The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  “Cynthia, give me the goddamn codes.”

  She sat quietly.

  Evan, exasperated: “They’d go to a different supermarket.”

  “Exactly. First they’d bark and yell at the management of their store—if anything, we are creatures of habit and afraid of change—and then, like you said, they’d go to another supermarket. And if that supermarket ran out of food, now that they were breaking habit, they’d go to the next. And when all the supermarkets and convenience stores were out of food—let’s say four days because people would start stocking up—then they’d take from each other. They have families to feed, they have children! The smart ones would form allegiances and become gangs. They’d hoard. There isn’t enough food to go around, so they’d kill. And finally, they would riot and conquer. How long do you think that would take? I say three weeks.”

  Another sip of tea.

  “And who would they blame? At no time would they go to the bread maker, or the orange grower, or the cannery. Maybe to hoard, but not to blame. They wouldn’t hang the grocer. They wouldn’t attack trucking or rail. No. They wouldn’t do any of that. They’d blame the government. ‘The government should have known this would happen,’ they’d say. ‘The government should have protected us.’ ‘The government should have brought us supplies.’ ‘They’re eating.’”

  “Point?”

  “It’s good to be king, until it’s not. Then thwip”—Cynthia cut across her neck with her finger—“off with your head!” She paused to sip her tea. “So. How long do you think the government will last without my supply? The people won’t blame me. They’ll blame you. They won’t want my head. They’ll want yours. You’re going to lose, Evan. Badly. Nothing is less civil than a society without their wants.”

  “That’s a fascinating modern-day parable,” Evan replied. “Are you going to turn on the network?”

  “No.”

  The Mindlink was torn off Cynthia’s head by a Tank Minor. Now she was back in her real office, seated at her real desk. And in front of her stood Chao, not Evan.

  But Evan’s voice came from the giant. “Since we’re telling parables, I got one too. When I was a kid, I worked in sales. Computers, of course. My boss was actually pretty cool. His name was Roland, which always reminded me of The Gunslinger. Anyway, he taught me a few sales principles. One was ‘Get to the no.’ People will talk your ear off, but not everyone will buy. Get to the no so you can get to the yeses.

  “He was right. It was amazing to me how many people just wanted to talk. If a court reporter transcribed what they had said, it would be nothing, no highlight, nothing worth repeating. Just noise pollution.

  “But old Roland, the last circuit-slinger, also said you have to compel them. I love the word ‘compel.’ It’s one of my favorite words. It implies force, but also finesse and understanding. It’s a beautiful word, ‘compel.’ I don’t know if it’s French, but it sounds French.”

  A Minor walked in with a dozen employees. They were lined up in front of Chao, just feet from Cynthia. They whimpered, trying to not look back at the goliath behind them. A few had been beaten.

  Evan continued. “If you don’t put the North American nodes back online, Chao is going to rip these men and women apart very slowly. We have plenty of coagulate—they won’t bleed out. We have a defibrillator—their heart will not arrest. And if, at the end, you still remain quiet, I assure you, I promise you—the biggest promise in my life—that we will bring in more. You’ll sit in that seat as we pile the bodies high. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll find the founders, and then your friends, and maybe Sabot. And you will see the same thing done to them that you’ll see done to these. I am compelling you to make a decision, Cynthia. You’re the decision-maker—I got the right person—but is what I’m selling what you’re looking for?”

  Chao put his forefinger and thumb over a man in his sixties and pinched his head to mash.

  = = =

  Sabot saw the massive Chicago skyline twenty minutes into his bike ride. The city had quadrupled in size after the Great Migration, enveloping the suburbs around it and turning quaint, quiet towns into skyscraper ghettos. Subway rails wrapped around the buildings, right and left, above and below, the only true means of transportation. Even from afar, with the constantly moving trains, the city looked like some kind of gonzo amusement park ride.

  It took him another two hours to enter the fringe of the city. Shacks, storefronts, and shopping malls were converted into cheap apartments. Trash littered the streets. Rusted shopping carts—just formed flakes of metal now—communed with one another in the empty parking lots.

  A group of teenagers chased Sabot like dogs, throwing bottles and rocks, bored and without a thing to do. Boredom bred bad.

  Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, Sabot thought. Any other day he would have gotten off the bike and spoken to them, but now wasn’t the time. They were a warning to Sabot, a sign of the decay that had suddenly taken hold of civilization, like cheese that was fine one day, then surrendered to mold the next. He pedaled faster.

  He had never seen so many people on the streets. They all wore saggy shirts and pants, pajamas. Their hair was disheveled; their skin pale and blemished. They shuffled around and talked quietly to one another. He weaved through the slumber party parade, a giant on a bike.

  He realized that all these people were out because the Mindlink servers had been rerouted and reduced in functionality. They rolled their eyes toward him, but they were neither angry nor emotional—just confused—as if they had fallen asleep to one reality and woken up to another. In a way they had.

  They had awoken to war.

  The batteries in Minors and Majors were incredibly efficient. The electrostatic tissue that Minors used as muscle relied more on tensile strength than power for movement. The lack of a charge caused the oily, off-white fibrous tissue to contract; the electric current was used only to expand and lengthen. But Sabot had pushed his body for hours, and he was down to seven percent reserve power. He had to charge.

  One of the ways the U.S. military controlled its bionic units was with the charging interface. It was an odd-shaped, proprietary four-pin adapter the size of a fist. It was also intelligent, and the updated code sequence needed for it to work was synced to each bionic weekly. Without the proper encryption codes, it was a brick.

  But the first-generation Tank Majors and Minors lacked this technology, and that meant that Sabot was designed without these shackles. His size allowed him to have three methods to restore his batteries: the military four-pin, a standard one-hundred-ten-volt electrical that could be used overseas with an adapter, and finally, wrist leads. The wrist leads were only present on the old Tank Majors, with their massive metal hands: a plus and minus mounted to the insides of their arms. They had been deemed necessary for foreign and hostile lands where a traditional power source wasn’t guaranteed. Huge electrical resistors built in-line with the exposed leads allowed them to pull juice from almost any energy source . . .

  = = =

  Nikko’s curiosity overruled his brother’s order to stay inside. Their apartment was just down from an L stop, and he sat on the stoop and watched the neighbors as they milled about, clueless on how to proceed. Grandma stayed up top. It was hard for her to walk. Like Nikko, she was overweight, and she had bad knees.

  An adult next door, who looked like he hadn’t shaved in years, came up at one point and asked Nikko: “Thing’s will be okay, right?” As if a fourteen-year old who lived just east of the ghetto was privy to that answer. Nikko said he didn’t know, and the man walked on, asking others.

  The crowd thinned as the night progressed, and by a little after midnight it was just him. There was nothing to do, so he watched the trains run by. He was sitting quietly, waiting for the next train to go past, when a squeaking sound arose from behind him, then grew rapidly louder. Nikko turned just as the biggest man he had ever seen pedaled past on a bicycle. When he reached the tracks, the man dropped the bike and sh
ucked off a large duffel bag, then waited for the next train. The train came and went, and the man stepped onto the tracks.

  Suicide, Nikko thought. Morbid curiosity glued him in place, and what he saw next made his jaw drop. The man leaned down, cupped a train track, and grabbed the third rail. A huge orange spark snapped across the man’s body as seven hundred and fifty volts chose the path of least resistance. The man vibrated with the current, but he didn’t fall down, and he didn’t die. His jacket caught on fire. The smell of ozone filled the air, and the street was cast in whirling shadows.

  = = =

  His charge at one hundred percent, Sabot stood up and shook off the heat. He sensed someone watching, and he turned to find a heavyset boy in filthy, food-encrusted pajamas gawking at him from twenty feet away.

  “Are you okay?” the boy asked.

  Sabot ripped off his smoldering jacket. “I’m good, kid.”

  “Are you a superhero?”

  Sabot smiled. “I wish. I’m a soldier.”

  “A bionic?” Instant awe. Nikko had seen videos about them. You could even play as one in one of the simulators, but he had never seen one in person.

  “Exactly.” Sabot gestured to the bike. “Do you want it? The tires are good.”

  “Are you serious?” Nikko had never ridden a bike. This one was neon green. It was too big, but maybe he could get his legs over it.

  “Completely. It’s yours. Tell your parents Sabot from MindCorp gave it to you. They’ll know who I am.”

  Nikko waddled over to the bike and dragged it away in case Sabot changed his mind. The tracks rattled as another train approached.

  “I have to take this,” Sabot said. The boy gave a cursory nod. He seemed entranced by the bike, spinning the pedals and touching the tacky chain. Sabot realized the boy had never seen one before. A pang of regret filled him that he and Cynthia didn’t have children. Somehow, they’d forgotten.

  It would have been good, Sabot thought. Children were so present. So eager for joy. So quick to forge ahead. Minutes ago, this boy had witnessed a bionic riding the lightning, and already, that was a distant glimmer in his rearview mirror. The next adventure had already begun.

  The train stopped.

  “Kid.” The boy looked up. “Tell everyone you know to stay this way. No matter what happens in the next few weeks, don’t go deeper into the city. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s important.”

  “I’ll tell them, sir.”

  “Good.” Sabot got on the train. As the doors closed, the boy waved and jumped up and down, excited with his new toy. Sabot held up a hand as the train began to pull away, and despite all the shit about to take place, he felt happy to have made the kid’s day. Before the train took him out of sight, Sabot saw the boy climb onto the bike—using the steps of a stoop to get up there—pedal six feet, and eat it into the curb.

  Sorry, kid. Life is pain.

  As the train went from stop to stop, the elevated tracks were an excellent vantage point to gauge the state of the city. The streets were filled with people. Before, they had been like patients coming off their meds, but now they looked organized, even fervent. He could feel their energy, and like most crowds, hostility lay beneath their feet. Sabot was amazed how many people were in the city. The Mindlink had made them shut-ins, and now, without it, they were pouring out of the buildings like ants.

  On the outskirts of the city the train had been empty, but more and more people piled in with every stop. The crowd was raucous and young.

  “This is fuckin’ bullshit is what it is,” one young buck lamented. “I’m pretty sure my checks are clearin’.”

  Others echoed their assent.

  The crowd steered clear of Sabot. He looked like he came out of a comic book: the massive black man with long, curly hair, the large duffel bag that was too squared off to be holding clothes. Wary glances were cast his way, but if he was recognized, no one drummed up the nuts to make a citizen’s arrest.

  Five miles from MindCorp he got off. He didn’t want to get too close. If Evan had seized MindCorp headquarters, then Minors would be watching the subways and a perimeter would be set. It was standard protocol.

  Sabot kept to the shadows, weaving through the alleys. Ahead, he saw MindCorp’s towering one-hundred-and-fifty-story spire. He heard an electric whine, and pressed up against the alley wall. Fifty yards down, a Tank Major clomped by on patrol. It went off in a different direction.

  If they had this much security, then Cynthia was there. It made sense: they would try and force her to open up the network. Right now, most of the fiber across the country was dark. The world economy, and billions of lives, were on hold.

  There were many ways into MindCorp headquarters, and most of them weren’t doors. Beneath the ground, spreading out into the city from the Colossal Core like veins, were conduits of fiber. They got finer as they went farther out, but near the headquarters, they were tunnels big enough to fit a man.

  Sabot didn’t remember where most of them were, but there was one northeast that he had visited a year before, after a terrorist attack. He remembered the intersection. He squinted up into the dark and, as expected, he saw the dark blot of hover-rovers as they eclipsed faraway stars. There was no other way. Stay up here, and he would die.

  A mile later he popped open a manhole cover and dropped down, careful to replace the lid. The original fiber runs were in-line with the major sewage pipes. At the beginning, it had been the easiest way to implement the fiber swaps. If mapped out, many of the original data nodes would seem oddly placed, as if someone had thrown thirty darts at a map, blindfolded, then said “fuck it” when they pulled the cloth from their eyes. But if the node locations were overlaid with the sewers, the logic was clear.

  This section of sewer was old. The walls were green and it smelled of moss. A small creek dribbled down the middle, and Sabot heard the echo of dripping water and rats. He flipped on a small flashlight and shot it front and back. Satisfied that it was just him, the rats, and tons of shit and piss, he begin his walk toward MindCorp.

  He was lucky—it was an old system. When MindCorp headquarters was built, it occupied so much space underground that the sewers had been rerouted around it like a super collider. When he hit the new sewer, he would be very close to the giant fiber trunks that anchored into the Colossal Node. Then it was just a matter of hearing the chatter of the fiber line extenders.

  He jogged. His feet drowned out the squeaks and drips. The sound of his breath was nonexistent—he had the biomass of a cat. He felt the vibrations of the patrolling Tank Majors as he passed under foot.

  After about five minutes, he entered the new sewer line. He stopped jogging, flicked off his flashlight, and stood quietly, listening for anything out of the ordinary. These pipes would be on the blueprint, and could be under surveillance. He heard nothing, just dripping water. The air had grown warm and muggy.

  He went right and slid along the interior of the tube, listening for the muted clack-clack of the extenders. He felt a vibration in the wall, and soon, he heard their clatter. There was a metal door that read “Property of MindCorp.” Padlocked across it were heavy iron beams. With a grunt, Sabot tore both beams off the wall. The damn door was locked, too. He crushed the handle in his hand and slammed it with his palm out to the other side. He put two fingers into the hole and yanked the door open.

  The honeycombed catwalk wasn't designed for someone of Sabot’s size. He hunched down and turned his shoulders as he made his way toward MindCorp. Beneath him were huge trunks of fiber. Normally they would all be firing, creating a blinding array of light, but now only a few flickered blue. Their weak, strobing light ushered Sabot home.

  = = =

  For Chao, the first kill was to make a point, but after that he worked slow, each breaking bone a sickening thunderclap. But Cynthia didn’t flinch, nor did she turn away. She wouldn’t give Evan that privilege, in case he was watching through the giant’s eyes. Four men and wom
en now shook on the ground, broken but alive. Chao moved on to a young girl.

  “What’s your name?” Chao asked.

  “Te-Ter-Tera Sparks.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Thr-three months.”

  Chao delicately placed her hand in his. The woman closed her eyes and cried.

  “You can’t do this,” Cynthia finally said.

  “Yes I CAN,” Evan said through Chao. “This isn’t some jockeying, political bullshit, Cynthia. It’s only going to get worse. Put everything back online.”

  “Please!” Tera pleaded. Those standing echoed the sentiment. Those on the ground pleaded as well, but with their eyes. They were in too much pain to speak.

  “I need to access the Data Core,” Cynthia said quietly.

  Chao opened his hand, and Tera pulled it to safety.

  “Of course,” Evan said.

  No one moved.

  “That means we have to go down to it,” Cynthia said. “They’ll be taken to the hospital immediately?”

  “Yes,” Evan said. “Chao?”

  Chao pointed to two Tank Minors, and they led the employees out. The four wounded had to be carried. The dead man lay behind in a puddle of jelly.

  Cynthia looked at the man as she was led past. She hadn’t known him. “I’m so sorry,” she said. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  Chao held the door, and from him, Evan spoke: “Lets get ’er done.”

  = = =

  Chao was too large to fit in the elevator with Cynthia. His job was done, anyway. Kove was out with a team searching for Vanessa and Glass, and Chao was now in charge of the growing team of bionics that were outside MindCorp, keeping the confused masses back. It had become a zoo. Over a million people crowded the perimeter of the campus. The bionics held the perimeter, and softy soldiers brought in water and supplies to appease the horde.