The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

BOOM.

  BOOM.

  Tank shells. Raimey accelerated toward the caravan.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  CHA-CHA-CHA.

  Fifty-caliber machine guns.

  BA-BAM!

  A tank flipped three times, end over end, cutting through a building, bringing it down. Dust filled the air. Raimey caught a glimpse of the Russian Tank Major running down into the caravan before the dust storm encompassed everything.

  Visibility was cut to ten feet. Raimey ran toward the sounds of the turbine tanks. He came across one that had been routed. Bloody bodies hung out of it at odd angles. Farther on, he heard tearing metal and a muffled scream. As he made his way toward the sound, he saw the wide silhouette of the Russian Tank Major. It was reaching into a tank hatch like it was a cookie jar.

  The Tank Major turned and tried to get out of the way as Raimey charged. It didn’t have hydraulshocks, and its chest armor had been repaired. It looked like an improvised explosive device had killed its first occupant.

  Raimey reared back. WHA-WHAM!

  The Tank Major’s chest vanished on impact and its massive shoulders clapped together before it rag dolled off into the brown mist.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  Raimey kept going. He came across trampled men. Whole legs attached to a smeared painting of a man pressed into the dirt. A hundred yards passed and he came across a giant metal crab: Stafford’s right hand. It looked like a tank shell had hit it.

  A short distance farther on, Raimey found the tank that probably did the damage. It was Juhavee. The hatch was open and the little man was squinting into the dust, aiming the turret off the road into the broken city.

  “He went in there,” Juhavee said. “Where’s the other one?”

  “Dead.”

  Raimey could hear Stafford. He was moving through the rubble around the tank. Juhavee reversed the tank, and its turret trailed the veteran Tank Major. “Stafford, quit moving, or I’ll have to come get you.”

  “I got three hydraulshocks and I know the terrain,” Stafford snarled. “Be my guest.”

  A rock three feet in diameter crashed into the tank turret, just missing Juhavee. He vanished down the hatch.

  “Life’s fragile, I’ve found,” Stafford said. “Even for us.”

  Raimey could hear Stafford continue to move. Then the wind shifted and carried the sound of three soft thuds up the river. It saved John’s life.

  “Juhavee, go!”

  Juhavee was smart enough not to ask. He gunned the M1 Abrams and accelerated down the road.

  Raimey sprinted up the pile of loose rubble toward the only location that he knew was safe: Stafford. The gritty old soldier had called in coordinates. At the crest of the hill, the trio of artillery rounds detonated where Raimey and Juhavee had just been standing, moments before. The concussive blast took John and the three-story pile and tossed them together like leaves.

  John landed fifty feet away. Hundred-pound chunks of stone slammed down around him. His body groaned from heat stress, and he shook his head to get back his wits. Stafford would be on him any second. Raimey saw double as the other giant ran at him, coming in for the kill. Raimey got on all fours like a lineman and lunged at Stafford.

  BA-BAM! Stafford’s hydraulshock skipped off Raimey’s back. In the same instant, Raimey grabbed the Major’s legs. The energy of the hydraulshock spun them like a top, and they split apart.

  Raimey didn’t hear the next round of artillery, but suddenly he was in Hell. His battle chassis shuddered from the instant arrival of oven-bake, hurricane winds. He held his breath and dug himself into the rubble, trying to gain any cover he could to block the rain of shells that blasted all around him.

  Stafford had fallen into a clearing not far away, and the barrage was raining down on him as well. He searched the sky, confused and betrayed. The world was rippling flame. Raimey pulled a slab of cement over himself, and Stafford looked directly at him.

  “I didn’t call—” he began, and then his armor was mangled and he was coated in blue fire. The direct artillery strike blinded John, and he closed his eyes and waited for the chaos to end.

  In the starburst of his singed retinas, his wife appeared and extended her hand to him. Even as the world was blasted around him, with her he was just a man. His muscular black arms reached out to her and they both strained to touch. But she was just out of his grasp.

  “It isn’t time,” she said. He cried for her to stay, but her solemn visage disappeared back into the white. Alone we come in, and alone we leave. The earth shook around him, and the heat cooked him, and the inferno winds pinned him, and John wondered when his time would come.

  Chapter 7

  Cynthia wasn’t good company. Mosley stewed around the interior of the large house, checking in on her occasionally like a nurse monitoring a mental patient. She was always in the same chair, looking out the window. Only a couple of times did he hear her get up, the old wood floor creaking under her footsteps like a piano out of tune.

  His attempts at conversation were met with clipped responses. Not rude, but uninterested. After the third attempt, he quit trying.

  The house was dark and cold. Mosley fell asleep on a couch in the living room, and when he woke up, it was pitch black. His mouth tasted of sleep and he smacked it open and closed to get the saliva going. He checked his phone. It was half past midnight. Sabot had been gone for four hours.

  He got up and went to the sunroom near the kitchen. Cynthia was in her same spot.

  What’s wrong with her? he wondered. She turned slightly when he walked in.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  “I’m good. Thanks,” she replied.

  “Are you okay?”

  She gave him a polite smile. “I’m fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  He exhaled in sympathy. “I don’t get it, but I get it. All the stuff you’re going through, I mean.”

  He paused.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “What’s it like being so smart?”

  She regarded him for a moment.

  “Sit down.”

  Mosley sat in the chair next to her, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “College?”

  “Online, but I didn’t finish. I serve—”

  “Ah, yes. I remember. Sabot loves you.”

  “I was stupid back then.” He shook his head. He’d served three months for theft.

  “You were nineteen.” Her eyes glowed a bit, amused. “Trust me, when you’re thirty you’ll look back and say ‘Man, I was dumb when I was twenty-one,’ and when you’re forty, you’ll say the same about thirty.”

  Cynthia pulled out a pack of joints and fired one up. Her ADD had already been staggering because of her genius, and now, combined with her near-constant immersion online with the MIMEs, being restricted to a single line of thinking felt as alien to her as wings on a pig. The weed dulled the empty roar. She dragged deeply, holding the smoke. She offered it to Mosley.

  Mosley thought about how serious Sabot had looked before he’d ridden off on the motorcycle. “I shouldn’t.”

  “There’s nothing to do now but wait,” Cynthia replied. “I won’t tell.”

  Mosley hesitated, but if the most powerful person in the world wasn’t worried, why should he be? He took a hit and passed it back.

  “That’s . . . really good,” he stammered.

  She took another pull. “One of the perks of being a trillionaire. You get the good stuff.”

  “Yeah,” he coughed, still recovering. The world fuzzed around him comfortably. He looked at Cynthia; he’d never noticed that she was pretty. She was small in the chair.

  “I get asked that question a lot,” Cynthia said. “Or I used to. I usually give a canned answer. Do you want the truth?”

  “Sure.”

  She lea
ned in as if she were sharing a secret. He couldn’t help but do the same.

  “It’s a ruse,” she said.

  “What?” Mosley didn’t understand.

  “My intelligence. That I’m the smartest person in the world. All of it.”

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  She smiled and sat back. “By what standard? My own? Yes, in the industry I invented, I have a legacy that could give me that title. But like most things, it’s an oversimplification. It’s a myth that people want to believe.”

  Mosley stared blankly at her. “Then why does everyone say it?”

  “So they can accept their lot in life. My intelligence is spoken about all the time, but never my sacrifice. We worked hundred-hour weeks for years when we were developing the Mindlink. And that was just to see if it worked. We hallucinated from lack of sleep. A few of us—and these are old friends—even lost a bit of their sanity.”

  “But people don’t want to hear about that. Because if they hear how hard it was and how much effort it took, well, then they’d have to look at themselves and honestly assess how much work they’ve done to achieve their goals. People are fine with failure, as long as they aren’t accountable. As long as a perceived outside force annuls the opportunity. It’s better to toss the word ‘genius’ out like horseshoes, so they can look in the mirror and say they just didn’t have the right stuff.”

  “But . . . you are a genius,” Mosley said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I mean no disrespect, but isn’t that like Sabot saying, ‘Anyone can flip a car if they put their mind to it’?”

  Cynthia laughed.

  “Maybe. But I still believe most people want a way out. We’re not equals, none of us are. That’s as much a fantasy as the Tooth Fairy. If you look at the wealthy and powerful, intelligence is across the board. Some of them are fat, some of them are thin, some are handsome, and some are dogs. And if you check their backgrounds, they’re as varied as snowflakes. But they all have one thing in common.

  “People believe the idea is what’s important. It isn’t. An idea is immaterial; useless on its own. Everyone has ideas: they’re the foundation of thought. A dozen people—hell, a million people—may have the same innovative concept and still nothing may come of it. It’s the execution of the idea that matters. Every time. Intelligence helps, but most people are intelligent enough. The discipline to execute an idea and see it through is what separates the haves from the have-nots.”

  She lit another joint and passed it to Mosley. They puffed for a moment. Cynthia exhaled donuts. “Put enough people around you on pedestals, and you’ve built a prison,” she concluded.

  A memory made her giggle. Mosley smiled: for the first time, he could see the light that drew Sabot in. “What?” he asked.

  She rubbed her nose. “It’s stupid. I had a friend in college—Josh. God, I wonder where he is . . . he was so funny. I go on my long rant, and he could have said the same thing in two words. He used to say, ‘Everybody shits.’”

  “Everybody shits,” Mosley repeated. They both giggled. “That’s good.”

  “He was funny. It’s true, though. Everyone does.”

  “Not you,” Mosley joked.

  “I was talking about everyone else.” They looked at each other for a moment, then let loose again. Tears ran down their cheeks.

  “This is great weed,” Mosley said, turning the joint in his hand.

  “Stick with me, kid.” Cynthia got up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To bed. I need some sleep. You’re a good kid, Mosley. You’ll be fine. Don’t let anyone tell you what you have to be. Everyone’s scared, especially the ones that don’t show it.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. Very. But I knew this day would come, even if I’m still shocked that it has. What did I say?”

  “It’s not the idea; it’s the execution of the idea that matters.”

  She smiled and gave him a quick hug. “That’s right.” Then she disappeared into the shadows.

  “And everybody shits,” she called from the dark. He could hear her laughing as she walked up the old stairs.

  Mosley went outside to smoke a cigarette. The lake-reflected moon rippled and squirmed over the waves. But the night was calm, cold, pleasant. He walked down the steps to the edge of the dock, and on a whim, he took his shoes off, sat down, and put his feet in the water. He was still high. He’d smoked skank weed that barely worked, and he’d smoked weed that was a catapult, smashing his senses. But Cynthia’s stash made him feel calm, appreciative of his surroundings. He felt now. His eyes caught little things around him: a beetle climbing a dock post, bubbles in the water (what would be down there? crawfish?), subtleties to life that were often overlooked.

  He thought of his mom. He’d been raised with love, but poorly. Angela, his mother and Sabot’s sister, had done the best she could with the tools she’d been given. She was stubborn, like her brother, and even when Sabot rose to prominence as Cynthia’s bodyguard and had means, she’d refused his offers of help for years, letting her pride rob her son of opportunities. It wasn’t until Mosley went to jail that she finally acquiesced.

  That night when Sabot had first visited him—the night that eventually led to Mosley getting the job at MindCorp—Mosley was only a week out of jail and already getting back into trouble. He was out celebrating his freedom with his friends from the neighborhood. It was three in the morning and the last post-post-post party had dried up. They were amped and drunk.

  “I got a place we could go,” his friend Dougie said after taking a drag off a joint. It was winter and the smoke made his mouth look like a muffler. They were outside an old apartment building, pleading with the women and calling the other guys in their posse pussies for heading home. Two of the others, James and Terence, stuck around though, and after they’d roached the joint, they tucked in their jackets and followed Dougie to the L train.

  Apart from the north side, the perimeters of the city were all government-subsidized housing or ghettos. This train took them south of the city, the furthest Mosley had ever been. The stop they got out on was tagged with ancient, peeling gang signs, and unlike the lake, the quiet of that area felt dangerous, like an animal about to pounce. Dougie led them on a half-mile trek around buildings that made Mosley’s mom’s apartment look like the Ritz.

  As they approached, Mosley could hear the party. A five-story building stood alone, surrounded by empty lots with scraggly grass, torn temporary fencing decades old, and antique garbage. Its top two floors were burnt out. It had no roof. A half dozen people partied on open fifth floor like it was a patio. Their movements were jerky, their voices shrill, their bodies all angles. Junkies. Their laughter stopped as the four boys approached.

  “Is this safe?” Mosley asked. His buzz was wearing off.

  “Yeah. Watch your step,” Dougie said as he led them through the open doorframe. Mosley and the others stepped over broken bottles and looked at each other with uncertainty. Inside, men and women were huddled against the few walls that still stood, arms out, asleep or getting high.

  “DOUG-EEE!” a deep voice called from the dark. Dougie’s face lit up and he walked toward a couch tucked in the back shadows, where a pair of old high tops looked like the dark was wearing them. A man a few years older than them got up and bro-hugged Dougie.

  “Who your boys?” he asked.

  “James, Terrence, and that’s Mosley,” Dougie said. “Guys, this is my brother, Genesis.”

  “Like the Bible?” Mosley asked.

  Genesis took a big swig from a bottle.

  “One an’ the same.”

  They passed bottles of booze and smoked a bowl. Others straggled in, all hunched, itchy, wary. Mosley walked around a bit, but saw no one worth talking to. White and black, the druggies were ashen, as if they had been clotted with baby powder. They were focused on their spoons and needles. A few cackled like mad crows.

  He was heading back to the
group when he heard “Where’s Mosley?” It was the voice of a man confident that he would see tomorrow.

  “Who wants to know?” That was Dougie.

  Mosley wandered back toward his friends. A massive man stood over the couch, flickering in and out from a nearby fire. Mosley recognized the silhouette. “Uncle Jeremiah?”

  “This big motherfucker’s your uncle?” Genesis asked. The others were quiet.

  “You’re coming with me,” Sabot said.

  “Unc—” Mosley started.

  “Now.” Sabot turned to the others. “Any of you guys need a ride?”

  “A car?” one of them asked.

  “Yes.” And then to Mosley: “You high?”

  “Nah.”

  Sabot grabbed him by the chin and looked him in the eyes.

  “Are you high?” he asked again. Mosley tried to squirm. Sabot’s grip didn’t hurt, but it was like a vise. He spoke through pinched lips.

  “Nah, just drunk.” Sabot released his grip. Three junkies walked over.

  “Is there a problem?” a thin one asked while wiping his nose with his bare forearm. Another held a bottle by its neck.

  Sabot glared at the man and traced his eyes to the other two. They slunk away.

  “Get in the car.” Sabot turned to Dougie’s brother. “I don’t know you. Are you from the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, man. Name’s Genesis.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “You shouldn’t be doing this shit.” Sabot looked around the room, disgusted.

  “I’m a grown man.”

  A sickly woman in a dirty tank top skittered by. Scabs were visible on her lips. Sabot’s eyes followed her. “Yeah, grown.”

  He turned back to Genesis. “I don’t blame you—they came here on their own. But now you’re culpable. Do you know what that means?”

  “At fault?”

  Sabot nodded. “Mosley isn’t allowed in places like this. Say it out loud.”

  “Man, they came here, I ha—”

  “Say it out loud.”

  Genesis was quiet for a moment. He was embarrassed. The other people in the room were looking at him, but he knew who Sabot was.

  “Mosley isn’t allowed in places like this,” Genesis said quietly.