Pook rushed to his team and did a quick numbers check to make sure everyone was accounted for.
“Where’s Billy?” Dawn asked
“He had to stay behind to finish a critical task,” Pook answered. “But we don’t have time to talk about that. We have to get all of us, especially Amos, outside of the Amish Zone, and we only have about twenty minutes left before it’ll be too late.”
“I don’t understand,” Dawn said. “Is Transport going to destroy the AZ and kill everyone? Because if they are, we need to fight!”
“I’ll explain it all when we’re on the move,” Pook said. He began to shout orders to his squad, then he pointed at Eagles and Ducky and told them to locate a working buggy.
“Load Jed into it and get him outside the walls as quickly as you can,” he said. “The rest of us will find our way out and meet you due east of the AZ in the next thirty minutes. Got it?”
Eagles and Ducky nodded and rushed off to complete their orders.
“Okay, the rest of you, we’re going to hoof it out of here. The Amish are going to need as many of these buggies as possible to use as ambulances, so we’re going to have to double-time it out of the Zone on foot.” He turned to Amos. “Except you, sir. We need you out for certain. You’ll ride with Jed.”
“No,” Amos said, and closed his eyes.
“What do you mean?” Pook asked. “We need to get you out of here.”
“I’m staying.”
“Sir, you can’t.” Pook put his hands on his hips, ready to dig in if Amos wanted to argue.
“You don’t tell me what I can’t do, officer,” Amos snapped. “I know what you have planned, and it may work; but if it does, someone needs to stay on this side who knows what’s going on.”
“But…” Pook said. “But… who will command if you’re gone?”
Amos put his hand on Pook’s shoulder. “You will, son.”
“Wait,” Dawn interrupted. “I don’t understand what’s happening! Where is Amos going? Why are we fleeing the Zone?”
Pook turned to Dawn and reached out to hold her by the shoulders, steadying her. “Because in twenty minutes—less than that now—there’s going to be an explosion and a blinding white light in the sky over the Zone. That’ll be an okcillium explosion, and it will cause something very much like an electromagnetic pulse. It will destroy anything in the air in a fifty-mile radius, including every warship or drone on both sides of this battle. They’ll all crash to the ground.”
Just as he said “crash,” a drone that had been shot down by a TRACE fighter crashed in the neighbors’ field, sending forth a shower of sparks, fire, and smoke. Pook waited until the sound died down before he spoke again.
“And then, immediately after that, there’ll be a smaller explosion, but you won’t see or hear that one. You’ll only see the results.”
“What… what will happen? What will we see?” Dawn asked.
“This whole place,” Pook answered, pointing all around them. “The whole Amish Zone, and everything in it, is going to disappear.”
“Disappear?” Dawn said. “But where will it go?”
Pook shook his head, shrugged, and began to walk away, shouting orders to his men. Then he stopped and took a step back toward Dawn before reaching out and taking her by the hand.
“We don’t know for sure,” he said. “Maybe a hundred years in the future. Maybe the past? Can’t be sure. But it’ll go someplace.”
Dawn held Pook’s hand tightly, not about to let him leave again.
“Why don’t we just go with it?” she asked. “Go with the Zone to wherever it ends up?”
Pook pulled on her hand and the two began to walk. “Because if we want to have any opportunity, any opportunity at all, to finish this for final and for good… then we have to stay here, in this time, and figure it out.”
(38
WINDOW PANE
NOW
Jed rocked back and forth beneath the wide blue sky. He was lying on his back, a green soldier’s blanket laid over his chest, as he was carried on a stretcher held aloft by four men. He saw the beautiful wispy clouds, some connected by gossamer threads of vapor and others seemingly more solid, like great billowy ships adrift in a heavenly sea, and he felt the rhythm of the swaying as the men walked. He had a headache, there was no denying that, and he could hear the people who traveled with him talking as the group moved.
“The only portal left is up on the Shelf, and now with the AZ gone, it’s our only hope.” It was Pook Rayburn talking, and Jed smiled when he recognized the voice. He’d grown to like Pook while working with him on the farm over this past week. He closed his eyes and focused his attention on the voices, hoping that by doing so maybe the headache would fade.
“It’s a long haul, but we’ll make it.” This time it was Dawn Beachy speaking. “We don’t really have any other choice.”
“I hope he’s going to be able to walk at least part of the way,” a third voice said.
Jed’s brain had learned to work as if the BICE was still there, providing him visual input so that the newer, higher-functioning areas of his mind could interpret data. On one screen, an image was displayed. It showed a large empty area, devoid of hills or valleys, where the Amish Zone should have been. It was as if the whole community had just disappeared. He didn’t know how he knew that this had once been where the Amish Zone was, but he did. Even the immense walls were completely gone. On another screen he was seeing the process of okcillium being extracted from reclaimed road base, back in the old world. On still another screen, he examined maps and data that appeared to show a location up on the Great Shelf. All of these things—except for the image of the empty space where the Amish Zone had been—were things his brain already knew. His mind was simply using a new process for interpreting and organizing data, having learned this method from working with the BICE.
The other screens showed things like force readiness reports, and files about the history of the AZ and the building of the wall. All things he’d read before. He thought of Dawn Beachy, and a file containing her picture appeared on one of the screens. He scrolled to an overall summary of the information Transport had about her. He had the feeling that, if he’d ever looked at or studied a piece of information before in all of his life, he now had access to it in real time.
He squeezed his eyes tightly, and he saw the screens in his mind, and they’d all gone dark. All of them except one. The one there on the bottom right, with the picture of the faded and embossed coffee can, stomped flat and cut to fit. That screen didn’t change. In his mind it was permanent—like an anchor, grounding him to…
…to what?
And then that screen faded to black as well.
And now he had another anchor. He felt his hand being clasped by someone, and when he concentrated, and really felt the other hand, he knew it to be Dawn’s. As the team walked and carried him along on the stretcher, Dawn was holding his hand, letting him know that she was there, that she was a part of him, and a part of his life. Something that was real, tangible. Solid. Something on which he could depend. Someone he could love. She was his window…
Ask questions.
He thought for a moment. What is the next step? Where do we go from here?