The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “There are many stories about that woman Blaise spoke of, but nothing concrete. It’s more like . . .” Sarlo hesitated.

  “What?”

  “It’s more like a legend.”

  “I don’t believe it! Blaise Cortez says she’s real, says she’s in the Pacyfik Northwest and that she has a torgon following.”

  “We have more than a hundred and fifty people working on it,” Sarlo said. “They’re spreading money and intimidation around the region like manure. If it’s true, we’ll find her.” She looked at Miner, waiting until their eyes met. “But tell me, Lance. How could this woman possibly be alive?”

  Chapter 24

  Chelle had managed to stop her tears by the time they called Runit for his shot and she released him. Once in the examination room, the nurse FRIDGed him and then administered the needle. He grimaced for a split second, but his mind was too occupied with Chelle to even notice the nurse’s routine words.

  Nelson’s beautiful and normally strong sister had been in his arms for almost twenty minutes. They had exchanged only a few whispers during the entire episode, but Runit felt it had been the most sensual experience of his life. As her scent of snow and tangerines still covered him, he relived their “conversation.” They had been silent for at least five minutes after she’d told him to just hold her.

  Finally he had asked, barely audibly, “Are you okay?”

  “No.” She breathed the word as if it had seven letters and each represented a different form of desperation.

  “What can I do?” he’d asked, careful to avoid the blue-haired lady’s stare.

  “This.” And she held him tighter.

  All he could feel were her hands on his wrist and neck, her breath in his ear and her body pressed into him. Damn the shots, he thought, he hadn’t ever wanted a woman more. Not since the first time he’d met his wife. But Chelle’s magnetism overpowered him. Something mysterious about the woman spun his mind, and her touch, so completely erotic, made him feel stoned.

  “I need to move,” he said, wanting to free his wrists.

  “Don’t,” she said, again making the word sound like one he’d never heard before, as if it might have three syllables.

  “Okay.” Even then, he tried to shift slightly.

  Somehow, all that did was allow her to get closer, which made their contact even more intense. She was crying softly and he couldn’t tell if the wetness he felt on his ear was her tongue or her tears.

  “I need you.” Her words came on a hot breeze, felt only by him.

  He stuttered, incomprehensible for a moment.

  “Runit, don’t let me go,” she whispered.

  “I won’t,” he said, determined that if he did nothing else in his life, he would not let her go until she again felt safe. Those had been their last words until the nurse called him. They waited alone in the LEV until word came through on his INU that the doctor was ready. He didn’t want to go, but she assured him she’d be okay.

  Runit rolled down his sleeve after the nurse put a small bandage on the spot where she’d poked him. Leaving the office, he passed Chelle and told her he’d wait for her.

  He climbed back into the LEV and pretended to scan his INU, but the blue-haired lady returned and started talking to him anyway.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he replied, giving a reassuring smile to the old woman, who had been a volunteer for three or four years. He hardly knew her. “She’s Nelson Wright’s sister.”

  “Oh,” she said, impressed.

  “Terrified of needles and lost her husband not too long ago. Bad experiences in medical facilities.”

  “Oh, my. How awful.”

  Runit nodded and went back to his INU after giving the lady a look of agreement, as if it had been quite awful but now everything was just fine. Scanning the flashes that had accumulated during his time away, he determined that nothing seemed important. He allowed his thoughts to drift to the woman who had suddenly consumed him.

  Each time they were together it felt like a life was at stake, and he didn’t know whose. But he needed to save whose ever life it was, especially if it turned out to be hers. Chelle had a power, something that created a new way of seeing the world. He’d wanted to save the books; they had long been his life. He needed to do it simply because destroying them was wrong. He believed in books, more than in people, because everything was discoverable within the pages. Read and think, and one could understand.

  People were much harder to grasp, with Chelle being the most impossible. But she wanted to save the books too. He would have been getting the books out anyway, he’d been doing it, but Chelle brought the passion to the cause. Somehow she made the books alive. To Runit, the books were people. People about to be murdered.

  The future was at risk without the knowledge from the past, the true knowledge. Runit remembered the philosopher Santayana’s warning, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” No one should ever have to live in the pre-Banoff world again, with its wars, pollution, and poverty. He thought of something else Santayana had said and shivered.

  “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

  Yes, he knew the books had to be saved, and he had more than just an interest in the future. He had Grandyn. He would do anything he could to save them. He’d known that even before Nelson convinced him they could do it. Yet the mission suddenly became more important with Chelle Andreas involved. He couldn’t explain it, but it was true, and he sat there trying to understand why.

  His mind swirled in confusion, as he waited in the LEV. Could I love this woman I hardly know? Every man who meets Chelle must fall in love with her. But she seems equally captivated with me. Is that possible? A librarian. The last librarian? What will I be in a week? Where will any of us be?

  Runit missed his wife every day. The decade since her death sometimes seemed like ten minutes. He’d dated over that time, though probably not enough. He’d been careful not to get involved, making a conscious decision not to let anyone interfere with raising Grandyn exactly as Harper would have wanted. But now Grandyn was eighteen and Chelle had arrived on the scene. The encounter in the LEV actually made him feel guilty. If they’d been alone on the ride to the medical station, he was sure they would have had sex. Even though he was at least a decade older, she seemed to want him even more than he wanted her. He might have risked arrest for her if she’d insisted on not getting the shot.

  Maybe she’ll come back to my place after we finish pulling books tonight, he thought. They’d be exhausted, but passion is the second most powerful stimulant, with fear being the first, and there was no shortage of that.

  His INU suddenly brought his attention back as it glowed with an important flash. He moaned as he read it, devastated. A few seconds later, Chelle entered the LEV. Runit motioned his fingers to open a VM that allowed her to read it. Upon finishing, she closed her eyes in apparent defeat. But when she opened them a moment later, instead of the tears of frustration he had expected, her eyes glared with an inner fire that startled him.

  She gave the voice command to engage the LEV that Runit had been too distracted to give. “We’ll make it,” she said as she moved her fingers around her own INU, notifying Nelson, doing some kind of calculations, scanning her own flashes, and a lot of other things. But Runit had no idea what. She seemed completely transformed from the woman who had ridden over with him. Now she was a commander in charge of a mission.

  He wanted to discuss it, whatever it was, that they had shared, what they’d felt together, tonight’s plans . . . but she was all but ignoring him. He didn’t understand at all, but he knew that any “relationship” conversation would have to wait. The flash had taken precedence with the news that their near-impossible task had just grown impossible.

  As they rode back to the library on that cold Thursday evening, he read the flash again and wondered how they could possibly have everything out by Sunday night. The schedule had been changed, and t
he AOI crew would arrive two days earlier than originally planned. At dawn on Monday, they would burn all the books.

  Chapter 25

  Nelson, a bac hanging from his lips, met Runit and Chelle outside on the library steps.

  “We can do this,” he said.

  “How?” Runit asked, sounding more irritated than he should have, subconsciously blaming Nelson for being Chelle’s sister. “Do you have to smoke all the time?”

  “Relax, Runit,” Chelle said, barely squeezing his shoulder as she passed him on the steps. “Nelson has always had reasons for wanting to kill himself. We don’t need to interfere.”

  Oddly, Runit felt better, but her sway over his emotions bothered him. You’re not a dumb teenager with a crush, he silently admonished himself.

  Chelle exchanged a quick glance with Nelson, but Runit missed it. Chelle’s nod had been almost imperceptible.

  “I just received a message from Deuce. I sent word back with the courier.”

  “What did his message say?” Runit asked as they pushed through the front doors.

  Nelson stayed behind for a couple of seconds and inhaled two more drags from his wonderful bac.

  “Good news, bad news.”

  “Yeah, you know what Kurt Vonnegut would say. ‘The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.’ I find it often applies.” Runit then realized Nelson had remained outside.

  “Come on,” Runit said, going back out after him. “What did Deuce say?”

  “Wait until we’re inside and I’ll show you.” Nelson stamped out his bac and followed Runit back into the library. Then he led Runit and Chelle to a small empty room usually used for preschool reading circles.

  “Why here?” Runit asked.

  “Because this is what Deuce sent.” Nelson laid four sheets of 11x17 paper on a table. “They’re all the KEL locations that impact the library.”

  “Wow,” Chelle said, her expression simultaneously showing awe and concern.

  “You won’t believe how many cameras there are inside and outside of the building,” Nelson said, “but this room is clear.”

  “How are we ever going to get the books out of here?” Runit asked. “Even if we had a month, they’ll see every move we make.”

  “That’s why he sent it,” Nelson answered. “All we have to do is obscure the one covering the loading dock during the few hours of the load out.”

  “It isn’t that unusual to have a KEL camera go out,” Chelle said, surprising Runit with her knowledge. “The library is certainly on a heightened watch list, but it’s probably not on any of the security-risk lists. That designation is reserved for power plants, tech centers, AOI facilities, and government offices, et cetera.”

  “What line of work are you in again?” Runit asked Chelle.

  “Long story.”

  “I’ve got time,” Runit said.

  “No, you don’t,” Nelson said.

  “Well, it’s just she knows stuff about AOI and KEL that I’ve never heard before,” Runit said.

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know,” Chelle said. “Not everything is printed in books.”

  She had almost offended Runit, but her smile disarmed him, and then she took his arm. “Don’t worry, you’re a smart man. I have a feeling that by this time next week you’re going to be teaching me stuff about the AOI.”

  Nelson laughed.

  Runit ignored him and looked into her eyes, as if to ask if she were just toying with him, trying to remind her that he too had lost a spouse and that they were both fragile and should treat each other gently. Only Chelle didn’t seem fragile or gentle. His confusion heightened when she returned his gaze with an “I’m serious and I want you” kind of a look. But it didn’t matter that he didn’t understand. It’s what he wanted, and he didn’t mind a little emotional turmoil on the way to wherever they were going, as long as they got there together.

  “On the message you sent back to Deuce, what did you request?” Chelle asked her brother.

  “What do you think? I pleaded for help. He employs an army.”

  “Even if he wanted to send a thousand people,” Runit said, “those papers on the table say it’s impossible. Look at all those KEL camera locations. You don’t think they’d pick up on the extra activity? They may even be able to identify his people. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Not after Belgium,” Chelle said. “We can’t risk a repeat.”

  “Were you there?” Runit asked Chelle, suddenly worried he had missed a big piece of what was going on. “Were you at the Belgium closing?”

  “No.” She blinked, looking a little offended. “But I know what Nelson told us, that Deuce Lipton tried to save the books and in the end they were all lost. Wouldn’t you agree that we don’t want to lose the books this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look,” Nelson said, “I talked to my contact at the bottling plant. We can have seven trucks on Saturday and Sunday nights, starting at nineteen hundred hours. We can even have a few on Friday night if we’re ready, but there aren’t as many available because they preload their Saturday morning deliveries for weekend events.”

  “What about Grandyn getting more TreeRuners?” Chelle asked.

  “No, it’s already too risky. They’re just kids,” Runit said.

  “It’s their future we’re fighting for,” Chelle replied.

  “Why do you think they’re trying to change the books?” Runit suddenly asked her.

  “They’re afraid. It’s the same as it always has been. A corrupt leader needs to control what the people think so they don’t revolt. There are three ways to do that: don’t allow them to learn anything that counters the official line, bombard them with propaganda disguised as news, and finally, give them a distraction, usually an enemy.”

  “Why would anyone want to revolt?” Runit asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ll do anything to save the books, but what if the government is trying to stop some very bad group from disrupting the most peaceful and abundant society the Earth has ever known? What if we are inadvertently helping to destroy all that goodness?”

  “All that goodness?” Chelle laughed. “If it’s as good as it seems, it’ll be strong enough to withstand a few controversial books. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes, I would,” Runit said, charmed all over again. “But only if we can get them out in time.”

  “Well, there are three of us in this room who aren’t pulling books right now,” Nelson said. “We’ve got about eight hours left today. Let’s go pull some torgon books!”

  They spread out to different parts of the building. Runit wandered down the aisle where biographies were ‒ there were thousands to be pulled there. While trying to shift emotional gears, he thought about spending the night with Chelle but knew, given the crisis, it was not practical. At the same time, because of the crisis he wanted it even more.

  What is it about that woman? he asked himself.

  Deuce was asking himself the same question about Chelle as he watched his intercepted KEL feed and read the request from Nelson. There were holes in her bio over the past few years, including times when she had vanished altogether. That was not an easy thing to do in the Aylantik, post-Banoff world. All financial transactions were instantly traceable, and the FRIDG system made moving about without leaving a trail nearly impossible, but she had been invisible nonetheless. Perhaps she’d been camping in the woods somewhere and living off the land, he thought, because without truly incredible connections, she couldn’t have pulled off that kind of disappearing act.

  Then again, with her late husband’s roster of banking clients, someone might be helping her. But why? And who? Lance Miner always topped his list when something suspicious was going down, but if that were the case, her aiding the library heist didn’t make sense. She could have gotten her brother out of there and blown the whistle at any time. Unless . . . He suddenly stood and paced.

  Unless Lan
ce Miner knows about the book.

  Deuce realized he would probably not be getting much sleep that night, maybe not much until Monday. And somehow, even with the CAAP issue erupting tomorrow, he needed to get as many of his people surreptitiously down to that library as possible.

  Chapter 26

  Grandyn and his band of TreeRunners were working so fast that Runit thought they might actually pull it off. The young crew did even more once the library closed for the day, when they could crank the music. Runit worried about the KEL cameras, but they were careful around the sensitive areas, and Chelle assured him that the DesTIn programs monitoring the interiors would, if anything, assume the crews were preparing for the library closure.

  “What if they refer that question to a human?” Runit asked her as they passed in historical fiction.

  “I know a good lawyer,” Chelle said, winking.

  Alone again, Runit chastised himself for allowing Grandyn to be involved. His late wife, Harper, would have seen it the other way. “Kids need to live, take chances, learn at their parents’ side,” she often said. “I don’t want our son growing up sheltered and afraid. Grandyn needs to be tasting all that life has to give, running fast, falling down, and jumping back up.” Harper would have been fine with him skipping college. “Pursue your dreams, no matter what anybody says,” she would tell Grandyn, when he was still too young to even know what she meant.

  Runit rounded a corner and found his son making out with Vida. They heard his approach and broke apart, giggling. “Not going to find many books that way,” Runit said lightheartedly.

  Grandyn stepped aside and pointed to an overloaded cart. “Dad, we’re just trying to slow down a little so we don’t totally embarrass you and Nelson. You guys are not very good at this.”