Men of Stone (The Faded Earth Book 3)

by Joshua Guess

  “I can’t imagine how scary this must be for you,” Beck said. “I hate that we have to keep you here, stuck in this place. We don’t have much choice. You’re not safe out in the world any longer. The Pales will attack you now that you’re cured. My people would lose their minds if they found out what you are.”

  As before, she spoke in as reassuring a tone as she could manage. It hurt her a little to dredge up that part of her. The last person, the last child, she had used it on was Aaron. It was only when confronted with the need that Beck was able to triangulate somewhat and see how much she had shifted since joining the Watch. No, that wasn’t quite true. Deathwatch training had hardened those changes, but they began when her family died. The part of her able to easily express that softer side was scarred and immobile. Reaching into that place inside her was work—it had never been work before.

  Rose watched as Beck spoke, head tilting and eyes narrowing. She looked slightly older than she had. Not an artifact of her cure since no one aged a year over the course of a week. More likely it was a combination of being clean, fed, and well hydrated. Now Beck would put her age in the early teens.

  Her attention was on Beck’s mouth, as if she were trying to work out the words. When Beck stopped talking, Rose put down the soft polymer crayon and rested her hands in her lap. The contrast between her childishly splayed legs as she sat on the floor and the almost Zen posture with which she held her upper body was a bit disturbing.

  Rose opened her mouth and let out a soft wail. Beck’s body immediately grew tense. She couldn’t help it. The sound was higher than what she was used to but otherwise identical to some of the sounds made by Pales. It had that same stuttering quality to it, with pitch and frequency shifts that made the noise almost musically haunting.

  If not for the serenity the girl held herself with, Beck might have given in to her training and reacted in a more…physical way. She was glad she didn’t. The look on Rose’s face was clear; she wore an expression of someone desperately trying to be understood.

  “I wish I could talk to you,” Beck said when the wail faded out. “I don’t even know if that’s really a language or if it’s more like a cat’s meow. I don’t know if there’s anything like words in there we can translate. I hope so. I can’t imagine anything worse for you than being taken away to this place and not even being able to talk to anyone.”

  Beck smiled at her, though she couldn’t do it without a little sadness creeping in. “At least we can communicate the way people have been since they dropped out of the trees.”

  She reached out for one of the crayons, intending to add a little something to Rose’s scribbles, when the little girl’s hand snaked out to slap hers away.

  “No,” Rose said. The word came out deeply accented, with a W sound after the N as if she had learned it phonetically but with poor results. Which, Beck realized, was exactly what had happened. Undoubtedly she had heard the word often during the last week as her keepers taught her how to do human things.

  “Interesting,” Beck said. “You really are smart, aren’t you?”

  Rose reacted to the tone with a wryly amused expression, one eyebrow slightly raised. She might not understand Beck’s words—though that might not remain true for long—but she grasped the tone perfectly.

  “We’re going to have to get used to the idea that you only look young,” Beck said. “I wonder how mature the real you hiding in there is?”

  It was a question Beck suddenly burned with a need to know the answer to. Much as she wanted to stay and find out, it was not her place. Rose represented a serious concern, but not her concern. Stein was the brain that led the Protectorate for now. The council was its nervous system.

  For the near future, Beck was its hand. And occasionally its knife.

  9

  Eshton lounged outside the house and took in the music from just down the road. Canaan hadn’t changed drastically since the tentative alliance with the Protectorate was hammered out, but it was enough to notice. New construction replaced several older buildings at the end of the road the house sat on—which was convenient for him since this was where he stayed when he visited.

  “You know, it was annoying when they were doing the work, but I have to say I like the new square,” Andres remarked from his seat on Eshton’s right.

  “The dogs don’t always care for the music,” Karen said from his left.

  The buildings at the intersection were gone now, a small but permanent open theater in their place. The layout of Canaan had always been haphazard and added to as needed. The new changes were anything but. Karen had assumed leadership of the town council, and while this didn’t give her the sort of blanket power such a position would have in the Protectorate, her ideas were given much more weight. The redistricting and redesign were already making Canaan a more efficient place to live and work in.

  “Admit it, you had them put the theater in here so I’d visit more often,” Eshton said with a smile. “Though the lack of a nearby watering hole is a little disappointing.”

  Andres shook his head. “You got in too late. Before the players get going, Alex pushes a cart full of booze here and sells it to the crowd. Charges extra for the service, too.”

  They let the sound of old guitars and homemade drums waft over them for a while. Tonight’s assembly of musicians was less diverse than usual, but that happened sometimes. He didn’t care. The cool night breeze blowing in off the river and quiet companionship were all he could ask for. Well, maybe if Beck were here…

  “Tomorrow’s gonna be a full board,” Andres said in a tone that was a little too offhanded.

  Karen nodded. Eshton sighed. One night without talking business was too much to expect, but his foolish optimism still demanded he try. “What do we have? I’d rather not spend another entire day being grilled by the council. Though I’m happy to see they canned Rossi.”

  Karen absently scratched one of her giant dogs behind the ears. The thing was tall enough that even laying down its head was within easy reach where she sat. “Oh, it won’t be that long, thank god. But the two items on the agenda are going to be…rough.”

  Eshton reached up and melodramatically rubbed at his temples as if trying to conjure an image. “Yes…yes, I can see it now. They want to know when the trainers we offered will be here, and when the first joint settlement can be started.”

  Karen chuckled. “Why, however did you guess? Is it because they’ve been hounding you about it for months?”

  “You two can joke, but they’re getting pretty damned angry about it,” Andres said. “They think you’re trying to go back on your word.”

  “You know we aren’t,” Eshton said. “The joint settlement was always supposed to be secret, and the current climate inside the Protectorate would make even a small test like that almost impossible to hide. The Watch is being scrutinized more closely than ever.”

  Andres snorted. “More like for the first time ever, you mean.”

  Eshton rolled his eyes. “And we’d send the trainers if we had them to spare. We do have an army of assholes with armor just like ours waiting for a sign of weakness, you realize. They’ve found ways to infiltrate Rezzes and stir up trouble. We have to be cautious right now.”

  “A little tough to play that card with all the new patrols going on,” Andres said.

  Eshton frowned and turned his head toward the stocky man. “What new patrols? Others besides the ones Brighton sends this way every third day?”

  Those were hard enough to manage given Brighton’s relatively small Deathwatch contingent. If the new Warden—a man named Whitehouse Eshton had only met in passing a few times—was stretching his forces enough to send out more than that, it could be putting the Rez at risk. There was a dedicated radio frequency for Canaan to call for help if needed that went straight to Whitehouse’s office, but that was for emergencies.

  “Yeah, way more often,” Andres said. “Sometimes every day. They follow pretty much the same route. Don’t come very
close to Canaan. But they’re there.”

  Eshton pulled himself out of his seat. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” Karen asked.

  Something was definitely off, but he didn’t want to worry them on a hunch. “Just going to check something on the Mesh, which means I need to go out and hop into my suit. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  He took most of the walk at a leisurely pace to avoid drawing attention or making people nervous. Seeing the Deathwatch guy running was a sure way to cause a panic. Those last few feet saw his self-control evaporate, and he nearly leaped into the armor. Almost before it closed around him, he powered up his comm. The lie about accessing the mesh was the only cover he could think of. With nervous fingers he tripped the tiny switch that activated the preset signal.

  The response was immediate. “Warden Whitehouse’s office. This is the emergency station for…oh, I see. You’re from Canaan? What’s going on?”

  “I need to speak to the Warden now, if that’s possible,” Eshton said. “I need to know if there are extra patrols being sent here.”

  When Whitehouse himself came on the line a minute later, the news was not what Eshton wanted to hear.

  *

  “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this,” Andres said over the team channel. “All the shit I’ve given you about this armor and I still get to pilot a set.”

  Eshton shook his head. “No, you’re observing. Every team member has override authority for that tin can you’re in. You watch or at worst defend yourself if you’re attacked. Though I expect you to try to get away first.”

  “Yeah, yeah, mom. I heard you the first ten times,” Andres said. Eshton could hear the smile in his voice.

  He himself? Not smiling. Not at all. There were no additional patrols sent from Brighton or any Rez. To be absolutely sure, he requested the Brighton Science desk of the Watch take a look back over the sensor data. What that lone analyst found was a bunch of pieces of jagged archives with the telltale signs that someone’s invisibility program was gleefully slashing travel logs apart and slapping them back together.

  “Besides,” Jeremy said in a perfectly serious voice, “without a BIM to regulate that suit, you could accidentally shear your balls off if you push it too hard.”

  It wasn’t the first time Eshton saw someone wearing the armor cringe, but it never stopped being funny. “Are you serious?” Andres asked in a voice tinged with sudden terror.

  There was a long beat before raucous laughter filled the channel.

  “Oh my god,” Lucia said. “That was fucking brilliant. Thank you.”

  Jen’s laughter died out last. “I can’t wipe my eyes without taking off my helmet, you bastard.”

  “Ha ha,” Andres said, any sullenness in his tone overpowered by relief. “Give the new guy shit. I get it.”

  “I have something,” Jeremy said, cutting across the feed. “Drone is giving me returns.”

  Eshton’s HUD lit up to show the scene. It wasn’t much, just an expanse of the thin blanket of dust surrounding the gnarled trees at the edge of the forest leading to Canaan. They were several miles from the town itself, and Brighton confirmed no one would be traveling from the chapterhouse to the outside today.

  The interior of his helmet was black but for the HUD and the lights of his displays. Eshton had the clearest possible view of the distant armored figures trudging along the familiar path. The drone, one of the spherical ground models, was nestled in a tree far enough from the path that it shouldn’t be detected by casual scans. A thin hard line cable ran from it, down the tree, and beneath the layer of dust.

  “How many do you count, Jeremy?” Beck asked.

  “They’re still pretty far off, so it’s hard to say,” he answered. “At this range we should be getting some kind of ping from their armor. I got nothing.”

  “Same,” Wojcik added.

  “Neither do I,” Jen said.

  Tala cleared her throat. “I count eight of them. And I’m not getting a signal.”

  “What does that mean?” Andres asked over the team channel.

  “That they have anything in their suits capable of sending out a signal turned off, just like us,” Lucia answered. “Except they probably have their receivers turned off as well since they can be used to override suits. The short range directional radio we’re using can’t travel far enough for them to pick up, but if I’m right they wouldn’t be able to anyway.”

  “It means they’re probably some of Keene’s men, from the Block,” Eshton said, answering the question he knew Andres was actually asking. “My guess is they’ve been doing patrols out this way to get you used to seeing the extra bodies. That way your people wouldn’t react quickly when they did whatever it is they’re out here to do.”

  Andres took the confirmation fairly well. His voice became grim. “Any idea where they’re coming from?”

  It was Beck who answered. “Oh, I think by the time this is over we’ll have word from Brighton that they’ve been coming in on the Loop. Keene already has tech like mine that lets him cause video loops in cameras and hijack control systems. If they came in that way and were careful about it, they could slip into the undercity and out the escape tunnel with no problem.”

  That damn tunnel. Eshton hated it. Having a direct line to the outside of the wall with no safeguards other than its locks was stupidly dangerous. Also completely necessary. Any Rez without one became a deathtrap if something happened to the Loop tunnel. Rezzes had been overrun by Pales before. A way out was crucial.

  Yet Fisher had used it for years to meet with Andres and the others. He’d bought a program that allowed him to bypass the cameras inside it. Even in the Protectorate government, there were those without scruples who were happy to break nearly any law or rule for the right price.

  “They’re getting closer,” Andres noted. Eshton heard a faint note of fear in his voice, which was understandable. The guy had faced Pales before—every Remnant did, eventually—but didn’t have the same daily grind of gut-wrenching terror Watchmen were forced to normalize and live with.

  “Keep your head down,” Beck said. “We’ll take care of this. Just make sure you don’t get in our way. Eshton?”

  “Boss?” he asked, with no irony or sarcasm. Beck was a good leader. Not perfect, but naturally gifted at inspiring loyalty. Somewhere along the line the respect and admiration he felt for her had transitioned, or rather expanded, into something more. Which didn’t stop him from being able to take her orders. If anything it made him more willing to trust her judgment.

  “I need at least one of them alive,” Beck said. “Since we don’t know which one of them is in charge, I’m willing to roll the dice. I want you to target the four on the right and take them down if you can. The rest of us will give you cover and go after the rest. Disable those suits if possible.”

  The figures drew closer to their position. The sounds of excited breathing could be heard all over the channel.

  “We ready?” Beck asked. She knew they were.

  “Ready,” Eshton said.

  Beck wasted no time. “Go!”

  10

  They burst from the ground like desert wraiths, streaming dust and dirt across jet black metal. Beck didn’t bother trying to see the enemy through her clouded lenses—she used the feed from the drone to guide her until it cleared.

  Because they were waiting for the false Watchmen to appear and not pretending to be on a patrol, her team already had their weapons drawn. Their foxholes were hastily made and covered but still large enough to allow for that convenience. Beck held her heavy blade in one hand, a collection of stunners in the other. It was the latter she raised as her suit surged out of the ground and launched toward the nearest enemy.

  The magnetic contacts stuck the tiny weapons to the enemy’s hide instantly, the jolt of impact setting off their charge. Half were pure electricity, sending a wave of current through circuitry to disrupt its function. It wouldn’t last
long, perhaps a few seconds, but she didn’t care about that. It was the other consequence of the electrical fluctuation she was interested in.

  Someone far more experienced in all the ways a set of Deathwatch armor could malfunction realized the protocols built into the suit’s hardware could be used to attack it. When the maintenance system detected a power surge, certain safeties were triggered. For a tenth of a second, every motor and relay controlling the web of artificial muscles that allowed the suit to move paused. The self-check was faster than the blink of an eye.

  The other stunners, reprogrammed by that same enterprising Science agent, were faster. They searched for the interrupt signal even before the jolt hit the enemy. They found it and between the momentary lockout and allowing the suit to regain motion, their signal slipped in and overrode the all-clear.

  Beck could have specified that the enemy suit freeze in place. The options were numerous. She didn’t do that. Instead she chose a simple command ahead of time, one that took advantage of the pre-programmed defensive measures. The actual content of the command was complicated, but it boiled down to three words.

  Attack your allies.

  There was no way to know for sure the enemy suits actually were enemies, that their systems were rewritten to view actual Watchmen as targets. Beck took a chance—and it paid off.

  She watched the suit lurch back and slam its elbow into the faceplate of another enemy even as the heavy thunder of Eshton’s gun filled the afternoon with reverberating echoes. The ponderous thump of falling bodies coincided with her reprogrammed enemy wrapping arms around one of his mates and wrestling him to the ground. The lockup was fast; once they were rolling in the dust the legs of the hijacked suit clamped on as well. Once that happened it was easy for Beck to step forward and carefully slam the point of her blade into the lenses of the captured enemy’s helmet.

  She felt nothing as the dead man stiffened inside his armor, then relaxed. That would not have been true even a few months earlier. The constant strain of toeing the line between maintaining order without fomenting more resistance had done the work years of similar experiences wrought on other Watchmen.