The bottom-right pane of glass was missing. In its place was a piece of metal, a section of an old coffee can. You could see that the can had once—long, long ago—been red with white print, the old-timey kind, stomped flat and cut to fit.
The window itself looked ancient, as it always had, but now the piece of metal coffee can looked ancient, too—maybe over a hundred years old. Jed stared at the old window and touched the replacement pane with his hand.
He could almost feel the years pulse through the cool of the metal as the coffee can stared at him, penetrating him with an ageless accusation.
KNOT 2:
Non-electric Boogaloo
(8
MERRILL’S ANTIQUE SHOPPE
Lantern light flickered throughout Merrill’s Antique Shoppe. The yellow-gold radiance pierced the shadows and made them dance against the collections of old furniture, twisted wrought iron, tin signs, and mannequins posed like fashion models arrayed in ancient dresses. The waltz of light and darkness reminded Jedediah Troyer of dark winter nights sitting around the wood burner in the front room of the farmhouse, when the firelight would shine through the glass window of the stove and his father would tell the family stories of persecution, of Jakob Ammann, of the lives of the martyrs.
In this Pennsylvania, those stories were ancient history, mythology, anecdotes of another world altogether. In this Pennsylvania, a war raged just outside the front door of the Antique Shoppe—a war with lasers and flying ships and assassin drones floating in deathly silence, searching for rebels in the night.
Now and then frightening explosions sounded in the distance, and the buzzing zip of phosphorescent projectiles or the crackling beams of laser light would slice through the air over the antique shop, highlighting both the irony and the relentlessness of time as the group of rebels plotted amidst the relics of an era long past.
The City was under attack. Jed wasn’t even sure what that meant or who might be fighting whom, but the fact that he was trapped in some acrimonious struggle between alien factions was clear to him. Englischers—and most other humans—were already aliens to him, so he had no trouble seeing the conflict as a foreign engagement, a war in which he had no interest.
Pook Rayburn had just finished forging the last of the transport papers he hoped would get Jed, Dawn, and Jerry Rios into the Amish Zone when they heard something heavy crash against the front door of the shop.
Jed snapped back to the present as the frightening and desperate alert coming from the front of the shop pried his eyes and thoughts from the window with the coffee-can replacement pane—a relic from another time and place. His time and place.
What in the world?
Before anyone could even ask what caused the noise, Pook was up and running towards the door. He drew an antique twelve-gauge shotgun from an old umbrella stand as he passed it, and pumped a shell into the receiver before cautiously unlocking the door with his left hand and pulling it open.
Slumped against the doorframe was a man in a dark, military-style trench coat, and when the door opened the man fell into the entryway. His black features were barely licked by the light of the kerosene lamps, but even from Jed’s location fifteen feet away he could see that the man on the floor was Donavan, and that he was still alive.
Jerry Rios—a large man, but athletic and quick—was moving now, and so was Dawn. Together with Pook they dragged Donavan into the shop, Dawn unconsciously trying to avoid stepping in the blood that trailed onto the hardwood floor as they struggled to move the injured man. Once they’d cleared the doorway, Pook stuck his head outside and looked around, checking that Donavan had not been followed. Satisfied that there was no immediate threat, he closed the door.
Jed didn’t know how to react and, peering over Jerry’s shoulder, he could see that Donavan’s eyes were open and blood was seeping out of the corner of his mouth. When the wounded man saw Dawn and Jed, he smiled and shook his head, before coughing out some of the blood that was beginning to build up in his throat, blocking his airway.
Dawn was searching Donavan to try to ascertain his injuries, probing with her hands, and Jerry was propping up the injured man’s head when Pook returned from locking the door.
“What happened, Donavan?” Pook asked.
“They got me,” Donavan said, and laughed again. “Isn’t that what they say in the old movies?”
“This isn’t a movie, Donavan! Who got you? What happened?” Dawn asked.
“Transport.”
“But you work for Transport!”
“I think I’ve been fired,” Donavan replied wryly. “We mutually agreed that I had no future with the company.”
“Are you going to tell us what happened?” Pook asked.
Donavan’s head lolled to one side. “They showed up just as I was leaving the ship with the coin. They didn’t have to say anything.” He gasped and inhaled deeply before continuing. “I could tell by the way they were walking towards me with their hands reaching towards their guns that I was busted, so I ran.”
Another laugh brought on a fit of coughing and more blood came up before Donavan spoke again. This time no one peppered him with questions. Their silence implored him to continue.
“I got out of the building, and I was almost back to the van when one of them got me. It was a good shot, man, I’m telling you. I was almost behind the van and one of them hit me in the lower back. Kidney shot. Game over.”
Dawn gasped, and Jerry carefully rolled Donavan onto his side. Blackish blood was seeping from a hole in the trench coat and soaking into the ancient hardwood floor. Jerry gently eased Donavan onto his back again.
Donavan laughed again. “Sorry about your floor, Pook.”
“Shut up, man. This is a serious wound. We can’t get you to a doctor, and you know that.”
“I know. I know it. I’m done. I’m just glad I made it back here.” As he said this, his hand opened and in his bloody palm was Jed’s gold coin.
“We can give you the unis we owe you, Donavan,” Dawn said with obvious sadness in her voice, “but you’ll never spend them.”
“I know. You guys can keep them. They’re almost worthless anyway.” More coughing and wheezing as Donavan struggled to hang on to the thread of thought that was still pulling him onward. “I just waited too long to get out. I was planning to get my own BICE removed next week, but it’s too late now.”
“Ah, man,” Pook exhaled and then looked around, “I didn’t think about that.” He slapped his hand against the door in anger. “Your BICE. They can track you here.”
“No, they can’t,” Donavan said with a grunt. He brought his left hand up to the back of his head, and when he pulled his hand back it was covered in blood.
“I didn’t even look at his head after he said he was shot in the back,” Jerry said. He rolled Donavan’s head to the side, and they could all see that Donavan’s short, curly hair was matted with blackened blood.
“You cut it out yourself, you crazy fool?” Pook asked.
“Yeah. I ditched the van not far from the station and then I crawled down an alley. I cut the BICE out with a piece of sharp aluminum I found behind a recycling unit. You’d be surprised at what you’re capable of doing when you still think you might survive.” Donavan laughed again, which set him off on another coughing spell. He gagged a little on his own blood.
“Can’t they track his TRID?” Jed asked. He had only the faintest idea what ‘tracking’ really was or how anyone could do it, but it seemed to him that if they could track a BICE they could track a TRID.