“Here’s hoping they suck,” Amos said with a smile.
“I’ve told Jed what I think I’m allowed to tell him. But now…”
“But now… what?” Amos asked.
“But now I’m asking your permission to tell him everything. Where we are. What’s happening.”
“No.” Amos shook his head. “Not yet.”
“But, sir—”
“No.” Now Amos paced back and forth, his hands behind his back. “Let’s not forget that capturing Jed is intended to be a public relations coup for Transport. They’re back on their heels now. Reeling. They foolishly think they still have an opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the people; and perhaps they believe they’ll convince the elders of the Amish to stop their people from feeding us or providing material aid to the resistance. The retreat to the Shelf has them on life support. Their goal has been to embed Jed with the Amish, and then use him to get to me. We can’t risk them finding out that we’re using Jed too.”
“They’ve blamed the bombing of the City on you, sir,” Dawn said.
“I know, but that lie will never stand for long. And when people find out that they destroyed their own city and killed thousands of people, the whole move will backfire.”
Dawn looked the SOMA in the eye. “He’s hanging by a thread, sir. He needs to know.”
Amos paused, and met Dawn’s stare. “Give him what you have to, but remember, if they crack him, they’ll turn anything you’ve said to him around. They’ll twist it, and it will all be worse for him in the long run.”
Dawn shrugged. “I understand.”
Amos exhaled, an indication that he intended to change the subject. “I’m putting Pook and his unit on standby. In case they need to go in and get you.”
“They should be focused on Jedediah, sir. If anyone is going to need exfil when the time comes, it’ll be Jed.”
“You let me handle giving orders, Dawn,” Amos said. His tone was stern, but not too harsh. “That’s my job.” He glanced back up at the screen, where the spiders were still scanning the data streams looking for clues. “You’ve done well, Dawn. And you have your hands full. Get Jed fully ready, because they’ll have him back soon enough.”
Dawn looked at Amos. “All of this for a PR victory.”
Amos put his hands behind his back and fixed the stare of his avatar on Dawn. “A PR victory? That’s what Transport wants out of him. But Jed means so much more than that to me. He’s not only my brother, whom I love dearly. He’s a Trojan horse.”
Dawn nodded, and for a moment she had a faraway look on her face. “Is that why you’ve had me implant so many rapid learning programs into his BICE?”
Amos’s nod was almost imperceptible. “I remember when I was him… a young Amish man with a pure heart. Mostly uncorrupted except for what I did in the war.” He winced and bit his lip when he thought about it. His eyes closed for a moment before he continued. “And I hacked into the TRIDs on just my second time in the system! Nobody could believe it. But I did it because I didn’t know I couldn’t.”
“I’ve read about that,” Dawn said.
“People don’t realize that the Amish think differently than everyone else,” Amos touched his avatar face, which was smooth and shaved, and inhaled deeply. “It’s not just that we—they—don’t use a lot of the technology the world uses. It’s that their brains are actually wired differently. All of this wiring starts for all of us when we’re just babies, you know?”
Dawn nodded, but she didn’t want to interrupt, so she remained silent.
“And Jed was always so clever,” Amos said. “Smarter than even the elders. It’s like that piece of coffee can he formed to take the place of the windowpane in our barn. His mind worked like that. He was a puzzle solver. He already thought differently than everyone else.”
Just then, Dawn’s avatar pitched forward. She was still standing, but something had happened. Her head twitched and then her eyes closed and she went translucent. Transport had figured out what she was up to, and they’d finally gotten to her.
To Amos, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. He’d known they’d sniff her out eventually. It was all part of his larger plan. Still, it was startling to see her shut down right in front of his eyes.
Almost at the same moment—just a few beats after the data stream with Dawn had been compromised—the Tulsa lurched under Amos’s feet, and his own stream blanked out. Sitting at his desk, he was thrown violently out of his chair and he sprawled across the floor. A sharp pain stabbed through his chest and immediately registered, even through the Q—
A broken rib.
The Tulsa was shaking and groaning, something he’d never before experienced with the ultra-silent ship. He grimaced and tried to pull himself to his feet.
The door slid open and an ensign ran in with two officers, McKay and Warren.
“Sir!” McKay shouted.
They helped him to his feet and then sat his chair upright so that he could sit in it.
“Are you all right, sir?” McKay asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” Amos barked. “What’s happening?”
McKay straightened up and reactivated the screens in Amos’s office; they’d gone into hibernation mode while he was on his BICE.
“We’re under attack, sir,” McKay said matter-of-factly. “Three warships, Berlin class. Apparently they’ve located the Tulsa and they’ve engaged.”
“We didn’t see them coming?”
“No, sir.”
“How did they breach our defenses?”
Warren winced noticeably. “Somehow they hacked us, sir.”
The ensign was trying to unbutton the SOMA’s shirt to inspect the injury, but Amos was ignoring him and pushed the young man away. “Someone… somewhere… has tracked and penetrated our data stream?” Amos said, pointing to McKay. “An impossibility! Shut down Corinth communications… NOW!”
(23
HACKER
Jed floated in the inky blackness, wondering how long he’d been in that state. Ages? Lifetimes? Then slowly, his consciousness returned to him, and he was in his black room with the glowing screen. He remembered now: he’d been talking to the woman named Dawn, and he’d asked her if he was on Earth. He remembered kissing her. He could recall it now that the darkness was rolled back a bit, with the white screen shining garishly in the darkness and illuminating his body.
And then he remembered something else. Matthias shaking him; he’d opened his eyes and found himself standing next to the horses and the plow, and Dawn had disappeared, never able to answer the question about where he was. That was all a memory, too.
Matthias had been worried, and despite Jed’s insistence, had made Jed go lie down for a nap. Jed remembered that now, Matthias pushing him toward the little house. And he remembered that he didn’t argue too much, because he wanted to be with Dawn. Was that her name? Yes. Dawn. He’d thought then that if he could go to sleep, Dawn would come back for him. So he’d gone to his room and climbed on the fleeces he used for a mattress, and before long he was in a deep sleep.
Sometime during his slumber he’d entered this present blackness. And now the screen was here, and he could remember Dawn, and was hoping that she’d be back to get him. To take him somewhere to talk. But she didn’t appear this time; another woman did.
It was his mother. Only it wasn’t his mother. He knew that. The word “avatar” floated over her head and then disappeared. It wasn’t her, but it looked like her. And she was talking to him, and pulling up data as she talked. Reorganizing files. Telling him that someone evil—someone named Dawn—had hacked into his mind, but that now he was safe again.