Men of Stone (The Faded Earth Book 3)

by Joshua Guess

  Eshton wondered, as he was sure the others were, whether a more aggressive stance might have headed this off. No, not likely. The conditions were bad either way. More pressure from the Watch would have probably made this happen quicker. So long as the squabbles between the two opposed groups remained local and ending at worst with bruises, they could be allowed leeway.

  But this? This was unacceptable. Coordination implied something deeper and darker was going on. Conspiracy among the elite led to the Cabal, who used their power to control the people. Conspiracy among the people could lead to insurgency and rebellion. Eshton had developed a healthy respect for those seeking more freedom, but a hundred years of stagnation and repression, however agreed-upon it might have been, created a class of people unprepared for the chain of consequences their decisions could unleash.

  “Brighton’s on the list,” Tala said. “That’s my vote. If I get one.”

  A general round of agreement swept across the channel. Beck nodded.

  “It’s closest. First choice is the seven of us staying together if possible.” She tilted her helmet in a way Eshton knew to mean she was checking her HUD for new information. “Indications are the violence isn’t severe, but is spreading. This might actually be a real riot. Which if so means the longer it goes on, the more people it’s going to sweep up. If we have to separate, I want Wojcik and Lucia with me. Jeremy will take the other team. Eshton, do you have a problem taking orders from a Sentinel?”

  Despite the situation, Eshton smiled to himself. “No. I’m used to your weird little unit. You’ve seen more action than people who’ve been on the job five times as long. Happy to be backup.”

  Which was true, but not all of the truth. Yes, their team was outside the normal chain of command, but he outranked them all. And if rank mattered to him above logic, competence, or expediency, he might have been bothered. Jeremy was level-headed and smart. Eshton respected that.

  At the core, however, he knew Beck needed to maintain appearances. It wasn’t likely a thing she considered a priority for herself, but Eshton had a more nuanced and jaded way of looking at things. If it meant being given orders by someone below him in the chain of command to keep their view of her leadership in the green, he was happy to do it.

  Until and unless someone fucked up, anyway.

  4

  Beck lowered her gauntlet as the furious man who had been wielding a metal bar seconds before dropped to the pavement. He was one of half a dozen people on the ground two streets over from Brighton’s main square, and far from the first her team had to drop with stun darts. Owing to the nature of their work, Beck had modified their suits as she’d done to her own. The ability to take down a normal person without serious harm was increasingly—and depressingly—useful.

  She switched to the overwatch channel before her arm could completely fall, the others already seeing to the prisoners. The local Watchmen handed out polymer restraints like gifts, and her people had left a trail of trussed malcontents behind them half a city long.

  “Overwatch is telling me there’s nothing else between here and the square,” Beck said. “But there are unconfirmed reports of several small groups breaking into homes elsewhere. Possibly taking hostages.”

  “Tell them we’ll take it,” Eshton said, ice creeping into his voice.

  Beck nodded. “Okay, we’re up. Overwatch, give us locations.”

  The nearest incident was only a hundred yards away. Beck took off at a run, the rest of the team following. She tried to pull up the surveillance feed from the home in question, hoping to find anything that might be helpful. Moving into a residence with hostiles and potential hostages was dangerous beyond belief for everyone involved. Part of why this was an unconfirmed incident, however, was because the cameras there had been disabled. Only audio could be heard. Even that was muffled.

  “Eshton takes point,” Beck said. “He’s got more experience in Enforcement. Behind him is me and Wojcik. The rest of you cover the exits but stay far enough back no one escaping feels boxed in. Desperate people are dangerous.”

  There was no argument, though Eshton gave them little time to formulate responses in the first place. He strode up the narrow street and moved to the front door of the home. Beck and Wojcik stayed close behind. So close they could hear the door control send out an error message. The Deathwatch override wasn’t working.

  Not too surprising. It was purely a software control. Anything that prevented the door from unlocking would stymie the override. Beck had known that since she first picked up a tablet and started to learn to code.

  There were a number of options available to them. They could have backed away and tried to send in spy drones, or opened up a dialog. Eshton chose a third way. He extended his right arm and dug his metal fingers into the door, using the full strength of his suit to rip it cleanly out of its track.

  Shouts and screams filled the air as he stepped into the room. Beck went in next, moving to his side and readying her dwindling supply of stun darts. As she got clear of him, the scene unfolded and the analytical part of her that took in everything and tried to make sense of it began to recognize that something was off.

  The family being intimidated by the new arrivals was real enough. No one could fake that kind of terror. A father in his late forties sat with a wife perhaps ten years his junior, and between them a small boy. The youngster had raven hair and dark eyes like polished stone. Beck was taken off guard by how much the kid looked like Aaron, her own brother, had at that age.

  Her breath came a bit harder. Her heart sped up. Something vast and encompassing reached up her throat straight from her belly and grabbed hold of her brain.

  Even through the sudden panic, the rest of the facts shined through. The four men standing over the homeowners didn’t have the look of wild-eyed protesters pushed into something stupid by too much drink or youthful zeal. They were all older, in their thirties at least, and had the seasoned look of men who knew violence and danger intimately. In the Watch you learned to spot it at a glance.

  “You have ten seconds to surrender,” Eshton said. “You will not get a second—”

  Before he could finish his warning, one of the men rotated smoothly in place and tossed something at Eshton with an underhand throw. Beck watched it arc toward his helmet in slow motion, a sphere of what looked like dull metal. It was unfamiliar to her.

  The orb splattered against Eshton’s face plate. Though the force of it was negligible, he took a step back anyway. Beck probably would have as well; human beings don’t like getting hit in the face no matter what the conditions.

  Then the mess of semisolid metal flared into white fire.

  Beck stood stunned as Eshton screamed, pawing at his helmet and backpedaling through the open maw of the broken door. Wojcik wasted no time reacting. His massive hands grabbed the nearest of the four men by the shoulder and squeezed. To Beck’s astonishment, the man showed no sign of pain as his bones audibly popped and muscles tore. Instead he brought his own free hand up and slapped something small onto Wojcik’s chest.

  The big man’s armor jolted in place, then froze.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Beck let her targeting systems go green and fired stun darts. Or rather, she tried to. The system gave her an error message. Her eyes flickered over the HUD to see what the problem was, but nothing obvious stood out. Everything should have been working just fine.

  Then she noticed the outlines of the men on the targeting scope. They were rendered in green instead of red. The system recognized them as friendly and wouldn’t fire. What the hell?

  There wasn’t enough space to use her blade and getting in close with these assholes was obviously a bad idea. They were waiting for the next move, all four of them, and that simple act sent a chill down her spine. These weren’t impulsive reactionaries. They were trained professionals. Worse, they had technology and knowledge that made them dangerous even to armored opponents. Beck let the detente stand for a few second
s as she studied them right back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the terrified parents lean in over their son to shield him with their bodies.

  Beck didn’t have many options. That much was clear. But she did have more than the standard agent. She gave no warning as she activated a defensive measure normally only used on Pales. The small grenade that dropped out of a slim compartment on the underside of her left forearm was the size of a marble.

  When it hit the ground the flash of light it let off was enough to temporarily blind everyone in the room not wearing a protective helmet. The momentary pang of guilt she felt for the family was overwhelmed by the sense of relief that they were safe even if only for a few moments.

  Thunder filled the room. The man who’d hit Eshton with whatever the hell that flaming metal had been went from calmly if arrogantly observing his handiwork to no longer possessing a face from the teeth up. A spray of blood and bone mixed with gray matter exploded back and away from his falling body. He was only halfway to the ground when three more shots rang out. Each of them found their mark.

  Though they couldn’t see what was happening, the parents no doubt felt the deluge of blood and flesh pattering onto their faces. They covered their son’s eyes as they cringed in fear, surely terrified they were next.

  Beck turned to see Eshton standing just outside the door, helmet torn away from his suit, the bottom edge still locked in place like a mostly eaten rind. There were no burns on his face, but the rage written on it was so incandescent she was moderately surprised his eyes weren’t aflame. He lowered his smoking gun and secured it inside its leg compartment before briefly closing his eyes. He’d made those shots without a helmet. Without targeting. Pure skill.

  “Overwatch,” Beck said, surprised to find her voice steady. “We need a cart over here. Four dead. Transport to the chapterhouse, not the morgue.”

  “Say again,” the overwatch operator sent back.

  “You heard right,” Beck confirmed. “We need Science to take a look at these bodies. My team will keep watch on them until my people can get here.”

  Between now and then she would do what she could to manage the fallout from this. No worry that Stein would fault Eshton for the kills—these assholes clearly intended to draw in Watchmen. That it was a trap couldn’t have been more clear. No, Beck was worried about the suddenness of the violence and how everyone would react to Eshton nearly having his face burned away by that weapon. Beck couldn’t help the sense of sick dread in her own stomach at the idea. The armor made her feel safe. Protected. The idea of it becoming a trap and letting her burn alive…

  Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have worried about how the others coped. Given the ragged edge all of them lived on daily, their minds were already stretched to the limit.

  She didn’t want this to be the thing that pushed them beyond it.

  5

  David Lin straightened from the corpse with a greenish look on his face. “I’m not sure if these guys were Deathwatch or not.”

  Beck crossed her arms. “How can you not be sure?”

  “Because you blew their heads off?” Lin said, his voice turning the statement into a question. “If they had BIMs in their heads, the pieces are sprayed against the wall of that residence. Since we didn’t find anything on them that would explain why your suit recognized them as friendlies, I’ll take a guess and say you’re right. There’s actually another piece of evidence supporting your theory.”

  “What’s that?” Beck asked as Lin pulled off his exam gloves and flung them into a waste bin.

  He led her over to a terminal and opened it with a swipe. With a few taps, the security feed from the house populated the screen. “The cameras. They were in perfect working order. They just didn’t record anything. Same with the microphones. It was all scrambled. From what I can see, it looks like a modified version of the program you use to stay hidden.”

  His fingers tapped a few more times, bringing up a virtual console populated with a huge volume of raw code. Lin squinted at the wall of text until he found what he was looking for, then zoomed in. “See this? This right here is an ID code for a locator chip. A very specific one that’s hard-coded into our system.”

  “Ah,” Beck said, finally getting it. “You’re talking about Keene.”

  Lin nodded. “Yeah. To register as friendly to your suit, they would have had to have BIMs even if they weren’t implanted. Which they must have been because we didn’t find any in their clothes or around the bodies. Those BIMs were hacked to transmit the RFID signature of Keene’s locator. We haven’t been able to figure out how to excise it from the Mesh network.”

  Beck leaned against the slab holding one of the corpses and rubbed her eyes with her palms. The day was already too damn long. “Keene has been sneaking his people out here to cause havoc. Wonderful.”

  “Or,” Lin said, spinning in his seat, “his whole army might still be stuck in the Block and he’s figured out a way to recruit people remotely.”

  Beck blinked at the older man several times, trying to reconcile the cheery voice with his words. “You say that like it’s not just as bad if not worse, Lin. No, scratch that. It’s worse. Because recruiting that way would mean his forces are growing.” She stopped talking abruptly. Something in her brain threatened to seize up if she kept talking, not unlike the panicked terror she felt when she saw that little boy.

  “Nope, no way,” she said. “I’m not doing this right now. You know what? Send this on to Stein with a message that I’m offline until tomorrow morning. I don’t want to be bothered for anything short of an apocalypse.”

  She swept out of the lab without saying another word.

  No part of her was worried about the consequences. One of the first things an active Watchman learned was that all people had their limits. It was a cornerstone of effectively maintaining the peace—it was in fact why the Trads and Dians were having their moment now. Every person has a point at which they can no longer add to the weight on their shoulders or bear another indignity or even swallow one more injustice. When the time comes that an eruption or breakdown or violent reaction boils to the surface, you have to step away.

  Beck knew it when she felt it. The same overpowering internal pressure rose up in her as the day her family died. What she felt pushing against the inside of her skull was not driven by grief as it had been then, but responsibility. Bowers died and dropped the mess the Protectorate had become in her hands. In Stein’s as well. She knew herself well enough to understand her capabilities—she learned extremely quickly, was logical, and had a stubborn streak that made the grisly work in the Watch tolerable—but at the end of the day Beck was not even nineteen years old. The emotional callouses needed to endure the strain simply hadn’t had the time or experience to form.

  She was just out of the chapterhouse when her tablet chimed. Because she wasn’t a monster and possessed a sense of duty, Beck pulled it from her pocket and checked the notification. It was a message from Stein to get in touch. Not an order, and not urgent. Beck tapped out a noncommittal reply.

  The few people on the streets looked at her with mixed expressions. Some stared blankly, clearly confused. Others looked angry. Hard to blame them. The unrest was still ongoing. Watchmen were out in force. The huge number of arrests would lead to little in the way of punishment, of course. The kid gloves stayed on until some kind of solution or at least consensus could be reached.

  It took another block from when she first noticed the looks to realize the truth: they were staring at her fucking uniform. She’d forgotten to change out of the standard Deathwatch blacks before exiting the chapterhouse. Not that she made it a secret, but most agents chose to remain anonymous. Those who didn’t, even her, switched to civilian apparel before heading out into the world.

  “Fuck it,” she said, and picked up the pace toward the one place she could still go that felt like home.

  Fisher’s bar was dark, which wasn’t a surprise. Curfew was in effect, and if some
of the populace ignored it, no one was quite willing to risk the punishment that came with breaking the law just to grab a controlled substance like alcohol.

  Beck let herself in and took a seat in the darkened bar. Fisher wasn’t here.

  That was fine. She could wait. Anything was better than being around other Watchmen right now and the reminders of all the work waiting for her they came with.

  *

  She woke up to someone shaking her.

  Consciousness returned slowly, as if Beck’s core fought against the idea of returning to the world at all. It was unusual for her. In whatever chapterhouse she found herself in, she always snapped awake and alert at once.

  “Hey,” Beck said as she sat up on the bench she’d curled up on. She looked up to find Jeremy instead of Fisher. She blinked several times and took in the pale orange light filtering in through the windows. “Morning already? Why didn’t Fisher wake me up?”

  Jeremy grimaced. “He’s not here. We have him in holding. He was out on the street when the riot started. I didn’t know. No one did.”

  “Okay,” Beck said. Not because it was. She just felt like she had to say something. “What are the charges? Was he part of it?”

  Jeremy shook his head and Beck saw how tired he was. All of them, the entire Watch, had worked themselves to the end of their endurance since the data leak. Her team more than most since they often had to run between Rezzes and shut down the more dangerous splinters of the new political groups before stuff like this riot could happen.

  “He’s not being charged,” Jeremy said. “Most of them aren’t. Demonstrating is against the law, technically, but it’s a small crime. We have enough exterior video with ID tags to know who is to blame.”

  “Should have brought him with you,” Beck said. “At least I’d have had a chance to see him.”