The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  “Oh, sorry,” she said and pushed the cart over. He flashed a mouth full of braces and walked by.

  “Thank you. Have a good night.” He went to the end of the aisle and turned the corner.

  She found her eyes following his projected path as if she had x-ray vision. She shook her head, the goofiness of it all, threw the box with the bee on it into the cart and went the opposite way.

  He caught her next with a box of tampons in her hand.

  “Miss?” he said. He was behind her. She froze, horrified that she had a box of thirty heavy flow tampons in her hand.

  Suddenly he laughed. “I’m sorry, this is so embarrassing,” he said. “I swear I’m not this awkward.”

  She put the tampons in the cart and turned to him. His face was alight with humor. She laughed too.

  “Please let me try this again. What’s next on your list?” he asked.

  “Milk.”

  “Which way is it?”

  She pointed toward the back of the store.

  “Okay, meet you there.” Raimey turned the cart and jogged the opposite way, leaving her to ponder what she had gotten herself into.

  She could hear his cart chatter and squeal as he took the long route to the milk. She suddenly felt a youthful joy like the moment before a first kiss. She pushed toward the milk.

  She could see that he was hiding out of view in the canned foods aisle. He playfully leaned over to see where she was. Finally, she picked up the milk. She heard his cart squeak toward her.

  “Hi. John Raimey. Smooth operator,” he joked. He reached out his hand.

  “Clearly. Tiffany Thompson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “I don’t want to bother you, but the more I think about it the more I realize that we can’t rely on fate. We have to go after what we want.”

  “You gotta just take it!” Tiffany said, snatching the air.

  “Exactly!” Raimey smiled—she was flirting. He may not crash and burn. “I don’t live here, I’m actually on leave for a few weeks, and I decided to visit some buddies. If I don’t ask you out, I’ll never see you again and I’ll never get another opportunity to do so.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “We have so much to talk about, don’t we?” he said. She laughed. “If you got a boyfriend, just take it as a compliment, but I’d like to at least take you out for coffee.”

  “John?”

  “You can call me John or Raimey.”

  “You’re awkward.”

  “I’m told that.”

  “A bit forward.”

  “It’s a new approach.”

  “But all-in-all you did good.”

  “B, B+?”

  They laughed. She gave him her number.

  His smile lit up the dairy aisle and that memory lit up her mind. They went out for brunch that next day and the date lasted until midnight. They hung out the entire time he was on leave. When he went back, they e-mailed and spoke whenever they could. She thought of him as such a contradiction. He was loving and funny, he was fierce and unmoving. He was hers.

  = = =

  A surgeon walked into the room. He was covered in red.

  “Mrs. Raimey?” the doctor asked. He pulled his mask off and it revealed a tired, pale man in his late fifties. Pale and tired seemed to be going around.

  Tiffany pulled herself from Vanessa, who remained asleep, and walked over. She wrapped her arms around herself in defense of the news.

  “Yes?”

  “Your husband is going to make it,” he said without a smile.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. She could tell there was more.

  “He has sustained grievous injuries to his limbs. Parts of his body have sustained second and third degree burns. He isn’t paralyzed, his mind is fine from what we can tell, but his recovery is going to be long.”

  “What do you mean by “grievous?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

  “His limbs are gone. A blast like that, just to be alive is a miracle, but we had to amputate.”

  Tiffany was quiet. Her ears beat with her pulse. She could hear a whistle in the doctor’s breathing. “He has no arms or legs?”

  “He’ll need you more than he’s ever needed you before, Mrs. Raimey. He’s obviously very strong, but he’ll need your help and support.”

  “Why do you think I’m here?” she said through clenched teeth.

  The surgeon recommended that Vanessa stay in the waiting area and he took Tiffany to the recovery room. John was swaddled like a newborn baby. His face was bandaged and he had a breathing tube down his throat. There were cuts and burns on his face but they were superficial compared to the trauma the rest of his body experienced. It didn’t look like her husband. It looked like a doctored photograph. His large body and his head, all by themselves.

  He was semi-conscious and his breathing was deep and strong.

  “His vitals are very good,” the surgeon said.

  “John? Honey?” Vanessa said. She put her hand lightly on his chest.

  His eyes fluttered open. The fear in them made her burst into tears.

  “I’m here. We’re going to get through this. We aren’t going anywhere.”

  He blinked slowly to show he got it. One tear rolled down the side of his cheek and wet the pillow. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  Evan sang in the shower. His day had gone from great to damn right fantastic. The world was already in the throes of post-traumatic stress disorder. In Greece, an extremist group had tried to stage a coup. The world financial markets announced they were closed indefinitely “in respect for this global tragedy.” And the manufactured terrorist cell that claimed responsibility for the bombing had the military looking in all the wrong directions. “Allah’s Will” was a phony, manufactured by the King Sleeper. The evidence trail to them was as subtle as spider webs. It would take time and a tremendous amount of resources to hunt them down. Some of the breadcrumbs led to abandoned caves in the Afghan mountains. Others led to existing cells that were insignificant to U.S. policy until now, but who would undoubtedly pull arms when the army came knocking on their door. The military’s itchy trigger fingers would only make the Terror War worse. In a final stroke of genius (speaking of stroke, Evan thought, why the hell not? He squirted out some extra body wash) all the piecemeal data the King Sleeper had planted throughout cyberspace about “Allah’s Will” would aggregate through Nostradamus, reconfirming the grift. They’re like weeds, those terrorists. Evan beamed. His arm went to work. He had never felt so good.

  AND—

  WarDon ate his own bullet. Punched a one-way ticket to the great beyond. Evan hadn’t predicted that would happen, he thought WarDon would just wisely step aside. For a guy who had “War” in his nickname, he sure wilted quickly. Maybe his war well had seeped dry a long time ago. Evan closed his eyes and worked faster.

  For the weeks leading to the UN energy summit, the King Sleeper had sent soft suggestions to all potential incumbent leaders and high-ranking military officials to test for vulnerability and predispositions. Using that data, the King Sleeper began its coercion routine the second the bomb went off. Whatever brave masks these leaders wore to address their respective tribes, inside they were as scared as children. The King Sleeper took those fears and pushed them through doors they would normally not go. The influence rate, if the data was accurate (Evan had devised a program that seemed to work.) was upward of twenty-five percent. He had hoped for five percent to ten percent shifts. One in four of Justin’s subjects were bending to the subliminal suggestions. Evan bit his lower lip.

  And Lindo was the natural successor to the late Secretary of Defense. The Vice President was a pushover, thrown on the last ticket to appeal to the few female voters that voted anymore. He wasn’t a drunk, but he liked to drink and he was a womanizer. His father ushered him through Harvard. Ward Williams, the Third.

  “A fucking baby in a bear den,” Lindo muttered. He was almost
done. He could feel it building. He rocked with the motion thinking not about a woman, but all he had accomplished in such a short time. With his left hand he turned the hot water up until was painful. Perfect. His mind drifted to Cynthia Revo. Her tiny body. Her bright red hair. Being over her. OVER HER. He let the water wash over him, a baptism into the new world that he had just ushered in. The crescendo was about there. His right arm kneading like dough . . .

  A rap against the steamed-out glass caused Evan to drop his dick. He turned away from the frosted glass door, covering like a woman caught topless in a changing room. Fear exploded in his belly and his mighty five-inch cock turtled up. They found me. Despite the threat, WarDon told someone.

  “Who is it?” he demanded. His mind raced, how could he get out of this?

  There was no response, but the knuckle mark on the glass door remained. It wasn’t his imagination. He slid the door open and saw Mike Glass seated on the sink countertop. Lindo had known Glass for a total of four months now and what WarDon had said was true. This guy was ultra reliable, but dammit, the way he looked at Evan gave him the creeps. It was a shark’s stare. A disconnected observation of his surroundings. He wasn’t cocky. He barely spoke. But he regarded people like they were art exhibits.

  “What are you doing here?” Evan looked for a towel near the shower. Glass took one from the counter and tossed it over. Evan retreated into the steam and came out wrapped. The difference in physique between the two was comical.

  But I’m the brains.

  Evan remembered an old movie called “Mad Max” where there was a character comprised of two people. One was an old, smart, a dwarf. The other was a giant retard. Together they were Master Blaster and they ruled . . . Bordertown. It was called Bordertown. Until the hero messed it up.

  The point was, together they were whole. Lindo felt that way about Glass. Either by themselves was formidable, but together, they were unstoppable.

  Glass hadn’t given it any thought.

  Glass hadn’t responded to the question yet. He was just watching (or not watching, depending how you look at it). He was just there.

  “So?” Lindo asked again.

  “General Boen is coming up from Texas,” Glass said in his backwoods drawl.

  “He’s retired, why?”

  “He’s an old friend of Ward’s father. He’s unretiring to take over WarDon’s position.”

  “What! No. No fucking way.”

  “I’m just the messenger. I thought you’d want to know.” Glass slid out.

  Lindo looked at himself in the mirror and for a minute he didn’t recognize the man looking back. He was only thirty-one but he could already see crow’s feet and strands of gray. A vein running down his forehead bulged from the news. Another roadblock. He almost felt sorry for himself. Motherfucker. Earl Boen was a very respected General. Old as dirt but still razor sharp, he was the last of the old guard. Which would be a problem.

  He would wonder why Evan was in charge of so many things with so little oversight. Evan guessed he couldn’t say “because WarDon trusted me,” after WarDon decided to re-interpret the Lincoln portrait with his thinker and the UN building was now a quarry. He would be skeptical and inquisitive. And he would have access to WarDon’s files. Evan made a note to alter anything eyebrow raising on WarDon’s personal data drives. But who knows what he could have on paper.

  And the day was going so well.

  = = =

  Two days after the bombing, a janitor who had snuck away for a nap, found Harold Renki face down under the Colossal Core. Cynthia was so occupied assisting the military in the hunt for Allah’s Will, she had suspended her normal work routine. She hadn’t noticed Harold’s missing daily reports.

  When she first heard the news, Cynthia assumed it was an accident. When she was told that Harold’s throat had been slit, that it was murder, she was beside herself. Who would have done such a thing? He was such a quiet and unassuming man.

  She and Sabot were on their way to the Data Node to meet the police. She left a message for WarDon, unaware that he’d decided to meet God and see what all the fuss was about.

  “This has to be coincidence,” Cynthia said to Sabot. The UN bombing and Harold’s murder.

  “Not enough information to know. Do you really know Harold?” Sabot asked.

  “For twenty years.”

  “Let’s check surveillance and go from there. I’d put money down that it has nothing to do with it. But not a lot.”

  There was no surveillance footage. In a closed system with one hundred and twenty security cameras, that monitored the outside and inside of the one hundred billion dollar Node, for two hours the system had malfunctioned. Smart men around Cynthia scratched their heads and worried about their jobs.

  “How?” Cynthia said. Her voice was flat.

  “It’s impossible,” one of the braver employees offered. He slouched like a dog waiting to be kicked.

  “Obviously, it’s very possible.”

  “There’s no way it malfunctioned, that’s what I’m saying. It’s saying that in the programming, but there’s no way,” the man offered again.

  Cynthia looked at him and then the others.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the man.

  “Jeff.”

  “Everyone except Jeff is excused. NOW.”

  The others scurried out of the surveillance room.

  “What do you think happened?”

  “These just don’t fail. They don’t.” He pointed to the monitor. “It’s telling us it did but that’s bullshit—pardon my French. It got hacked or something. There’s no way.”

  “Hacked to shut down for two hours?” Cynthia said.

  Jeff nodded. “AND to tell us that it malfunctioned. Dr. Renki had everyone take a long lunch break. Everyone except the Sleepers.”

  Cynthia and Sabot looked at one another.

  “For two hours?” Sabot asked.

  “To watch the UN address with our families.”

  Cynthia and Sabot were quiet for a moment.

  “Jeff, that’s all. Thank you for your candor.”

  “My pleasure. I’m sorry he died. He was a good boss.”

  Jeff left the room.

  “So?” Cynthia asked Sabot.

  “People get murdered for a reason or no reason at all. He was murdered in a high security environment. I’ll pose the same question I did in the car: how well do you really know Harold Renki?”

  “I’ve known him for twenty years! I’ve had dinner with him and his wife a dozen times,” Cynthia said, defensively. She was unsure.

  “I think you’re confusing time with intimacy. I don’t think you know this man at all.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Cynthia put a Mindlink on her head and told a team of Sleepers to search for anything on Harold Renki.

  “I want to see the body before the police get here,” Sabot said.

  “I’ll come, too.”

  Sabot’s official diagnosis was that Harold Renki was dead. They found him face planted on the grated catwalk and when Sabot rolled him over, his purple face looked like a waffle.

  “This is professional,” Sabot said. They were alone on the catwalk. Above them the Data Core did its aqua lightning dance. Below, the core graveyard curled with fog.

  “How can you tell?” Cynthia asked.

  Sabot looked at Harold’s fingers. Nothing underneath the nails. He checked the back of his head. No sign of trauma, no muzzle bruise . . .

  The guy couldn’t reach his head. Harold was like a giraffe.

  “He gave no fight. Look—his left hand is covered in blood, but his right isn’t.” Sabot put his left hand over his throat, reenacting what he thought happened. “He reached up in surprise; I’m sure of it. I would.”

  Sabot examined the throat slash closer. Very clean, almost as thin as a paper cut.

  “There’s only one cut,” he said. “He knew the man who killed him and he didn’t see it coming.”

  O
ut of instinct, Cynthia put her hands to her neck.

  “Was it a quick death?” she asked.

  “Very.”

  Chapter 9

  Tiffany sat next to John while they watched a movie in the hospital room. She and Vanessa had been in New York a month. They didn’t have relatives or friends in the area, so Tiffany had rented a hotel room. The bills were piling up. Up until a week ago, she wasn’t sure if she could stay and it broke her heart. But then the military stepped in. A young man, Dr. Evan Lindo, had visited John and told him that WarDon was dead and he was his temporary replacement. He took Tiffany aside and asked about their expenses. She told him and right there he transferred money into their account and a little extra for the next few weeks. His coming had been a true blessing. She could now focus on her husband. Dr. Lindo was coming back today and Tiffany was going to tell him how much his support meant to her and John.

  Eric Janis and Raimey had asked to be in the same room. They suffered nearly identical injuries. Raimey’s arms and legs were gone. His right leg still had about eight inches of thigh, and a remnant of his left arm went past his shoulder, but both were too small to attach any prosthetic. Raimey, so strong and capable, would now die if he wasn’t fed, if he wasn’t given water. Out in the elements he was as helpless as a newborn.

  Not that Janis would let that get in the way of him making fun.

  “Crip, pass the soda, please,” Janis said to Raimey on cue.

  Raimey turned to Janis. They were in beds about ten feet from another; swaddled in modified hospital gowns. Janis was divorced. His ex called but hadn’t visited, so Vanessa helped them both and Tiffany would have them read to her to pass the time. The sad thing was that they didn’t need physical therapy. There was nothing that could be done.

  Janis started calling them “Crip and Crap,” making up various adventures and personas that the “cripple twins” and their “cripple powers” would go on. It was hard to bring Janis down, and that helped, Tiffany thought. Because Raimey was not the same man.

  Raimey grunted at Janis and turned back to the TV.

  “I’m just messing around, John,” Janis said. His voice was soft. He turned back to the TV, too.