Dawn couldn’t really tell if these girls were actually interested in Jed, or if they were just curious and looking for gossip, but both girls specifically asked if Jed might be looking for a wife, and if Dawn had any intentions toward him. Although she was embarrassed to be asked, and she blushed when she answered, she admitted that she did care very much for Jed, and that she was hopeful that he cared for her too. Both girls smiled and seemed to be authentically happy for her. Their curiosities sated, they all got back to work.
How exciting to be thinking about love, Dawn thought. Even if things don’t work out for us, it has been a pleasant interlude in my life of war: to be dressed for peace, and in love with a man like Jed.
Out in the barn, Pook’s team took the opportunity to clean their weapons. This was another thing that was frowned upon in Amish society, but the squad felt that it was necessary that they keep up their battle readiness even during this peaceful respite. Eagles also gave knife-throwing lessons to any of the squad who were interested. He just called it “knifing,” but nobody could get him to change his word for the activity. Eagles was good at “knifing.” Very good. He always tried to throw a knife in such a way that the blade would stick into the gouge left in the beam from the last throw. He called his perfect throws “bullsings.” He wasn’t always successful, but he was always close. And when he did hit the mark perfectly, he would yell “Bullsing!” at the top of his lungs, and then crush anyone within reach with an almost paralyzing bear hug. It got to the point that when the soldiers of TRACE heard the cry “Bullsing!” they would all jump out of the way and run to the corners of the shed.
After the knifing lesson, Jed showed the squad how to hook up the milk wagon to the horses, and to prepare the milk to be hauled away. Prepping the horses and the wagon was something all the members of the TRACE team grew to love. Already, this early in the week, they would race one another to get to work with the horses and attach the wagon.
As for Jed, he wanted to find a place where he could spend some time alone… so he could get on the Internet and learn more about his situation. A man’s mind can float around untethered in the sea for only so long before it seeks a lighthouse, or at least a bird with leaves in its beak. So, after delivering the milk to the neighbor’s springhouse, Jed received Tom Hochstetler’s permission to crawl up into the man’s hayloft so he could “rest” while the women worked on Matthias’s house. Eagles and Ducky drove the wagon back to Matthias’s place (Eagles loved driving the horses) while Jed stayed behind.
After he’d found a good resting spot in the loft, Jed took a Quadrille tablet and lay down. He calmed his mind and tried his best to relax himself. Closing his eyes, he felt the calm feeling grow in him, and when he felt he was ready, he brought up his BICE interface.
This time he didn’t soar up into the sky, something he dearly liked to do. He didn’t zip through immersive Transport maps of the cities on the Shelf, and he didn’t study the geography of New Pennsylvania from on high, trying to figure out the “where” of his life. This time he immediately went to his messaging interface and sent an alert to his brother. Only moments later, he saw Amos’s avatar, transparent and seemingly sleeping, appear in the control room. As he watched, the avatar became opaque, then the eyes opened, and Jed’s brother Amos was standing before him.
When Jed saw his brother, he felt a chill go up his spine. For the first time, he really got a sense of the years having gone by in Amos’s life. Jed felt that the man he was looking at wasn’t just an avatar displaying for him what his brother would look like as he approached seventy. No, this really was his brother—though not in the flesh—and those decades that showed so plainly on his skin and weighed so heavily on his shoulders had really happened to the man.
“Jed,” Amos said with a nod, by way of greeting.
“Amos,” Jed said, nodding in return.
“How is life in the Amish Zone, brother?”
Jed scowled a little at his brother’s familiarity. “A little confusing, Amos.”
“Confusing? How so?”
“Dawn took me to the location of our old farm. I could see the foundations of the house and the barn. It was very troubling.”
“Fifty-three years have come and gone since you left that place. A lot can happen in over five decades.” Amos paused for a moment, choking back a sob. “A lot has happened…”
“She said that the whole Amish Zone traveled to this new world.”
Amos looked at his brother. A whole range of emotions flooded over the older man. He longed to bring his brother into his arms—to hug him in a long embrace. And to tell the boy everything… everything he could possibly want to know. It won’t work, he thought. You’ve known it from the beginning. He can’t take it all at once. No one could. “She did, did she?” he said.
“She did.”
“And what else did she say?”
Jed put one hand in his pocket, but with the other he pointed at Amos. “She said I needed to talk to you about it.”
Amos nodded. He exhaled, and his eyes scanned his brother’s face as he considered how best to explain things in a way that wouldn’t confuse Jed even more than he already was. “I understand that this is all still perplexing to you, Jedediah,” he finally said. “With everything you’ve discovered, there is still so much about what’s going on that you don’t know.”
“So why don’t you tell me about this part,” Jed said.
The brothers stared at one another for a long moment. Jed could see that even the idea of explaining it all was taxing on Amos. The leader of the resistance was, after all, an old man—regardless of the fact that he’d been born four years after Jed.
“There was a war that broke out,” Amos began. “Shortly after you left for New Pennsylvania. We all call it the Second Transport War. In fact, it was breaking out in Oklahoma even as you were boarding your ship.” Amos put both hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “The war was confusing at first. There were a lot of factions. Eventually foreign governments got involved. It got ugly fast.”
“A World War?” Jed asked.
“In a way,” Amos said. “And in that war, several major cities not far from the Amish Zone on Earth were destroyed. Most of Columbia, Pennsylvania was destroyed as well. That’s the city from which you embarked on your journey, and the same city where you landed when you arrived in New Pennsylvania. Now,” Amos raised up an old, wrinkled hand, “not all of Columbia was destroyed. Luckily for you—and for all of us—the Transport Station in Columbia survived. But most of the city became a huge pile of rubble. And with all these cities reduced to nothing but bricks and rocks and ashes, someone decided that all of the rubble—the shattered structures, the concrete; the bricks, rebar, and wiring that make up a modern metropolis—should be hauled off.”
Jed could see it all happening in his mind’s eye. But just in case he couldn’t, Amos brought up a white screen, and a video began to play on it. It showed enormous pieces of construction equipment clearing away the remains of a city.
Amos pointed with his finger. “All of that debris went to build—”
“—the Great Wall,” Jed interrupted.
Amos sighed deeply and began to pace as he talked. “Yes. At some point, the decision was made by Transport to construct a wall around the Amish Zone.”