“That sounds nice,” Dawn said, smiling and nodding her head.
“It was nice. If there wasn’t such a land crush, I mean, if there had been more land available, I would have gladly stayed. My father was a carpenter and made handmade furniture that we sold from the front lawn to the tourists for exorbitant prices. Englischers were glad to pay those prices, and who were we to argue if God wanted to reward us for living a simple life by having the English flock to buy our products? Still, we were an old-fashioned family. We didn’t have a generator or even a propane stove or refrigerator. That’s simple and plain, even for the Amish.”
“That sounds so interesting, Jed.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. It was just the way we lived. I liked it. I still do. I can’t wait to get back to it. After experiencing this world over the past… however long it’s been… I think I’ll be glad to be farming again.”
“You haven’t seen us at our best,” Dawn said.
“Haven’t I?”
Dawn blinked, but she didn’t answer. They stood quietly for a few beats, neither one of them knowing exactly what to say. Dawn was the one who finally broke the silence.
“So you’re eighteen? I would have thought you were younger if I didn’t know better. You have a baby face.”
Jed scowled. Not at all what he wanted to hear from a pretty girl.
“I’m sorry, Jed!” Dawn said, laughing. “I just mean that you have a youngish look about you. I’m not much older than you. I’m just barely twenty!”
“Oh” was all that Jed could think to say.
“Do you have a girlfriend back in Old Pennsylvania?” Dawn asked, smiling and giving Jed a teasing wink.
“No. That’s not really allowed. At some point—if I’d stayed—I probably would have picked one out that I and my parents agreed would make a good wife, and if she picked me too, we’d have gotten married. But I wasn’t really pursuing that kind of relationship back there. I knew I was coming here and I didn’t need anything holding me back or tying me down. I want to build a good, productive farm here. If I meet someone down the road, later on, then I suppose all of that will take care of itself in time.”
“Well now, aren’t you a free spirit, then?” Dawn said, laughing.
“You tease me a lot, Dawn.”
“I’m just making conversation, Mr. Serious.”
“What about you?” Jed asked.
“What about me?”
“Do you have a… a… boyfriend?”
“Me? No. No. I mean, I’ve had a boyfriend before, but nothing now. I’m like you—too wrapped up in this colonization business and being part of the underground. Haven’t had much time for love.”
“So, not Billy then?” Jed said, nodding his head toward where the three militants were chatting about guns and insurrection.
“Billy?”
“Billy.”
“No!” Dawn looked over at Billy and then back at Jed. “No.”
Jed tilted his head and raised his right eyebrow.
“No. Not Billy. No.”
“Wow.” That was all that Jed could say.
“No, listen. It’s complicated,” Dawn said, and unconsciously touched his arm to emphasize that he must be completely misunderstanding her.
“Take it easy. It was just a friendly question.” Now Jed was teasing her.
“You take it easy!” Dawn said, pushing him back a step. She was smiling but not quite laughing, as if she didn’t know if Jed really thought she was with Billy. “I said no, and if you think differently, then you’re wrong.”
“Just take it easy!” Jed said, eyes wide in mock outrage.
“You take it easy, Mister!” Dawn said, and smiled.
“Tell me about your brother,” Dawn said. “Were you two close?”
“Were?” Jed shook his head, still trying to get his mind around the ramifications of time and the confusions of interstellar travel. He’d left home nine years ago, and if all had gone according to plan, his brother should already be on his way to New Pennsylvania.
“I think almost all Amish families are close. We are close though.” He smiled as he thought about his little brother. “Amos is the best. He’s smart, wise, funny, and he is as earnest about our culture and lifestyle as any Amish man I ever met.”
Dawn just nodded her head without saying anything.
“Amos didn’t like the idea of me coming here. He was only fourteen then, but he always seemed to be older than his age to me. He thought it was a mistake, emigrating, but he decided that if I was going to come, then he was going to follow. I haven’t had time to think about it yet, but I hope he was able to make it. I had so much trouble getting here that I hope he got through it all and is on his way.”
Again, Dawn didn’t say anything. Instead she stared deeply into his eyes with that faraway gaze—like she’d done when he’d first met her at the Columbia checkpoint. Only this time, he knew she wasn’t on the Internet in her head. She’d had her BICE removed. And she wasn’t on Quadrille either. In fact, he hadn’t yet seen anyone that he thought was on Q, so Dawn’s faraway look must have been rooted in something real, something deeper than drugs or the Internet. Perhaps she’s missing someone too, Jed thought.
“How is your wound doing?” he asked.
“My wound?”
“Yeah,” Jed said. “Where you had your BICE taken out.”
Her hand went up to the bandage on the back of her head. “Oh, it’s fine.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Maybe. A little. Maybe? I don’t know. Having constant and seamless Internet access was like having a super-brain. It was distracting and sometimes frustrating, but it was still kind of handy. I feel a little dumber now, I guess.”
Pook heard some activity upstairs and signaled to Dawn that they needed to be leaving. As the whole group filed up the dark stairs back into the Antique Shoppe, Jed noticed that Dawn left her hand very lightly on his elbow—almost, but not quite, taking his arm like his mother did his father’s when they would walk toward the garden in the cool of the morning like lovers and friends.
(11
WHO’S WHO?
More of Pook’s team had arrived at Merrill’s Antique Shoppe, and they were milling around upstairs, drinking coffee and chatting quietly when Pook, Jed, Jerry, Billy, and Dawn came back upstairs with the guns and ammunition. Pook handed out some of the pistols from his black bag, while one of his men—a short, powerful-looking man that Pook called “Ducky”—briefed him on the operation.
“We’ll need to move quickly, boss,” Ducky said in his gruff voice. “Transport is out in force, and there was at least one TRACER came down on us. Nasty bugger. Stumbled on us by accident I reckon, but with five of us bunched together and none of us emittin’ a Transport ID signal, it didn’t take them long to make us as TRACE. Clyde and Will took care of the TRACER, but there may be more of ’em out there. If you plan on takin’ the package over the bridge, we can’t all go in a large group like this—we’d be sittin’ ducks. The rest of us—we’ll just have to make our own way.