Pennsylvania Omnibus (9 page)

“That’s right,” Pook said.  He was preaching now.  It was
a sermon he’d given before, and Jed got the feeling that Pook was very much a
preacher at heart. 

“They had to do it, considering their goals.  The purpose
of government had morphed from its original goal into the solitary objective of
maintaining an environment in which business could take place without fear and
panic.  Government became nothing more than a mechanism of control, because the
free flow of dollars and the success of markets were the only things keeping
the whole thing afloat.  If mitigating panic is the national goal and purpose,
then you have to control the where, when, what, and how of transportation. 
It’s a maxim.  You have to take away the risk of someone attacking
transportation and crippling the country.  To make that process easier and less
irritating for the public, you make public transport the only way to travel,
and you streamline everything with implanted chips so everyone can flow through
transport smoothly.  You sell it as ‘homeland security,’ as an economic
necessity, as ‘greening’ the planet.  It’s a cure-all for a broken and
desperately sad world.

“After the wars, everyone went along with whatever
Transport proposed.  Everyone, that is, but the refuseniks: mainly the miners
and the people who lived out in the countryside.  Just like when everyone but
the Amish went along with the implanted chips and the Transport IDs, the
refuseniks refused to accept the outlawing of private transportation.”

“We don’t have time for a political discussion,” Dawn cut
in. “We’re being hunted down, we have a dead friend lying on the back table in
that office up there, and I doubt Jed cares about our problems.  I suspect he
just wants to get away from all of this craziness and into the safety of the
Amish Zone.”

“Yeah.  Safety,” Pook said drily.

“How are you going to run the printers?” Dawn asked.  The
last thing she needed was her cousin trying to radicalize an Amish dissenter. 
She was calmer now, and a few faint tracks on her face were the only reminder
that she’d had an emotional episode over the death of Donavan.

Jerry Rios stood silently now, watching Pook with a
curious look on his face.  Jed could tell that Jerry couldn’t wait to see what
was going to happen next.

“I have an okcillium power generator,” Pook said.  “That’s
how I can run ten of these machines at once without Transport detecting
anything.  “It’ll run for a couple hundred hours on just a few grams of
okcillium.”

“Ok—freakin’—cillium!” Jerry said with a grin.  “I knew
it!”

“You did, did you?” Pook said.

“What is okcillium?” Jed asked before he could think
better of it.  His curiosity was piqued by the strangeness of the machines and
what Pook might do with them.

“Okcillium?” Pook said.  “Okcillium is the future,
and
it’s the past.  Okcillium is power and freedom, and it can also be
control and tyranny.  Okcillium is why there’s a war going on out there, and I
reckon it’s why you’re here too Jed, but we don’t have time for that right
now.  Dawn is anxious and she wants us to get to work.”

As if to emphasize the point, another explosion shook the
building above their heads, and dust and dirt shook free from the rafters of
the basement as the building creaked and moaned in protest.

Seemingly unconcerned, Pook went to work.  He plugged the
male end of the cord assembly into a female receptacle, and then walked over
and pulled a bunch of flimsy cardboard boxes full of clothing from a pile.  The
cartons had lost most of their structural integrity and as he moved them they
spilled some of their contents on the ground.  After Pook had moved a few of
the cartons, Jed could see a small machine that had been hidden among the
antique treasures.

Pook cleared the area around the machine, and then pushed
two buttons simultaneously on the face of the stainless metal cage that housed
the okcillium generator.  A slight hum and an almost imperceptible vibration
indicated to Pook that the machine was running, and Jed noticed that the ten
gray machines over near the north wall all came to life, beeping and humming in
coordinated response.

“It runs almost totally silently and doesn’t emit any
fumes or off-gases,” Pook said of the generator.  “It doesn’t produce a
tremendous amount of heat either.  That’s one of the reasons okcillium is so
valuable… and so illegal.  It is quite nearly undetectable.”

Jerry Rios pointed at the generator and winked at Jed. 
“Private power generation is like private transport, Jed.  Forbidden.”

Jed nodded his head.  He wasn’t sure what to think about
that information, but it was scary—and, if he had to admit it, somewhat
thrilling—to be standing there while Pook defiantly broke the law.

“Once upon a time,” Pook said, “the powers that be just
kept a lid on new inventions.  They killed or financially ruined inventors,
bought up patents, and spun conspiracy theories that kept people wondering
whether cheap and clean home power was even possible.  Mainstream electricity
and grid power were kept so artificially inexpensive that most people didn’t
even really care if home power generation was a possibility.  Thomas Edison
once said something along the lines of, ‘We intend to make electricity so
inexpensive that only the rich will be able to afford candles.’  And they did
it, too.  The problem with that is that it made everyone addicted to, and
dependent upon, cheaply provided and ubiquitous grid power.  Sure, the
government didn’t much care if you went solar, bought fossil-fuel generators,
or put up wind generators, because those off-grid resources were finite,
unsustainable, and would always require more input from the outside world.  But
when okcillium was discovered, all bets were off.  It was outlawed pretty soon
after it was discovered.”

“What reason was given for outlawing it?” Jed asked.

“They just categorized it with other fissionable
materials, even though okcillium is nothing like radioactive, nuclear
substances.”

“Okay,” Dawn said firmly, making it obvious that she was
exasperated with all of the talk.  “It’s not necessary that Jed get a complete
briefing about all of the problems in this world.  He isn’t a part of this
world.  We need to get a move on, like immediately.”

“Gotcha, cousin,” Pook said with a smile.

Jerry, Dawn, and Jed could only watch as Pook went to
work.  The first thing he did was produce a black pistol from a drawer.  He
showed the pistol to everyone before placing it flat on a metal rolling cart
that had a bright white tabletop.  Jed had never seen a real gun, and had only
heard of them through gossip and maybe in a few sermons back at home.  Pook
removed some sort of cartridge from the grip of the pistol and placed the
cartridge on the table as well.

While Pook went and grabbed a few other boxes, Jerry
picked up the weapon and examined it.

“Glock 21,” he said. “Fires .45 ACP ammunition and is very
deadly, especially at close range.  This one is highly illegal.  No tracking
chip.  No location-based disarming module.  No serial numbers.  No ID
activation or remote jamming.”

“You know your weapons,” Pook said as he placed the boxes
he’d retrieved near the machines.  He walked back over to the gun and took it
from Jerry’s hand.  “That’s not very common back where you come from.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said, putting his hands into his pockets.
“My dad was an enthusiast.”

“You have some kind of military background?” Pook
asked.

“Nah.  I was way too young for the wars.  I’m only twenty,
but my father fought.  He was in Kansas City before it was destroyed, and he
was there when New Orleans fell.  He used to take me out to the country to an
old cabin where he’d hidden some weapons from the time before the banks
collapsed and the wars broke out.  I learned a lot about guns from my
father.”

“Interesting,” Pook replied.

Pook placed the gun back down on the table, disassembled
it into its several parts, and then propped up the pieces on tiny, clear blocks
that elevated the gun from the table.  He did the same with the black
cartridge.  “This will allow us to get a full 3D image of the items,” he said
as he worked.

“The units we’re going to make will be one hundred percent
polymer resin and ceramic, even the striker pin and spring, and they’ll be
undetectable by metal detector—even though almost no one really uses metal
detectors anymore.”

Pook opened up a cabinet and pulled out a large handheld
device that, when plugged in, emitted a glowing red light.  The luminous wand
was connected to another device that Jed rightly identified as some kind of
computer.  He knew about computers from the studies he’d done to prepare
himself for his trip, and he’d seen Dawn operate one back at check-in when he’d
first arrived at Columbia.

“Back where you’re from, guns were not only illegal, but
they were manufactured so that they wouldn’t fire unless they were in the hand
of a certified Transport Officer.  They were also disabled electronically
whenever they were in or near any government facility.”  Pook began slowly
moving the handheld device over and around the gun parts and the disassembled
cartridge, and an image of the items began to appear on the computer screen.

“Guns are illegal here too, but the resistance has ways of
arming themselves.  Of course, that’s always been true.  The only people who
are disarmed in this world are the Amish,” he jerked his head toward Jed, “and
all the other ignorant, urban civilians. We usually call them ‘victims.’”  Pook
looked over to Jed and smiled.  “Pardon my terminology, Jed.  I’m sure you
don’t philosophically agree with the use of weapons.”

Jed just shrugged and stared back at the pistol as its
representation began to materialize on the computer screen.  He certainly
didn’t intend to get into any religious or philosophical discussions while
running for his life out among the English.  He knew that back in his old life
he’d be asleep in bed.  In only a few hours, he’d be waking up to milk Zoe. 
None of this—this running around, hiding, fighting, making guns—none of it made
food for people to eat or put clothing on their backs.  He understood that
perhaps these people felt like they needed to fight and struggle to be free,
but the struggle was birthed from their departure from a simple worldview.  The
English had long since abandoned the idea that man needed only food, raiment,
and perhaps shelter.  Once man leaves the farm, he needs
more
… always
more
.  The hunger for more inevitably leads to conflict, wars, tyranny,
oppression. And always, always, always this
more
that man actually gets…
comes in the form of more government.

Pook touched the screen a few times, moving the image
about and checking it for any noticeable errors, and as he did this, he
continued talking.

“This is all really old technology.  This pistol and these
printers and computers are all relics from the second decade of the
twenty-first century.  Being in the antique business has its benefits.”  Pook
opened his hand as he touched the screen and the image grew larger.  Jed could
now see more detail in the animation.

“Once I get a complete scan of the gun, the clip, and all
the parts,” Pook said, “the computer will render a perfectly identical
model—accurate within forty microns, or about half the breadth of a human
hair.  The printers will reproduce the item precisely, even down to the
internal moving parts.”

Pook then walked over and filled each of the machines in
measured doses with resin powders from the different boxes he’d stacked in
front of them.  When he was ready and had double-checked all of the settings,
he pressed some buttons on the computer, and the 3D printers jumped to life.

A gray arm on each of the machines began traveling back
and forth within its case, laying down each micro-layer of polymer from the
bottom up.  After each pass, the panel that was holding these slowly forming
weapons dropped down an almost infinitesimal distance, ready for the gray arm
to make another pass.  A white, drying powder also filled the case as the
printing progressed, suspending the newly printed parts in three dimensions.

Pook turned and looked at Jed, who was staring, mouth
agape, at the process, and smiled with amusement.

“Have you ever fired a gun, Jed?”

“No, sir.  We don’t hunt.  Some of our people have small
rifles for killing pigs or cattle, but we’re all pacifists.”

“Yes,” Pook replied, smiling, “I suppose you are.  It must
be nice, having other people fight your battles for you.”

Jerry seemed to bristle at this, and answered before Jed
could think of what to say.

“He never asked anyone to fight for him, Pook,” Jerry
said. “I mean his people didn’t.  Jed doesn’t owe you or me or anyone else
anything at all.  You can’t force people to be thankful just because in your
mind they seem to benefit from what you’re doing… especially when what you’re
doing is something you would do anyway, even without them as an excuse.”

“Well now!” Pook said, laughing all the while.  “Irony
always amuses me.  It looks like now
you’re
the one who’s come to Jed’s
defense, but I don’t suppose he owes you any thanks for that.”

“No,” Jerry replied, staring at Pook.  “No, he
doesn’t.”

“Well then,” Pook smiled. “It looks like no one owes
anyone anything!”

Less than an hour later, there
were ten finished polymer replicas of the Glock 21 sitting on the rolling
table.  Pook assembled the pistols, examining each one intently before handing
it to Jerry, who inserted the clip and pulled back the slide, checking to see
that the gun functioned properly.