Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(53)

25


The bloom in Shān destroyed most of the population, with only a few hundred of its twenty thousand citizens able to isolate themselves after the alarm was raised. She learned this in the after-action report, as well as the existence of the undercity. Finding out every Rez had a secret network of tunnels running beneath every home and building was a shock, but she understood why such a thing wasn’t general knowledge. Isolation chambers, unbeknownst to the average citizen, could open into them. That was the only way to assure the people inside could avoid being contaminated by the bloom while getting them free.

Of course, every person evacuated that way had to be knocked out first in order to keep the secret. Beck considered the things she might have done with free rein to move undetected about the city and shuddered. She was mostly harmless in a criminal sense, but others were not.

In the days following the bloom, she thought the disaster at Shān would weigh as heavily on her instructors as it did on her, and she was wrong. Though none of them made light of the catastrophic loss of life, neither did they seem rocked by the experience. At first this surprised her, but upon further thought it began to make sense.

She—and the rest of her team—were hit hard emotionally because it was both immediate thanks to their participation in the bloom and a viscerally new experience. The emotional upheaval she felt masked the obvious human truism that people might feel bad about tragedy at a distance, but it rarely changes their life. Beck’s first foray into real-world combat drove home the seriousness of what every member of the Deathwatch faced.

And just as her training displaced the grief for her family, so did those final two weeks salve the wounds her mind and soul had taken at Shān. Not that the experience didn’t change her any more than losing her family left Beck untouched. Their loss left her more prone to thoughtfulness, at least after those early bouts of acting out. Shān nearly drowned her with guilt over the countless lives she’d taken and the thrill of battle coursing through her while she’d done it, but when the immediate aftermath dried up, it only left her a bit more sad.

That, she reckoned, was only natural. You don’t get over killing people, even the infected. You get through it. And that was bound to leave some traces.

*

There was no ceremony when their training completed. No grand assortment of visitors beaming at them. Only the High Commander of the Deathwatch along with Reeves, who took the oath of service from the remaining recruits. All ten of them.

Everyone on Beck’s team made it to the end. Shān peeled away the last of those who could not, or would not, put themselves up against the horrors sure to come. Beck understood this and didn’t judge; she might have bowed out herself if not for the desperate need the Movement had for new blood.

Bowers stood before them, their armor left at the back of the room. In the fourteen days since receiving the suits, none of the recruits was allowed to be more than a few seconds run away from them. They did everything short of sleep in the damn things, a rigorous routine meant to acclimate the recruits to the armor’s use as rapidly as possible.

Standing there without it felt odd to Beck, almost scandalous. But as Bowers spoke the words she was to repeat, perhaps the most important words she would ever speak, Beck pushed the sensation to the back of her mind.

“I will be the sword when called on,” Bowers said, his voice booming across the recruits. “I will be the shield always. I will move between the citizen and harm, and stand the watch when death moves in the night.”

Beck spoke the words, and though she had read the oath before, they held new meaning for her.

Though she had never blamed Eshton for killing her family, having seen the consequences of a bloom for herself, she understood perfectly how he could do it. In her darker moments, Beck put herself in his situation knowing what she knew now, and imagined that she herself could have done the same. She believed she could about half the time. Through tears and with a shattered heart, but she believed it.

And then it was over. Bowers looked across the faces before him with a critical eye, but also an air of satisfaction. “If you’ll allow me a few words, there is something I think we should tell every new class of graduates.”

No one was idiot enough to shout that the man in charge of their lives should shut it and let them go home before their deployment to the walls of various Rezzes, so Bowers nodded appreciatively and continued.

“This class faced a travesty rare among recruits,” he said, his tone softening to something like commiseration. “It is one I wish no class, no Watchman, should ever endure. The Pales are bad enough, but blooms are enough to make you think the universe has it out for humankind. Your cohort has a larger attrition rate than most, and right now I’m sure some of you take pride in simply making it to the end. Perhaps a few are sure that you are fully dedicated. So loyal to the cause that you will never waver.”

Bowers raised an eyebrow. “I’m here to tell you that’s a bunch of horseshit. You’ll have doubts. That’s something no one ever told me. It’s normal. It doesn’t make you a traitor to question. If anything, it will make you better members of the Watch. Doubt helps you remember that what we do is a privilege, not some proof that we are superior. Serving in the Deathwatch is a terrible honor. Live up to it.”

“Sentinels, you are dismissed back to your homes for a three day furlough before joining your new chapterhouse. Your orders will be waiting for you in your armor. You are dismissed,” Reeves said.