The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  It helped you know your enemy.

  True. But at one time, that had made him his own. And they had used it for their purposes.

  He was alone in a New York safe house. His soldiers were preparing for their next attack. It was time for prayer.

  “Allahu Akbar,” he said. God is great. God is great. Their attack in New York had gone perfectly. Other cells were vicious and immoral, but when Mohammed formed the Western Curse, he and his clerics vowed to attack the problem, not just what was convenient. Those actions, hijacking a school bus, killing innocent people in the streets, were terrorism. They were evil actions justified under vague pretenses of Jihad. They were a blot on Islam. He and his clerics, back when they were scholars and politicos and industrialists and entrepreneurs, had clearly defined who they would attack: the heads. Always the heads. We aren’t terrorists, he thought, we are freedom fighters. They are on our soil, so we are on theirs.

  He folded his arms across his chest and recited the first chapter of the Qur’an:

  “I start by the name of Allah, the Rehman, and the Raheem. All praise is for Allah who is the maker of everything, the Rehman, the Raheem, the final Master. (O Allah) we worship you and we ask help from you. Show us the right way. The way of those who got good things, not the way of those who were punished and not the way of those who believed in wrong things.”

  Like his other clerics, Mohammed Jawal was highly educated. His master’s degree in political science came from Oxford and his doctorate from Yale. He was a published expert on middle-eastern policy and he had been invited to the White House as an advisor. They didn’t ignore him. Far from it. They used him. He explained each culture and how it functioned. How they could gain favor. He thought it was to improve foreign relations. He found out soon it was prep for invasion. He laughed sadly when he thought about it. How naïve of him to think good of politicians. The President was there. The Secretary of Defense. The heads of government. Even representatives from China and the EU. All the heads. It’s always the heads.

  He had walked away flattered. And then six months later, they had invaded. They had taken his advice; they had contacted the royal families months before and offered not only amnesty, but gifts and futures.

  Mohammed continued his prayer. He spoke in Arabic verses that moved him, that made him feel taller, closer to heaven, but at the same time meek in his God’s presence.

  “Allahu Akbar.” Mohammed bowed. “Subhana rabbiyal adheem, subhanna rabbiyal adheem, subhana rabbiyal adhemm.” Glory be to my Lord Almighty.

  the Western Curse was growing. It was never about religion; they were not Jihadists. It was about what was right. He did this because the West had beaten and abused his country like a slave. The West only believed in slaves, from the beginning when the cotton crop had to be harvested, to the pawn dictator that did the West’s wishes in a language they wouldn’t even take the time to understand. Slavery was all the West knew and it was time to break those bonds. It was time to pull the slave master off his horse and beat him down until he lay dead.

  Damn the West for making me do this. Damn them for treating their privilege like it was their right.

  = = =

  It had been a month since Cynthia had agreed to help the United States. In that time, Nostradamus had been integrated into the global MindCorp network and Cynthia had recruited and implemented Sleepers to spy on the United States’ allies.

  Nostradamus was interesting to Cynthia, and that made Evan interesting to Cynthia. The AI program was set up at a base in West Virginia and she tethered it to the closest Data Node. All Cores were connected, so Nostradamus could now “scrub” for data (as Lindo called it) to mine patterns from what appeared to be random information. It accessed all e-mail, all IP telephony, all virtual chats, anything financial that was purchased with credit. Anything that left a trail. It even mined news feeds.

  “Scrubbing will take months, but once all the data is collected, the program will begin to see patterns the army can use,” Evan explained.

  “It’s quite brilliant,” Cynthia had said.

  “Thank you. It works two ways. It treats all information bit torrent and it treats the entire landscape of information as a codec. That’s what the scrubbing’s for. It lays a foundation of data that the AI can then reference for anomalies. From there, it sees a pattern,” he continued. “Your network is billions of times more vast, we’ve only used Nostradamus on battlefields and with specific reconnaissance where it behaves more like a chess computer. But the same patterns will hold in cyberspace. I designed it to work micro and macro, it just comes down to processing power and storage.”

  “You think ahead,” Cynthia said.

  “Always.”

  Peering into the EU’s and China’s backyard had fallen solely on Cynthia. When she introduced the Sleepers to WarDon and he explained to them the terms of their jail sentence if they committed treason, the mood dampened. It perked back up when they were told their salaries were doubled. In three more weeks, Cynthia had promised WarDon a dossier so thorough on the leaders of the EU and China that they could write that person’s biography in such detail and cadence that the subjects themselves would think they had written it.

  “If a person’s thoughts are a bag, the Sleepers are pulling that bag inside out. There’s nothing they can hide,” Cynthia had said when she had outlined the process to WarDon.

  “How don’t they know?” WarDon asked.

  “Think of it this way: we’re currently in my office and you can see and interpret everything around you clearly. The desk, the seat cushion, me, Sabot, the streaked window behind me. You think you see it all, because you rely on your senses, but there is more data in this room you don’t sense. There are terabits of broadcast waves and cellular waves coursing through and around us, but we don’t even think about them because their spectrum is outside our perspective. But if I turn on a TV or radio, boom! There it is. It’s the same online. We’re working behind the scenes, on a level they can’t register because even online they rely on their base senses.”

  “Couldn’t another Sleeper?” Evan asked.

  “If it was a non-MindCorp Sleeper doing espionage, yes. But we are sifting through their actual data stream. We aren’t hacking into it. We own it.”

  = = =

  Now, she and Sabot had been summoned to a new military research center being constructed north of Chicago. It was called the Derik Building. It was at five stories tall, dark and wide. At the front, it seemed hospital-like. But as Cynthia walked through, she could read signs directing staff up and down and to different wings. “Testing Range.” “Prosthetics.” “Server Field.” “Surgical Center.” “Lab Hanger 1.” “Lab Hanger 2.” “Lab Hanger 3.” Cynthia saw the Lab count reach eighteen before their escort directed them down a hall that consisted of conference rooms. Around them, construction workers and painters worked feverishly. The escort opened a door to one of the unfinished conference rooms. Evan and WarDon stood up as they entered.

  WarDon and Evan had been mum on why they brought her here. WarDon was quiet, but in a good mood. He had a dazed, strip club smile on his face.

  “How flexible is the Mindlink with applications?” Evan asked.

  “Outside of cyberspace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Assuming the subject has the proper aptitude, with the right software driver it can do anything, really. You’ve seen what we’ve done with manufacturing. Why?”

  “What do you know about prosthetic limbs?” Lindo asked.

  “Haven’t had any use for them—what is this about?” Cynthia was tired of the build up, she felt like she was being pitched by a carnie. Show the chick with the beard, already.

  “The Terror War,” WarDon said.

  “That’s what Nostradamus is for, isn’t it?” Cynthia asked.

  “It’s a start,” WarDon said. “We think what we’re about to show you will finish it.”

  “What?”

  “A soldier that’s virtually i
ndestructible,” Evan chimed in. “Our war isn’t with nations anymore, never mind the issues with our partners in the Coalition. It’s terrorism, plain and simple. Always needling us, picking at us, three months of calm followed by a bombing. War is easy compared to this. It’s predictable. Vetted. There’s a defined finish to it. We can’t go into New York with tanks and attack choppers and level a building they’re entrenched in. We can’t kill one hundred of them by cutting down a thousand of our own.”

  “This soldier would somehow stop this?” Cynthia asked. “The technology to do that . . .”

  “I’ve developed over the last six years, ever since the Mindlink could process 2-way information,” Lindo said.

  Next to Evan was a table stacked with lead aprons. He handed them out.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  They put them on and followed him through a door into another room. A dozen engineers in similar aprons stood around a huge block of an object that was ten feet wide and taller. It was covered in a tarp. Evan nodded at one of the engineers and he hit a switch. The tarp rose up and Cynthia gasped at what was revealed. A colossal metal man sat in a chair like a king. She walked up to it, miniscule compared to it. She looked at the armored feet. They were the size of a snow sled, but remarkably articulated.

  The legs were protected with thick armored plates, but between the slits and at the joints, she saw shock absorbers. Their pistons and springs were gray and green like the rest of the body, and glistening with oil.

  There was a ladder.

  “May I?” Cynthia asked Evan.

  Evan beamed at his invention. “Yes, you may.”

  She climbed up the ladder to see the bionic more closely.

  It would take two men to get their arms around each square thigh. The thighs had a different suspension system from the rest of the leg. Ten rubber coated slats were sandwiched together. She didn’t understand how it worked, but it was clearly for shock absorption. She would inquire later.

  The pelvis and thighs were separated from the upper body by a pair of huge drive chains, each link the size of a human head. Gear teeth stuck through them.

  The upper body was gigantic, but still human in form, like a bodybuilder dipped in metal.

  The metal hands curled over the end of the armrests. A person could sit in their palm and the knuckles were bulbous with armor. But the joints and seams along the fingers and creased into the top of the hands showed a level of articulation that was astounding. It was the most beautiful feat of mechanical engineering Cynthia had ever seen.

  Cynthia saw that there was no head. In its place was a void, and she understood why they needed the Mindlink.

  “A person goes in this?” she asked, disbelieving. She leaned over the dark pit. The compartment was small. “No person could fit in this.”

  “A soldier would have to make a physical concession,” Lindo said.

  “Fuel?” Cynthia asked.

  “It’s powered with electrical cells. It can recharge off any electrical line. I also have a hydrogen generator attachment I’m working on.”

  Radiation symbols were painted on its chest and back.

  “What makes it radioactive then?” she asked. She climbed back down to the floor.

  “The armor. This particular example is made out of depleted uranium. It’s more toxic than radioactive.”

  “That would kill the person in it,” Cynthia said.

  Lindo shrugged.

  “Eventually. The interior is lead lined, we have RAD treatments devised.”

  “And it works?” Cynthia couldn’t take her eyes off it. It sat over them like an ancient god.

  WarDon spoke up.

  “We need a custom Mindlink interface in order to bring this to life. We modified some of your online software to test it, but this needs to be a fully contained Mindlink interface. We can’t do it without you.”

  “This is the prototype, there is more to it than this,” Lindo said. “But we can’t get there without your help.”

  Her enthusiasm vanished. “You’re asking a lot. Access to my network is one thing, it’s on my terms. I can cut Nostradamus, I can pull the Sleeper program if there’s a conflict, or I think it’s being abused. But you want secrets.”

  Evan started to say something. Cynthia held up her hand to stop him.

  “You’re too smart to play me for dumb,” she said.

  “With the Terr—” WarDon began.

  “The Coalition started the Terror War, Donald!” Cynthia said. “I don’t see the problem, outside of the problem. Transportation is limited and incredibly expensive now. They can’t be shipping more terrorists over which means there are a finite supply. Find them and root them out.”

  “We’re putting our best and brightest on that as we speak,” WarDon said. “But we still don’t have the armor we need to protect those lives. The cities are horrible places for war, Cynthia. It’s all high ground. We can’t bring in heavy armor. We bring in a small team that must—on the fly—decide who is a terrorist, who is a civilian, all while bullets fly past them that can go through our best body armor.

  “You’re worried about your secrets? What about American lives? Would your secrets stop MindCorp from being the largest corporation in the history of man? Would it help a competitor get out of court if they stole your proprietary technology?”

  Cynthia was quiet. WarDon had made a point.

  “MindCorp is a monopoly in the truest sense,” WarDon emphasized. “And the U.S. understands how important it is to our way of life. But Goddammit Cynthia, have you seen a dead body? I’ve seen thousands. I’ve talked to the parents.”

  “A self-contained Mindlink can be reverse engineered,” Cynthia said through gritted teeth.

  “A dead kid can’t,” WarDon spat. He left the room.

  Evan sat across for a moment, quietly flipping a pencil end-over-end on the table.

  “I’d be very respectful of the technology, Cynthia. I would keep you abreast of everything,” he finally said.

  Cynthia shook her head no.

  = = =

  After Cynthia and Sabot left, Evan walked to his office. Along the way soldiers and researchers said hello and he said it back. He had designed his office to be among the thousands of research servers in cold storage. The core of the core, he liked to think. He thought his CPU was the most important of them all. He liked to think of his brain as a machine.

  He walked through the field of servers and into his office. After he closed the door, he stood with his back against it for a moment, breathing deeply. And then he screamed. He screamed until his throat shredded and the veins on his neck stood out like worms. He gathered himself.

  “It’s fine. All in due time. All in due time,” he said aloud. “Patience,” he emphasized. I hate patience, a voice in his head shot back.

  He needed the self-contained Mindlink and he had thought with Captain Happy—that was what he called the bionic soldier—he would have tricked it out of Cynthia. She was right. A self-contained Mindlink could be reverse engineered. He had hoped to do that for an army of Captain Happy’s and more: he was constructing a new weapon underground in Virginia.

  She’s too smart to trick, Evan thought. She was the smartest person in the world.

  The computer terminal at his desk pinged. He walked over to it and put the Mindlink on. This terminal had a direct tie line to Nostradamus and the AI had picked up a pattern.

  Already.

  He was impressed with himself. There was an increase in Muslim named passengers on two ‘L’ trains in Chicago. While normally it would be one in two hundred, on these cars there were five to two hundred. In addition, four graduates from Berkeley who had belonged to extremist political groups were also on these trains, separated in pairs. Nostradamus had tracked their purchase history. One had used his parents’ credit at an online sporting goods store to buy four balaclava masks. Half of the Muslims on the train had moved to Chicago within a week apart five months before. One of the Berkeley s
tudents with an electrical engineering degree was janitor at MindCorp Headquarters. One of the Muslims was an off duty train operator. Another of the Muslims had recently watched video related to the occupation in the Middle East. One of the Berkeley students had read a book about a bank robbery in 1997 at a North Hollywood bank perpetrated by two heavily armed men. A shipment of fertilizer to a farmer with a liberal dissident past outpaced his land size and yield. A city garbage truck had gone missing seven months before.

  Sixty-five percent of all passengers taking these trains took the next train north. Nostradamus crunched other mundane information. E-mails. Travel patterns of the general populace that had moved here within the last five months, past travel logs for the names listed, chats and e-mails associated with the Berkeley students. Once it latched on to a pattern, it could raise it above the noise floor of the zeros and ones that made up our digital lives. With 66.7% accuracy Nostradamus predicted that both the MindCorp Data Node north of the city and MindCorp Headquarters would be attacked today.

  The protocol for Evan was to report this immediately to WarDon, who would then galvanize the proper military division into action. But Evan saw the long view. Cynthia was too smart to trick, but she had emotions. He smiled and then he instructed Nostradamus to ignore these patterns, backup to a local drive, and erase the information from its shared log.

  He’d let this play out.

  = = =

  Frank felt that today was a turning point in Justin’s short life. That morning, he and Charlene had woken to Justin standing next to their bed.

  “Morning, bud,” Frank said, stretching. Justin had a huge grin on his face and his eyes were alight. Frank had never seen that before.

  “Can we go?” Justin asked. Frank looked at the clock. It was 5:00 am.

  “The earliest train is at 7:00 am,” Frank said. Instead of throwing a tantrum or not processing this basic reality, Justin nodded.