by Brandt Legg
“What was the rush?”
“He made the decision to let his life run its natural course.”
“Who is to say what is natural? Look at Munna. She isn’t on any medications. She is living a natural life.”
“But she is consciously keeping herself alive.”
“So?”
“UC had other ideas,” Twain said. “Munna sees it one way, UC saw it another. He told me that he was done with this life, this planet, this dimension . . . he left it to us to try and figure it out.”
“Nice,” Deuce said sarcastically. “Thanks a hell of a lot, Uncle Cope.”
Twain closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the time he shared with UC in the redwoods.
“You were telling us what happened to you,” Nelson said. “Mind if we go outside? It’s a beautiful day, and I’d love to grab a smoke.”
Twain shook his head. “Here’s a guy who’s got a conscious plan to embrace death.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to make my way through the bad dream,” Nelson said.
They all followed him outside where he lit a bac as soon as they hit sunshine, and a warm salty breeze took the smoke out to sea.
“Anyway, as I said, I was trying to control my cells,” Twain continued. “But I made mistakes, and it’s not the kind of thing you want to do wrong. I addressed the wrong cells and nearly killed myself.”
Deuce looked as if he’d just seen a fatal car wreck. He couldn’t imagine what his son had done to himself, how close he’d come to losing him. Twice Deuce started to say something, but both times the words abandoned him in a conundrum of emotions. It was low tide, and they stood among large rocks covered halfway up with barnacles.
It was Nelson who broke the spell of the moment. “And you want to go back there and try it again?” Nelson asked. “Or are you just planning on catching up to Cope?”
“I’m not sure what will happen.”
Deuce regarded his son with frightened eyes. He’d always tried to protect Twain, as most fathers do. It overwhelmed him. Trying to fathom what Twain was trying to do, the forces involved, the possibilities were stunning. He’d had glimpses of all that from his grandfather and Cope, but they were wise old men, and even Munna was seemingly some kind of a wizard, but Twain? This was his little boy. How could he let him play with the power of the universe, the darkness and mysteries of which Deuce himself still didn’t understand?
The sun was hot through Nelson’s fare, thinning hair. “Maybe you should take Munna,” Nelson said. “She obviously knows what she’s doing.”
“Maybe you should stay here and help us undo what Munna has done,” Deuce argued. “You’re still a young man. You have plenty of time to think about adding decades onto your life.”
Perhaps not, Nelson wanted to say, thinking about the Imps and CHRUDEs. The world might be a strangely different place very soon, but Nelson wasn’t ready to talk about that yet. He’d been in touch with Chelle on the way back to the island, and she didn’t want Deuce to know. Information was power, and the game grew more dangerous with each passing hour. Between Eysen, Inc. and the BLAXERs, the trillionaire probably had the best chance to stop the Imps, but Blaise knew that too, and he wasn’t ready to bring Deuce into the latest threat.
“Dad, Munna doesn’t want us to have the prophecies because she thinks they give us more power than we’re ready for. She will‒‒”
“I will.” Munna emerged from the building and finished Twain’s sentence. “I will tell you that we humans have always screwed up using technology and scientific discoveries for weapons instead of to advance us – us as in all people. So why would I help Twain learn something he is clearly not ready for?”
“Maybe so he doesn’t kill himself next time?” Deuce said quietly.
“If that is his destiny‒‒” she said.
“If that were his destiny, why did you save him?” Deuce asked.
“I wasn’t saving Twain,” Munna said, smiling. “I was saving you, Deuce.”
Chapter 12 - Book 3
Zaverly, stationed at a secret base in an Oregon Area forest, looked at the new orders that had come through on her INU and smiled. More TreeRunners would be coming her way. Her command would be expanding much quicker than she’d hoped. It seemed that Chelle Andreas, PAWN’s strategic leader, had contacted Parker and asked that TreeRunners concentrate their numbers in three areas: Oregon, Colorado, and Virginia.
The war was near, possibly hours away. The Health-Circle warnings and continued Doneharvest crackdown by the AOI had sent thousands of PAWN sleepers into the POPs and forests. The major cities were charged with tension as groups that had lain dormant for years, even decades, were suddenly called into action.
“Denver?” Zaverly asked her second in command, a woman ten years older, and a longtime PAWN member.
“Word is that there is some kind of new opposition group based there.”
“New? Shouldn’t we be concerned with the AOI?”
“I don’t know. But aren’t you from Virginia? They may transfer you back there.”
“No. I’m staying here. Hoping to work with Grandyn.”
“He died.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Zaverly said. “Grandyn is too important to get killed before the war starts. He’s used doubles all over the world.”
“I heard that too. It drove the AOI crazy. Great strategy.”
“Yeah, it was,” Zaverly said, but all she could think about was Beckett, and how she’d lost him just so Grandyn could sit safe somewhere like a coward.
“I understand the AOI Chief has ordered anyone associated with PAWN to be executed immediately upon arrest. They’re claiming we’re terrorists,” the woman said. “They think people are gonna believe that we want to unleash another plague. Doesn’t the Chief know how many people hate the AOI?”
“What about everyone who likes their comfortable life?”
“There are fewer of those than the Aylantik would like to think. Being truly happy is different from being comfortable. Most folks are just comfortable. They work and watch all that entertainment on the Field, eat artificially tasty food and sleep in climate controlled beds, but they don’t know what real happiness feels like. They just know enough to grasp the fact that they don’t have it.”
“And this war is going to change all that?” Zaverly asked.
“Damn right. Shove those AOI grunges back into the swamps they crawled out of.”
Zaverly thought of the AOI agents who had raped her. “I hope to send them somewhere worse than a swamp,” she said, patting her lasershod. “I got a long list of them who have seats waiting in hell with their names on them.”
Fye received the priority flash, read the frightening contents, grabbed her pack, and yelled for Grandyn.
“What is it?”
“We’ve got to go.” Her eyes revealed a controlled panic, which was new since she’d gotten pregnant. Before that, her confidence was unshakable.
“AOI?”
“They’re sweeping the area. We’ve got less than ten minutes to get out ahead of them.”
He grabbed his pack, which was always ready. They traveled light. One last glance around and they were out the back door. It was a well-rehearsed escape. They’d been running for years and knew the tempo of it, knew the ticking seconds of fear and what they meant. But the extra heartbeat inside Fye had changed things for both of them. Risking their own lives was one thing, but risking the baby’s was another. They had never talked about it, but both felt the responsibility to make sure their baby grew up with two parents. It was a conversation they avoided because the promise could not be kept. With the pending war, the promise could not even be made.
The neighborhood had been chosen carefully. It didn’t take long to make it into the woods. After another half hour, a clearing appeared where a Flo-wing waited. Once in the air, she told him the rest of it. “Blaise zoomed just before I got word of the AOI sweep.”
“And?”
“The Imps and CHRUDEs ar
e joining the war,” she said.
“Whose side?” He could tell by her face it wasn’t PAWN’s.
“Their own. They think they can save the world by running it themselves, or some such thing.”
“Damn it!” He dropped his face in his hands. “The List Keepers have to come in Fye. It’s the only chance we have. The Imps will do so much damage, and we can’t fight another front.”
“The List Keepers don’t have the numbers.”
“I know, you’ve told me that, but they have the power.”
“I also told you why they can’t.”
“Why, because the Health-Circle is going to kill everyone? Don’t you think they’re going to do that anyway?”
“They can’t kill CHRUDEs, and the Imps are also smart enough to have avoided the boosters.”
“Fye, you have to take me to see them.”
Her eyes showed pain. “We’re going now.”
“We’re going to the city?”
“Not yet. We have to go through the outsider first.”
“The outsider?”
“Munna.”
“Munna’s a List Keeper?”
Fye nodded.
“Wow!” Grandyn said. “This is a strange torgon world.”
“You have no idea,” Fye said softly, almost to herself.
Chapter 13- Book 3
The AOI Chief had taken the zoom from Sidis, somewhat hesitantly at first, but after it ended she had the feeling it would prove to be one of the most important decisions of her professional life. She accessed the small file the AOI had on the secretive group known as the Trapciers, and reviewed what they had known before.
Trapciers were revolutionaries utilizing DesTIn technology to infiltrate corporations. Beyond that, there were few traces of their work, and the Chief didn’t believe much of the intelligence, which pointed to Trapciers whenever a recent attack on a corporate INU network or major Field breach had occurred. But now, thanks to Sidis, she knew much more.
Trapciers were almost all Imps, and they had their tentacles into just about every major company, including those controlled by Deuce Lipton and Lance Miner. As Sidis put it, “We hold the Field in the palm of our hand, and we can crush it at any time by simply making a fist.”
His bold assertions did not end there either. He dared her to have the AOI do anything about it, and most stunning of all was his claim that the Trapciers could ensure that the AOI won the impending war.
She summoned her top advisors and, while waiting for the meeting to convene, she reflected on the most chilling part of the zoom. When she had told Sidis that what the AOI preferred was to avoid the war altogether and asked if the Trapciers could help with that, he laughed.
“It is too late for that, my fine woman. Far too late.” He had stretched the word, “far,” so that it lasted almost three seconds.
She had asked him why.
“The war started so long ago that it’s impossible to know when,” he’d said. “It’s all the same war, you know? Politicians and historians keep naming them something different, but there’s only been one war. One very long war.”
It was what he said next that disturbed her the most.
“You can accept our help now, or not. But either way, we are going to make sure that this war, this cruel, ten thousand year old conflict, finally ends.”
That line would replay in her mind many times in the days ahead. The Chief met with her advisors and ordered internal security reviews. She wanted to make sure that the Trapciers were not inside the AOI systems. She also needed assessments on what damage could be done if the world’s major corporations were compromised and, finally, what effect a total Field breach would have.
Many of these studies had been conducted in the past. Encryption and defensive measures were so sophisticated they were believed to be invincible, but Sidis had shown her enough evidence that she now knew that not to be true.
After his zoom with the Chief, Sidis met with the other top Imps, including Charlemagne and Galahad. The dim room contained more than two thousand floating VMs, and seventeen Imps wandering around like digital ghosts on the dark side.
“The AOI will be conducting full internal audits of its own security as we speak,” Sidis, the razor-thin de facto leader of the Imps, said while walking between a dozen nearly translucent screens blinking with images and long data streams.
“Isn’t that risky for us?” Galahad asked.
“Yes, it is all risky, but I am confident they will not discover our presence. Our infiltration into the AOI system is untraceable, and remember. We have people inside.” Sidis said the word “people” as if he were saying something disgusting, such as “disease-riddled rats.” The Trapciers had recruited Traditionals into their ranks, mainly for access to the AOI, because Imps were not allowed to be agents and CHRUDEs were too new to have been placed yet.
“We have a dozen CHRUDEs in AOI training academies,” Charlemagne said, “but the war may well be over before they are able to help us inside the AOI.”
“I see the Reno Project is progressing well,” Galahad remarked, looking into a VM, which he spun, among the hundreds of others, into his orbit.
The Reno Project was a massive undertaking spread out between two cavernous warehouses outside a city in the Nevada Area. The Imps had stolen Blaise’s plans and were building an army of CHRUDEs.
“Yes, it is,” Sidis said smugly. It had been his idea. “Blaise has unwittingly given us the tools in which to bypass his will.”
“Blaise is not to be underestimated,” Galahad said. “His brilliance is otherworldly.”
“Only machines can obtain perfection in the present. One day, perhaps, owed to our efforts, Traditionals will find the perfection they are capable of. A unification of energies. But that time is ages away, and it depends on our actions during the next few days.”
“Galahad is correct about Blaise Cortez,” Charlemagne said. “He is capable of stopping us.”
“Your enthusiasm for our cause has been questionable from the start,” Sidis hissed.
“My observation of facts and declarations of danger should not be construed to mean that I am any less loyal to our objectives than you, Sidis. Your suspicions illustrate my point, which I have made repeatedly. We Imps are mostly human, and therefore share the same flaws as our stepbrothers, the Traditionals, which would seem to make CHRUDEs superior because they lack the baggage we still carry. But they also are without true emotions. Wonderful traits, such as empathy, cannot really be programmed.”
“We may be flawed like Traditionals,” Sidis said, “but because our thinking is free, we are able to see so much deeper. What do you think of me, Charlemagne, Galahad, all of you?” He waved his arm out to the others. “Do you imagine I wish to rule the world? I am doing this for the same reasons as you. The Traditionals are blind, and we can see the Traditionals are lost. We have been to where they need to go. We can show them. We can save them.”
He flashed at least two hundred VMs with stars so that they made one huge screen displaying a ballet of light.
“Don’t you understand? We were created for this. The Traditionals have brought this to pass. They created the machines that will now create them.”
Chapter 14 - Book 3
The Flo-wing carrying Fye and Grandyn received permission to land on Runit Island where Munna was waiting for them. She embraced Fye as one would a long lost daughter, and Fye cried.
Deuce, Nelson, and Twain watched from a distance. Munna had asked for a “private portion of time.”
“Now you have brought Grandyn back to me,” Munna said to Fye as they ended their emotional reunion.
“Yes. We need to go to the city. It’s time to talk to Nian,” Fye said, wiping tears.
“I see,” Munna said, nodding. “Do you understand what this means Fye?”
“I do.”
“And you believe Grandyn is ready?” Munna asked deliberately.
“Yes.”
“And you? Ar
e you ready? Or is this about something else?” Munna motioned her carved walking stick towards Fye’s belly.
“It’s about the Imps,” Grandyn broke in.
“Yes,” Munna said, smiling. “I know about the Trapciers.”
“The war is about to start, Munna. Please‒‒ ”
Munna silenced Grandyn with a wave of her hand. “Sweet boy, I have lived through the violence of war. It is different to read about war, to think, or dream about war, to endure the long quiet parts of it than it is to survive the bloody upheaval and all-ending maliciousness of war.” Her steely smile revealed a strength far younger than her physical years.
Grandyn stared into her ancient eyes. He felt so old, filled with experience and tragic lessons of life and yet she’d been alive more than a century longer than he had. Inside her eyes, he saw the eyes of thousands, as if everyone to whom she’d ever taught something was looking back at him, begging patience.
Finally, she nodded. “TreeRunner, this is a time of dramatic change, and you too must change.” She took his hands. His cold fingers felt the warmth of her soft palms worn smooth, like rocks tumbled forever in a river. “You cannot be both a List Keeper and a TreeRunner.”
Her statement surprised him. He looked to Fye for help, but her expression told him this was up to him. Grandyn turned back to Munna. Her gentle, smiling face appearing like a dried mountain flower.
“But my TreeRunner oath?”
“Becoming a List Keeper is not going to betray that oath. In many ways it will enhance it, but your ultimate loyalty can belong only to the List Keepers. Even today, even if you decide, I cannot make you one. You must go to the City for that. All I may do is give you permission to enter the City. But if, once you get there, you decide not to become a List Keeper, then you will never be allowed to leave the City . . . not ever.” She let go of his hands.
Grandyn loved Fye, their child would be born in five months. She was a List Keeper, and they had somehow kept him alive for three years. He didn’t need to think about it.
