Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(7)

It was an unfamiliar place. The person standing in front of her wasn’t, however, and she made the connections with something close to her usual speed. “You’re Fisher.” She’d met the tall, dark-skinned man a few times, usually when he was helping her dad home after a long night in this place.

The room was about twice the width of a standard housing unit, but it wasn’t a home. Or not solely one. She knew business owners lived in quarters above their shops. The low ceilings were not unusual, but the long bar stretching from wall to wall was. A dozen chairs and stools made from standard carbon polymer dotted the place, with a pair of actual wooden chairs occupying a place of honor on either side of a matching table.

“You’re Beck,” Fisher said, reaching back and pulling a chair close. “Have a seat. I heard what happened.”

“I’m fine,” Beck said automatically.

Fisher frowned, doubt etched in the lines of his face. “I found you throwing rocks and screaming your head off. Not that I blame you. I’ve seen it before. Hell, if it was me I think I’d have just climbed the wall and taken a dive. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

Beck took a long swallow from the glass, unable to think of what she could possibly say. She was not okay. Nothing was okay. But whatever spell took over her brain was broken. Though larger and more powerful, the feeling she had at that moment was close to how she’d felt a few other times in her life when the pressure inside built on itself until an explosion was unavoidable. In the moment, everything else vanished but the unstoppable torrent of fury or sadness—in this case, both—and after she always felt drained and to some degree better.

“Why did you help me?” Beck asked weakly. Her throat burned, the water only mitigating the sting somewhat.

Fisher grabbed another chair and sat down gingerly. He wasn’t a large man, only a little over average, but he was still much taller than her. He hunched down in his seat to put their eyes level with each other. “Your dad and I were friends, and I didn’t know if you had anywhere to go. I asked around after I checked out your place and then you popped up on the network.”

Beck instinctively put her hand on the pocket of her pants, feeling the hard shape of her terminal within. Of course. Once she was outside the chapterhouse, the terminal would have reintegrated with the public network. Anyone could see where she was so long as it was on. The network contained one of many safeguards meant to locate and alert the populace in case of an emergency.

“Thanks,” she said, fully shaking off the remnants of her breakdown. She moved away from it with breathtaking speed. Even just a few minutes later she felt embarrassment and shame creep in. “I can’t believe I lost it like that.”

Fisher smiled at her sadly. “It can be a lot worse. You’re hurting. It’ll sneak up on you for a while yet, I imagine. But you’ll get through it. Your daddy told me you were the smartest person he knew, and one of the toughest. He and I spent a lot of nights here. He was a good man. Least I can do is watch out for his kid.”

Beck wanted to object, to tell the man he was being too generous. Something in his hazel eyes stopped her. There was a sense of longing in the way he looked at her, a hopeful gleam. She imagined the bar—a concept she had only grasped in theory until now—full of people, Fisher moving between them ceaselessly. Alcohol consumption was legal but only just so. A man like Fisher ran the risk of brushing against Small Crimes if patrons left too inebriated too often.

Yet the place was homey and obviously well cared for. Decorations, some culled from the outside world and possibly handed down for a century or more, covered the walls. It was fastidiously clean if not neat, the metal surfaces gleaming. The insight struck her with a nearly physical force.

This man had an innate need for people. Maybe it was simple loneliness, or perhaps an urge to care for others. Why else run the risks that came with a business so badly regarded among the general populace? She imagined him flitting from person to person over the course of a night, chatting and laughing.

“Did my dad owe you something?” she asked, unwilling to take her frail assumptions as given. “You seem nice, but I’ve had kind of a day with guys who seem nice.”

Fisher shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Me and you, we don’t know each other. Well, you don’t know me. But I listened to your dad talk about you most nights for years. Ever since your parents moved out here when the Rez was built. You were little back then, two or three. That was about ten years before the mine opened up. Never had any kids myself, but I always looked forward to hearing how you and Aaron were doing. I just...I don’t know how to put it.”

He sat back in the chair and ran a hand over his short graying hair. “Before today, I was always hearing about you kids. Never thought about what might happen to you if something like Fade B took your parents, you understand?”

Beck nodded. She’d never gamed out that specific possibility either. “Sure.”

“Then it happened,” Fisher continued. “News hit me like a punch to the chest. Thought I might be having a coronary for a minute there. Then all of a sudden I realize you’re all alone now. Knew from your dad you didn’t have many friends left on account of you spending so much time working. The thought of you out there alone, this young woman I’d been watching grow up at a distance...well, it made me a little sick. Life out here is hard. Much harder than people have it in the Inners. You work a bar and it’s easy to see how often people just sort of forget they’re supposed to look out for each other. Guess I don’t want to be one of them. I have a spare room in the back if you need a place to rest. Or stay, however long. Or maybe you have somewhere to go. That’s okay, too. I can be an ear if you need to talk.”