The autonomous squad was massive. Dozens of members filled its ranks, including seven of Pascal’s own. Among them was Sarah Pascal, a nineteen-year-old girl with rare healing arts and a whimsical turn of phrase.
“Hair like dried rose petals, eyes bright as candied cherries. Little red fox, that’s you! And why the missing eye on you? Starting today, you’re my one-eyed eagle!”
Sarah patched up wounds that had festered after weeks of drifting through the wasteland. There was also Is Pascal, a quiet eighteen-year-old who commanded summoned beasts.
“Afternoon, juniors. Find any seeds out in the ruins? I’ll trade you whatever you like. I’ve had an empty pot waiting on the sill for ages…”
The newcomers quickly bonded with the other Pascal kin, and the squad as a whole seemed well accustomed to handling their kind. Rita began to wonder if she had finally found somewhere she belonged.
It proved to be a brief daydream. The rot surfaced the moment assignments were handed down.
“You kids have the skill for it. A little excursion like this shouldn’t be any trouble, right?”
“Child’s play for a Pascal.”
The burdens laid upon Pascal’s children were of an entirely different nature than the duties assigned to ordinary members.
“Just got back with the provisions! Walking the city streets was fine and well, but hauling all those crates back was an absolute nightmare.”
“The city? Pascals wouldn’t last five minutes at market. You’d get swindled blind before you hit the second stall. Leave commerce to us and stick to what you know best.”
“That’s all the beasts you brought down? And you came back bleeding all over the floorboards? How disappointing. We closed every single trade agreement without a hitch.”
“Hate to break it to you, but we’re docking your rations this month. You missed your quota. Rules are rules, after all.”
“The haul was a roaring success, so naturally we earned our cut. The surplus belongs to us. Better luck on your next run.”
“This unit runs on merit. Everyone contributes where they excel and reaps the rewards accordingly. Seems only fair, wouldn't you say?”
It was anything but.
Together with the newly arrived trio—Rita, Gide, and Ollie—the Pascals numbered ten. To their lot fell every grueling, lethal task: hunting demonic beasts, mapping unexplored wasteland, carving supply routes, clearing hazardous ruins, holding the perimeter, and chasing down rogue bounties.
Meanwhile, the others enjoyed easy, risk-free work: trading scavenged spoils and buying groceries in the city behind the Final Defense Line, keeping camp, maintaining gear, arranging swaps with neighboring outfits, cooking meals, and sweeping the floor.
Because the Pascals were saddled with absurd quotas, they constantly fell short. In contrast, the rest cleared their trivial benchmarks with ease and hoarded all the surplus. The children were starved of rations while the rest lived in comfort.
“Oh dear, injured and short on medicine? We could spare some of our reserves, but it’ll have to go down as debt.”
Since the others faced zero danger on their city errands, their medicine cabinets stayed full. In return for loans, they demanded ever larger slices of the Pascals' food and gear.
“You need to bring down at least one named beast before month’s end. Without results like that, HQ won’t authorize any supply drops. You wouldn’t want to starve in the ruins again, would you? Pull your weight.”
“You can manage. You’re Pascals, after all.”
Every commendation filed with HQ under the banner of the autonomous squad was bought with the blood of Pascal’s children. Yet it was always the others who walked away with the spoils.
“Work harder and you’ll get a bigger share.”
“You missed your quota, and we met ours. It’s only natural.”
Two months after their arrival, Gide finally voiced what they had both been thinking.
“This isn't fair. Is it, Rita?”
Rita gave a quiet nod.
“They pawn off every perilous chore on us just because we’re capable, then pocket everything for themselves. They wear sweet smiles, but they’re far worse than the last outfit we ran with.”
With that, their minds were made up: they would break away from this autonomous squad, taking with them the rest of Pascal’s children who were being worked like cattle.
“Even if we run, where would we go?”
“Other units are even worse. Some don’t even treat Pascals like human beings. Here, at least they divide supplies according to what gets brought back. They even give us pay.”
“Having the right to turn down a job—even if it means going hungry—is more freedom than I ever had before. I nearly died in my old unit.”
“There are Pascals here who’ve lived past eighteen. Word is most of us die before then, so if people are making it that far, things can’t be all bad.”
“If you don’t have a unit, you’re just adrift in the blighted ruins. You know how that ends.”
“It’s not like we’re allowed to live past the Final Defense Line anyway. For people like us, this is as good as it gets.”
Their eldest, Sarah Pascal, was only nineteen. The rest had an average age of barely fifteen.
Bred as living weapons that knew only how to slaughter demonic beasts. Pascal’s children, whose life expectancy was so abysmal that living past eighteen was an anomaly. Orphans barred from seeking shelter beyond the Final Defense Line. Children whom adults found all too easy to coax, intimidate, and exploit.
Years of relentless drudgery in the squad had worn down their will, leaving most resigned to their lot. Only Sarah and Is welcomed the prospect of escape.
“It drives me mad! We have medicine right there, yet we aren't allowed to use it because we don’t have the supplies to borrow against it! Little Fox, One-Eyed Eagle, if I come with you, no one’s going to lock the medicine cabinet, right? Right?”
“I managed to scrape together a bit of soil and water for my flowerpot, but they confiscated it for ‘communal distribution.’ The green shoots had finally started to poke through, and then they just shriveled up and died. They told me flowers were a needless luxury. I know they’re right… but I still want to watch them grow. If I come with you… do you think I could?”
While they wrestled with where to run, Rita spoke up.
“We can survive on our own. So long as nobody robs us of what we earn, we’ll have plenty. If there’s nowhere out there for us, we just have to build a place of our own.”
Gide caught the spark in her words.
“That’s it, Rita. If we stick together, we can pull it off.”
“Let’s establish our own autonomous squad. One made entirely of Pascal children.”
The pragmatic Ollie poured cold water over the notion.
“Sure, anyone can claim they’re an autonomous squad. But getting certified by HQ is a whole different beast. For unregistered, underage Pascals like us, it’s practically impossible. Damn it all, they’ll insist on an adult citizen cosigning as our guarantor.”
“Not to mention we’re deserters who put a bullet through our last captain. An unregistered outfit is just a pack of bandits in their eyes. There’s a reason no one ever walks away from this hellhole. You know that as well as I do!”
Even against such brutal realities, Gide did not flinch.
“I didn't spend the last two months idling.”
He produced a battered notebook from his pocket.
“Every merchant in the city who deals with autonomous squads is in here. Including the black-market brokers.”
“Is that a client ledger? The squad leader guards that with his life. How did you get your hands on it? And black-market dealers? Don’t tell me you—”
“Need a citizen guarantor? We buy one. Need coin for the bribe? We sell beast parts on the side. And as for our desertion record… you know the drill. HQ doesn’t care who’s holding the sword. All they care about is the body count.”
The children stared, mouths agape, as the sheer audacity of the scheme took shape before them. Gide narrowed his solitary eye.
“So make up your minds. What kind of squad are we going to make?”
Most were too stunned to picture it clearly. But Rita, whose thoughts had been racing ahead since the start, answered without hesitation.
“A sanctuary for Pascal’s children. A home for kids like us, drifting lost through the ruins with nowhere to turn. A light shining through the fog.”
And there, in the shadows, the foundation for the autonomous squad Beacon was laid.
Breaking free from Fair, however, was never going to be simple. The squad had no intention of releasing their well-tamed workhorses, and the spirit of the Pascal children had been crushed too deeply for them to welcome upheaval.
Through painstaking effort, they managed to piece together an escape plan. Yet on the very eve of their departure, one of the children bound for freedom betrayed them, running straight to the squad leader.
“Our squad rewards loyalty, but we repay betrayal with equal fervor. Fair is fair, wouldn't you say?”
While Rita and Gide were away on a subjugation hunt, the children left in camp were dragged into the dark. Ollie, Sarah, and Is held their tongues under torment, but another broke and laid bare the entire plot.
Every last one of them was taken hostage.
“Swear your oath again. Reaffirm your allegiance to Fair and pledge every breath to our service. Do that, and you will be spared.”
Rebinding an oath was an exceptionally rare and dangerous rite. The risks were immense; should the process falter, not only would the new binding shatter, but the backlash from the old oath could tear the subject apart from the inside out.
Fair’s squad leader throttled the battered Ollie by the throat, sneering down at Rita and Gide as he demanded their submission.
Gide ground his teeth. Across the room, Rita met the gaze of Sarah, bound tightly beside Ollie. Barely parting her lips, Rita whispered toward Gide:
“I’ll pretend to break the oath and overload my Od. The second it blows, you get them out.”
“You’ll overload what?”