Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(58)

“Microbiology, actually,” Parker said. “That and genetics. Some epigenetics, too, if I’m—”

Bowers cleared his throat. “Get on with it, Doctor Novak.”

Parker blinked, glancing at Beck as if to check and see if he’d made some kind of social error. She gave him an encouraging nod.

“Okay,” Parker said. “First I have a question. A clarification, really. You told me all of your scientists with any sort of expertise in the Fade are all concentrated in one facility, right?”

“Not necessarily in one place, no,” Bowers said. “But the overwhelming majority of them are under the command of the same civilian division of the Protectorate, yes.”

Parker pursed his lips. “How high up in the chain of command is the person in charge of that division?”

Bowers’ face clouded over. “I know what you’re going for here, Doctor, and it’s the wrong track. I’ve known Gloria Chen for forty years. She is as honest as they come.”

Parker raised his hands placatingly. “I’m not accusing, I’m asking a question. I don’t know how your government works. Before I feel comfortable sharing, I need to understand the context of your research division.”

Bowers grumbled, then calmed himself in the same eerie way of every Watchmen; all at once. “At the top is the Protector, who is elected by the members of the high council. I am on that council, as is Gloria Chen, who is the head of the civilian Science division. There are thirteen councilors in total. Below them are the civilian governors of each Rez, though the position is mostly a symbolic one. The local Wardens who run Deathwatch chapterhouses are the actual leaders. Governors enact civilian policy, but have no real power other than to help elect high council members.”

Parker nodded. “So, a top-down organization with a primary director who delegates responsibility to those just below them, who in turn do the same. Right?”

Bowers nodded. “I don’t see what this has to do with your work.”

Parker’s eyebrows rose. “My work? Nothing. Not directly. I assumed that was how things were run since that same structure has been the cornerstone of organizations for hundreds of years. I needed to be sure because if I’m being honest, you people are weird and different enough that I didn’t know if maybe you had one person making all the decisions with no middle managers in between.”

Bowers barked out a laugh loud enough to startle Eshton, who had begun drifting off into a daze while Beck observed everything quietly. “Hell, who would even think of doing something like that? And why would you assume it was a possibility?”

Parker fixed him with an innocent expression. “Because that’s how you run this Movement of yours.”

Beck snickered, drawing an irritated look from Bowers. She tried to cover it by clearing her throat, but no one seemed convinced.

“As for what it has to do with the work,” Parker said, filling the conversational space. “Well. My research on the Fade—Fade A, that is—is ongoing and encouraging. The problem I’m running into here is that Fade B is different. Too different.”

“Be specific,” Beck said. “He doesn’t like people being vague.”

Bowers eyed her, then snorted a laugh. “You listen to Eshton and Stein gabbing like schoolchildren, Park. It’s a bad habit for a Watchman.”

Beck shrugged. “Good habit for a spy.”

“Fade B is man-made,” Parker said, interrupting.

“We know that,” Eshton said. “The Fade was a biological weapon.”

Parker raised a pointed finger in a way that gave Beck flashbacks to school. “In point of fact, it was not. The Fade was never intended to be a weapon. It was meant to slow, possibly stop, the aging process.”

The silence in the room was mountainous in its weight. Bowers and Eshton, who was now fully alert, looked as stunned as Beck felt.

She leaned forward. “What? That’s not possible. We know it was a weapon.”

Parker shook his head. “It wasn’t. I know since I was there. It doesn’t matter now, of course, but the plague was the result of the reach of a particularly arrogant group of genetic engineers badly exceeding their grasp. They designed a retrovirus delivery system meant to alter genes in humans to grant them drastically increased lifespans. Or hadn’t you ever wondered why there are so many Pales out there a hundred years later?”

“We always believed their longevity was a side effect of the plague,” Bowers said. His voice was less firm than usual, lacking the note of command. Beck sympathized. Parker was right that this revelation changed nothing in any real way, but finding out a widely accepted fact wasn’t one had a way of shaking you. Especially when it was so central to the story your entire society told itself about its own creation.

Parker waved a hand. “Nope. It’s the Fade working as designed. Only problem is that the damn thing puts other DNA through a blender. Do you guys have blenders? You know what, doesn’t matter. Important thing is that the physical changes in Pales and the neurological problems are the side effects. Uh, where was I?”

“Man made,” Beck said.

Parker snapped his fingers. “Right. So the thing is, yeah, the Fade is engineered. But when I said Fade B is man-made, I mean someone made it way after the Collapse. I don’t know how long you’ve been having these blooms, but I sequenced the living shit out of that thing’s DNA payload and it’s not any natural mutation of the Fade. It was designed to do what it does. To spread even among the immune and kill large populations.”