crossroads. There is no one left who remembers life prior to the Banoff.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “Seventy-three years since the plague began. The oldest Banoff survivor lived to be eighty-two, and she died three months ago.”

  “Why does that matter? She would have been eight or nine when the plague hit. Not likely to have many substantial memories.”

  “Uh-huh. But she would have been thirteen or fourteen at the end of the war, and in those first five years as the Council established the constitution and Aylantik government, she would have been in her late teens.”

  “Who was she?”

  “She was no one. She didn’t matter. But her generation was a potential problem.”

  “Maybe sixty or seventy years ago, but not recently.”

  “They were the connection,” he said, thinking about the name given to that final generation by the first Council. “Proof.”

  “The connection to the pre-Banoff world. So what?”

  “So it doesn’t matter now. That is over.” Miner waved his arm. “What we are left with is Deuce.”

  It drove Miner insane that there were things only Deuce knew. Secrets unknown to Miner and the Council were dangerous. And worse, Miner believed it didn’t work both ways. There were no secrets known to Miner that Deuce did not also know. For more than a century, companies owned by Deuce, or his father and grandfather before him, had made the majority of the surveillance equipment used to monitor the masses. It made the impending confrontation between the two titans all the more treacherous.

  “What is it about Deuce? After all these years with you, I only know that you hate him, that he is not on the Council, and therefore a threat to it. But there must be something else, great or small, that drives your vendetta against him.” She sat on the corner of his desk, a series of large metallic slabs that looked like a modern art sculpture.

  “Isn’t it enough that he threatens the Council, and therefore the stability of the entire world?”

  “Yes, that would be enough for how the Council views him, detached and serious. But you’re more passionate in your feelings.”

  Miner smiled. “Can I help that I’m passionate?” He stood and walked to the window. “Do you want to know what makes me crazy? With all the Whistlers, jammers, and false frequencies we put up, I still can’t be one hundred percent sure that he’s not able to somehow tap into my operations, see my flashes, even hear this torgon conversation.”

  “Then why do we talk here?”

  “Because there is almost nowhere to go. Maybe the mountain forests are safe, but we can’t go out there every time there is something sensitive to discuss.” He flipped the silver dollar in the air, caught it, and turned it over on his wrist. “Heads. Back when coins still existed, this would have meant to go with my brain. Stick to the plan.”

  “I know, and tails meant take a chance.”

  “I have to assume if he could hear us, I’d be dead.”

  “Okay, but are you really willing to risk your rise to Council President and the appointment of your choice for World Premier, just to kill him?” She pushed away a lock of brown curls and adjusted her blouse.

  “No,” Miner said without hesitation. “At least not yet. And not because I’m scared. It’s because I’m brave. I know what needs to be done to keep the peace. It’s not all automatic, as you know. We had thousands of years of war, poverty, and destruction before the Aylantik system saved us from ourselves. The human impulse toward screwing it all up is still very strong.”

  “So you think that Polis Drast is the answer? You can choose anyone on the planet to be World Premier, and he’s the one?”

  “He’s perfect, for many reasons. No one knows the security of the Pacyfik region better than he does, he is completely devoted to the stability and peace of Aylantik at any cost, and he knows of the Council’s existence.”

  “And most important, he is a friend and gets your greatness.”

  “Well, that never hurts.” Miner laughed. Then a zoom came through on his INU. The auto-filter meant it could have only been one of six people: the World Premier, the President of the Council, Polis Drast, his wife, Blaise Cortez, or Sarlo. The pulse told him which.

  He moved his hands across the beaming light streaming from the small unit. His was not manufactured by Eysen, Inc., for obvious reasons, making it one of the few times in his life Miner had settled for second-best.

  Sarlo excused herself. He wouldn’t have minded if she stayed, but she had lots of work to do, and they would discuss the call later anyway.

  “Blaise, I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” Miner said as the DesTIn expert’s face came through, floa
ting above Miner’s desk like a colorful ghost.

  “Does your man Drast have any idea what’s going on in his own backyard?” Blaise asked, sweeping his hands to reveal a satellite map. “There’s a potentially cataclysmic problem in the Pacyfik.”

  Chapter 15

  Deuce walked through the dense silence of the giant coastal redwoods. Ever since childhood, whenever things got difficult, he retreated into the ancient redwood forests. Lately, they were one of the reasons he could so often be found in his San Francisco or Seattle offices.

  A quick Flo-wing flight and he could be in his beloved trees. A Flo-wing might be described as a descendent of the helicopter, but there had been much crossbreeding along the way with small jets and even aerospace. Deuce’s own StarFly Corporation made the best, but other pre-Banoff plane manufacturers, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, sold more. The supercharged flyers were capable of high speeds and great distances, as well as vertical takeoffs and landings. The high-end models also featured luxurious cabins, galleys, and communication-entertainment centers. Every self-respecting billionaire executive owned at least one.

  It had been Deuce’s grandfather, Booker Lipton, who’d first taken him to the redwoods, and until his death, Deuce’s father continued the tradition. Deuce saw those two great men in the contours of the bark and heard their voices in the mist. He missed his father, but Booker’s influence on his life was certainly more profound.

  Booker had been a legendary figure in the pre-Banoff world, and still held a strong mystique in some circles. A ruthless businessman, regularly at odds with the former US government, he had supported controversial organizations, and was said to have brought about the downfall of many once considered infallible institutions. Even before Booker’s company released the Eysen, he’d been one of the wealthiest people in the world. But the Eysen, as the world’s first INU, made him rich and powerful beyond almost any measure. Its technology was so advanced that now, more than eight decades later, it was still the standard. Not bad for a poor black kid who’d dropped out of high school.