Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(33)
Reeves swept his unnaturally calm eyes across the group once more. “If at any point I believe you’re incapable of mastering yourself, distancing your reactions from the duty in front of you, you’re gone. It’s that simple. You’ll learn to work under pressure and pain. You won’t be left to figure it out on your own, however. Instructors will put you through exercises designed to reshape the way you think and react. That will be the deciding factor. Learn those lessons and you’ll make it through. The Deathwatch is concerned with minds, not bodies. And if you can’t see why, you should probably quit now.”
*
Four hours later, Beck stumbled to the mess with a body that felt like it had been beaten with pipes and a gaping void where her stomach should have been. The meal bars were not enough. Fortunately for her, one of the perks of being in the Watch made itself plain.
Across the table lay a spread like nothing she had ever seen—or smelled. Dishes of old world food in a staggering variety sat steaming, prepared and served by a trio of men she hadn’t seen before. Some of the components she recognized, such as a casserole containing green beans and the plate of boiled potatoes, but others were alien.
“What are those?” beck asked as she took a seat on the bench, pointing to a plate of bright vegetables in various warm hues.
“Peppers,” one of the chefs said. “They’re extremely hot. You’ll want to be careful with them.”
The tall young man who had spoken earlier in the day looked dubious at the feast laid out before them. “We gonna eat like this every night?”
The head chef—or at least the one in the middle—shook his head. “No. Though the Watch does have access to more fresh food, so usually there’s at least one meal a day that doesn’t come from a bioreactor.”
Beck frowned. “That seems unfair. Why do we get favored over other citizens?”
The center chef smiled condescendingly. “Oh, it’s corrupt. It’s an abuse of power! How dare we! Listen, every cohort has someone like you. Didn’t Reeves tell you to kill your biases? Pretty hard to be objective if you make assumptions right from the start.”
Beck opened her mouth to protest, anger rising up in her before she caught herself. However irritating—and that was probably intentional just to elicit a reaction—the guy was right. She made assumptions.
“Okay,” Beck said, unwilling to actually tell the man he was correct. “How was I wrong? What makes us eating so well ethical when so many can’t?”
The chef gestured at the table, taking in all the food. “Everything here was grown or cultivated by the Watch itself. You’ll do it, too. It’s part of your training. In addition to running our own centralized agriculture Rez just to keep us self-sufficient, every chapterhouse has its own garden. For as long as you’re one of us, you will make things grow. Now, eat. You’ll need the calories.”
Beck didn’t need to be told twice. Thirty people worked near to death descended on the platters of food before them like locusts.
Midway through her second helping, she began to understand the hook. Yes, the Deathwatch would want to stay self-sufficient as much as possible, but there were other angles. That much became more clear with every minute. Why were they worked out so thoroughly? To train their bodies. To become strong and build endurance. But also to make them hungry, so that one of the most fundamental and visceral human needs came into play. The satisfaction of food, good food, was a psychological tether. Being fed well created a subtle but real bond. The effect was powerful enough that even as she recognized the ploy for what it was, Beck couldn’t deny how well it worked. Seeing the truth did nothing to alleviate the sheer pleasure of the experience.
Rest brought aches and the expected but still unwelcome sense of dread that she would not be able to move well enough in the morning to continue through the rest of indoc. The thought bothered her far more than she would have expected just a day before.
While the realization wouldn’t come to her for a few days, that night was the first since losing her family that Beck fell asleep without their memory surging to the front of her mind.
16
On the second day, Beck ran. On the third day, she ran before two hours of strength exercises. On the fourth, she got punched in the face for the first time in her life. Her nose flexed but didn’t break, blood gushing down her face and over her mouth. She blew out a fine mist of it right into the eyes of her opponent.
When he blinked, distracted and deeply unnerved if the expression on his face was to be believed, Beck stepped into her own punch exactly as instructed, catching him on the side of his jaw while off balance.
She was not a large woman, but a properly delivered punch didn’t require enormous size. He toppled over, more embarrassed at being caught off guard than hurt.
“Stop,” Reeves said, stepping onto the square covered in thin mats and stepping between them. “Johnson, are you hurt?”
Caleb Johnson rose to his feet, wiping the blood from his face. “No, sir.” The words were calm, but rage tightened every muscle of his frame. Stocky and pale, dusted with freckles and a shock of sun-bleached brown hair, he would have been the prototypical farm boy in an earlier age.
Reeves raised an eyebrow at Beck. “Park, would you care to explain what you just did?”
Beck heard the challenge in his voice and refused to take the bait. Instead she took his words at face value. “I followed your instructions, Proctor. You told me to strike him in the face and put him down. I used my available resources to adapt. He’s bigger and stronger than me. I had to use the tools on hand.”