“No,” Dawn said. “Most of the people, like me, who had the newest BICE units didn’t require a Transport ID chip. They’re all-in-one now. The Transport ID is in the BICE unit.” She showed Jed the back of her hand and he could see an old, healed scar, barely visible in the dancing light from the lanterns. “I had my TRID removed when I got the new BICE unit a couple of years ago.”
“Listen,” Donavan sputtered. He was fading fast, and Jed could see that the man’s life was coming to an end. “I don’t have much time, so listen up.” His voice was a low wheeze, and his eyes fluttered as he struggled to push out words. He coughed again, but this time it was weaker and he choked a little on the blood as he tried to raise his voice. “There are Transport units everywhere. They know there are TRACE resistance groups active in the City, so they’re looking. They’ll come here, and probably soon.”
“Did you see them?” Dawn asked.
“They are… they… are… everywhere.” Donavan breathed deeply, trying to access some last store of energy so that he could finish what he had to say. He blinked several times, and Jed could see the life draining from the man’s eyes.
“They have Transport drones… TRACERs out there too. Flying silent. Watch. Pook? Pook?”
“I’m right here, Donavan.”
“Pook, if you don’t have guns, you need to make some right now. I don’t think you’ll make it past the walls and to the AZ… Pook?”
“Here, Donavan.”
“You’ll have to fight your way out, most likely.”
“I’ll get us out, Donavan. Thanks to you. We’ll make it, man.”
“Make it,” Donavan sighed.
“We’ll make it!”
“Make… it.”
“Thank you, Donavan,” Dawn whispered. She was crying now, and Jed felt like he was going to cry too. He didn’t even know Donavan, but he was moved by the man’s sacrifice.
There was a final gasp, and then almost a “whoosh” sound as the last of the air escaped the dying man’s lungs. As he died, his hand opened, and the gold coin rolled onto the wood floor, circling in a lazy arc before bouncing off of Jed’s shoe and coming to a stop.
Pook looked down at the coin and said, “Heads,” in almost a whisper. He looked at Jed and nodded his head slowly. “Pick it up, man. He died to get it to you.”
Working together with Jerry and Dawn, Pook wrapped Donavan’s body in a tarp and secured it with several sections of hemp rope, tying it up tightly like a package.
Pook looked down on their work and shook his head. “We’ll have to stow him in the back for now. I’ll get some of my men to come and get the body and try to give him a proper burial.”
Jerry bent down and lifted Donavan’s body by the feet, and Pook grabbed the corpse by the shoulders. Together they shuffle-carried the dead man toward the rear of the store and into a darkened office near the back door.
As they hefted Donavan onto a dusty desk, a deep rumble shook the building, followed by a thunderous roar that caused Jed and Dawn to look at one another with unvoiced concern. A tear rolled unchecked down Dawn’s face.
The rumble gradually died away into the distance, and Dawn looked upward, blinking through the moisture in her eyes, as if to check to see if the roof was going to cave in on them. When it didn’t, she looked back at Jed.
Jed and Dawn stared deeply into one another’s eyes, and for the first time he saw that she was not entirely the cool and dispassionate professional that she’d appeared to have been the entire time he’d known her. She wiped away the wetness from her cheek as she studied Jed’s face for answers.
He had none.
Murder. Violence. War. These were things that were usually outside of his world, separate from his realm of experience. Death in the Amish world was structured, ordered, systematic. Even when an unexpected accident took the lives of the young—maybe a buggy overturned, or a boy fell under a plow—there was a system to things. Everyone was on the same side, and all played their parts. Death was considered a stage of life, and it was integrated into the system in a way that left no room for confusion or doubt.
But this—people being gunned down in the streets—was a foreign concept to Jed. Implements of war loosed in the streets of cities, mindless tools of despotic governments seeking flesh to destroy. And for what? How could a young man like Jed understand the devilish and covetous motivations that could bring about such a way of living?
It didn’t seem to Jed that Donavan had been a bad man. Donavan was just a Transport official who wanted out. Jed had to wonder… isn’t out a primal desire? Isn’t out a destination found in the heart of every man and woman?
When Pook and Jerry returned from stowing the body, the four of them stood wordlessly for a while, as if the moment transcended words and demanded silent recognition of the Transport man’s sacrifice. As they stood in gauzy silence, Jed could hear a breeze bend its way around the building, on its journey from somewhere to eternity. The building creaked and whispered its age, and Jed identified the very faint pop, pop, pop of the lanterns sucking oxygen through their flames.
After an appropriately solemn period of respectful silence, Jerry turned to Pook and tapped him lightly on the arm.
“So what’s this about making guns?” he asked.
“We’ll have to go down to the basement.”
“Lead the way.”
Dawn and Jed stayed behind for a moment longer, and when the others were gone, Dawn’s hand came up to her mouth.
Jed noticed a slight tremor in the hand, and that small involuntary expression communicated to him her fear and sorrow. He didn’t know what to do, but he felt that he should do something, anything—so he did what he would have done for Amos, or even for his mother if they were upset. He put his arms around Dawn and drew her close to him in an embrace. He didn’t second-guess his reasons for reaching out to Dawn, and she seemed to immediately submit to what the moment required.
As if the act of Jed embracing her gave her permission to release a pent-up torrent of emotion, Dawn collapsed into him, squeezing him tightly, and a loud sob escaped from her as the tears flowed freely.
“Thank you, Jed.”
“No. Thank you for getting me out of that place, Dawn, and for watching over me on this trip.”
“It was…” She paused a few beats. “It is my job.”
Jed moved to pull away from her, his mind reeling at everything that had transpired since he’d left Old Pennsylvania on this journey.
“Your job?” he asked.
Dawn grabbed him as he pulled away, and pulled him back into her arms.
“Yes,” she said. “Your safety is my job.”
Jed continued to embrace her, and as his gaze drifted across the antiques, the light flickering among them, he saw them for what they were: moments that marked real lives that were lived.
“I have so many questions,” Jed said as he pulled away from Dawn’s embrace again.
“I know, Jed. I know you do. You have been very patient. But we don’t have time to go through everything right now. Lives are at stake, and you know that. It would all blow your mind out of your ears… seriously.”
“I know.” Jed took a step backwards, then began to move towards the door that led down to the basement. When he did, Dawn’s hand darted out and grabbed his hand.
“Jed, everything is not as it seems. I know you probably know that by now, but no matter what happens, you need to believe that you can trust me. I’m here to help you, and to keep you alive. I can’t answer all of your questions, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t believe me if I could. But I’ll tell you whatever I can when the time is right. For right now, my job—our job—is to get you to the Amish Zone. That is my one and only mission in life.”