Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(6)

The Guard studied her with those soft brown eyes. Not the eyes of a killer, she thought, but of course they were. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Beck raised a hand with the palm facing him. “Gonna stop you right there. You’ve been nice to me, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but right now it feels like you’re using my situation to pressure me into joining up. Which makes me think this has all been an act. And that pisses me off.”

5110—she hated not knowing his name—nodded. “Okay. If you end up needing a place to stay tonight, just come to the citizen’s entry and punch in my number. You’ll be let in no matter what time it is. Someone will be awake to take you to the guest quarters.”

Her estimation of him rose by a few degrees, and doubt grew. He wasn’t trying to soothe her anger or even defend himself. Either his compassion was real or the guy was manipulative to a degree Beck had never witnessed firsthand. Either way, she needed space.

Leaving was easy; the section of the chapterhouse available to her was small and laid out in a grid. She made it back outside in a handful of seconds.

The dust had died down as it usually did after the morning winds. A faint haze remained, a reminder that the world was a harsh place even when the sun shone. The walkways were caked in a layer of the abrasive orange dust, small clouds of the stuff kicking up beneath her booted heels. The world looked like a wholly different place than the one she’d left behind when entering the chapterhouse. In a way, it was.

Then, the reality of losing her family was still driving itself home. Like a slow collision, the full force of the truth had not yet finished making itself felt. In the intervening hours, Beck had been crushed by it. Rebounded from it, reshaped and damaged but not destroyed. The grief was present just below the surface of her thoughts, a boiling miasma only just contained by the force of her will.

She walked without direction. The sunlight mocked her. How dare it turn into a beautiful day when her parents were gone? Her brother reduced to ash? The light felt almost hateful on her skin, its warmth a vague imitation of their own, now lost.

Beck’s vision itself didn’t narrow, but her sense of the world did. Everything but the few feet of clay walkway in front of her became indistinct. The people were sharply defined but forgotten. The path markers had their usual numbers, but her eyes passed over them without comprehension.

Without realizing it, she had walked halfway across the quadrant and ended up at the entrance to the mine. Fewer people were nearby; the day shift had already gone down the lift and the line of fired clay around it marking the no-go zone for non-workers was clear. Beck stood at the edge of the square, the shade of a building blocking the sun.

What was it for? Why had she worked so hard in the cramped darkness? The job wasn’t as bad as history told her such things had once been. The drones shored up the walls in ways that made collapse nearly impossible. Humans did very little of the actual labor, mostly there to troubleshoot and repair as needed. It was only in the more delicate areas that Beck and her people rolled up their sleeves and worked the earth.

She’d taken the job to make their lives easier. The basics were provided. Food, water, shelter, even treatment in the clinic. The Tenets demanded it. But There were always needs that slipped through the cracks, and of course what little brother can go without the occasional treat or gift from his big sister? Beck chose to go below ground because it offered more than subsistence. A few times they’d even had real meat. From an animal rather than the vat-grown stuff everyone else ate.

Strange how far you could push yourself for a luxury.

She didn’t hate the work itself, but the mine had always filled her with an overwhelming sense of dread. The small spaces were part of it. Every time she had to free a stuck drone or wedge herself into a tunnel on hands and knees to open up panels and repair electronics, it felt as though a hand gripped her heart. She imagined the tunnel flexing—breathing—like a living thing. Squeezing the intruder until the air rushed from her lungs and her ribs shattered to kindling.

She felt that every day and endured it happily for Aaron’s sake, just as she endured the unshakable thought that the gigatons of rock above would collapse without warning. And would you look at that.

They did.

It wasn’t the collapse she expected, but the world had fallen in on her just the same. Gazing out at the mine entrance, everything became a blur. A keening sound filled the world. It took Beck a few moments to realize it was coming from her mouth.

*

There was pressure on her arm and back, not rough but certainly more than gentle. It was understandable; Beck had gone from a mindless howl to violently hurling stones at the mine. The well inside had broken its confines and the mixture of pain and fury filled every fold of her brain.

Then someone was there, stopping her windmilling arm before the next stone could fly, bustling her away. The paths gave way to one of the few streets bisecting the vast circle that was Rez Brighton, then she was inside somewhere dim and cool. A door close behind, sealing with a faint hiss. A distant part of her recoiled in fear, wondering if some monster had taken an opportunity when presented and snatched her up under the guise of helping her.

But no. Such things were so unheard of as to be something close to legend. Those were Tenet crimes, and the punishments were anything but myth.

A cold glass was pushed into her hand, and the shock of chilly condensation snapped her out of the strangely distant frame of mind as quickly as a light going on. Her first thought was of gratitude; the sudden renewed focus might have been overwhelming were she outside. Here, in this quiet space, Beck could find some shred of balance.