The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  They carried empty gas canisters and signs: “Where’s the oil?” “The Coalition IS Terrorism.” “Cynthia should run it.”

  Raimey didn’t know why they were here. The oil decline had been public for decades; did they choose not to see? They were shuttled into huge cities. They were given tax breaks for their useless cars.

  When he and the team got to New York the night before, he had thought it would be a simple job. Babysit the perimeter. Watch the President. Look for anything suspicious. He was wrong.

  Fifty-eight degrees was the temperature but it wasn’t the heat. The energy off the crowd made Raimey sweat. The noises coming from it didn’t sound human, it sounded like a mass of howling dogs.

  “This is fucked up,” Janis said in Raimey’s earpiece. His team was placed throughout the building. Over the comm a few soldiers echoed the sentiment.

  “No time for commentary, guys. Stay focused. The package is arriving in five minutes,” Raimey replied. The Chinese President and the EU Prime Minister had already entered the building.

  He scanned the crowd. How could he possibly assess a threat? A platoon of soldiers in full camouflage could be ten people deep and he wouldn’t be able to spot them.

  He heard the thump-thump of the President’s air convoy. Three Apache helicopters descended amongst the skyscrapers and formed an air perimeter over the crowd. The crowd’s hair blew back and their signs folded from the helicopter’s thrust. The sight of such powerful weapons turned their wrought panic into momentary awe.

  Raimey watched the President’s helicopter hover down in between the Apaches.

  “Secure the President,” Raimey said to his forward team that included Janis. Six of his guys were at the helipad, support to the Secret Service.

  “The Package is out and secure. We are heading toward the entrance,” Janis said. Normally full of humor, he now sounded like a Speak-and-Spell. This was business.

  Raimey turned back to the crowd. Their awe was over. The millions of voices built onto each other into a deafening crescendo.

  “The Package is in the building. We’re peeling off,” Janis said.

  “Okay. Let’s get inside. Ramirez and Tate—get down to the parking garage and work your way up.”

  “That’s been cleared, sir,” Ramirez replied.

  “By us?” Raimey responded.

  “No sir, by the security detail.”

  The UN building was under lockdown for the last three weeks. It had been swept by dogs and specialists for any potential threat. Since then nothing had gone in or out. Raimey nearly acquiesced.

  “Check it out anyway,” Raimey said. “There’s too much at risk to get sloppy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  = = =

  Xan was not at the UN summit. He wasn’t even in New York. He was on the western fringe of Chicago on an unapproved tour of one of MindCorp’s largest Data Nodes.

  Harold Renki walked behind him. Sixty years old and very tall—almost seven feet—he peered down at people like an ostrich. Harold was one of the original scientists that had worked on the Mindlink prototype. He had witnessed the now legendary beginning with Tom and Jerry, the apes. One of his patents helped make it happen.

  A brilliant computer programmer, he specialized in software that dealt with efficient multi-threading: the act of a multi-processor computer prioritizing and parceling data to each individual CPU for maximum efficiency.

  Each MindCorp server had over two thousand 1-terahertz cores. A Colossal Node, as they called the big ones, had over one thousand servers attached to the Data Core—the big blue “fuse.”

  A bloated version of his patent made it possible for all this data to come through the Data Core reliably, efficiently, and—most importantly—with traceability.

  The tour had gone longer than Harold had expected. For his information, he would get ten billion dollars—no small sum—but he thought it was for consulting and sending schematics, not chaperoning. When he got the call that Xan was coming over, his heart had skipped a beat. Suddenly what he was doing felt illegal, a cheat against his benefactors. Harold had excused the conscious staff from the Data Node so that they could watch the UN summit. Xan and he had walked through the beds of Sleepers and none of them even fluttered an eyelid.

  “What is this?” Xan asked. They were now beneath the Data Core, a place that few people ever got to see. Above them, the electrical aqua blue stormed and crashed in its huge glass tube. It felt like they were staring up at an aquarium caught in a hurricane.

  One hundred feet beneath the catwalk were the servers. Heavy air—at negative 50 degrees Celsius—constantly sprayed onto them and while the heavy molecule fought condensation, a light fog hung over the field of processors like a haunted graveyard. It felt ominous, dark and powerful. A hum filled all frequencies, but aside from the Data Core’s constant blue dance, Xan saw no moving parts.

  “Those are the servers, memory, the man behind the curtain, so to speak,” Harold said. “There are two million processors here but this is a Colossal. What you want to do is a heck of a lot easier than this. You’re looking at two, three servers, tops. Six thousand processors total.”

  Harold rarely looked down at his work anymore. It was beautiful, in a gothic sort of way.

  “And that will get us in?” Xan asked. Xan made Harold uneasy. The little Asian spoke quietly and concisely, but something about him seemed unpredictable like a dog with its tail tucked down.

  “Along with what I gave you . . . if you do the treatment to the hacker.”

  “Forced Autism.”

  Harold winced. He didn’t like the term. He had been there during the first experiments when they didn’t know the consequences and people willfully volunteered. The results were so inhumane that even the military balked. Plans for further tests were scuttled quickly.

  “Forced Autism, Forced Savant, whatever you want to call it. With the right candidate, yes, definitely. They overload the system. Most people are using less than one percent of their brain when they’re connected. A Sleeper, like the ones we weaved between to get down here, they use four to five, and they can program real time. A Forced Savant uses 85% of their brain.”

  “But they need a guide.”

  “Yes, the procedure makes them erratic and distant. Most of them don’t live long either.”

  “How long?” Xan asked. His voice made Harold sleepy.

  “A month maybe. Except for the initial experiments it really hasn’t been explored because of the ethical considerations.”

  Xan’s laugh was sharp and loud, in complete contrast to his voice. Xan peered over the rail to the servers that stuck out like tombstones amidst the rolling fog. “Ethical considerations are always the battle cry against breakthroughs. Birth control, nuclear power, stem cells. All things we take for granted. Now this . . .”

  Harold shifted around in his white coat uncomfortably. He really just wanted the money.

  Xan continued. “Tens of millions have bled on battlefields. Tens of thousands now, every year, and no one bats an eye. But you try to evolve the human race and peer past the event horizon into God’s will, and the mysteries that make us, and suddenly it’s unethical. The edge of knowledge is always unethical. You can’t merit ethics on a few deaths. It puts the individual above the common good.”

  Xan turned to Harold. “We’re up-to-date on your schematics. This last pass and the information you’ve given me today will put us back on schedule.”

  “How long?” Harold asked. He really didn’t care. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Maybe it was his conscience.

  “Four weeks, maybe less.”

  Piggybacking the MindCorp servers, Harold thought. The stealth program he built for China that allowed this access was so discreet that it would take years or lottery luck for MindCorp to notice. It was possible that they would never know.

  “Five up front, five on the back, per our arrangement,” Xan said. He put his hand out. “It’s been a pleasure.”

>   Harold shook it. Xan gripped quickly, and using his left hand, flashed a blade across Harold’s neck. It was so sharp, it took the neck a moment to realize it was time to bleed and then it poured out like the mouth of a river.

  Harold passed out after two thoughts: He cut me! And, I just started World War III.

  He died ten seconds later. Xan disappeared up the catwalk past the rows of a hundred Sleepers, up the elevator and out the door. No one saw him. The security cameras were off. All conscious staff were excused for the two hours. Per Harold Renki’s demands, fueled by his greed.

  = = =

  The UN summit was another opportunity for a bunch of politicians without business credentials, doctorates, or scientific backgrounds to pontificate to their electoral bodies.

  Raimey let the drone of the slicksters fold into background noise. He was at the top of the conference room. It was shaped like a giant bowl tiered with desks and divided into quadrants by stairs that ran up the sides. At the bottom was the podium where the politicians said their peace. He and Janis were the only two soldiers present. Janis was across the chasm, mirroring Raimey’s movement. Everyone else had nice suits, perfect hair, and glowing white teeth.

  “Can you believe these assholes?” Janis said in Raimey’s ear. Raimey looked across the cavernous room to his friend and couldn’t help but smile. They shouldn’t talk like this over the comm.

  “Lot of talking,” Raimey replied.

  The room was packed. Nearly the entire Coalition was present with the individual European Union countries taking up the bulk of the seating.

  The Chinese representatives included President Jintau. He had about a dozen advisors and young, intense men that could only be his security.

  The same went for the United States. President Michaels came with half his Cabinet and a security detail. He studied a sheet of talking points and occasionally glared at the Chinese President. Other countries sat in the cheap seats toward the top.

  They were ten minutes into the Summit. The head of the UN thanked the first speaker, who had said nothing useful, and announced that President Michaels had something to say. This drew some murmurs, but Raimey had to do everything in his power to hold back a yawn.

  = = =

  President Joseph Michaels waited for his introduction. He was as disinterested in the other speakers’ point of view as Raimey. His focus was on the Chinese President and the betrayal of trust that had occurred.

  No one expected President Michaels to speak. In fact, he was not known for being a great speaker. He was good one-on-one or in small groups. Town hall meetings, schools, any event that was intimate, where he could look a man or woman in the eye and tell them he cared. That was his wheelhouse. In front of a few hundred or more eager faces and his hands got a bit damp and a little shaky. His throat would tighten and his heart would double up like he was on his morning run.

  It showed in debates, but the good thing—as his political advisor had pointed out—was that no one voted. The hardcore Republicans did, of course. The hardcore Democrats did, which was annoying. But no one else bothered. The hopeful and downtrodden had given up. They had heard the words without actions too many times. Unlike the politicians that wanted their votes, the masses understood history. They had seen the pattern. Fool me once. Nothing was going to change. There were too many lobbyists, too much big money, and jellyfish for leaders. Instead of a mass uprising, a revolution to take the country back, they acquiesced and anesthetized themselves online. Without the Mindlink, the earth would have been in cinders. It was medication against reality as much as a new way of life.

  While three billion people were watching the conference live (and another two billion would watch it online in the next day or so), Joseph’s heart pounded, not because he was nervous, but because he was angry. He was angry with China, he was angry with the EU. He was angry with the Senate and the House and the legacy of politicians before him who had failed. So many crises that could have been avoided, not in hindsight, not after the twenty-four hour news coverage, but clearly, crisply from day one.

  For the last fifty years the United States had stumbled and tripped over the tenets that had defined its greatness. The Constitution was warped and manipulated to protect the rich. Corporations were given the same rights as citizens. Super PACS fed politicians with unaccountable outside influence, guaranteeing the decay of the political system’s purpose to protect the people. Financial disasters and no one in Wall Street went to prison. Again and again, a cycle of corruption unaccounted, just entertainment on the tube while another fat fucking American gorged on mac and cheese.

  He knew that he was at fault. He felt the guilt itch at his temples and the shame in his soul. But he inherited many of these problems. The previous administration, and the administration before that, and the one before that, left him holding the reins of a horse and buggy already barreling toward the cliff’s edge.

  He looked up at the Chinese President and his anger grew when the man he had called a friend smiled and nodded at him.

  Why did I want to be President? President Michaels asked himself. He couldn’t remember. He heard his name and he stood up and he gathered the papers that explained in great detail China’s new oil reserve and the steps they have taken to keep it secret. A part of him wondered, why? Why bother outing them? Shouldn’t the U.S. be accountable for its own problems? Is China the reason we are in this bind? We were terminal long before this.

  But the politician took over and he stepped up to the podium. He thanked everyone that was in attendance and those at home watching. And then he cleared his throat and tore into China. WarDon had provided him with incredibly accurate data on the date of discovery, the location, production rate, and the expected life of the oil reserve. He listed dates and read detailed transcripts between President Jintau and his advisors on strategies to keep the oil reserve secret. The evidence was irrefutable and the delivery scathing. It was the best performance of President Michael’s career. He pandered to become President. He waffled to get votes. But here he listed facts and conclusions based on the aggregate of those facts. His old friend’s smile faded when his name was called out again and again as the betrayer of the civilized world. It turned out the civilized world was not so civil.

  = = =

  Ramirez and Tate were already moving when Raimey had given them orders to double check the parking garage. They bounded down the stairs, four steps at a time, hitting the landing and chugging down to the next floor. The UN auditorium was four floors above them. The garage had a total of eight levels, the vast majority of them unoccupied. Parking garages were a relic of another time.

  They hit the P8 landing and threw the door open. It flung against the backstop and the sound echoed throughout the parking garage. Only a few LED bulbs lit this level.

  “I can’t see shit,” Tate said. “You bring night vision?”

  “Nope. But I got a torch.”

  Ramirez flicked on his flashlight and scanned the structure. They quickly cleared the area. They picked up the pace to a jog as they searched the walls and ceiling for anything suspicious.

  “They cleared it earlier,” Tate said.

  “Yep,” Ramirez said. He and Tate knew that didn’t matter to Raimey.

  Except for a few rat turds, P8 was clear. They jogged up the ramp. In the empty garage, their footsteps multiplied into a platoon.

  “It’s damp down here. More than you’d think,” Ramirez said. He could see water damage in the concrete. This building had a while to go before it was unsafe, but entropy had taken hold.

  “Stinks a bit too.”

  “Not as bad as your ass,” Ramirez said. Some recessive gene in Tate’s German/Norwegian heritage had created the perfect farting machine. Long hours in closed proximity to him amounted to chemical warfare.

  “True.” Tate was a little too proud of his digestive tract. He once ripped one so foul that his bulldog Jasper gave him a disappointed look and left the room.

  P7 was clear.
Ramirez, Tate, and their ghost platoon went up to P6. More water, same thing as P7. A few places had cones creating a perimeter around especially slippery areas.

  “How much leave do we have after this?” Tate inquired.

  Ramirez threw his beam around, covering the floors. “Week, I heard,” Ramirez said. “Raimey?”

  There was only fuzz from the comm.

  “You see something?” Tate asked, instantly focused.

  “No, just wondering if we had backup.”

  “Not with all this ‘crete.”

  “Hmph.”

  P6 was clear. P5 was clear. The water was getting heavier. Maybe a pipe had ruptured. A green slime coated the center of the garage floor and water openly dripped down from above.

  “R-mer-z, re-or,” their comm sputtered. It was Raimey.

  “Shit,” Ramirez spoke slowly. “Nothing so far. Nothing so far.”

  Up the ramp to P4 and they saw the source of the slip ‘n’ slide. A center portion of the garage was cordoned off with temporary hunter orange fencing. They could hear water splattering behind it. Signs were posted about an ongoing repair to the water main and the expected finish date.

  “Well, there you go,” Ramirez said. P4 was lit much better than the other floors. This floor and up must be used to some extent.

  “Clear all around,” Tate said into the comm. To Ramirez—“At least we got a workout.”

  Ramirez turned off his flashlight and walked toward the orange perimeter. Tate followed behind.

  “We should go fishing if we get a week off,” Tate said.

  “I don’t think Trish wants you fishing for a week.” Ramirez pushed the orange flap to the side like a shower curtain. Seven large blue drums were wired together. Ramirez saw the timer as it wound down to zero. He screamed into his comm.

  “BOMB!! WE GOT A B—”

  They felt no pain. They heard no noise. For Ramirez and Tate, one second they were there and the next they were nothing.