Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(73)
“Make no mistake,” Bowers said to the room, his eyes hard as iron. “I have no intention of causing a panic in the populace. We will tell them a cure for Fade B was found. Neither will I allow this to continue. There will be no rebuilding. It is the duty of the Watch to protect humanity from all threats, including itself. Not one more Rez will suffer an outbreak. Not one more person will die from it.”
He didn’t threaten them outright. There was no need.
For a long few seconds after Bowers finished speaking, the room was silent. So quiet that Beck could hear the cooling system in her suit kick on, the external mics shutting off completely at the lack of sound.
Then the Protector clasped his pale hands together and leaned forward at his place in the center of the vast semicircular table. “What fiction do you propose we tell the public regarding the hundred people you have detained or executed? What excuse do we give them?”
Jason Keene, the most powerful man in the world, spoke with the same casual but quick accent as Fisher. Beck realized he must come from the same Rez. Strange, that. The idea of two men with such wildly divergent paths growing up in the same place struck her as bizarre. But that was how it always went, from the old world on back to prehistory. Human beings were predisposed to think of the people around them as Real Folk, and those from elsewhere as the Other.
“That is something we can work out at your pleasure, Protector,” Bowers said with the slightest tone of deference. “For now let the Watch take the brunt of their anger as we always have.” Bowers’ voice hardened, his next words a knife. “After all, everyone knows our resolve never wavers. Perhaps it’s time to remind people of that fact.”
*
Two days later, a still-recovering Beck walked into a bar. She was clad in civilian clothes and favored her right side, but grinned when she saw the tall man with friendly eyes in his familiar place behind the expanse of deeply polished wood.
The stunned but joyful smile on his face was beatific. Fisher rushed around to hug her, clipping his hip on the bar as he scrambled.
“You’re alive!” he said, picking her up off the ground in a bear hug.
Beck let out a strangled gasp. “Yes, now put me down. I’m still healing.”
Fisher let go so fast he almost dropped her. “Healing? You were hurt?”
“Well, yeah,” Beck said. “Figured some of those mysterious friends you seem to have all over the place would have told you. Why else would you be surprised I was still breathing?”
His expression went furtive. “Uh, maybe not here. Let me lock the door...”
No one else was in the place, it being an hour before the bar opened. Beck waved away the concern. “I know about your Remnant friends. As a matter of fact, I’m the one who’s supposed to liaise with them from now on, at least when Eshton can’t do it. That’s a relationship we’re still eager to maintain.”
Fisher’s expression grew a shade more stiff. “You really are one of them now.”
“One of them,” Beck repeated, raising an eyebrow. She tested the words, turning them over in her mind to see what she thought of them and the meaning behind them. “Yes, I guess I am. I know things that give me more perspective than you have, though. I can’t tell you much, but what I can might change your mind.”
Fisher rolled his eyes. “Since I’m sure you’ll be moving on to your next assignment in a day or two, I don’t know how much convincing you’ll be able to do.”
Beck let her grin bloom back to life again. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ll be busy, sure, but since I’m stationed here in Brighton, I expect we’ll see each other a lot. I was owed a favor or two, so I got my choice of where to train.”
Fisher stepped back behind the bar and brought up a pair of glasses, filling them with drinks. “Train? I thought all that was behind you?”
She shook her head. “My superiors want me on the wall, so that’s where I’ll be going. But because I’m a fast learner, I also get to do the advanced training for my specialty. That’s supposed to be a reward, can you believe it? I get double the work because I’m more capable.”
Fisher laughed, spreading his hands to take in the bar around him. “See, that right there is why I always did just enough. If no one has expectations, you can never disappoint. Good to know you’ll have at least one friend to help you through it, though. Might not like you deciding to be...this, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I want you to know that.”
“I do,” Beck said. “Really. And I’ll have more than just you. Called in another favor to have some friends of mine from my training cohort brought in here. Some recent events have made me think expanding my circle of trust a little might not be a bad thing.”
She thought of Remy, now sequestered with Parker in the remote lab and acting as his assistant. She was eager to travel out to meet the Remnants under the cover of her scout training. That had surprised Bowers—her not picking Science division. Maybe one day she would retire there and spend her days thinking things up with no chance of someone trying to kill her. She didn’t want the danger by any means, but it was coming no matter what. She couldn’t risk growing careless or letting her skills grow rusty.
The enemy was wounded but not gone. She would be ready when they struck back.