Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(43)
He let the screen die, partly to avoid being seen by any passing wanderer and a little because he didn’t want to have to look at Beck for what came next. He trusted the system to alert him with a vibration if anyone approached, but nothing could take the sting out of his orders.
“So, your message said it was urgent we meet,” Beck said. “I assume the old man has orders for me? Ones he couldn’t risk sending in even a coded message?”
“Yes,” Eshton said, feeling himself fall into the more precise and formal language he used when on duty. “The Commander wants you to know that whatever division you choose, you’ll be trained for, but that it will be a cover. He wants you in Special Projects.”
Beck said nothing for a few seconds. “Don’t suppose he told you why, did he?”
“No,” Eshton admitted. “But putting you in our black ops division makes sense. Bowers has direct command over them, and every member has an official designation with another division. It gives them cover when they have to visit a new Rez. Everyone knows Special Projects exists, but no one has any idea who the members are.”
“Ah,” Beck said. “What are the chances that everyone in the Movement is actually part of it, then?”
Eshton smiled. She was smart, but the rapid motion of those fine gears sometimes made her leap before slowing down enough to consider carefully. “Well, I’m not, so it can’t be everyone. I don’t think Stein is, either. She’s been in charge of Brighton for a couple years now, and I can count on one hand the number of times she’s left. Special Projects members stand out in just one way—they never stay in one place very long. We get a lot of personnel changes between Rezzes, so whatever division you end up picking, we can work with it.”
“So how does it work?” Beck asked. “I’ll have to go through training for my division, then get Special Projects training on top of that? All so I can move around and protect our little secret?”
He heard the frustration in her voice, but couldn’t help smiling at the mental image of Beck corralling Parker Novak like a sheep dog. “No. Special Projects is more...learn on the job. Generally you’ll work missions with other members, who will teach you as you go. I don’t think the plan is to keep you with our friend. From what Bowers told me, it sounds like he’s going to use the fact that you don’t have an established position like me or Stein to keep you moving around as a problem solver. If I had to bet, I’d say one of the problems he’ll have you solve is finding out who is crippling Fade research.”
“Oh,” Beck breathed. “So you came out here to tell me to prepare myself because our boss is going to aim me at someone presumably powerful enough to kill even a member of the Watch and get away with it.”
Eshton tried to find a silver lining or even something in there to make a joke out of, but drew up short. “Yeah, pretty much.”
*
The walk back to his carriage was not a pleasant one. Eshton looked forward to the hypersonic transit back to Brighton if only because the speed of it would bring him to his bed that much more quickly. He wasn’t physically tired, but his mind needed a break.
He understood the need to prepare Beck for the work ahead. The difference between truly being a member of a given division while sometimes working for the Movement when it was needed and functionally being an agent of the Movement full time was subtle but powerful. Eshton was the former; Beck might be the only person in all the Protectorate to be the latter.
She assumed Bowers chose her for this job for the simple reason that she was new and thus available. There was some truth to that, but Eshton had been ordered not to elaborate any further than necessary. Bowers spoke at great length about Beck’s skills with machine code and programming, her talent with mechanical and electronic systems. She was tough, smart, and had laser focus. She was the ideal agent.
Yet Bowers, shrewd judge of character that he was, also saw Beck’s weaknesses. Her curiosity straddled positive and negative, as apt to pull her into danger as it was to satisfy her mind. And like all intelligent people, overconfidence was a serious concern with Beck. Eshton was not to praise or encourage her beyond a minimal level, as Bowers believed any honest account of her abilities might push the young woman into making foolish mistakes.
Eshton thought that was pile of horseshit, personally, but his loyalty demanded he obey.
He spent one training cycle instructing at Acuet, so intellectually Eshton understood that holding back praise was far from demoralizing or breaking Beck’s spirit. Yet his time with Novak had begun to change his outlook by fractions of degrees that added up with each shift. The ease with which the scientist spoke of the old world, the passion in his words, the natural penchant for honesty and friendliness, these things had a way of rubbing off.
And even that light dusting of cultural drift made Eshton yearn for a time when people weren’t so driven by survival that they had forgotten the basics of genuine human interaction.
It was possible that this truncation of social graces and warmth was either unique to—or at least concentrated in—the Deathwatch.
The increasing awareness that he would have to maintain the rigid, distant mindset of a Watchman in order to protect Parker Novak long enough for a cure to be discovered, which would allow humanity some breathing room after better than a hundred years, was what exhausted him the most.