Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(69)
Even if Eshton hadn’t been putting on a show for his non-Movement colleagues, the words would have still been mostly form. Whatever the public perception might be, Enforcement was not in the habit of moving against citizens without ample proof of guilt.
Once the pair were paralyzed, he and Tano dragged them outside. The small vehicle waiting for them was designed for the narrow streets and prevented Watchmen from having to carry prisoners around the city on the rare occasions when arrests needed to be made.
Once his targets were secure, Eshton had Tano drive the small carrier back to base before going back inside the house.
“Wait at the front door until I come get you,” he said to Evans. When the younger Sentinel was gone and the home was sealed, Eshton took a breath to prepare himself. He stepped out of the armor and knocked gently on the doors. Better to let the kids wake up from a knock and see a human face instead of being scared to consciousness by a shining black mask.
John Junior and Kristen deserved an explanation, but the twin children were only seven. They would not understand the grim necessity of the situation.
They would only hurt because their parents were taken from them. The wounds would stay with them forever, scarring over on the surface but always painful. The children would carry them for the rest of their lives.
And right or wrong, they would remember who was to blame.
*
Just as Eshton reached the outside of the research facility, things inside started to go sideways.
Beck and Remy stepped onto the landing one floor below the lab and ran directly into a security guard. Her sensors, confused by Remy’s presence, had registered nothing. The guard was waiting for them, a big man holding a stun baton and clearly more curious than worried. Probably he heard movement in the stairwell on his rounds, which in the middle of the night could not be a regular occurrence.
His blond eyebrows rose as he took in Beck’s armor.
“Good evening, Citizen,” Beck said, deciding to play on her authority as a Watchman. Not many people would question her presence here beyond the oddity of it. The Deathwatch were the keepers of peace and law, after all. There was no place they weren’t allowed to go, no person above their scrutiny.
The guard responded by rearing back and slamming the stun baton down on Beck’s helmet. She was taken utterly by surprise and only began to attempt a block at the last second. From habit rather than any physical cause, she took a half step back. The second blow she did catch, and literally. Beck tore the baton from his hand.
The other hand was busy slapping a small electronic pad on his hip.
Beck’s internal speakers dialed down as the piercing wail of alarm klaxons filled the tiny space. Remy screamed, the sound lost in the overwhelming din, and clapped her hands over her ears before sinking to the ground.
“Nope,” Beck said, scooping the woman up in one arm and slugging the guard in the face with the other. “Not today.”
The noise was so deafening that even inside her own helmet the words were almost drowned out.
As silence was no longer an issue, Beck moved at top speed. Her boots clomped back up the steps, past the fourth floor and its labs. Though she couldn’t hear them, she had no doubt more guards were converging on her location.
That was fine. She just needed to go up.
When she reached the top floor and its offices, Beck barely slowed as she kicked in the locked door leading to them. No time to try overrides, no need for finesse now that she had been discovered. It was strangely freeing.
She sat Remy down and grabbed the edges of the door, tearing it completely free of its track. She gave the other woman a gentle shove through the gap, motioning for her to get as far away as possible. The security of this place helped her in some ways; the lifts would be locked down as well. The guards, drawn to the stairs by the assault on one of their own, would naturally follow Beck up them as the most efficient means of stopping her.
According to the blueprints, this was the only set of stairs leading to the top floor. Beck stood at the side of the rail and jammed the crumpled metal door into the space over the stairs. It wasn’t perfect, but the barrier would require a little work to move before they could make it to the top landing. To make the work as hard as possible, Beck bent the rail over until it rested at nearly 90 degrees, holding the makeshift blockage in place. One or two of the guards could crouch down and climb the steps, putting their backs against the twisted metal above them to force it out of the way, but with any luck she would be gone by the time they managed it.
The klaxons went silent. Well, shit. That probably meant the enemy was gathered.
And there was no doubt they were truly the enemy. Beck had no name to call the people evil enough to spread Fade B, but these men had to be among them. To attack a Watchman without asking a single question smacked of standing orders—something Beck and Bowers should have anticipated. No group as deeply prepared as this one would discount the possibility that the Watch might come snooping, and they had obviously prepared their guards for it.
She rushed into the offices, where Remy waited at the end of the hall.
“None of the doors will open,” Remy said much too loudly.
Beck nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“What?” Remy shouted.
“Your hearing is damaged,” Beck said, cranking up the volume. “Tuck yourself into a ball and put your back to me.”
Remy looked doubtful at this. “Why? How are we getting out of here? Why did we go up in the first place?”