Pennsylvania Omnibus (25 page)

On each ship, one—or in some cases more than
one—intelligence officer had been implanted with the
Corinth
chip. The
Corinth was the heart and soul of the TOBS and was effectively the
fourth-generation BICE chip, something beyond even what Transport could imagine
in its utility and complexity. The
Corinth
was able to take the raw data
stream and compress it, encrypt it, and hide it in regular or worthless bits of
data always zipping around the planet in the air. The system had become so
efficient and effective that it was now fully possible for battle commanders to
do what gamers had been doing for a very long time: zoom around the battlefield
and
virtually
see things that their forebears had only dreamed of
seeing.

The TRACE rebel ships weren’t entirely dependent on this
advanced TOBS technology, though. The ships could just as easily fly and fight
without the lightning-fast rendering or the off-vessel intelligence support. If
they had to. And they could fly and fight old-school if need be: dog-fighting,
just as air forces had been doing for over two hundred years. But experience
showed that when TRACE ships had access to TOBS, their forces were nearly
impossible to defeat.

TRACE’s technological advantage—itself a fairly recent
reality—was a product of the fact that tech-loving geeks and programmers almost
invariably end up siding against any system that is anti-freedom. A fact that
governments throughout time have had a tendency to forget… to their own
detriment. And the slow brain drain of programmers and technicians from
Transport to TRACE had turned into a tidal wave once it began to look very much
like TRACE could actually win the war. Geniuses who’d been raised on Q had held
off on giving the government their newest and best ideas and improvements,
because foundationally they’d never really supported Transport’s imperial aims.
Most of these technical personnel had applied for, or been recruited into,
Transport jobs only because they were the only game in town, if you wanted to
work with the best resources on the most advanced projects.

And now that TRACE had not only the brain power, but ready
access to okcillium—enough that they could use it for something other than
“clean” bombs, a few neat gadgets, and impressive parlor tricks—the
technological leap forward in the last few years had been remarkable.

Amos Troyer leaned back in his chair. For an instant his
mind flashed back to the Battle of Lawton, when Transport had surrounded the
entire Southern Oklahoma Militia and defeat had been nigh; and he—just a young
Amish teenager holding a World-War-II-era rifle with no ammunition left in
it—had taken a battle knife from a dead Transport soldier, thinking it would be
the last tool he’d ever use before dying. Terrified and clutching that knife,
he’d closed his eyes and imagined his older brother Jed, sleeping peacefully in
a spaceship bound for a virginal planet lush with verdant life. That thought
had given him comfort when he thought his own days were numbered.

Amos felt like closing his eyes now. Here on this ship, an
old man, and a tired one at that, he could imagine the end of the war, and his
own inevitable exodus from power. Whoever and whatever government formed in the
vacuum left by the destruction of Transport—whenever that occurred—would have
access to technology the likes of which no people anywhere had ever mastered.
That fact meant that when this war was over, freedom would face an even greater
peril than it had ever faced before. Irony, like sin, never rests. The
technology to control and destroy people always has in it the seeds of tyranny,
and is forever subject to the lowest angels of human nature. And now he, Amos
Troyer, controlled that power; and it frightened him more than he’d ever admit
to his subordinates.

The SOMA opened his desk to grab a Q tablet, and as he
reached for the pill, he saw the old battle knife—the same blade he’d relied on
those many years ago outside Lawton, Oklahoma, when he knew for sure that he
was going to die. The knife he’d used to kill countless men in his
determination to set other people free.

Thou Shalt Not Kill
.

The phrase rang in his mind again whenever he looked at
the weapon. He unsheathed the blade, held it up before his face, and studied
it. Though he knew every ding and every scratch on its surface, it always
caused his heart to skip whenever he held it. Slowly, he slid the knife back
into the sheath and then exhaled. He threw the pill into his mouth and chewed
it up quickly, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Almost
immediately his young avatar appeared in his BICE control room. Through the
fog, he heard someone enter his office and say, “Sir, your report—”, but he
held up his hand to silence and dismiss the ensign, and his surroundings became
quiet again. The almond bitterness on his tongue always accompanied the peace
that flooded him when he was on Q.

For a moment, he felt his consciousness existing in three
places. The feeling of being in his office, reclining in his chair, faded
first. He was also in his BICE room, watching as his filing cube floated in the
center of the space. His third self was, for a moment, back in Old
Pennsylvania, with the young boys playing corner ball after a wedding, but that
memory faded quickly too. In short order his consciousness was one again, and
he was fully present in the darkness of his BICE control room.

He reached out and turned the floating cube with his hand,
and when the far face of the cube came to the front, he saw that one of the
drawers glowed, indicating he had an important message.

DB

Amos looked down at himself—at his avatar—and saw that he
was his youthful, muscular, and vibrant self, so he immediately changed his
avatar to match his sixty-seven-year-old reality. Then he flicked open the
file, and when that cube instantly appeared and enlarged, he flicked his wrist
to open the
Direct Message
square.  In a flash, Dawn was standing in
front of him. For the first time, he saw her in the new form and dress she’d
adopted for her avatar. She was translucent, but appeared clad in Amish garb: a
dark blue dress with white cape and apron. Her avatar appeared to sleep, but
her right hand glowed, indicating that there was no stored message. Dawn,
wherever she was, was waiting for him to appear so that she could talk to the
SOMA directly.

Dawn’s avatar awoke and became solid. She nodded her head
at her commanding officer and said, “Sir.” The resistance had long given up
formal ranks, addresses, and salutes—other than the simple terms of address
“sir” and “ma’am,” which were usually reserved for officers.

Dawn and Amos had once been very close friends, especially
after the commander of the Southern Oklahoma Militia had presided over her
wedding to Ben Beachy. Ben, another young former Amishman, had been exiled to
Oklahoma after being arrested for bartering with individuals wanted by the
government for aiding the resistance—and he had lived a life that, until its
violent end, had closely modeled Amos’s own. Since those early days, Amos’s and
Dawn’s fates had taken them down very different paths, but the SOMA still had a
fondness and a paternal affection for Dawn—even if the nature of their working
relationship added a certain stress and awkwardness to their friendship.

“You have a report for me?” Amos said.

Dawn nodded and assumed an “at ease” stance that looked
strange and ironic in the dress she’d chosen for her avatar. “As you know, sir,
civilian Internet communications have been spotty since the bomb went off. It’s
fortunate that we were able to mirror so many of Transport’s data hubs before
it happened. And thanks to our recent technological advances, we’ve been able
to re-route our own data quicker than we’d originally thought. Between TOBS and
the Corinth, we’re now nearly one hundred percent independent of terrestrial
systems and hubs.”

“Good.” Amos waved for Dawn to continue.

“I’m in contact with Jedediah. We’re making progress
through his BICE, but I still don’t know what he remembers when he’s awake in
the real world. Transport is trying hard to reconnect with him, but thus far
I’ve been able to block and confuse their attempts, and I’ve given them clues
to suggest that the fault lies with the bomb’s substantial damage to the
Internet infrastructure. But that little trick won’t work much longer. Their
data flow looks like they’ve called out all the dogs, and their spiders are
searching hard for whatever’s causing the disruption. If they have one
programmer who’s half as good as I am, they’ll have it figured out soon
enough.”

Dawn called up an image that expanded until it took up
half of the control room and the screen filled with lighted lines, glowing
cables, through which data bits were flowing. The flow didn’t look like water
in a pipeline, but like little glowing bullets, all of different colors—some
larger and some smaller—streaming down each of the cables. Data trackers,
taking the form of small mechanized spiders with glowing eyes, were scouring
each line. Each spider would skitter a few steps, then stop and analyze the
information bullets as they passed. The animation was a real-time
representation of Transport’s search for the interruption in their
communications with Jedediah Troyer. “This is only one hub. Imagine this on a
global scale,” Dawn said.

Amos nodded. “Have you left any clues that will lead them
to you?”

“I hope not, sir.” She shifted her weight, a sign of
nervousness. “I can’t know how good their techs are. If they suck, like they
usually do, we have a little time, but not much.”

“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.