“But how does all this apply to what we’re facing today?” Jed asked. “Tell me something I can use right now, Dawn.”
“Well… how can I say it?”
“Just say it.”
“New Pennsylvania was always a back door. And sometimes even back doors have back doors.”
Dawn cleared the white screen and brought the farm back up, then maximized it until they were actually in the scene again, sitting on the Troyers’ front porch.
Jed stood up and walked to the porch railing, looking out over the green yard toward a walnut tree he knew by heart. “And why did they leave me asleep so long? If it only takes nine years to get here?”
Dawn stood and placed a hand on Jed’s back, and when he turned to her she looked up at him and smiled. “Jed. ‘Here’ is the issue. It’s the one question you haven’t known to ask, and it was the one we weren’t authorized to answer.”
“I’m still on Earth,” Jed said. He looked into her eyes. “You don’t want to tell me anything because I’m still on Earth, aren’t I?”
Dawn didn’t answer him. She didn’t say anything at all. And when the tension had risen to the point that Jed was going to speak, Dawn grabbed his face and kissed him, and this time he let her.
(21
TRACE AT THE BASE
Pook wrote down the numbers on the pad with the stub of a pencil he found lying on the old gray boards that Martinez was now calling his “desk.” His unit had been in camp now for over a week, but in the confusion and disruption following the detonation of the okcillium bomb that had leveled the City, command was just now catching up and organizing after-action reports.
Ten days after that shocking event, TRACE Intelligence was reporting that most, if not all, of Transport’s forces had abandoned the east and had retreated beyond the Great Shelf. Now, Pook was responsible for reporting on the state of his unit. With a pencil and a piece of paper. The numbers he’d written on the notepad were cold and sterile—digits without meaning, corpses without faces—but the figures stood in for the real men and women he’d lost in the failed operation to get the Amish boy to the AZ. Numbers rarely tell all of the truth, not even after an attack like the one on the City, with a body count that rose above the ability for humans to rightly comprehend it. But the TRACE fighters he’d lost were far more than numbers to Pook Rayburn. They were his friends. His comrades-in-arms. They were members of his family. And despite all the years he’d been a part of the resistance, he never got used to losing friends.
He told himself again that he was just a soldier, and that it wasn’t his job to question the reason for losses, for the risks taken. He reminded himself that his duty was to follow orders, and that he had no cause at all—after all these years—to question the SOMA and his decisions. The old man had selflessly served, and brilliantly too, since before Pook was born. Still, the numbers glared back at him from the page. Their accusations goaded him, and he had to cover his face with his hand to hide from the things they prodded him to say and think.
Pook slipped the paper to Martinez without a word and walked out of the barn that served as their temporary base camp. He walked to where his crew stood outside, waiting to find out what would happen next. When he got to the men, he slapped Jeff Wainwright on the back, gripped the man’s shoulder and turned to face him.
“You take Jerry Rios and see that he gets fully outfitted. Then walk him through all of our procedures and unit opsec, got it?”
Jeff nodded. “Yes, sir. What about weapons? He only has the pistol you printed back in the City.”
There. That was it. A millisecond of shared recognition. Any mention of the City was a vivid reminder that they’d each barely escaped the flash death inflicted on the multitudes who’d remained there. That realization, unspoken, with its associated feelings of gratitude, grief, and unworthiness, settled on the squad.
Pook exhaled deeply. “Get with Martinez. Make sure everyone is back up to par, and that we’re all ready to roll in five if we get the call.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jeff and Jerry headed for the barn, and Pook turned to the remainder of his unit. “We’re on hold. Waiting again.”
“Hurry up and wait, eh Pook?” Billy said.
“That’s it,” Pook said. “You all know the drill.”
“Any word on Dawn?”
Pook shook his head. “The kid made it to the AZ—apparently after they chipped him and tried to reprogram his brain. Dawn got in there too, although we don’t know where she is physically. She’s out there somewhere, and Transport is holding her, but she’s successfully hacked the system. So there’s that.” He pulled out a cigarette and put it between his lips. Then he smacked his pocket, looking for his okcillium lighter before realizing he didn’t have it anymore.
“Damn.”
Billy tossed him a book of matches—an old pack with the name and logo of a bar from the City on it. Pook looked at it and then back at Billy. He struck a match and lit the cigarette, then closed the matchbook and tossed it back. “That’s a collector’s item now.”
Billy stuck the matchbook back in his pocket, then rolled his finger at Pook—a sign to get his leader talking again.
“I wish I could tell you more, but that’s all there is to tell. No one on our side knows where she is,” Pook said.
Billy looked down and kicked the stones with his boot. “I promised Ben I’d keep an eye on her.”
Pook breathed deeply. “Your brother was a good man. He’d know you’ve done your best. We’ve all done our best. He’d also know that no one can really keep an eye on Dawn when she has her mind set on something. She’s pigheaded; always has been. But he and Dawn fought side by side. They were more than husband and wife. They were teammates. He knew what we were facing, and he’d understand that she’s working on a program totally outside of our area of operations. It’s above our pay grade, too.”
“It’s hard to know what Ben would think,” Billy said.
Ducky, the short, muscular man who was Pook’s second in command, had stood silent throughout this exchange, like a tempest in the distance, barely stirring over the horizon. But now, as the topic turned to what was going on in the resistance, the storm blew in. “I can tell you one thing,” Ducky said. He was visibly angry, and had to interrupt himself frequently to take a deep breath to calm himself. “Ben would probably have a lot to say about this crap going on with the Amish dude—Jed.” Pause. Deep breath. “Good men and women getting killed to save the SOMA’s kid brother!” Pause. Breath. “He’d definitely have something to say, I can tell ya that!”
“Careful, Duck,” was all that Pook said. The two friends stared at one another before Duck broke the silence.
“I’m not being insubordinate, Pook. I’m here and I’m following orders no matter what. I’m just telling it how it is. We’re out here dying, and for what?”
“We’ve always been out here dying, Duck,” Pook said. “And always for the same reason. What’s changed? We take orders, and we do what we’re told. That’s what we’ve always done. That’s what we did when Ben Beachy was here, and that’s what we’re doing now.”
“Except that then, we knew what we were doing was one-hundred-percent resistance business. We knew it, Pook. Not personal business.”
Pook took a step toward Ducky. It wasn’t in any way menacing, but the motion did carry with it the weight of authority. He spoke softly, evenly. “Every one of us would be dead, imprisoned, or worse if it weren’t for the SOMA. I’m not the kind of guy who starts second-guessing a leader who has never—not once, ever, in my whole life—failed me or the resistance. If he’d made a bunch of mistakes, or if he’d brought us to the brink of defeat… you know, I’d still follow orders, but I’d feel more comfortable questioning his leadership. But what has the SOMA done for us? Has he ever failed us? Are we not on the very doorstep of wiping out Transport and winning the war? Do we not have the upper hand?” Pook pointed toward the sky and then swung his hand around, indicating the surrounding area. “Look at us. Standing under this blue sky and not hiding out in buildings or underground. When have we ever been comfortable doing this in the past five years? And why do we feel pretty safe right now? Because Transport has fled beyond the Shelf, Duck!”