Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(37)
Novak shook his head at the sudden shift in topics. “Such a weird question.”
“Not really,” Eshton protested. “I’m interested in why you’re so put off by how much things have changed, but you only seem interested in vat food instead of grossed out by it. I mean, you grew up when there were still farms out in the open. And whole businesses that existed to offer a bunch of kinds of food.”
“Grocery stores,” Novak said. “I guess since you guys grow or manufacture all your own food, you don’t have those. To answer your question, however, I’m not put off because my lab was three doors down from the guy who pioneered bioreactor food. I celebrated with him when he engineered the first fungus capable of creating vegetable matter. His wife was the one who did the hard work, though. She figured out how to make bacteria produce animal proteins.” He gave his vat steak a prod with his fork. “I was eating this stuff about a day after the technology proved viable.”
This, Eshton understood. His training taught, among other things, that familiarity could allow you to normalize just about anything. It was why so many members of the Watch maintained a nearly unbreakable calm in the face of Pale swarms.
He couldn’t help feeling that Novak, for all that his moral outlook clashed with those of the Protectorate, should not allow himself to become too comfortable in modern society. Eshton didn’t have to agree with those ethics to appreciate the beauty in them. As ideals they were lovely; they just weren’t applicable any longer. In his mind this thought was in line with the Tenets if only because Novak himself was unlikely to threaten the carefully constructed and maintained social order enabled by them. The scientist was like the old world works of art sometimes uncovered by scout teams. A relic of a brighter age, and just as worthy of preservation.
“So what else do you want to know?” Eshton said. “We can take the rest of the day if you like. Unless you’re going to cure the Fade in the next few hours. Then we should probably do that.”
Novak shook his head with a chuckle, somewhat muffled by the bit of steak in his mouth. “No, not today. Or even in the next few weeks. You were smart enough to copy over all of my data stored in the stasis pod, but even with that it’ll be a long time before I’m close. Mostly because it’s not really a cure in the traditional sense.”
Eshton tilted his head curiously. “Why not? It’s a disease.”
Novak waved his fork in a small circle, causing droplets of potato to fly off and spatter his plate. “It’s complicated. They aren’t just sick, they’re altered on a genetic level. I don’t know if it’s even possible to undo that, but I got further than anyone before they put me on ice.”
Eshton sensed a long, complicated lecture full of dry scientific jargon coming, so he pulled out his tablet. “Would you like to see what it’s like out there?”
“Sure,” Novak said. “Can you show me where you live?”
Eshton nodded. With a few swipes, he pulled up a handful of recordings from Brighton and sent them to the wall vid. They showed Brighton from a number of angles, but Novak pointed his fork at the one on the lower left corner. “That one. The ground level one.”
Eshton played the video, which in his opinion was the most boring of them. It was taken from the camera of his own suit during a routine Enforcement patrol. He tried to do one at least once a week, joining the Sentinels under him.
On the screen, Sentinel Rivas could be seen walking in front of him. Her name didn’t show up, of course, but Eshton made it only a few days prior and remembered the details. They walked through the path running around the edge of the central public mess hall, though on that day no meals were being served. Instead, the administrators of the bioreactors within were distributing bulk rations and staples as they did every other week. The scene was calm enough, with background conversations ebbing and flowing as Eshton moved through the crowd.
“What’s going on here?” Novak asked. “I see they’re handing out food, but there are two different kinds. One of them is wrapped up like those meal bars you keep hidden everywhere like a squirrel hiding nuts.”
Eshton wasn’t sure what a squirrel was or if he should be offended by the comparison, but he ignored the curiosity. “Well, people get their staples from the reactors. Stuff they can cook and use to make more complicated foods. But it’s the law that everyone has to maintain a stockpile of a certain size, too. In case of emergency. That’s what the wrapped food is. Mostly meal bars, but a few other things too, like separate multivitamins, broad spectrum antibiotics, that kind of stuff.”
Novak pursed his lips. “I guess it makes sense. You’re all descended from people who made it through the end of the world. Doesn’t hurt to prepare for that happening again.”
Eshton smiled. “That’s true, but it’s not the main reason we do it. Sometimes bioreactors go down, or their biomass goes sour and needs to be reseeded. Production drops. This way people have a backup food supply just in case. Sometimes dust storms happen on distribution days, or a family goes through their stock faster than expected.”
Novak studied the screen. “They’re afraid of you.”
Eshton glanced at the video, seeing the people shy away as he approached, or lower their eyes until he passed them by. “Hmm. They are. You get so used to it you stop noticing after long enough.”