Song of the Badlands

by Joshua Guess

  What were they going to do?

  “What can we do?” he asked, still gazing at the stars without taking them in. “We’re exiles. And even if we went home tomorrow, Bowers won’t let us go after the Cabal. He’s keeping this under wraps for some reason or another. We wouldn’t have any better options back home than we do here.”

  Beck was quiet for a long time. So long that he thought she might have dozed off.

  “You’re assuming we continue to be good little soldiers,” she said, iron creeping into her voice. “I’m not sure that’s in anyone’s best interest at this point.”

  Eshton slowly sat up and looked at her. “Beck…”

  She raised a hand as if to ward him off. “No. Don’t give me the song and dance about not causing an uproar. This is proof, Eshton. We have fucking proof they broke the Tenets. We can’t sit on that. We wouldn’t have it at all if not for the fact that a conspiracy of this size requires some kind of master record, something to use for reference. And you can bet once I cracked the server inside their heavily fortified bunker, they probably burned it and decided to work from memory. We got extraordinarily lucky to have stolen this information. We won’t have another chance like it and you know it.”

  Eshton sighed. “What do you need from me?”

  “Help planning the best way to spread the truth,” she said. “That’s going to take time and expertise. I won’t just dump the raw contents of this thing on the population. I’m not an anarchist. There are enough slip-ups in the communications where names are used instead of coded phrases that Keene and the rest of his people are clearly implicated, but I’d rather not hand out anything that’s not thoroughly read by both of us. We’ll only release things we agree on.”

  He blew out a breath. “You’re talking about breaking into a Rez and getting access to the Mesh. That’s after who knows how long combing through all these documents. How are you planning to avoid being recognized by the surveillance network long enough to manage anything?”

  Beck smiled. “I still have some tricks programmed in. No worries there. But the rest will take time. And I’ll need your help.”

  For the first time in his life, Eshton didn’t feel the fight rise up in him. Here, it was a job. He spent so much time teaching combat or participating in it, and then went on to other things. It wasn’t all-consuming. There was no cause.

  Eshton had a life. And so he came to a decision.

  “I’ll help you read through all that stuff. I’ll help you plan getting back home down to the smallest detail if that’s what you want. But I’m not going back with you.”

  Part Three: The Old Guard

  25

  When it became clear there would be no quick and dirty workaround to creating a plan, Beck was sure she would begin to chafe at the wasted time. Instead she found herself secretly thankful for every week that passed without a final product.

  Her reluctance to move was not from fear. Or at least not fear for her safety. She had seen enough combat that the sort of nervous, existential terror which the uninitiated felt upon entering the battlefield was no longer a concern. Nor was it the enormity of what she planned to do, however unpredictable those consequences might be.

  What plagued her was a single question.

  Did Bowers plan for her to break the encryption on the file?

  This concern rose up several days after Eshton agreed to help her work out the best strategy for getting back into a Rez and spreading the word about the Cabal. The first part was easy. The rest not so much.

  That one question created many more which branched off into wild tangents. At first she worried that the information might be a plant, something Bowers himself wanted her to find and act on. Which meant it was possible that everything contained in the files was suspect. Possibly fake.

  She discarded this theory almost at once. She had copied the data herself before returning any of it to Bowers. It wasn’t impossible, but a switch was vanishingly unlikely.

  If he did expect her to break the encryption, how would he have prepared for her reaction? The old man knew her well enough to understand she wouldn’t take the revelations inside the files well.

  Which led her to question every assumption and fact about her exile.

  During that hour together before her trial, Bowers had carefully laid out the details. She would go without protest and allow him time to work out a viable way to counter the Cabal. To provide evidence—or manufacture it if necessary—that she and Eshton were innocent along with all the other Movement agents caught up in the sweep. Once that was done, messages could be left at dead drops. The original plan was for Beck to return to the bunker once a month to see whether there was any news.

  If she got a green light to come home, the tunnel Fisher and later she had used to escape Brighton undetected for their meetings with the Remnants could be used to gain access to the Rez. Her armor was to be left waiting inside one of the secure storage rooms lining the tunnel itself.

  And so the plan had become many plans, each based on a variety of factors. One for if the armor was there, another if it wasn’t. A third in case the armor was present but trapped, which split into half a dozen based on what kinds of traps they might be.

  Beck could plan perfectly well and in amazing detail when it came to things with solidity to them. Ask her to rebuild the drill on the nose of a mining drone? No problem. She’d write out two hundred steps and draw you diagrams with parts labeled from memory.

  But this? This was trying to map out a safe path through a desert with sands that shifted like water. Maddening. Terrifying. All she had for certainties were the facts and the end goal of how to use them. Everything in between was fluid—and Beck preferred steel.

  The days were filled with the usual work while her nights consisted of an hour or two of working out the particulars of how to get through the Protectorate without being captured. Eshton demanded more of her than she had ever expected when she agreed to follow his lead.

  In daylight, she fixed and tinkered. She took on a pair of apprentices, a pair of twin brothers in their teens named Abbad and Naji, who each had a good head for mathematics and spatial awareness. The first and most crucial step to the plan was not to alert anyone in Canaan what she was up to. That meant maintaining a pretense.

  Her shop grew. The twins spent increasing amounts of time studying as their skills grew sharper and they were able to work through the backlog of projects. Traders from other settlements brought steady streams of items in for repair. Some of them did it with sneers on their faces that the fucking exiled Watchman should be so in demand, but the harsh truth was unavoidable. Beck had more rigorous training in mechanical engineering by the age of twelve than the best expert living in the badlands got in their whole life.

  Her work on the river turbine continued apace. With two helpers, she was able to dedicate more of her daylight hours to fabricating the pieces. A huge amount of the payments she took were raw materials for this purpose or else spent on directly purchasing whatever parts she could find.

  Those few hours at night were twice as much work as anything during the day. She spent time refreshing herself on the software architecture of the Mesh. Of Deathwatch networks. Of security systems, Loop transportation, even seemingly unrelated things like water reclamation systems and food bioreactors.

  When she wasn’t mapping out all the hacks she might need to stay invisible or create a big enough distraction to slip away if found, she was committing to memory every street of every Rez from the files on her tablet. Which she had to fit in between brutal rounds of combat training from Eshton.

  All the preparation in the world wouldn’t be enough for him to give his blessing until he was sure she could fight her way past damn near anything. He was careful not to leave bruises on her face or neck when they sparred, and thankfully the busted knuckles and the one broken finger could be attributed to her day job, but Beck ended every other night exhausted and aching from body blows and hard throws.

/>   This was the least stressful part of her work. At least when she sparred there was a tactile sense of control and accomplishment. She could measure her success by how often she was able to score a hit or how many she was able to block. The constant exercise melted the last vestiges of baby fat from her already slim frame. Strange how the relatively sedate lifestyle of Canaan was able to change her body so quickly. Gaining any weight after months of the rigors of the Deathwatch served to underscore the shift in circumstances.

  Just as six weeks of turning herself back into a small bundle of wiry muscle seemed to highlight the fact she was going back.

  That was how long it took to finish the turbine. It lacked the elegance and polish of the original. Parts too large to be created whole by the fab, such as the cowling protecting the inner works from debris, had to be made piecemeal and welded together. Fabrication took the longest; only the final two weeks were taken up by the final assembly.

  When the day finally came, Beck had to bow to necessity and pay for the use of a few public resources. The turbine itself was large, about ten feet long and roughly shaped like a shark with its tapered and curving cylindrical profile. Too large and heavy to be carried from its spot in front of the house, and obviously those factors kept her from anchoring it in the river.

  Paying for the use of the heavy equipment kept in storage was the only option. It was expensive, but she budgeted for it. The small multi-function construction machine had removable attachments for any of a dozen purposes. It was rarely needed once the digging south of Canaan was done and the buildings were all finished.

  Beck rented the damn thing and used its crane mode to take the turbine to the river. She and the twins took several hours checking and rechecking everything before deciding that no, they hadn’t fucked anything up. There was no ceremony or gathering, only a few people off work watching curiously from the distance.

  Without a way to secure the post the turbine would rest on, Beck had gone with a brute force solution. The base of the post was hollow, and a removable tube could be slid down into it. She left the tube attached as the crane extended over the small river and lowered the turbine in, settling it on the stony bed with the curve of its top three and a half feet below the surface.

  The three of them then folded the stabilizing legs of the constructor back up, drove it back to its tiny garage, and changed it out with a bucket. This was soon filled with stone carefully broken to the right size, which was then fed through the tube to fill the base to anchor the turbine in place.

  It was a full day of work, and Beck gave both of the boys a nice bonus before sending them off. She spent a long while looking at her handiwork, standing there alone on the bank.

  “Well, I got to admit I didn’t think you’d actually manage it,” Rossi said from behind her. “Does it work?”

  Beck turned to face the older woman. “Of course it works. Right now it’s feeding power to my three Bricks. Tomorrow I’ll take my other generator down. Maybe I’ll sell it to someone who doesn’t mind having it hanging over their house, but it was always a temporary measure.” She didn’t smile, but neither did she bare teeth. “And I’d have thought after pulling this off you’d be less snide, but at this point that seems optimistic to the point of stupidity.”

  Rossi shrugged. “You had the plans from the archive. You have a fabricator. A monkey could have built that thing.”

  “Then I have to ask myself why you never managed it,” Beck said. “If it’s so easy, what the fuck does that say about you?”

  Rossi’s swing was powerful but laughably inept. Beck saw the attack coming with plenty of time to dodge, block, or counter as she saw fit. Instead she let it land, snapping her head and body to the right. That was the trick to taking a punch. You had to move with it.

  “That one was free,” Beck said. “Though from what I understand, you just broke a pretty important rule around these parts. A law, if Andres is to believed.”

  Rossi stood fuming, obviously trying to regain control of herself. She knew as well as Beck how deeply the people here frowned on violence against each other. It was why the people of Canaan tried to cold-shoulder Beck instead of more direct action. The taboo was strong. For people who had to fight as one against the Pales, who came from a long line of folk whose only chance at survival lay in unity, how could it be otherwise?

  “You hit me again, I’m gonna fuck you up so bad you can’t work for a month,” Beck promised. “You know what I’ll do after that?”

  Rossi stared at her with naked rage, saying nothing. Beck decided she was just fine with that.

  “I’ll offer to haul up the old turbine and fix it free of charge,” she continued. “Provide all the materials myself out of the goodness of my own heart. I’ll even let Canaan use my electricity for free while I’m doing the repairs.”

  Rossi, despite her fury, blinked in surprise. “What do you mean, your electricity?”

  Beck did smile now. “What, you think I built a whole new source of power just to give it away? I have plans for that juice. I won’t charge outrageous prices for the extra I don’t need. A small fee to help keep Canaan’s batteries topped off, because I’m civic minded that way. Money isn’t something I worry about, but it might be nice to have some kind of income. And just in case anything happens to me, I made sure the council knows Eshton, then my other housemates have ownership of it if I die. We’re all of a like mind, here.”

  Rossi wasn’t stupid, just impulsive. Beck could almost sympathize. This woman was who she could have been—might have been—if not for the discipline the Watch instilled in her. She saw Rossi work out the implications and fully understand for the first time just what Beck had done.

  She brought literal power to Canaan, and in so doing gave herself and her friends a tremendous amount of power in the abstract. The leverage the new turbine gave them was not inconsiderable. Though she had not planned the project as any such thing, she thought it made both an excellent fuck you to every person here who had treated her like the enemy as well as the best possible parting gift to her friends.

  It was a small start, but all great changes began with a single step.

  26

  She moved with the storm. There was no other choice.

  In those absent months, routines would have been changed. Patrols would vary. New sensors would be in place. The only chance she had to remain unseen was to walk the one place with a slightly smaller chance of being spotted. Pales would sometimes attack under cover of dust, and the Watch certainly had no fear of the stuff, but data was data. The number of either out moving beneath the screaming gale of blowing powder would be statistically lower.

  As she knew from grim experience, there was a good reason for that.

  Her dust cloth wasn’t enough. Beck wore a full Deathwatch uniform taken from the bunker, covering everything from ankles to neck. Her gloves sealed tight to the sleeves of her coat, and the heavy mantle around her torso clung to her neck and swooped around her head. In its folds rested the glassy eyes of a breather mask, one whose filters were nearly at capacity.

  The storm was larger than most she had ever seen. To have lasted the hours it took her to traverse the northern course she took to the access tunnel, it had to be something close to a record. Her breather was dumb technology. It contained no electronics more complicated than the computational power required to run its filtration system and display a blurry readout of safe breathing time remaining on the inside of one lens. Certainly nothing as helpful as a map, which meant her shambling path through the wailing wind relied on dead reckoning.

  With her few landmarks lost in the dust, Beck did something alien. She stopped thinking about the way forward and took a leap of faith. Not in a higher power—that was a thing her parents had believed in—but in herself. She trusted the countless trips from the tunnel to meet with Andres and the rest to guide her feet.

  The filter was nearly spent when she made out the yard-tall stump of an ancient tree marking the location of
the entrance. It was barely more than a smudge of slightly darker darkness in the static world surrounding her, but it was there.

  It was only in those last few steps, on the cusp of blessed shelter, that Beck wondered whether someone had locked the hatch. The thought struck her like a physical blow. Every fiber of self-control snapped at once as she ran the rest of the distance. An obsessive, nearly insane need to fish the handle free of the dust covering it took over, as if the act of pushing herself forward could somehow unlock the hatch were it secured.

  Her glove slipped around the thin U of metal, right where it was supposed to be at the base of the massive stump, and when she pulled the entire thing rotated up on smooth hinges just as it was supposed to. As she hurried down the steps, she idly wondered whether anyone seeing the huge stump moving so strangely against the pull of gravity would cause them to question their own mental state. Beck knew the thing was fake and even she had a hard time reconciling how real it looked against the ease with which the door mechanism shifted it.

  The hatch closed silently above her, and just like that the moment of manic disconnection from reality was gone.

  Lights blinked on as the swirl of dust around her blew away and settled. Clean blue light from the LEDs lining the hallway, each nestled above a door. The part of her trained by the Watch was blasé about the sight. It was one she’d seen often enough. The rest of her couldn’t help but wonder at the existence of the undercity. More specifically at the fact that few citizens knew such a thing lay just beneath their feet.

  Her urgency faded once the hatch was closed. Hours of walking caught up with her, and Beck decided to settle on the steps and rest for a while. She pulled her mask off and laid back against the stairs at a slight angle.

  She woke some indeterminate time later. The lights were off, leaving her in utter darkness. Every muscle below her ribs ached from the trek, but she felt rested. Slowly, Beck hauled her pack around and pulled the last of her water free. Those final ounces were sudden rain on the desert of her parched throat. As she moved, the lights blinked back on.