The Watchers (2 page)

New York 2026

Private investigator Jay Pullma
n
crouched in the shadows of a group of ancient trees. Central park wasn’t a great place to be at that time of night, but there had been talk of a sighting and he had a client who wanted a detailed report. The guy was rich, so he could afford to pay someone else to have a spiritually enlightening encounter on his behalf.
Yeah,
he was rich enough not to suffer too much inconvenience. Not for anything.

Leaning on the toes of his faithful black sneakers, Jay had sat in that same position for over two hours and now his ankles had all but seized up. He forced himself to sit that way since the discomfort served to keep him awake and alert for as long as necessary. Now he needed to move or remain rooted to the spot forever. He shifted his body as a three-metre diameter tree supported his back.

When a scream like a wailing banshee echoed around the park, he gasped and leaned into the shadows to hide his face from the moonlight. A full moon shone in the clear sky, but it wasn’t just full, it was blue and it would have been enchanting if he’d been sitting there with Fran on a romantic night out. He wondered where she was right then. With some other guy? Maybe dinner, a movie then bed?

He curled his top lip into a snarl to remind himself where he was. Now wasn’t the time to think about
her
. Besides, there won’t be any movie. All the New York theatres were closed now. Nobody
did
entertainment anymore. The disused buildings, like many others along Broadway and the New York City streets, were now closed; taken over by the homeless and needy; the true victims of Trump's welfare reform. Instead of putting money in their pockets, they’d been provided with free shelter with electricity and running water, albeit rationed. The scheme had been approved by the previous administration; post-Trump. The initiative had been to provide shelter in disused buildings to get people off the streets. The scheme had included tip-top security when the police and the army could no longer enforce laws inside the buildings. Inside, life was likened to hell. But,
hell
, they had a roof over their heads. ‘They should be grateful’, so said the current administration.

The scheme had holes, discovered years ago when some of the legal squatters began discussing revolution, banding together, conspiring, like an un-virtual Internet using real people. As for
the
Internet; most of the servers had been shut down. The only one left was run by the government, and people avoided it at all cost. No
Facebook
, no
Twitter
, no
Ebay
. Only
Amazon
had survived after they had eventually monopolised the retail industry. The US government owned that too; the biggest department store on the planet, sold to them in 1919 for one point five billion dollars.

Jay saw a man step into the clearing beyond the trees. He used a cheap disposable lighter to ignite a cigarette hanging from his mouth. His tired face glowed when he pulled a long hard drag before he dug his hands into his pockets and sauntered off along a path with no purpose in his stride.

Jay relaxed. There was nothing else to see.

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. Even in the shade, the city was unbearably hot, as it was every year now from February until November. For the past four years, they’d had the shortest winters on record. Many were pleased with the warmer weather until they counted the cost. The ice caps were melting fast now, portending a new water world by twenty-forty. Maybe even before that, Jay reckoned.

He rubbed his hands over his eyes. He was tired of his shitty job. Why couldn’t he have been a pilot or something? At least then he could get a free ride out of that crummy place.

Jay had set himself up as a private investigator years ago, long before Trump’s presidency. It had started with a favour for a friend, Brad Parante. Brad had asked him to shadow his wife, whom he suspected was cheating on him. It turned out she was, but not in the way Brad thought. Gambling was her love. She did it daily, whenever and wherever she could; casinos, slot machines, bingo, card drives, you name it, she did it, but she did it alone, with no other man, unless he counted the Jack! Jay had reported back to Brad that his wife was not cheating in the normal sense of the word, but he may want to take a long hard look at his checking account.

Brad divorced his gambling-obsessed wife after a lengthy court battle. It was complicated because she hit it big on the lottery just before the papers were signed and Brad demanded eighty-five percent. Jay never made a penny from the job and later vowed that in the future he'd never again be suckered in to do any more favours. Not for free!
The lottery
! Everyone thought they could strike it rich to get away from the failing economy. Maybe build a floating island somewhere, ready for the future. Well, they could all wish, because not many people prayed anymore, that was for sure.

A voice out of the blue caught him unawares. “Hey, what’re you doin’?”

Jay toppled sideways, reaching out his hand to save himself from falling. When he maintained his balance, he looked up to see a teenager standing next to the tree. “Whoa!” He grabbed the edge of the kid’s shirt and pulled him down to the floor. Jay kept hold of him while he took a quick glance at the clearing. Nothing there. Everything good. He turned back to see the kid’s face almost right next to his. He pushed him away, making him fall on his butt. “What’re you doin’? Trying to scare a guy to death?”

Jay guessed he was about fifteen, sixteen, but as usual with kids those days, he could hardly tell. He was tall, although right then, he was scrambling around on the floor trying to get comfortable. He settled on his haunches next to Jay. “Why are we whispering?” he asked, peering out between the trees towards the clearing.

Jay shook his head. The situation was almost laughable if it wasn’t for the fact he was seriously pissed. “We’re not doing anything. You’re gonna scat. Do it now before I call a cop!”

The kid remained firm. “Not until you tell me what you’re doing.”

It didn’t take a lot of insight to see the kid wasn’t someone you told what to do and he’d do it. “You’re kidding, right?” Jay spat. “Look, any minute now you’re going to blow my cover.” He glanced once more at the clearing.
All quiet.

The kid offered an irritating chuckle. “Blow your cover! Who do you think you are, Eliot Ness?” He began humming the tune to an old movie,
The
Untouchables
, while he strained his neck to see around the trees. He had a mop of black hair and green eyes. Jay could have sworn he was a girl, if it hadn't been for his deep voice. Clearly, his balls had dropped. "Clear off, son."

He didn’t budge. He only grinned with perfect white teeth, challenging Jay to tell all.

Jay had already established the kid was an idiot, but he knew he needed to calm down and put the whole matter to bed. He would explain the seriousness of his position and then the kid would surely realise he needed to give up and go home. "Okay, okay. I'm on a stakeout, all right? Can you leave now?"

“Cool.”

“Get lost, will ya?” Jay was at the end of this tether. Maybe he should call a cop. Have the kid thrown into jail until he was thirty-five!

"What's the stakeout?" Nothing affected his blatant attitude. He was a spoilt jerk! "Come on, you can trust me," he said with a smirk on his face.

Jay inwardly sighed. “I'm a private investigator. I'm on a case.”

“Cool.”

“Shush. Keep your voice down. Some big-shot wants to know if the stories are true about the birds.”

The kid frowned. “You mean the Angels? They’re not birds,” he guffawed.

“Whatever!” Jay spat. “It’s all garbage anyhow. No such thing as celestial beings. Not in New York City.”

“You’re wrong there, man,” the kid said.

Jay wanted to laugh at the seriousness of his expression. “What do you know about it?”

“Are you kidding? My girlfriend and me…we chase sightings.”

“With nothing else to do right?” Jay smiled at the kid’s optimism. Something Jay had lost a long time ago. “So, you’ve seen them have you, the Watchers?”

“Not yet, but my time is coming.”

“God protect me,” Jay muttered. He turned back to the kid. “Okay, you’ve had my story. Can you leave now?”

“Are you crazy? This is a great location. Besides, you might need my help.”

Jay’s voice fell to a loud whisper again. “Help! You’re the crazy one, kid. These
alleged
monsters are supposed to be killers.”

“They’re not killers and they’re not monsters,” he said with absolute certainty. “Angels wouldn’t kill. All that stuff on the news is just propaganda. The government don’t want us to believe in them because they don’t want any unrest.”

“You don’t say.” Jay turned away to hide a smile forming on his lips. The kid was nuts. “How old are you anyway?”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“You don’t look it, trust me.”

“I’ve got credentials.” He dug into the pocket of his old jeans. “I’m press.” He held up a laminated card displaying his name, Tom Stone, NYC News Reporter and Independent Photographer. The face in the image was wearing glasses, to make him look older. The I.D was clearly fake.

“You’re a young pap!” Jay whispered.

They stopped as they heard voices from a group of people walking into the clearing.

The pair ducked and peered around the tree as twelve men and women gathered in a group. Two of them were dragging a dark skinned youth along the ground, his hands tethered with wire.

Jay had heard all the stories of the rising Ku Klux Klan, except they didn’t use the disguises anymore. Instead, all supporters of the new KKK, (a legacy of the Trump administration) displayed a tattoo on their left shoulder; an image of their forefathers dressed in pointed white hoods. It was now a distinguishable brand logo.

Jay glanced at Tom Stone crouching in the shadows next to him. He was quiet, not moving an inch. As they heard the youth screaming for his life in the clearing beyond the trees, Tom whispered incredulously “Is this a hanging?”

“Not what you were expecting, huh?”

Jay thought about his client. He’d been very specific about the location inside Central Park West. The brief was to witness any strange activity to do with the Angel beings. He’d said nothing about a potential hanging. Jay audibly gasped as he suddenly realised what was happening; yes, he’s been sent there to witness a sighting of the Watchers, but to ensure that happened, the client had sent bait.

Tom Stone couldn’t believ
e
his luck, bumping into a real Private Investigator on a stakeout. He swung his backpack from his shoulders and settled it onto the floor. The guy hiding behind the tree was on a case and Tom intended to be in on the action.

Tom was seventeen and lived with his mom in a downtown tenement they shared with one other family, like most homes now, since the American people couldn't afford the rising costs of their own places. Those days, the downtown city apartments resembled slums, despite them being private homes. The exteriors were the worst. Shattered satellite dishes, graffiti, broken windows, and laundry hung on railings and ledges, drying in the midday heat. It was the relentless heat that made the whole image less appealing since no one could afford solar panels to operate the air-con. Now balconies housed mattresses and baby's cribs, chairs and homemade rotary fans. Sometimes in high summer, it seemed everyone slept outdoors.

His mother’s seriously overcrowded apartment, made Tom hungry to make his own way in the world as an independent news reporter and photographer, or Pap, as they were more commonly known. His ultimate goal, since there wasn’t much chance of graduating, was to make enough money to move out of his mom’s place and find something better. He’d even had a notion of moving to England to be with Mia, but he didn’t know how Mia felt about that yet.

Earlier, just before midnight, he was in his room with his leg propped up on the cold radiator beneath the window, waiting for the computer to fire up, closing his eyes, concentrating on the familiar sounds wafting in from the street outside, mainly the sound of Taxi's making a killing on their fees since gas had become in such short supply. Trump had seen to that. The late president's policies had divided America from the Arab States, so now the only gas available was their homegrown oil supply, mostly produced by fracking. What a frackin' mess, Tom often said without humour.

Tom swung around in his chair as Windows 12 flashed up on the screen. The Firefox logo was still on it, but the Internet was practically gone now. The government had seen to that. The conspiracy theorists claimed the powers did it to stop the domestic world communicating so easily.
Fear!
They put the phone lines charges right up, so now all they had were texts and SMS.
They
were free, but most of the population of America worried their messages were being intercepted by the enemy…the IRS.

His iPhone sat on the side of his desk, picking up its charge from the minute solar panel on his iWatch. The device had been Apple's innovation before they went under in the recession of 2019. He still used the phone for playing games already downloaded and of course, texting, and maybe an emergency camera when he was caught without his digital pro. Not that he went anywhere without
that
.

He banged the top of the PC stack. “Come on, come on!” He turned his watch so that it sat flat on his wrist. It was getting late,
midnight
, but he needed to check in with Mia before he went out. The New York curfew was set at two until six in the morning. The authorities wanted it to be set at midnight but the city residents had revolted on that one. As far as Tom knew, that was the only uprising they’d ever won. An extra two hours on curfew time.
Yay!

He heard a thud coming from the room next to his. It was his mother’s, the one she shared with her boring new boyfriend. Tom looked at the wall dividing his room from theirs, where their headboard constantly thumped on the opposite side.
His
side was covered in posters and maps, charting places of historical interest in the South of England, maps of Stonehenge, Glastonbury, Avebury…

A door banged. A sound of muffled voices. He looked at the virtual timer on the screen. He needed to get out of there before they started
doing it
. The IMS box popped up on the left hand side of the screen where he’d been shooting zombies earlier.
‘I’m so goddamn fed-up,’
Mia Lake wrote.

He smiled as he pictured her frowning. He typed his reply. ‘
Goddamn now is it? That’s not very English!’

‘Who cares? I wish I could live in NY and see you each day.’

He was shaking his head as the words came up on the screen.
‘Instead you have the English countryside…poor old you.’

‘Stoney, have you any idea how boring it
is living here, surrounded by bloody trees and goddamn cows? At least you have some excitement.’

‘Whoa, there’s that word again,’
he typed
.
‘
Honey, you do not want to live here. This city is crazy now.
He shook his head as he tapped the keyboard
. ‘Everyone else is trying to get out. Including me
.’ He stared at the familiar avatar in the corner of the message. It was a photo she’d taken in a passport booth with one of her friends from school. They had their heads together, both popping bubble gum. Mia was the one with the long dark hair, dark brown eyes and pale complexion. Beautiful and so goddamn sexy! He stabbed the keys.
‘Soo…Anything happening over there?

You mean the Watchers?

What else!?

When news of the Angels had begun eighteen months ago, everyone had been scared out of their wits, fearing the end of days. Even now, not many people knew much about them, but the speculation in the media was rife. Some said they were winged alien's trying to take control of the planet for their own gain. Some said they were hell's angels wanting to destroy all that was good on earth, and some said they were figments of our imagination since growing technology had made society lose all sense of reality.

Tom and Mia had their own theory: that the Watchers had been on the planet for a long time and that they were now emerging to save humanity from itself.

Mia’s message came through. ‘
I didn’t see them, but I think I may be onto something.’

‘No way. What?’

‘Fracking!’

“
Cursing
from your lips don’t sound right’
. Tom checked his watch. Five after midnight.

‘Fracking!
He smiled at the
emoticon of a 3D yellow laughing head rolling around his screen
. I saw something about it on the BBC news tonight. The power companies want to drill underground and flush gallons of water into veins of natural gas and oil. It’s criminal.

‘
I know.’

‘When I think of them robbing the earth of its natural recourses, it makes my blood boil. It leaves empty gaps under the land’s surface, causing all sorts of environmental issues.’ Sinkholes, for one.”

‘
We get hundreds of Sinkholes in the States.’

“I know. Pigs, right?’

‘So what’s your theory?’

‘There's a company working on some land near here, fracking for natural gas. They began two days ago and someone's reported one of the Henge's stones has tilted thirty degrees. They're accusing the fracking company.'

‘So…you think the Watchers will turn up to stop the fracking?’

‘That’s the theory!’

Tom puckered his lips and nodded as he typed his response.
‘Go for it, Lakey.’

She came back immediately.
‘I’ll let you know if anything happens over here, but if not, I’ll IMS you at our usual time tomorrow.’

“Got it. Stay safe.’

‘Gotcha. You be careful too, Stoney,’
she answered.

‘Hey, you know me…I'm goddamn, fracking cool!'

Tom went into Firefox to check the news. It was the only news channel left now, but the government owned it, so it wasn’t always reliable. ‘
The Watchers? Impossible! No such thing, says leading professor…
’

“Whatever!” Tom barked as he pressed esc.

He grabbed his backpack from the floor, checked to see his camera was still inside, and then flung it over his shoulder. Pushing the flaking-paint sash window further up the worn ropes, he put his leg through the opening. Tom grinned as he raced down the fire-escape to the stench and the sirens and the sin of his favourite city, and wondered if that would be the night his dream would come true: To meet the Watchers face-to-face, and to capture them on film for posterity…and prosperity.

An hour laterThe PI looked lik
e
he’d turned blue, either from a lack of oxygen, or more likely, from the reflection of the moon. The event unfolding before their very eyes was incomprehensible. Tom knew it and so did the PI sitting next to him.

The bait had worked. The Watchers had arrived.

It was rumoured that the Watchers kept to places that offered the least exposure. Tom had heard stories about them appearing in the cities around the world. Hong Kong, Berlin, Paris, London and his very own hometown of New York City, but there was nothing about the sighting in mainstream media, probably because it was all controlled by the government, but the word on the street, the next best thing to the non-existent Internet, was that the Angels had arrived and that they were beginning their divine mission by whittling out a few bad guys. A photograph had been attained, but those who had seen it said it looked as if it had been photo-shopped.

No, the pictures couldn’t be anything like the real thing, Tom decided, because the real thing was in front of him right now, and no one could have been prepared for a vision like that.

The first Watcher had simply stepped into the open as if it had walked out of a tree…or
something
. The illusion was incredible. One moment they weren’t there and the next moment they were. There was no other way to explain it. Tom was reminded of those crazy coloured pictures that revealed a three-dimensional image after staring at it cross-eyed.
Yeah, it was like that!

The next Angel arrived in the same way, and then another. Tom had to wonder if they’d been there all along while he’d been introducing himself to the PI. That notion alone was startling.

Within seconds, there were seven Watchers standing in a circle formation within the clearing.

About six-foot-six tall, the Angel’s limbs were long and powerful; their hands and feet like blunt weapons, while their broad shoulders were rounded like great mounds of muscled flesh. Their lower bodies were swathed in what looked like grey kid leather, but it was no earthly fibre, it looked as if they wore a second skin, wrapped around their form, protecting their modesty, adorning them, so that when they moved, the material shone and illustrated their male shapes, especially their buttocks and thighs of unyielding rock hard muscle.

Their faces were all different, like ours, each with their own unique visage, but they were strong faces, to match their bodies, revealing the intensity of their presence there on earth. Their only defect were facial scars, crisscrossing their faces, necks and torsos as if they had been carved with talons.

Their defining features were the colour of their skin, white, brown, dark, black, all different, as
man
was different. Along their arms, silver and black painted tattoos caught the light. Symbols and signs and indecipherable letters and numbers, etched into their skin, looking as if each were as prominent as the last.

Behind them, feathered wings were folded like a mother’s loving arms wrapped around her child. From the back the plumes were dull and weathered, some of them missing as if they had been plucked out in battle.

The Angels stepped into the clearing, where the people inside screamed and cursed, looking as if they were unable to move out of the circle, as if an invisible, impenetrable force field prevented them from leaving. The men and women dashed about like lambs in a fenced enclosure, attempting to find an avenue of escape, but there wasn't one.

The dark skinned boy, still with his hands tethered with wire and with a rope dangling around his neck, scrambled around the dirt floor, his eyes wide with fear, more than the fear he'd felt when he was about to be strung up and killed.

The magnificent beings went further inward, closing the circle, their expressions became dark and foreboding and their eyes revealing the intensity of their emotions. As their concentration mounted, their wings began to unwrap themselves, as if they had a life of their own. The silver and white wings became half-erect, dragging on the ground behind them.

The circle became tighter and the people in the centre kept screaming as they foretold their own deaths. The Angels stepped nearer, until suddenly their wings opened in magnificent splendour, stretching outwards and upwards, shining silver, reflecting the light of the blue moon with fine feathers fluttering in the breeze.

Their span was vast, maybe twelve feet or more and as they kept moving inward, the seven pairs of wings touched. At that point, as they moved in, the wings became wrapped around the Angel next to them, looking as if they were seven brothers in a rugby scrum. The screaming inside the circle of feathers became piercing and terrifying and just as the intensity of their anguish increased, it stopped, just like that, as if the people inside no longer existed.

The Angels lifted their wings and their heads became erect once more. Their eyes, once closed, opened, revealing a sedated look on their faces as if they had just fed, while tears of sorrow filled their eyes, and a frown appeared on their brow holding an expression of desolation.