The Justar Journal: An AOI Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “You’ll learn more in the City,” she said, “but it might be easier to look at it this way. Seeing the future is possible because all outcomes are clear, like looking at a chess set. If we slow down enough and focus our minds, or speed up our minds to see it all, to see every possible outcome the way computers do, those programs which run all the scenarios and predict all the outcomes, then we can see it too.”

  “So that’s how the Justar Journal works?” he asked.

  “No,” she said empathetically. “That’s how people like Blaise or the Imps see the future. The Justar Journal is something entirely different.”

  Chapter 17 - Book 3

  Wednesday July 13

  The announcement caught everyone by surprise. The Aylantik Health-Circle issued a brief statement at 09:00 Aylantik time.

  “Bearing rights restrictions are hereby lifted until further notice.”

  “It has begun,” Chelle said when Nelson answered her zoom.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “I’m not certain, but we should know in a few minutes. The AHC just lifted bearing rights restrictions.”

  “Torgon damn,” he whispered. “They’re expecting big losses.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Polis’s date is tomorrow. Is there a plan?”

  “There is.”

  “I see it now,” Nelson said. He’d gone to the Field to check the AHC announcement, and had seen that inmates were rioting in at least five AOI prisons. “They’re rioting.”

  Chelle smiled. She had teams ready to help evacuate up to thirty-seven of the supermax facilities.

  “Are you watching this?” he asked, alarmed.

  “No.” She moved a VM next to the ones where she was monitoring the prisons. “Whoa!”

  “That’s not us is it?” Nelson asked.

  “No, but it sure looks real.” The screens were showing purported PAWN attacks on AOI buildings in Denver, Washington, Portland, Dublin, Hamburg, and Shanghai. “Nelson, I’ll get back to you. I’ve got to find out what’s going on. Make sure Deuce is on this. See if he knows who’s behind it.”

  “I will. And Chelle, be careful . . . we’re at war.”

  Deuce’s wife showed Nelson back to the study where the trillionaire was already fully engaged in the crisis. “Damn it,” he said as Nelson entered. “It’s started. We’re not ready, and it’s started.”

  Nelson wondered how Deuce could not be ready for a war that has been building for more than seventy years. “I just talked with Chelle and it’s not PAWN hitting the AOI.”

  “That makes it even worse!” Deuce yelled. He had VMs sliding in all directions, and was in the middle of at least three zooms that Nelson could tell. The BLAXERs were a massive power, with a major presence on five continents, and although outnumbered by the AOI, they were probably outfitted with better technology than the Aylantik.

  “Are we safe?” Nelson shouted above the chaos.

  “No one is safe!” And, as if to punctuate his point, one of the larger VMs showed a seven square-kilometer section of New Delhi in the aftermath of a Sonic-bombing. Hills of dust and debris, most of it no bigger than the size of a square meter, was all that remained.

  “Oh no! What happened there?”

  “Nelson I can’t talk right now!” Deuce’s forehead trickled with sweat, he moved his lips back and forth over gritted teeth. He made Nelson panic.

  Nelson watched in horror as a dozen VMs showed Sonic-bomb attacks around the globe. Another screen showed thousands dead of an apparent bio-attack in San Francisco, a rapidly moving virus was reported to be overwhelming Santa Fe, and more Sonic-bombs hit Istanbul, Barcelona, and Caracas.

  Nelson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It looked as if they were trying to fight the entire war in a single day. He zoomed Chelle, but couldn’t reach her. The world had erupted, decades of pent up rage searching for an outlet, forcing the innocent to pay for the crimes of the corrupt elite.

  Nelson was used to the instant coverage the Field provided, but usually he would have expected a little more censorship. Instead, everything was exposed, like a plane wreck when bleeding bodies and open luggage lay strewn across a field with mangled plane parts, a seat cushion, torn metal, a shoe, a disembodied head, part of a wing, underwear, a leg missing its body. It was all there, the truth of it.

  The desperate, repulsive, cold reality of war hit him as if he’d never heard of it before, a sickness gnawing at his insides, and he suddenly knew why Cope Lipton had allowed himself to die.

  “Go prepare the books!” Deuce yelled, breaking him from his tragedy-induced stupor.

  “Where are we taking them?” Nelson asked from a fog, realizing that if the books had to be moved, none of them were safe there. Grandyn and Fye hadn’t left yet. Twain probably wasn’t gone either, and Munna might still be asleep. He looked at his INU. It was only 07:12 Pacyfik time.

  “Someone will meet you there. Go!”

  Two BLAXERs were at the building by the time Nelson got back to Runit Island. Grandyn and Fye were helping to load books into a kind of shipping container.

  “Where have you been?” Grandyn asked.

  Nelson crushed out his bac. “Watching the war.”

  “How bad?” Grandyn asked. The BLAXERs had already told them about the early attacks.

  Nelson shook his head, not sure how to describe it, or where to begin. “Torgon horrific.” He lit another bac. “It’s like Deuce said yesterday. . . It looks like the beginning of the end of the world.”

  Fye and Grandyn made eye contact, both thinking of their unborn child.

  “We have to go,” Fye said.

  “As soon as the books are safe,” Grandyn insisted.

  They heaved the books, no longer bundled. Some spines broke, covers bent, pages tore. The damage made Grandyn, raised in a library to revere books, crazy, but they had to move fast.

  “Where are they going?” Nelson asked a BLAXER.

  “Bottom of the ocean,” he answered, as if he’d said “two doors down.”

  Nelson stopped and looked at Grandyn. They gazed at the shipping container and realized it was triple-hulled with giant seals.

  “It’s water-tight,” Grandyn said.

  “It better be,” Nelson replied.

  “Brilliant,” Grandyn continued. “A great place to hide them. And look.” He pointed above the container. The short distance to the ocean was completely tree-covered. “They won’t even see it from the satellites.”

  “Twenty meters of Nano-camo is deployed at the end of the trees extending out over the water,” a BLAXER said. “No one but us will know the books are down there.”

  “How deep?” Nelson asked, ferrying another stack.

  “Two-hundred-sixty meters. But don’t worry. This baby can handle five times that depth. They’ll be safe for a thousand years.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long,” Nelson muttered.

  Chapter 18 - Book 3

  Munna came out as the last books were being loaded and walked into the container, looking at the books as if she were considering which one to check out on her library card. Or, Nelson thought for a moment, she might be thinking about being shut in with them. But then she walked out a moment later, a faint smile on her lips.

  “Deuce is clever. And a man of his word. I think these books, Runit’s books,” she said, looking at Grandyn, “shall be quite safe.”

  “The question is, will we?” Nelson said.

  Munna looked at the five blank VMs and the two still scrambling, then waved her carved walking stick as if it were a magic wand. The VMs lit up and the prophecies came to life.

  The Justar Journal flowed across the large displays too fast to follow, but once they got used to it, they could see things they recognized. And it was awful.

  Buildings burning and disintegrating, screaming people falling or jumping to their deaths, bridges collapsing, entire neighborhoods reduced to powdery rubble in less than a minute, children fleeing f
rom exploding schools, lasers cutting lines of people in half . . .

  “The gruesome and bitter love letter from war,” Munna said.

  Back on the other island, in his study, Deuce saw the Journal open again. Every angle of Runit Island was monitored. He could see and record every moment of the prophecies and slow them down for further viewing at a later time.

  If there is a later time, he thought, or even time later.

  Twain walked into his father’s study. “I’m leaving now,” he said.

  “You can’t go,” Deuce argued, forcing his eyes away from the VMs. “The war has begun.” He motioned around the room, every space filled with nightmarish images.

  “I know,” Twain replied, not looking at them, instead staring only at his father’s face. “But I have to go. I can do the most good in the redwoods.”

  “That’s true, I’m sure, but . . . I don’t want you to try the cell controlling act again. I don’t want you to die.”

  “I have to do what I think is right. I’m not saying that’s it, but I just don’t know yet. Once you’ve spent so much time alone in the wilderness, coming back here is difficult. Everything is confusing. Not complex, just confusing, as though purposely making it hard to understand, and we’re constantly bombarded with negativity. I have to go.”

  Deuce nodded. His stare lingered on his son. “Traveling is not safe right now. Can’t you wait a few days at least?”

  “Look at it, Dad.” He motioned to the VMs without looking at them himself. “How is this going to improve in a few days?”

  Deuce knew it wouldn’t. He had seen the Justar Journal “pages” for this period. “Okay. But you’ll have to go by boat. It’s too dangerous to go into the air right now. I’ve got nothing fast enough on the island, but give me two hours and I’ll have one here which can get you to the redwoods in four or five hours.”

  Twain agreed.

  “They could use your help with the books,” Deuce said. “They won’t be safe here now.”

  “The books or Grandyn and Munna?”

  “Neither.” He got up and hugged Twain, squeezing him tight, so tight tears dropped from father and son.

  By the time Twain reached the building on Runit Island, most of the books had been loaded. Nelson and Grandyn were lost in the prophecies. Fye and Munna were deep in hushed conversation, seemingly ignoring the VMs. It took another twenty minutes for Twain to help the BLAXERs finish loading. Nelson came over when it was time to seal the container and stared at what he considered a collection of the greatest work humanity had produced.

  “That’s our record,” he said to Twain. “That’s everything we’ve ever done, and we’re about to sink it to the bottom of the ocean.”

  “It’ll be safe,” Twain said. “That container is more sophisticated than it looks. My dad had it custom-designed and built. It’s filled with nano-technology.”

  “Grandyn,” Nelson called out. “A final look?”

  It jarred Grandyn out of his trance. He’d been so wrapped up in the prophecies that he’d forgotten anyone else was even in the room. He stumbled over, stood in the entrance of the container, and thought of his father.

  Nelson came up beside him and put his arm around his shoulder. “Your dad wouldn’t believe all that’s happened since these books sat on the shelves of his library.”

  “I don’t believe it myself,” Grandyn said, silently wondering if he’d been brave enough, true enough.

  “It’s fitting that the books will be tucked beneath the waters of an island named after him,” Nelson mused, taking a sip from his flask and offering it to Grandyn. “If your dad were here, he’d look at this container filled with the treasures of our history, about to be hidden, and he’d quote some long dead author like Andre Malraux, who wrote, ‘Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.’ Or he’d come up with something about buried treasure, but I can’t think of anything that inspired at the moment . . . All I can think about is the Justar Journal and so much of the world suffering. I can’t help but wonder if we’d never taken these books, where we’d be right now.”

  “Seal it up,” Grandyn said, accepting the flask and raising it. “To Runit.” He took a swig, then sent his dad one final kiss. Grandyn turned back to the prophecies, but found Fye staring back at him instead.

  You okay? she mouthed.

  He nodded and went to her, falling into her arms as if she were the only escape from a burning building. She held him. They held each other. Their embrace lasted until the container began to move. Some kind of motorized device carried it to the sea. From the open bay door, they all stood and watched as it moved like a slow train car until it reached the shore, where a small rig under the Nano-camo towed the container out and away from the rocks. Once it was beyond the shelf, some mechanism disconnected the lines and, after a series of whooshing sounds, it began to sink.

  No one moved, or spoke, or breathed, until the last books from the last library in the world, sank beneath ocean.

  Chapter 19 - Book 3

  Although he didn’t know it, Drast had gotten his wish. All but two of the forty-eight AOI supermax prisons were experiencing massive riots. Due to the unrest and battles occurring across the globe, the AOI could not send any extra resources to aid the overwhelmed guards. The scene at Hilton Prison was particularly bad, as just thirty minutes before the riot, nine staffers were sent to Portland to assist with the strike against that city’s AOI headquarters.

  Drast, aka inmate Evren, waited in his cell. The door had been deactivated moments before the riot by a bought-and-paid-for guard, but it was too dangerous to go out into general population yet. Sixty-seven inmates and fourteen guards were already dead, fires were sweeping through the common areas, and at least two explosions had rocked the small island which housed the facility.

  Drast was waiting for a specific explosion, one that Mite had arranged. It would bring down half the east wall, including two guard towers. As soon as it hit, there would be twelve minutes to make it to the outside. A Flo-wing would be there, hopefully. He’d heard rumors that the war had started, but he had no way to reach Chelle, and rumors in prison are like drunks at a party. Everyone talks a lot, but you can’t believe any of it. Not even the truth.

  The screams were clear as people died. The stinging sound of lasershods and laserstiks, like ripping sheets, repeated again and again. They’d been smuggled in with other weapons by drones and a reprogrammed android guard. Mysteriously, he heard old-fashioned conventional gunfire. The loud, distinctive pops were unmistakable. The sounds of pounding, running feet and clanking metal were constant among the cries and shouts, interrupted by sporadic explosions.

  They’d been most concerned about the micro-drones, swarm-drones, and mimic-drones, which all AOI facilities kept stockpiled and ready. The first wave of the riot was supposed to take them out, but from his tiny window, he could see that had not been fully successful. He watched, helpless, as two inmates he’d recruited were picked apart by laser-equipped swarm-drones. It took no more than ninety seconds for the drones to kill them with synchronized, needle-sized laser strikes. It was an awful way to die. Like getting pecked to death by tiny birds.

  Smoke suddenly wafted through the vents. At first he feared it was a poison gas, but that would have been too easy. It was the toxic smoke of burning wires, synthetic fibers, and chemically coated materials used to build a supermax. Now he’d have to leave. The thick black clouds choking the air burned at his lungs. He hit the floor and crawled to the solid cell door. Panic seized him. The damned door wouldn’t open. His side had no latch or knob, just a thin electronic panel to release the latch, but that should already have been done.

  Drast couldn’t see anymore, as the cell was completely engulfed. With only seconds of air left in his lungs, he got to his knees and groped for a comb. His eyes burned and he had lost orientation, but he found the comb and forced it into the seal between the door and the jam. It was enough to break the suction that had held it shut.
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  As the door burst open he fell into the corridor. Smoke poured out after him, but otherwise there was now better visibility. He choked and coughed, but he could breathe. Just as he was getting to his feet, two young inmates ran by, knocking him back down. His head hit the metal grated floor and a foot landed hard on his back. He pushed through the pain and followed them.

  The smoke increased with each step. He stumbled past locked cells, most likely filled with suffocated inmates. He made it to the guard station ten steps behind the guys who’d stepped on him. Luckily, someone had already been there. The steel gates were blown open, and three dead guards lay scattered nearby. Minutes later he hit sunlight and fresh air, but the scene that greeted him was Armageddon.

  He immediately raced toward the wall opposite the one to be blown, but fires, small explosions, and at least a hundred bodies slowed his progress. People were running everywhere, trying to find a way out of the yard. The two he’d followed out had disappeared into the confusion. He spotted a group of his recruits, but before he made it to them, three fell from shots from the guard tower.

  Drast hit the ground and rolled behind a concrete bench. He yelled to the surviving man, but his voice couldn’t be heard above the clamor. He worried that Mite’s explosion wouldn’t happen and he’d be trapped.

  The chaos had grown faster and more violently than he’d predicted, and if the war rumors were true, his Flo-wing might not even make it to the island. If the war had started, getting off the prison island would be the least of his worries. There were eight well-guarded boats that the administration used to ferry staff and inmates, but surely those would be overwhelmed before he could reach them. He had to believe that Chelle would find a way to rescue him. Yet even if she didn’t, he knew one thing for sure.

  They were not going to be able to execute him tomorrow. That thought gave him a brief respite from the surging hostility going on all around him, but it was short-lived as he fully realized that this surge could also swallow him up, and that he might not even be alive to see tomorrow.