Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(40)

Jen raised her hands. “What can I say? We inherited them. Our family was one of the first to end up in the safe zone during the Collapse. We’ve had them forever. They were grandfathered in before the purges of old world stuff.”

Beck tried to imagine the sort of continuity required to own objects so old, much less the safety and resources needed to watch media. Her family was one of thousands like it, all descended from migrants from the original safe zone to Rezzes outside it once they were built. That was after all the purpose of the protectorate; to spread humanity back across the continent and the globe. Relatively few entire families remained on the island, at least compared to the huge numbers out in the Rezzes.

The conversation veered from their original purpose, a fact Beck was silently grateful for. They wanted help with their focus, assuming Beck had a method or trick they hadn’t worked out on their own. She needed time to think, because telling them her actual motivation was out of the question. Her need to be the best stemmed from her time with Eshton, Stein, Bowers, and Novak. She was driven to succeed because she knew the stakes the Movement faced.

Guilt crept up inside her that she had to keep the secret from them, but given those stakes, it was a relatively small sin to live with.





19


She suffered no punishment for outing Caleb unless you counted being put in charge of a group of recruits, which Beck sometimes did over the next week.

Of the original thirty, twenty-four were left. She was fairly certain there were no more members of the Watch planted among them. Though Reeves had listened patiently as several of his charges parlayed increasingly outlandish theories on why the medic had been hidden in their ranks, the Proctor never agreed or disagreed with any of them. Beck kept her own theory to herself, though it seemed obvious enough that others had to have come to the same conclusion.

Caleb put on an excellent performance as an enemy. With the others he was taciturn at worst, choosing to target Beck with the worst of his vitriol. Jeremy had mused why he would do this, considering she was the best in the class in overall metrics.

“It was because of that,” Beck had explained. “To make me more sympathetic. And look at that! It worked. You’re all here talking to me now.”

Caleb’s bit of theater was just another thread in the complex lessons shaping the cohort’s way of thinking. The head of any class will almost by default become an object of dislike or jealousy. Beck had been on both sides of it in school. Giving her an obvious bully increased sympathy for her in those prone to it, and revealed the more spiteful natures in those who were not. Which she suspected was half the point. Reeves was tricky in many—most—ways, but absolutely clear on the point that those with low empathy and thoughtfulness would find it nearly impossible to function in the Watch.

Those first two weeks had, without any of them realizing it, been slow preparation to put them in the mindset for what came next: teamwork. Four teams of six, with Beck chosen as one of the captains.

She knew the word, captain. It had a cultural cachet strong enough to transcend the fact that most citizens alive today had never seen a boat outside historical documents, or lived in a time with organizations that used it as a rank. It was embedded deeply in the language and persisted as a nebulous concept, and the Watch kept it alive just as children playing football in any Rez did. Team leaders were captains. That was just how it was.

Beck would have given up the title that had become more an idiom than living concept if possible. Reeves might have let her step down, though she knew it would cost her what respect he might have, but her team would not. Jeremy, Jen, Lucia, and Wojcik had been thrilled when Reeves placed them under her command. Their sixth, a woman in her mid-twenties named Tala Dwyer, was ambivalent. Beck was happy enough to have her. Tala worked hard and kept her head down. She was middle of the pack, but Beck would have settled for simply not being murderously jealous and considered this a win.

After a full week of being separated from the rest of the cohort with no contact whatsoever, the course of their training seemed clear.

“How long until they put us up against the other teams, do you think?” Jen asked as the team settled into their bunks after another torturous day of exercise, combat training, meditation, education, and nightmare combinations of all of them.

Beck shook her head. “I don’t.”

Jen’s lips twisted in disbelief. “You don’t. Really. You think we’re being kept apart, forced to keep up with our training regimen on our own half the time with no supervision, and that’s not part of some test to see how well we hone our skills without being watched?”

“No,” Beck said. “I definitely think that’s the point, as I’ve said several times. It also forces us to think critically about our training. They’ll expect us to start devising new ways to approach it on our own soon, I’m sure. Or even see if we can logically work out the next steps they have planned for us based on what we know. It’s actually a pretty smart way to force creative thinking. I just don’t think they’ll pit us against the other teams. It would be counterproductive.”

“How?” Jen asked.

Wojcik, who had palmed a handful of vat-grown nuts, a rare treat, tossed one in the air and caught it in his mouth. “It’d make us see them as enemies. The Watch doesn’t work like that. People don’t fight each other anymore.”