Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(50)

“It’s just logic,” Fisher said. “You have literally no reason to lie. You showed me the video, so I know you’re telling the truth about knowing where my friends live. If this isn’t a ploy to hunt them down, then it can only be one of two things. Either you’re trying to gain their trust to see if there are more Remnants nearby, or you’re telling the truth. If it’s the first, I’ll know quick. Because you’ll start asking questions.”

Eshton choked out a laugh. “No worries there. I was ordered to get you to back off, which you will after today, and to secure a back channel with these people in case we need a hiding place for our asset. The less I know about them and any organization they belong to, the less that can be tortured out of me later by people looking for him. Other than a guard we’d send along with him in that scenario, I’ll be the single point of contact.”

Fisher grunted in a way that could generously be called agreement, and soldiered on. The tunnel, excavated when the massive construction drone built Brighton years before, let them out nearly a quarter mile into the badlands. They were south rather than northwest near the power station, and another mile took them from starved grassland and its perpetual struggle against the dust to the first hints of older growth. Here stunted bushes began dotting the landscape, a mile after that and down a steep slope, actual trees could be seen.

Then, a forest.

It was not the verdant expanse of green one would find further east, where the weapons of the old world had different effects, but it was more life in one place than any person in Brighton was used to. Stands of struggling, yellow-green trees clumped together and seemingly fought for survival in the harsh environment around them, roots twisted up in brown snarls that broke the earth around them.

Eshton found it oddly comforting. The persistence of life always cut through to the core of him. It was primal. Elemental. Though he would never speak the words out loud—too many years of indoctrination—he felt the same way about Remnants. People who fought and struggled for every minute of breath in a hostile world were made of the same tenacious stuff as the slowly recovering ecosystem.

They walked through the woodlands, such as they were, for nearly half an hour before Eshton decided to say something. “This is a lot farther than your usual meeting place.”

Fisher nodded. “That’s because we’re not scheduled for one. We’re almost there. Just a little...yes. Here.”

He slowed to a halt and crouched down, reaching out in front of him near the bole of a small tree. Eshton followed the hand and let his eyes absorb what was there instead of trying to look for any specific thing. It was an old but useful trick that paid off. Eshton caught the faintest glimmer of reflected light running ruler-straight through the air.

“Trip line?” Eshton asked.

Fisher tweaked the line hard enough to send an audible twang through the still air around them. “Early warning system. My friends keep a place here, but it’s not where they usually live. More of an outpost.”

“So, what did that do, exactly?” Eshton asked.

Fisher rose to his feet and leaned against the tree, the body language of a man settling in to wait. “It rang a bell. They’ll be here soon.”

Within a few minutes, five figures appeared. Three of them were human, dust cloths hanging loose around their necks. Joining them were two of the largest dogs Eshton had ever seen. Though they were the same enormous species, one was a gray so fine it was almost blue, while the other was brindle.

The three people the dogs accompanied might as well have come straight from popular myth about Remnants. One of the men was a few inches shorter than Eshton with a bronze tint to his skin and the barest touch of gray at his temples, and quite fit. The woman holding the leashes for the dogs was more pale, with wavy brown hair and clever eyes. The third, the one Eshton took for the leader of the group, had scars crisscrossing his sun-tanned skin, the bulk of muscle evident beneath his light layer of clothing, and the top of a tattoo curling up the side of his neck.

“Fisher,” the bald man said, eyeing the pair suspiciously. “Mind telling me what the fuck you think you’re doing here with a stranger?”

“Andres,” Fisher said, gesturing at the bald man. “Karen, Scott, this is Eshton. He has a story to tell you.”

Eshton was tested in battle. He faced death more often than he cared to remember. He was not afraid of death in the larger sense; it carried no existential dread for him. Hadn’t done so since his family died.

Yet the sight of these people and the quiet beasts watching him with suspicious eyes kindled something in him, perhaps because of his lack of armor, that was nearly alien at this point.

Dread. Actual, real worry.

“Hi,” Eshton said. “Hear me out before you try to kill me.”





24


They bled. That was a reality the training didn’t prepare her for until that first time in the arena when they were ambushed by Pales. But even those were inhuman, altered into monstrous forms by the long, slow change brought on by the Fade.

The victims of Fade B, despite their madly dancing but intelligent eyes, looked entirely human. And over the course of the hour following their push from the Loop station, Beck’s armor turned red with it from head to toe. In this she was not alone; every member of the unit looked the same.

The local Overwatch fed them instructions and directions, and until five minutes ago these were mostly orders to act as a flying company, rushing in mad dashes for clusters of infected or to aid teams caught unaware. From the chatter coming in across the general channel, kept at a low volume in the background noise of her radio, she knew that several groups of local Watchmen were dealing with massive clusters of infected themselves.