Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(39)

He turned to the students around him. “So. Anyone want to guess why we put a member of the Watch in with every class?”

The lessons not only never ended, but Beck was beginning to understand that it was sometimes impossible to know how many you were being taught at once.

*

Beck sat down for dinner that night as she always did, hunched over a tray of food with her tablet laid out on the table beside her. She was halfway through a section of the technical manual they were expected to memorize before being allowed anywhere close to their armor when a voice spoke, intruding on her reading.

“That was pretty amazing,” it said. She looked up to find Jeremy Grayson sitting next to her, the tall young man with dark skin who had spoken up on their first day. It was the last time she had heard him do so, though she assumed he spoke with the small cluster of friends he acquired along the way.

They joined her as well, filtering in over the next few seconds with their own trays and taking seats around her. They used separate tables most of the time; the long bench was saved for special events. Beck understood this as another aspect of preparation for their eventual service, as the modular tables were the sort they would take with them in the field for extended scouting trips. Though those were generally left to Reclamation, with occasional long forays into the Badlands by members of Defense. Still, everyone had to learn the basics.

“Uh, thanks,” Beck said, uncomfortable with the sudden attention after weeks of barely speaking to anyone outside of training. “I got lucky.”

Jen Okuda, the only other person of Asian descent in the cohort aside from Beck herself, laughed around a bite of vat steak. “Bullshit, it was luck. You’ve spent almost every waking moment reading or doing forms out in the courtyard after the rest of us go inside. It’s kind of intimidating.”

“Is that why none of you have talked to me until now?” Beck asked, the question slipping from her lips before she was even aware of forming the words. She felt the color rise in her cheeks and wanted nothing more than to sink down into the ground and vanish. How petty she sounded to her own ears, taking the first chance she could to insult people.

“Yeah, kind of,” Jeremy said. “The rest of us came here not knowing what to expect. You were scary focused from the start.”

“Oh,” Beck said, for once lost for words. How did you connect with people who went from complete strangers to reaching out? With Fisher it had been easy enough. He’d seen her at her most vulnerable. The thought sent a pang of homesickness through her heart. She very much wanted to see him, hear how he was doing.

Another of the four new arrivals, a man in his early twenties only known as Wojcik, his surname, nodded along even as he slurped a mass of noodles into his mouth. He smacked his lips appreciatively and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Everyone just figured you didn’t want to be bothered. You put off these vibes like you don’t care if the rest of us even exist, so we just let you do your own thing.”

Since they seemed to be going around the table, Beck looked to the last of the four, a pale young woman who couldn’t have been more than fifteen with nearly white blonde hair. “That go for you too, Lucia?”

Lucia Vargas shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. None of us had anything against you.”

Beck sat back, then scratched at her eyebrow. “So what changed? Not that I don’t appreciate all this wonderful dinner conversation, but why come talk to me all of a sudden?”

The others shared looks, but it was Jeremy who spoke. Though young, maybe as young as Lucia, Beck knew from watching him over the last few weeks that he was intelligent and mature beyond his years. That state of being wasn’t uncommon in the world today. Depending on which Rez you came from, kids could start working to some degree almost from the time they could understand the concept. Beck herself had spent more than a year helping her mother in the agriculture project starting at age five.

“We want you to help us,” Jeremy said plainly. “You’re so far ahead of everyone else. Whatever you’re doing, we want to learn it.”

Jen sat forward, cupping her chin with both hands. “Yes, darling, we simply must know your motivation!”

Beck frowned at her. The other woman sounded as if she were mocking someone, or doing an impression, but Beck had no idea what it might be. Her confusion must have been evident, because Wojcik waved a dismissive hand at Jen. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She grew up watching old world vids. She acts like this all the time.”

“Movies,” Jen corrected. “Back then they were called movies.”

“Wow, really?” Beck asked, genuinely impressed. Thanks to the series of disasters during the years of the Collapse, the vast majority of old media had been wiped out. What remained was tightly controlled by the Protectorate, and after meeting Parker Novak she could understand why. She had grown up learning about the old world as dry facts, presented in ways that made the system of governance run by the Protectorate look not just obviously better, but morally superior. It was one thing to view a culture as a dead thing with all its flaws laid bare, and quite another to witness small pieces of it in glorious motion. Parker was not the hedonistic layabout Beck’s history lessons warned so many of the men of his time had been. Far from it; he was dedicated enough to curing the Fade to put himself in stasis not knowing if he would ever awaken.

“How did you get away with that?” Beck asked.