by Brandt Legg
Chapter 40 - Book 3
Munna motioned her walking stick into the air. Nelson had been amazed she’d managed to keep hold of it during their plunge into the ocean, but everything about the old woman amazed him. As she moved the carved cane toward the VMs, all but three went into abstract images.
“What are you doing?” Deuce asked.
“Focusing your attention,” she said, smiling.
He saw that only the VMs showing Twain, the war, and herself remained. Deuce also wanted to know how she did it, but for now he had to hold onto Twain’s explanation that she was able to manipulate atoms as she did her own cells. It all seemed rather fantastic, but so did the workings of the universe.
Even with all the research the Aylantik had done in space, and they’d done a lot, as had Deuce, the universe was still one massive mystery, made up almost entirely of things that can’t be seen. Less than five percent of the known universe consisted of galaxies containing stars and planets. The remaining ninety-five percent is composed of indefinable substances known as dark matter and dark energy. He could still hear his grandfather’s voice explaining it all to him. “The overwhelming majority of what’s in the universe cannot be seen. We don’t understand ninety-five percent of what exists, so don’t ever think you truly know what you’re talking about. Always look suspiciously on your own doubt, and remember that skeptics miss most of the possibilities.”
“What is it you want me to see?” Deuce asked Munna.
“Why does the Justar Journal show us your son?” Munna countered, pointing her cane at him.
“Why does it show you?” Nelson asked.
“Both answers are the same,” Munna said.
Deuce, beyond frustrated, tried and failed to contain himself. “Damn it, Munna. I’m not sure you’re even in your right mind. Why do you allow this mass murder to continue? And make no mistake, you are as guilty as that poisonous woman leading the AOI. You have powers I don’t begin to understand, but if we can see and change the future, then we must. Let me use the Journal.”
“Poor Deuce,” Munna said, smiling. “What would you do if the Justar Journal did not exist?”
“What are you talking about?”
Munna moved her cane and the VMs all went blank. “Surely a man of your means would act.”
“Now you’re making me question my sanity. Munna, please, I’m not asking much of you. Just turn on the Journal and leave it on.”
“You don’t listen very well.”
“I know what you’re trying to do. You want to give me some lesson in philosophy or quantum physics or something,” Deuce said, exasperated. “But we could be in the final days of humanity. I don’t have time for what you’re peddling.”
“If, as you suggest, we are near the end of humanity, then that is all you have time for. Don’t you understand?”
“No. Apparently, I don’t.”
Nelson stirred from his silence and reached for a bac, forgetting they were ruined in the ocean. “Deuce, what Munna asked you earlier, ‘What would you do if the Journal didn’t exist?’ Perhaps you should think about that and then do something.”
“Look at this,” Deuce said, pointing to another pattern of VMs showing war news. “Do you think there’s much room for error here? What if I send BLAXERs against the AOI and it results in escalation? What if I go against P-Force and wipe out the only hope for a real alliance against the Chief? What if I do something that makes that evil woman spread more plague? My companies control satellites that the agriculture industry counts on. I could end up destroying the food supply. Technology that I own could be used to take down the safety infrastructure. Ships could sink, planes crash . . . Don’t you see? One mistake and it could mean the end of us, of everything!”
“Munna, he’s right,” Nelson said. “The stakes are too high. We need to be careful. What is the harm in using the prophecies to make sure we don’t screw this up worse than it already is?”
“It’s beyond that,” Deuce said. “It’s about saving what’s left of humanity.”
“The Justar Journal. Is. Not. For. War.” Munna said empathetically with a scolding look. “It is for the change.”
“What change?” Deuce asked, raising his voice. “This change?” He pointed back to the war monitors. “Or whatever hellish world that comes after this?”
“That is up to you.”
“Up to me?” Deuce paced around the grand room as the Moon Shadow continued speeding to an unknown destination. Nothing but a warm, blue day and open ocean were racing by on all sides. “It’s up to you Munna. You’re the one locking us away from the answers.”
She shook her head slowly, studying the carvings on her cane.
“Tell us Munna,” Nelson said, in a much calmer voice than Deuce had used. “If not to help us through this apocalypse,” he motioned to the horrors on the war news VMs, “please tell us specifically why the Justar Journal really exists?”
“It is to teach you how to survive this war, or something before the war, or after it. And by survive, I mean go to another step in human evolution. Do you think it is all about fancy clothes, the greatest camera, the newest Eysens, the most luxurious LEVs?” Munna paused, as if waiting for an answer or another question.
“Of course not!” Deuce said.
“We’re not your run-of-the-mill idiots,” Nelson added, annoyed.
“The Justar Journal shows my image, my good fellows,” she continued, “because I am an example of the next step in human evolution. And it is showing Twain because he is demonstrating how to get there. All that war and destruction that you see, ‘the end,’ as you call it, is displayed because that is the current path. That is where we are going, and that is where we do not want to go.”
Nelson, happy to still have a bit of elixir in his flask, took a swig. Deuce looked at his son, appearing so calm, so natural among the trees.
Munna began speaking again. “If we were all shown the choices of what life could be, and if we could see where the path we are on would lead us, I am certain we would all choose a different course. The Justar Journal gives us that, but it is not a map. It does not tell us how to get there, it is a view into where we are going. Indeed, where we can go.”
“Are you telling me that I have to go into the redwoods, start meditating on how to rearrange my cells, and that will end the war? Are you saying I have to wait for all of us ‘commoners’ to meditate on our breathing to produce a massive raise in consciousness and that will end the war?” His voice was highly agitated. “Munna, we’ll all be dead before I can even set foot on that mossy soil! Couldn’t the Journal just show us?”
“If you use it as a map, it will not get you to where you should go, it will take you only to where you want to go. And you’re not equipped to make that decision. If you were, you would already be where I am,” Munna said, smiling.
“Well then, if you’re equipped to decide then please, by all means, tell us what to do.”
“End this war. Once and for all, end all war.”
“That’s all I want to do,” Deuce said, more frustrated than he’d ever been. “I just want to end the war without ending the world.”
Chapter 41 - Book 3
The woman and three men who had saved Grandyn looked at each other in a panic. “We’ve got to get her into dry clothes,” the woman said, pointing toward Fye.
Grandyn was also shivering from the exertion and cold water, but he could see Fye was in real trouble. Her eyes were glazed, her lips blue over chattering teeth, and she couldn’t complete a sentence. One of the men pulled a light jacket from his pack while the woman and Grandyn stripped Fye from her clothes. They got her into the dry jacket, and the woman stripped down and hugged her, naked, inside the jacket.
Grandyn knew from his TreeRunner training that the only way to save someone from hypothermia was with skin-on-skin body heat. He also knew that he was too wet and cold to do it. “Thank you,” he panted. He wasn’t even sure the woman heard him as she continued
holding Fye in the sunlight, rubbing her back, frantically trying to generate heat from the friction.
“We’ve got to take her in,” one of the men said to the others.
“No,” one of them replied.
“Yes,” the woman said firmly.
“What?” Grandyn demanded. “Take her where?” He was shivering uncontrollably.
“There’s a doctor a few miles from here,” the woman said.
Grandyn thought fast, looked around at the “hikers,” and asked cautiously, “Is it a POP?”
The men looked at each other, surprised.
Grandyn looked at Fye, scared she was about to go into full shock. “Damn it, are you with PAWN?” Grandyn asked the woman.
She hesitated.
“Answer me!”
“Who can you trust?” she finally whispered.
Grandyn had to ask the same question. He had nothing left to lose. “I’m Grandyn Happerman. If you’re with PAWN, you are obliged to help me. If you’re AOI, you’re required to kill me, and right now I don’t give a torg which one, but damn it, choose!”
They all looked at each other again. The name registered.
“Grandyn, we’re also with the rebels, and we’re honored to help you,” the woman said. “There’s a major PAWN facility about five kilometers from here.” She continued to rub Fye.
“Thank you,” Grandyn said.
“She won’t make it on foot,” the woman said gravely.
“We have to try,” Grandyn replied.
One of the men stepped forward. “We’ve got an AirSlider. Pulled it off a grunge earlier.”
“I’ll take her on that,” the woman said. “But we’ve got to hurry.”
“I’ll take her,” Grandyn shot back.
“You’ll never find it without one of us,” the woman said.
Grandyn, knowing the AirSlider could hold only two and that time was limited, couldn’t argue. But he also couldn’t send Fye and their unborn child off with a stranger who could be anyone. He suddenly remembered they were close to Crater Lake where one of PAWN’s larger and oldest underground centers were located.
“Fye, listen to me. This woman . . .” he said, then paused to look at the woman.
“My name’s Fuller,” she said, getting dressed.
Grandyn memorized her face. She looked like she might have been of Asian descent; short, black, fine hair, shiny and silky even in the hardness of battle and trudging through the forest.
“Fye, Fuller is going to take you on the AirSlider to a PAWN facility,” Grandyn said slowly, reassuringly. “I’ll be right behind you on foot.” He looked at the men, they nodded their agreement. “This isn’t like the last POP, this is a command center. They’ll have a doctor.”
“A good doctor,” Fuller added. “You’re going to be fine.” She held Fye close and wrapped her in another jacket while one of the men put the AirSlider next to them.
“No,” Fye mouthed. “Don’t‒‒”
“You have to,” Grandyn said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Fuller pulled Fye over her. “Hold tight, honey. We’ll be there in about five minutes.”
Fye got out the word, “No,” this time, but Grandyn signaled Fuller to take it up.
“Hold on, Fye. I’ll be there before you even miss me.”
He watched the AirSlider navigate the nearby trees, and it quickly disappeared into the forest. They could fly only about twenty-five meters above the ground, not high enough to avoid any AOI still in the area. Grandyn tried to suppress the thought that he might never see her again.
“Come on,” he said to the men. “Which way?” He jogged in place to keep warm.
Two of the men froze and seemed to avoid eye contact.
“Which way?” Grandyn repeated, alarmed he might have been tricked. He looked back into the air in the direction that Fye had gone. “I’ll go alone!” he shouted, and turned to run.
“No!” one of them shouted, his warning lost in a barrage of shots.
Chapter 42 - Book 3
The Trapciers had helped the Chief develop and implement what many on the Council considered a risky war plan. Only the most conservative members, of the extremely conservative group, thought it was the correct course. Debate had raged for the past twenty-four hours among the billionaires as they too watched the AOI obliterate entire towns and reduce sections of cities to ruin. Some simply saw opportunity to profit from rebuilding the infrastructure. It was the rapidly spreading virus, which many were calling the new plague, that made the majority uneasy.
Flashbacks to the Banoff of their grandparents and great-grandparents’ times, and the concern that it could quickly get out of control grew. The Banoff was something this generation had chosen to forget. Like the wealthy descendants of plantation owners wanted to forget slavery, they wanted to deny any connection.
During the Council’s latest Field-View, the hawkish minority had prevailed. They would give the Chief another forty-eight hours to prove her plan was working, that PAWN, along with any other opposition, was crushed, and to show them a clear path to end the war. The Chief’s explanation, from the beginning, was that if they allowed PAWN or any of the rebel groups to get any traction, the war would be a long protracted one. Perhaps lasting a decade. The scenarios they’d run showed that there would be regular terrorist attacks, general insurgencies, and routine guerrilla fighting. No one wanted that. The Council knew that only peace could guarantee prosperity.
The Chairman spoke to the Chief. She was in the AOI War Room in Washington, where the golden words “PEACE PREVAILS ALWAYS” remained above the doors, even though anything but peace was prevailing across the land. The Chief had a bedroom suite at the back of the underground bunker, but had hardly used it. Instead, she’d been relying on stimulants. PharmaForce made a great pill that could keep a person awake for stretches of up to fifty hours, and another pill that could put a person to sleep almost instantly for increments of twenty minutes at a time. A couple of hours earlier, she had taken three pills, which had given her an hour of sleep. Now she was back on the warpath.
“The Council is going to allow you a little more latitude with your plan,” the Chairman said.
“That’s a wise decision,” the Chief replied in a monotone, not at all concerned with what the Council wanted. She was in charge now, whether they realized it yet or not. The Chief could have their companies seized, their neighborhoods destroyed, and no one could stop her because she was the AOI.
“Yes,” the Chairman said, not liking her attitude. “Well, as I said, it’s a little latitude. You’ve got forty-eight hours for the bombing and wiping out of all opposition. We certainly don’t want any organization left that may start another war in a few years. This needs to be it. But the plague . . .”
The Chairman hesitated. What he was about to say had not been authorized by the full Council.
“The plague needs to be stopped immediately. I’ll be talking to the AHC next and instructing them to assist you with reining that in.”
“The Health-Circle is already under my jurisdiction,” the Chief answered coolly. “The Constitution is clear. ‘In the event of war, all government departments answer to the AOI Chief in order to provide a unified response, and to utilize all assets of the government.’ So you’ll have to defer to me on that.”
The Chief’s long history of control and being able to brush away uncomfortable – even abusive – situations began as a small child. She was the youngest of three children. Her Father, an important Aylantik government official, had received a waiver of the bearing rights restrictions, but her mother died giving birth. Growing up, her two brothers teased her mercilessly, and her father beat her.
She was not a woman to mess with. She had no sympathy for anyone, or anything, and would stop at nothing to resurrect her feelings of shame and guilt. The Chief was determined to prove herself worthy of the task, worthy of anything. Peace would be returned at any price.
“Lis
ten to me,” the Chairman said sharply. “The Constitution doesn’t mean a damned thing in how we run things. The AOI doesn’t give a torg, you don’t, and neither do I. The Constitution is just something nice for the kids to study in school and to make people feel that the government doesn’t rule them, so don’t quote the damned thing to me ever again. Do you understand?”
“I may be the only one who does.” She felt strangely weak.
“Forty-eight hours on the war, and wrap up the plague right away. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking over at the huge VMs that filled the walls. The war played out like a collection of action movies. Her seven top advisors were busily working virtual keyboards as they hovered around the room on tru-chairs. A holographic map of the Chairman’s hometown appeared and she zoomed in on his house. After a few moments, she could see him sitting at his desk. “We are very clear.”
Once she got rid of the Chairman, she took a zoom from Sidis. They spoke at least once an hour, and his input had proven to be startlingly accurate. The AOI’s INUs were extremely sophisticated, and for years she’d relied on them to predict the outcome of events, but the Trapciers seemed to have an almost clairvoyant ability to know how a decision could affect the future. The Chief could give an order, recommended by the Imps, and seconds later the simulators would play out the results. Then, after implementing it for real, she watched in amazement as almost the exact results shown in the simulator were produced in real time.
Sidis gave her the latest objectives that the Trapciers had outlined. She reviewed them quickly and authorized the strikes.
In between all of that, she alternated between conversations with all twenty-four regional heads. Live feeds of their regions and direct links to their offices ringed the wall so she could take immediate action anywhere in the world. She asked the Pacyfik head, “Why haven’t we found Drast?”
“As you know, the Flo-wing he escaped in was shot down.”
