Song of the Badlands: The Faded Earth, #2

By Joshua Guess

In the aftermath of Beck's struggle against the conspiracy to control Protectorate society hostage through fear, some things change. 

Others do not. 

The war against the Pales and enemies within continues, and only the agents of the Deathwatch can fight it. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joshua Guess
• Release date: Jan 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393803751

Book preview

1

W e’re all going to die horribly, Jen said over the group channel. I just want everyone to be aware. I’m almost fine with it at this point.

Beck sighed, a sound so common by now that her team would have found it deeply weird not to hear it. It’s just heat, Jen. We’re not going to die from it. If you’re so miserable, break protocol and turn on the cooling unit in your armor.

The six members of the team trudging through the badlands outside Rez Brighton would have seemed odd a century before. Clad in powered armor sealed against the blowing dust, each stood a foot taller than they would have outside them. Bulky as the black metal carapaces were, they moved across the fine powder with deceptive speed.

Beck could have set her watch by the pause she knew was coming as Jen Okuda worked herself up. Oh, no. I’m not gonna be the one to break protocol, even if it’s stupid protocol designed to torture us.

Does seem weird, said Wojcik, one of the two men on the team. No one called him by his first name, and even the ID tag floating on the HUD in Beck’s helmet only showed the mononym. That could be overridden by a superior officer, but in the three months the team had been together, Wojcik’s odd quirk had become something of an inside joke among the local Deathwatch. We’re only supposed to be out here for two hours. Our Bricks can power our suits at full tilt for ten. Twice that if we hunker down and only use life support. Seems stupid to make us sweat and suffer inside these things.

There was a general murmur of support along the team channel, though Beck noted that Jeremy Grayson didn’t join in. The tall young man was the person Beck relied on the most when the team was together. Hell, he was half the reason they had a team in the first place. Low-ranked members of the Deathwatch like them, Sentinels all, were not supposed to work independently this way. Until Beck’s training cohort, all newly minted Watchmen were to spend a year on the wall as part of Defense division, protecting their assigned Rez from the mutated former human beings outside them. Pales were the single greatest threat to the recovering human civilization

Yet her team existed even if they were only her team by mutual agreement. The other five technically had no obligation to follow her lead, but the habit formed during their training was a hard one to break. She tried to explain to them that if something went wrong, everyone would be blamed equally, that her informal position would not save them any headaches.

They didn’t care.

When they were transferred in to Brighton at her request, the five team members—Jeremy, Jen, Wojcik, Tala Dwyer, and Lucia Vargas—were partway through the newly-shortened six-week stint on the wall. Beck was ostensibly midway through her own, though in truth she spent the time between graduation from training to reuniting with her friends helping a secretive group within the Deathwatch, led by High Commander Francisco Bowers himself, discover and destroy a decades-long conspiracy to maintain power through fear by killing tens of thousands of citizens.

The vast majority of people within the North American Protectorate would never know the mutated strain of the Fade, the disease which created Pales in the first place, was not a naturally occurring variation. Fade B was a weapon.

It wasn’t a perfect strike against the enemy. Many of them still existed, some within the highest levels of the Protectorate’s power structure. Beck was sure of that. Yet the most destructive tool available to them had been removed, which was both a blessing and a curse. The Movement, led by Bowers, had essentially declared war upon those enemies. Beck had begun calling them the Cabal after Jen showed her a copy of an ancient film where a shadowy organization eerily reminiscent of Beck’s enemies worked together to control the world from the shadows. Not that Jen or anyone else on the team knew the first thing about the conspiracy or the Cabal—Bowers made certain to have cover stories in place about why Fade B was suddenly no longer a threat. A cure for the mutated strain! Who could believe it after so many years of deadly blooms?

As it turned out, plenty of people. No one had even known Fade B was a weapon until a Movement scientist named Parker Novak discovered the truth. As far as the wider world knew, only good things had been happening lately. The cost of destroying the infrastructure that spread Fade B was alerting the Cabal and its operatives that a force of people within the Deathwatch knew what they were up to.

Beck knew without a doubt the Cabal was biding its time. Rebuilding its strength. They were betting on Beck and the rest of the Movement to relax even just a little at some point, and then they would strike. Now on the defensive, the Cabal would pull levers of power more subtle and insidious than Beck, who was brilliant but a straightforward thinker, could imagine.

These things lived in her thoughts every waking—and some sleeping—hour of every day. They were with her through the truncated time on the wall, through the scout training she had piled on top of it which continued even at that very moment. These thoughts were always tucked away in the back of her mind, even when spending time off with her friends.

Part of her wanted to believe that constant nagging stress and fear was as bad as the slowly fading grief at losing her family half a year before, but there was no comparison. The difference was that her family was gone—Mom, Dad, and her brother Aaron—and the pain would only continue to wear its edges off over time. The team and her friends inside and outside the Movement were not a true replacement, but Beck was thankful every day for them. The worst of her grief was past, even the little bursts that surprised her from time to time not cutting quite as deeply.

The threat from the Cabal, however, was unchanging except to grow more likely with each passing day.

They don’t want us using the cooling units to save power, Beck said. Our suits probably won’t run out. We probably won’t run into any trouble, either. That’s not the point.

Next to her, Jeremy finally spoke up. We’re supposed to get used to working in less than ideal conditions, because once we’re out there scouting the badlands on our own, there’s no way to know when it might save our lives.

On that point no one could disagree.

THOUGH THE OTHER TEAM members were not training to be scouts, or even part of Reclamation division, they still traveled outside the wall with Beck every time she was sent. All of them were still in Defense even though they were now allowed to choose a permanent division to train in. At first Beck thought this was an insane level of misplaced loyalty to her, then overheard other Watchmen talking in the repair bay about how unfair it was these green recruits didn’t have to put in their year.

Some of the anger had been directed at Beck specifically. No one outside the Movement knew that her position in Reclamation division, responsible for all long-distance and long-term movements outside the protection of Rez walls, was another layer in her cover as a member of Special Projects—the Deathwatch black ops division.

Beck understood how important it was that every member of the Movement, whose ultimate goal was to cure the Fade entirely and return mankind to a world without walls, be as educated and skilled as possible. She wanted to be a scout. Even wanted to be part of Special Projects.

At the end of the day, however, she was still a young woman who had only just turned eighteen. Her capacity for responsibility, honed as it was by years of working in a mine and teaching herself skills from coding to electrical and mechanical engineering, had limits. Sometimes, she wished it were otherwise. In those weak moments, Beck left the Deathwatch chapterhouse and visited her second home. The little room above a bar remained there for her when she needed it, along with Fisher, the bar’s owner. He was always a willing ear. From what she understood of the old world as it was before the Collapse, this was requisite for the job of bartender.

Tonight was not one of those weak nights. The team returned from patrol on schedule and immediately flipped their suit coolers on. Sighs of relief echoed across the team channel, even from Beck. She was used to hardship, but that too had limits.

As soon as she passed through the second of the vast double gates letting them back into the Rez, a message popped up on her HUD. It was from Warden Stein, the senior Watchman in charge of the local chapter of the Deathwatch. Practically speaking, this put Stein in command of the entire Rez, though the older woman was more relaxed about letting civilians run their own lives than some Wardens.

Guys, I’m getting called to the principal’s office, Beck said. I’ll catch up with you tonight.

You better, Jen said. Rec room at eight. We’re watching a movie.

Lucia groaned over the channel. Just because your family had their stash of entertainment grandfathered in through all the purges doesn’t mean you have to inflict century-and-a-half old vids on us.

Movies, Jen said, stressing the word. Or films if they’re actually good. And yeah, I do. You really want to spend another night watching the same old vids made by the sad excuses for actors we have nowadays? They’re mostly propaganda.

Had she not been a member of the Watch, the words would have been close to a crime. The truth was that everyone in the Protectorate old enough to walk in a straight line understood that yes, vids were propaganda. Just as they knew the restrictions on weapons, religious expression, speech, and the incredibly harsh punishments for crimes were a far cry from the freedoms of the old world. This was not even an open secret, but simply understood. The Protectorate was brutal where necessary as a means to preserve as much human life as possible. The Collapse taught the lesson that sometimes survival must trump all else.

Knowing a thing and saying it out loud were different beasts, a fact Jen knew as intimately as she understood her family’s prestige and wealth would save her from all but minor punishments.

I’m in, Wojcik said. That last one was pretty good.

Jeremy nodded. Same here. I’ve got some special food on order that should be in tonight.

Everyone looked at Tala, whose blank-faced armor betrayed precisely as much as her actual face would have. I’ll pass. I have plans.

Jen cocked her hip and put one hand on it, a remarkable pose to strike while clad in hundreds of pounds of hardened steel. Plans? What possible plans could you have in this backwater?

Hey, Beck said, her face growing hot. This is my home, remember? You want to talk shit about it, you better be ready for me to drag your snotty ass right out of that suit.

The rest of the team flinched at the fire in her voice, and Beck readied herself for the torrent of defensive fury she knew was coming from Jen.

Fury that didn’t come at all.

Shit, Beck, I’m sorry, Jen said, uncharacteristically quiet. You know, I joined up because I couldn’t stand my family. I hated how they looked down on people who weren’t lucky enough to have ancestors who got to the safe zone early. I’m an asshole.

It’s fine, Beck said stiffly. She had regretted her words almost at once, but dealing with other people’s emotions was not her strong suit. Don’t worry about it.

I’m going to get laid, Tala said. If anyone is still curious.

Beck put her hands to her ears, which of course did nothing but cause her gauntleted fingers to clang softly against her helmet. Gah, I don’t need to know that. I’m going to my meeting with Stein. Getting yelled at by the Warden is so much better than hearing about your sex lives.

Which would have been true if the meeting wasn’t a pretext. The message was clear, and its contents made Beck eager to get away for it as soon as possible.

Eshton was back.

2

Stein’s office was austere but not barren. There were a few works of art hanging on the walls, subtle pieces created by various Watchmen under her command. Creativity was a common mechanism for dealing with the stress of the work, though Beck expressed hers through tinkering with her suit. Three months of not having access to her workshop at Movement headquarters gnawed at her insides.

Eshton looked like he could use some of that stress relief. He made contact every two weeks, coming to report and update Beck and Stein about the goings-on at the lab where he was now permanently stationed. With the added scrutiny from the Cabal, it was no longer safe to trust even encrypted transmissions.

Though only five years her senior, the version of Eshton sitting in the chair next to her could have easily passed for thirty. The effort of maintaining the trademark Deathwatch calm was clear on his face and in his body language. His medium brown skin was a shade or two lighter from lack of sun, his fingers nearly vibrating with restrained nerves. Being stuck on guard duty for Parker Novak was a sign of trust—Bowers knew Eshton would not waver in his mission. Unfortunately it also meant losing any hint of normality and freedom.

Stein finished activating the secure mode for the office Beck had helped upgrade and troubleshoot. Installing physical, mechanical disconnects for all of the built-in microphones, cameras, and transmitters had taken days of her free time, as had the detailed search of her terminal’s software for malicious code. The room was as safe to talk in as any could be.

So, Brogan, Stein said pleasantly to Eshton. You look like shit. Guess the assignment hasn’t been much fun?

Eshton snorted derisively. Guess it depends on your definition. Parker is fine. I actually like the guy. Sitting on my ass and only getting to leave every couple weeks is the worst. I’m going crazy in there.

Stein laced her fingers together and leaned back in her chair. While I do care about your state of mind, let’s leave the extensive bitching I know you’re eager to throw at me for the end of the debrief. Has Doctor Novak made any progress? He has been out of stasis for nearly half a year now.

Eshton seesawed his hand. Yes and no. He says it’s possible to create an engineered virus that can slip inside the altered cells inside Pales and basically short circuit them. The Fade doesn’t go away. It’s always in them, part of their genetics. Parker says his solution would basically disrupt the genes of the Fade and give them—and I’m using his words here—a form of cancer he calls super cancer and describes as hellish beyond the imagination of the most disturbed minds ever to craft fiction. Eshton paused, looking mildly sheepish. He might be a little out of his mind too, if I’m being honest.

That’s great! Beck said. When the others flashed her somewhat horrified looks, she hastened to correct herself. Not Parker being crazy. That would be terrible. I mean that he’s making progress on a way to take out all the Pales.

Stein shook her head. Wait for it, kid. There’s always a ‘but’ in there.

Yeah, Eshton said, drawing out the word the way Parker would have with his century-plus old manner of speech. Apparently he was rubbing off on Eshton more with each passing day. Gone was the serious-faced young man with unshakable calm and the careful and even fussy way of speaking formally. The caveat here is a pretty bad one. Parker can do it, as in he has made progress from his work during the Collapse. He doesn’t have a way to make it impossible to spread to us. Which means it’s not a viable fix. One thing about the guy, though. He’s different from us in some really important ways. How he thinks is the biggest one.

Beck frowned. What do you mean?

We’re straightforward, Eshton said. Surviving the Collapse and building the Protectorate meant approaching everything as head-on as possible. Our solutions have relied on brute force strategies for so long it’s ingrained in our whole society. That’s why we wrote the Tenets the way we have, because they have to form the bedrock we built a new society on. One that could adapt to the hardships of the world the way it is now.

That was certainly true. The Tenets, those followed by civilians and Deathwatch alike, were the commandments of a modern age describing the attitudes and actions required to guarantee human civilization in a fallen world. They applied whether you were dealing with Pales and their intelligently predatory attacks on Rezzes or working out methods of dealing with the disastrous fallout of the old world weapons which had ravaged the surface of the planet.

Eshton continued. Parker doesn’t just pick a direction and run in it. He works out a bunch of possible approaches and works on all of them, sometimes switching from one to another at random or when he runs out of steam.

Stein blew out a dismissive chuff. Sounds stupid. How the hell can he expect to get anywhere like that?

It works for me, Beck said. Sometimes when I’m trying to figure out some new mod for my armor and I’m stuck on it, I’ll give up and work on something else. Or even blow it off and go hang out with the team. More often than not, halfway through the other thing I’m doing, the answer will come to me.

Eshton pointed at her but looked at Stein. Pretty much exactly that. Novak might not have a cure for the Fade, but I saw him solve the soy replication problem just the way she’s describing. It was a side project we gave him when he asked for stuff to work on for when his brain needed stretching, was how he put it.

Stein clearly did not believe this at all. You’re telling me this guy, in a few months, solved one of the worst food crisis issues we’ve faced when our people couldn’t do it for a decade?

Beck was familiar with it even if biology wasn’t her forte. The bioreactors that churned out raw food slurry like soy, potato mass, algae—all of it was salvaged old world space travel tech right along with the armor worn by the Watch. Along with tremendous stores of data being lost in one electromagnetic pulse or software attack or another, biologists of any skill were taken by the Collapse. The gap created was one humanity was still clawing at the edges of, trying to pull their collective ass free. Novak was put into stasis with the hope that sometime after the Collapse was done, whatever society came next would wake him and use his knowledge to accelerate a recovery.

Beck highly doubted any of the people advocating such a risky move could have guessed how bad the losses would grow. How much knowledge was destroyed by hackers and madmen with EMP bombs. They could not have known Parker Novak would become the most educated human being on the continent as soon as he awoke.

That’s exactly what he did, Eshton said. No more batches of soy base suddenly dying out in reactors and needing to be reseeded with stock cells. Which means less hungry people because of the wait for the reactors to cycle up. It’s not a cure, but it’s a damned helpful bit of work.

ESHTON BROUGHT MORE than word of mouth with him, of course. Every trip also included a heavily encrypted data chip with updates on Novak’s progress. These treasures were guarded by the Deathwatch as carefully as any life might be, even if most members were unaware of the duty. The trove of scientific knowledge represented by Novak and his work needed to be preserved and eventually studied. The idea was to eventually use them to bring the Protectorate up to speed on biology and genetics.

Beck didn’t bother asking Eshton for the decryption key. She had no need to read the information stored on the chip, though she was given a copy. She and Stein hid theirs in separate locations known only to themselves, and on every trip Eshton did the same. He would give Stein the decryption key, and that was good enough for Beck. Let other people, people who didn’t spend every waking hour patrolling or taking classes, look over the information and work out its significance to the Movement overall.

That was the one advantage to being low-ranked and in charge of virtually nothing. Beck didn’t have to worry about those command-level decisions. Oh, she was thankful the Cabal still had no idea Parker existed, and she would do anything to keep the scientist safe and secure. His work was critical.

But Beck was happy to take orders and stay within her area of expertise. That area was growing quickly, but was still limited to things like information gathering, covertly moving against newly-discovered Cabal agents, and occasionally coming up with a new upgrade or modification the armorers in Science division could add to the arsenal for their suits.

Eshton gave his full briefing as slowly as he dared, fully aware