The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “Have you seen Chelle Andreas?” Runit asked, suddenly wanting her AOI expertise.

  “She’s on the lower level strapping.” The “plumber” looked at Nelson, passed out on the floor, and thought about the objectives Deuce had sent them in with: assisting with the removal of books and monitoring Chelle and Vida. He knew there was a possibility that he’d be ordered at any time to abduct, or even to kill Chelle or Vida. “Hold, I’ve just received information. The AOI patrol is not on us.”

  Runit noticed the plumber had not consulted an INU, and therefore must have an implant. This made him nervous and relieved at the same time. Imps were dangerous, too much information available to them, too machine-like, and why not? After all, they were Field-connected micro-computer processors with a neurological interface. Whenever anyone got an implant, which were expensive to install as well as maintain, they seemed to become less human. Their emotions took a backseat to the data driven power of the implant.

  The plumber pulled up VMs, which may or may not have come from his INU. Runit wasn’t sure because he’d heard that people with certain types of implants could display visuals from optic drives imbedded in their wrists. The images immediately grabbed Runit’s attention.

  He recognized the building, only half a block up the street. The AOI agents left their LEV as another, larger one showed up. Four more agents got out of that one. The first two used a laser blast to blow in the front door without even slowing down. All six agents disappeared inside and, shockingly, another VM, floating at Runit’s eye level, showed an inside view. Before he could ask how, he became riveted as the AOI agents interrogated the three people they found inside. The questions lasted about two minutes. The images did not have accompanying sound. Then, without warning, the suspects were executed. At least that’s what Runit assumed, as the agents pushed a silver, tubular device into the back of the necks of each of the two men and a woman, who instantly collapsed.

  “Are they dead?” Runit heard himself asking the plumber, but he scarcely recognized his own voice. It sounded like he was talking from down in a sewer somewhere – hollow and muffled.

  “Absolutely,” the plumber said. “Better them than us.” His hands were moving, punching virtual buttons and sliding images through more screens like a dealer in a casino. “Are you okay?”

  Runit squatted on the floor. “Better them than us,” echoed in his now aching head. “No,” Runit said, “I’m not as accustomed to seeing people killed as apparently you are. Don’t you realize what just happened? It’s still happening, right now, only a few hundred yards from here?”

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  “And what were those poor people doing?” Runit asked in a strained voice. “Probably something far less treasonous than us.”

  “We’ll never know.”

  “Really? Something tells me your boss, Mr. Deuce Lipton, already knows.”

  “I’m sure he’s working on it,” the plumber said. “But . . .”

  Runit didn’t hear the rest. He was already heading to the lower level, to Grandyn. He passed Chelle on the way.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” she asked upon seeing his face.

  He didn’t stop moving “AOI.”

  “Here?” she asked, head darting, looking for threats, escapes, and answers.

  “No.” He slowed only slightly. “Busted . . . killed three people across the street, a few doors down.”

  “What side of the building?”

  “Front.” He stopped and looked at her as if she were a monster. “Didn’t you hear me? The AOI, the ones we’re defying, just killed three people. I watched.”

  “How did you watch?” Chelle asked, suddenly concerned that Runit might have been closer to the action than she thought.

  “One of Deuce’s guys had it on a screen.”

  She smiled. “Impressive.”

  “Look Chelle, I don’t know what the hell you’re really doing here, maybe you get off on this stuff, but I’m getting Grandyn, and he and I are getting as far away from the library as we can possibly go.”

  She grabbed him. “Stop.”

  “What? No.”

  “Runit, you can’t go anywhere. Don’t you get it?”

  “No. I guess I don’t. Why can’t I?”

  “Because there’s nowhere to go.”

  Chapter 35

  Runit’s heart started to race. He turned and stared directly at Chelle. Suddenly, he felt sick, the kind of tightness and trembling that attacks your stomach, bowels, and throat when fear introduces itself and it’s so close you can actually smell the burning, decaying stench of its foul breath.

  It had been a mistake going along with Nelson’s scheme to save the books. He knew that now. He’d known for at least a day, although he’d been denying it. That there was more going on than just saving books. Most of all though, he knew it was already too late to turn back.

  “I have to save Grandyn.” He choked back tears. The promise to Harper to keep their son safe weighed heavy. “He’s the whole world.”

  She threw her arms around him. “I know you think so, but Grandyn doesn’t want to live in the world the way it is,” she whispered.

  Runit pulled away. “How do you know what he wants?”

  “Because. It’s. Not. True.” She spat the words.

  “What isn’t?”

  “The world.”

  “I don’t have time for conspiracy theories. I’m going to get my son.”

  “It’s too late.” She pleaded with her eyes. “If you try to run, they’ll find you and kill you both, just like those people you saw. Your only hope is to see this through. Stay with us.”

  “Damn it!” He slammed his fist into a stack of books, sending it toppling onto the concrete floor. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because you do.”

  He knew she was right, but admitting it made him feel helpless. Runit looked down at the books and saw an old copy of How the Aylantik Coalition Saved the Human Race.

  Chelle saw him looking at it and laughed.

  He looked at her, wanting to be disarmed by her, yet uncaring if she saw the scared desperation in his burning eyes, eyes that begged for truth. “Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed . . . Tolstoy,” he said in a manner not inviting a response. “We’re calling it a night.”

  She nodded and stood aside.

  Thirty paces later, he found Grandyn sealing up the last truck of the night.

  “Just in time,” Grandyn said.

  “You’ve worked hard,” Runit said, trying to sound proud rather than afraid.

  “The next two nights will be even harder, but we might just make it.”

  Runit thought Grandyn sounded old. He’d always been mature. Being raised by a single dad and the TreeRunners had both contributed to that. But now, with such stakes and the AOI killings he’d just witnessed, all of a sudden Grandyn seemed too old.

  “I hope we get to find out.”

  “Something you want to tell me?” Grandyn asked, studying his father’s expression, a face he knew so well.

  “No. Nothing I want to tell you. But you know the risks. And it turns out those risks are even higher than I realized.”

  “It must mean all this work is worth it.”

  “Maybe.” Runit looked at all the young people helping. He’d jeopardized their lives. “Wrap up. We need to be out of here in ten minutes.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Runit shook his head. “Ten minutes.”

  Eight minutes later, Grandyn joined Runit on the main staircase. They sat and talked as everyone else filtered out of the building. Soon only the plumber, Vida, Chelle, and Nelson remained, the latter still passed out on the reading room floor.

  “Dad, in case you forgot,” Grandyn reminded, “I’m eighteen.”

  “I know. What you don’t understand is that when I look at you, I see you as eighteen, and twelve and ten and eight, six, three, a baby in my a
rms.”

  “It may surprise you, but I know you do. I can feel it. See it in your eyes.”

  “You got that sense of perception from your mom. She always knew what I was thinking.”

  “Stop trying to protect me. I’ve been well raised. I’m part of mom and you. Tell me what’s going on. You’re not just my dad, we’re best friends.”

  Runit pulled Grandyn into a smothering hug, which his son fought only for a second. “The AOI just killed three people down the street,” he whispered into his ear.

  Grandyn broke free from his father’s embrace. “Were they involved with us?”

  “No. I have no idea who they were, or what they were doing, but it seemed like a mighty bold warning.”

  “If a building burns down on the next block, does that mean ours is next?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We’re just moving books.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  Chelle and Vida walked up. “Are you guys ready to go?” Chelle asked.

  “Dad was just telling me how serious this is, about the AOI killings,” Grandyn said.

  “What?” Vida asked, looking from Grandyn to Chelle.

  “They should know,” Chelle said, flashing a glance at Runit. “The AOI keeps the peace in a peculiar way. They kill anyone who disagrees with the Aylantik government.”

  “That’s not true,” Grandyn said. “There are plenty of people who speak out about stuff.”

  “Anyone who gets too close, or worse, gets even a small following, winds up dead.” Chelle’s tone was harsh. “Or do you think there are so few dissenters because everyone is so happy?”

  “So they’ll kill us if they find out what we’re doing?” Vida asked.

  “In a heartbeat,” Chelle snapped. Runit shook his head slowly, not to disagree, but in his absolute dismay that he’d led these innocent children to slaughter.

  The plumber ran up the stairs. “The AOI is going door-to-door.”

  “Torgon!” Runit groaned.

  “How close are they?” Chelle asked.

  “They’re two buildings away. They’ll be next door at the bottling plant any minute, then we’re next.” The plumber worked VM screens as he walked. “We need to be out of this building . . . Now!”

  They all followed him back down the stairs. They jogged until they reached the now closed bay door at the loading dock. Runit reached down to unlatch the old bolt.

  “Wait,” the plumber said, scanning VMs and listening to instructions in his ear only he could hear. “No good. They have a LEV in back.”

  “What the hell are they looking for?” Runit asked, afraid of the answer. “Are they onto us?”

  The plumber shook his head without answering. “Do it now!” he snapped.

  “Do what?” Runit asked, confused.

  “He’s talking to someone else,” Chelle said as they remained huddled in the lower hallway.

  “Estimating,” the plumber said, turning back to Runit. “They’ll be here in six minutes.”

  Runit thought of his wife, saw her holding Grandyn as an infant, and thought of the author, De Elmers, who wrote, “Nothing changes the world so much as the birth of a child.” If it were just him, he’d take up arms and push the AOI back with all he had, but there was Grandyn to think of. His world had changed, and now it was ending.

  There could be no escape. How the hell could a librarian be expected to outsmart the most powerful and sophisticated regime in human history? he asked himself, disgusted. His next thought was of a road strewn with traps and obstacles. A gauntlet he could run, somehow save Grandyn, and go out in a blaze of glory.

  But there was no road. He didn’t have a gun or a weapon any more powerful than the words pressed between obsolete covers of old books.

  “Can we get to the roof?” Chelle asked.

  “Maybe,” Runit answered, returning from his devastated reverie. “I mean, yes.”

  “No,” the plumber said.

  Runit looked at Chelle, assuming she might know if the plumber was answering her or giving orders via his implant across the Field. The plumber answered before she had a chance to figure it out herself.

  “We have something. Everyone stay right here.”

  “But we only have six minutes,” Runit said.

  “Actually less than five now,” the plumber said.

  “Dad, maybe Chelle’s right. As a kid I used to play on the roof. There are places we could hide up there.”

  “Go twenty-six!” the plumber barked.

  Vida jumped.

  “What’s going on?” Runit demanded.

  “They’ll be here in three minutes,” Chelle said.

  “We just gave them a diversion,” the plumber said, never taking his eyes off the screens floating around them. He spun it in the air so they could all see.

  “That’s AOI’s Portland headquarters,” Chelle said. “Did you do that?” She pointed to flames covering the front of the AOI building.

  “It doesn’t matter how it occurred,” the plumber said without emotion. “All that I care about is if the agents who are about to leave the bottling plant come here or return to their own burning building.”

  “Is anyone in there?” Runit asked, motioning to the AOI headquarters in flames. “Did anyone die?”

  “Who cares?” Chelle said. “If they find us, we die.”

  Runit nodded and looked at Grandyn.

  The plumber switched the VM to a view of the front of the bottling plant. Grandyn wondered how they were getting all the footage they were watching. “Dad,” he whispered. “Where are all these cameras? How can we see it as it happens?”

  The agents emerged from the bottling plant.

  Runit, who still wasn’t overseeing the inside of the building the AOI had raided, didn’t know how to answer his son.

  “There they are,” Chelle said. “I hope they didn’t find anything suspicious in there. The last truck isn’t back yet.”

  “They aren’t looking for us,” the plumber said. “They’re looking for PAWN.”

  Chelle swallowed hard and clenched her fist.

  Runit looked at Chelle, wondering if she knew what PAWN was since he’d never heard of it, and noticed her tense at its mention.

  As the agents started toward the library, Vida pointed to the VM. “They’re still coming! They’ll be here in a minute!”

  “Calm,” the plumber said.

  A second later, one of the agents activated a VM out of his INU and they began running. No one spoke. Runit didn’t breathe as the agents ran toward the main entrance of the library and then passed it.

  Grandyn looked at his father as he let out a loud breath, then back to the screen as a LEV pulled up and the agents jumped in, speeding away, presumably to the AOI headquarters fifteen blocks away.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Runit said. “Grandyn, can you help me with Nelson?”

  “Sure Dad.”

  They all went to collect the drunken author. Chelle talked nicely to him as Nelson partially woke and protested the move. Runit decided to take Nelson to his place, even though Chelle said she could handle him.

  “We have to finish,” Chelle said to him after Grandyn and Vida pulled away.

  “I need to think about it,” Runit replied.

  “When Nelson wakes up, tell him I said to tell you about Belgium.”

  “Why don’t you tell me now?”

  “We can’t stay here, and anyway, Nelson will do it better. He’s the storyteller in the family.”

  “Am I going to like what I hear? Maybe I don’t want to know.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want. The world is burning.” She motioned to the smoke, visible in the moonlight, rising above the city. “And you lit the match.”

  Chapter 36

  Polis Drast had a dozen VMs open as he watched the Portland AOI building burn. The media, already streaming images around the world, reported that initial assessments pointed to electrical causes, but Polis knew people would s
uspect otherwise. He’d learned that although most of the population remained happy in their oblivious state, there were always those who paid attention. They were the dangerous ones, the ones PAWN could recruit.

  But right then the bigger question, which made him want to use all means necessary to find Blaise Cortez, was learning who did this. Blaise would know. And that weasel knows the whereabouts of that woman likely responsible for this outrageous affront, he thought. That’s when the wave of fear hit him. The Aylantik region had become a powder keg, which could easily destroy his chances of becoming the next World Premier. If I don’t handle this right, this could lead to an open revolt.

  The AOI Chief appeared in one of his VMs. Drast sighed seeing her expression. As always, it looked mean, and he thought her short “razor-sharp” hair, coupled with the pinched face, gave her the appearance of a Doberman pincer attack dog.

  “Polis, what the hell is happening?” she snapped. “Is it PAWN? Do you have a target list? What’s the motive? Have arrests begun?” She fired off questions like a professional boxer hurling body shots.

  “I’ll be making a major arrest tomorrow,” he said, hoping that Blaise Cortez wouldn’t demand too much for the information. But whatever the weasel wanted, he knew he’d have to give. It wasn’t just his political future anymore. The peace was at stake.

  “Tomorrow?” the Chief snarled. “By tomorrow who knows what other damage they will do.”

  “I believe the firebombing was the direct result of terminations conducted tonight in Portland,” Drast said. “A firebombing is unsophisticated and requires almost no planning. If this was anything more than a retaliatory strike, there would have been real damage.”

  “Because you think they have weapons?” she asked, concerned.

  “As you know, large amounts of weapons were never accounted for after the Banoff.”

  The Chief, of course, knew this. But she, like so many in the AOI, preferred to believe that mistakes had been made seventy years earlier when the new constitution made gun ownership illegal and teams had rounded up, then destroyed millions of firearms. A painstakingly tedious effort of matching registrations and other records had been undertaken to ensure that they got them all, but the results were less than conclusive. Still, she had difficulty believing that nearly three quarters of a century later, any kind of organized resistance could lay hands on a sufficient quantity to do any serious damage.