Elysium Falling (ONC 2024 Long List)

Chapter 2 - Real

Dik leaned back. "Will you come? If those assurances are made?"

Rowan relaxed. Dik wasn't a bad sort if you discounted his complete loyalty to the government.

"Assure me," he said. Rowan gave Dik a hard stare. They may have been partners once. But Dik Paramar had taken someone Rowan wanted back. It was a line that shouldn't have been crossed. Loyalty among brothers or something.

Dik nodded. "She's fine. Unharmed."

"But imprisoned."

Dik's right eye flashed again. He was still accessing files, and communicating with his bosses. A good sign.

"Comfortable," he responded.

Rowan had been on the job for a hundred years when he'd met Dik. Wide-eyed and full of promise, the younger man had embraced becoming a watcher. Hell, they all did when they first got started. They'd come crawling out of the hell holes they'd been born in and seen the stars, the cars, and the way the upper crust thrived over their dirt-encrusted existence. The technology was too much to just give up. They'd be given the keys to the kingdom and told to keep an eye on their fellows. Make sure there's no uprising. No unrest - order must be kept always.

The Order is first. The people must be protected. Sometimes from themselves.

Rowan frowned as he found himself muttering the mantra like the fucking sycophant he used to be. He shook his head out of the reverie and stood. Old habits died hard.

Both watchers tensed.

"How many did you bring?" Rowan said again. He glanced again at the other man in the room. The man remained tense one fist clenched. "You know the noobs, the expendables."

Dik frowned. "Rowan, don't."

"You know the rules - they gotta survive just like we did." He glanced at what he guessed was Dik's new partner. "New guy? New skin?"

"How'd you know?" The guy spluttered. Dik sent him a dirty look.

"Shut up, Renny," Dik said. 

Rowan smiled and held up his cuffed hands again. "That Nordic model is pretty popular on the south side. Who else can afford it? Noobs take it because it's different. Experienced guys pass on it because it's different. You stand out like a sore thumb." He rubbed his forehead with his cuffed hands before locking onto Renny's gaze. "I'd say you're Jersey from your accent. Amazing how even changing into a new skin, doesn't seem to change the 'ccents that much. And last I checked - not too many high-priced Nordic's in Jersey."

If Renny hated him before, he was seething now. He started forward.

"Chill, Ren," Dik moved in between them. "He's just getting under your skin." He turned to Rowan. "I've got an army out there if you cause trouble." His eye flashed and he paused. "But if you cooperate they are willing to assure Miranda's life."

They, that anonymous they. Rowan felt his jaw tick, knowing it was a giveaway to how he felt. But he couldn't help that. Let them see it. Two hundred years of service wasn't enough for these people. Watchers don't retire unless it's at the business end of a bullet in the service of the greater good, blah blah blah. 

"Two hundred years I've served," Rowan muttered. "You'd think in that time, they'd have a better retirement package."

"That's it - you bastard--," Renny started. 

Rowan's double-fisted cuffed hands managed to cut into Renny's long-armed punch. The problem with the Nordic model was that no one stayed in them long enough to get used to their size and muscularity. Renny was slow, slow in a way that Rowan had never been.