“You say they track and kill people like you? People in the resistance?”
“That’s right.”
“Are they ever successful?”
Pook shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, sometimes they are.”
As Pook and Jerry were stowing the guns and ammunition in a large black canvas bag, Jed looked up and saw a face staring at him from the dark shadows of the stairs that led up into the antique store. Jed was startled at first, and his heart jumped in his chest. He was just about to shout when Pook, who must have noticed the face too, yelled “Billy!” in a good-natured way. The face smiled back and the man named Billy came down the stairs into the basement.
“Hey everyone, this is Billy, one of my minions.” Pook smiled when he said this, and punched Billy playfully in the arm. “Not really. Actually, Billy is my best friend.”
“Hey everyone,” Billy said. He didn’t look anyone directly in the eye except for Dawn, and Jed noticed that Billy seemed to be shy and unsure of himself compared to the confident and aggressive manner of both Pook and Jerry.
“Hey Billy,” Jerry and Jed said in unison.
Dawn walked over and gave Billy a hug. “Hey Bill,” she said, looking up into his face.
“Hey girl,” Billy replied, smiling.
Jed noticed that Billy’s hand hesitated for just a moment on Dawn’s neck as the two separated. Billy nodded his head weakly at Jed, and then stepped over near Pook and began to brief his friend.
“The other guys are coming, but they were delayed. I left Will upstairs to wait for them and fill them in on what’s happening.”
Billy ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. No one said anything for a full minute, and Pook just stared at Billy, waiting to hear what his friend had to say.
“It’s madness out there right now, Pook. Resistance lasers and ordnance were hitting dangerously close to the safe house, and we were scared we’d be killed by friendly fire. So we got out of there and headed over here. Then a TRACER showed up out of nowhere and almost got us all. We were huddled in close together behind an apartment building when the TRACER found us, and if we hadn’t seen it and reacted quickly it would have ended us all. After that we got separated, but I know the rest of them are heading this way.”
“A TRACER? Damn. I thought they’d all be down,” Pook said.
“I thought that too,” Billy said. “The good news is that the TRACER that almost nailed us got hit not long after that. I saw it tumble and go down over by Locust and South 2nd. Took out a house over there, not far from the river.”
“Hopefully Transport gets the message and keeps the rest of ’em grounded until this offensive winds down.”
“You don’t think the resistance will break into the City?”
“Nah. They never intended to. This offensive isn’t the real thing, although I have to admit it’s been impressive. TRACE couldn’t get near this place with an army sizeable enough to take the City. At least not yet. Based on the mayhem that’s being caused out there, this has to be Rover’s unit, and the SOMA has to be hands on, calling the shots. But on the ground? Ten, maybe fifteen guys tops, causing this entire ruckus.”
“You’re kidding me,” Jerry said, rolling his eyes in disbelief. And who’s Rover? And who is the SOMA?”
Pook looked at Jerry and just shook his head slightly, indicating that he had no intention of answering those questions. In reply, Jerry nodded his head to indicate that he understood.
“Wow. I’d have thought the whole resistance was bearing down on the City,” Billy said.
“That’s what we wanted it to seem like,” Pook said with a smile. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigar, loosed it from its cellophane wrapper, and bit off the tip before putting it into his mouth. “But even I didn’t know it would be this devastating. Transport has to be in an uproar, messing their diapers over all this.”
“Why the fuss, Pook?” Billy asked. “And why now?”
Pook produced a lighter from his pants pocket and held it up for everyone to admire. “Okcillium lighter. One of a kind,” he said, grinning and speaking with the cigar between his teeth. He thumbed a button and a strange blue flame shot up an inch high and burned brightly. He placed the end of the cigar into the flame and rotated the stogie slowly between his thumb and forefinger, puffing large clouds of smoke into the air as he did. He held up the lighter again and smiled.
“There is enough okcillium in this lighter to blow up a city.”
“That’s reassuring,” Jerry said, with a sideways glance at Jed.
“The fuss?” Pook took a long draw from the cigar and blew the smoke straight up into the air. He gestured at Jed with the thumb of the hand that clutched the cigar. “The fuss… apparently… is all about him.”
Dawn shook her head and waved at the smoke in the air, trying to disperse it from in front of her face.
“Smoking is illegal. You know that, don’t you cousin?”
“Everything is illegal, Dawn. Besides, what’re they going to do, kill me with a TRACER for smoking?”
“That and a million other things.”
“Then I guess the smoking doesn’t matter much, does it?”
Pook then added, “I’ll be surprised if any of us makes it through this day anyway.” Only this time he said it so that everyone could hear him but Dawn.
Jed stared through the smoke at Pook. A hundred questions crossed his mind, but none of them seemed to want to form on his tongue, or break forth from his mouth. He was a long way from his home in the Amish Zone back on Earth.
Jerry, Billy, and Pook stood talking in hushed tones, mostly about insurgency tactics and weapons. Dawn noticed that Jed seemed out of place and uncomfortable in the conversation, so she walked over to him and pulled him to the side.
“Thanks again for—well, you know… when I broke down a little up there,” she said with a smile. “I really appreciate it, even if I know it made you uncomfortable.”
“That’s okay,” Jed said.
“All of this is really overwhelming.”
“Yeah.”
“Probably more so for you.”
“Probably,” Jed said with a smile.
“Tell me about your farm back in Old PA, Jed. What was it like?”
Jed dipped his head and shuffled his feet, nervous to be talking to a girl face to face, despite everything that had already passed between them in such a short time.
“I don’t know. What do you want to know?”
“Just tell me about your life there. You know, what it was like.”
Jed narrowed his eyes a little and looked up at Dawn. He wasn’t sure why she felt it was necessary to talk about his life. He understood that she was naturally curious, but his people were pretty private when it came right down to it. He was still suspicious of Englischers, and although he had nothing but good thoughts about Dawn personally, she was still an Englischer, and he still felt like he was reluctantly trapped in this uncontrollable chain of events.
Jerry was right, Jed thought. He’d not asked any of these people to help him or fight for him. Still, despite his discomfort, he couldn’t help but feel glad that these strangers were willing to try to get him out of the City and to his people. It all mixed and mashed up together inside him into a confusing puzzle.
“Well, ours was an old-fashioned farm, even for the Amish,” he finally said. “We didn’t have milking machines or any of the other modern amenities that many of our wealthier, and maybe more worldly, neighbors had. My dad was… is… was a traditionalist. Real conservative. We had one milk cow and we milked her by hand. Her name was Zoe. Once I turned eighteen and I was approved by the elders to emigrate here, I started training my younger brother so he could take over the farm chores. We were a really small family compared to most of the Amish, and there were a lot of chores to do. But we were a subsistence farm and not a business. We produced what we consumed and not a whole lot more. For extra cash, my mother made baskets, and on sunny days we’d sell them on the side of the road, and during the growing season we had a little market garden.”