Watchmaker (A short story prequel)

Chapter 1-Rogues

  Chapter 1: Rogues

To the man who ran down the dark alley, every siren in the city screamed for him. Confusion made him mad as he splashed through leftover puddles, his face wild and his shabby clothes billowing around him like sails in the breeze. His face had been on the news that morning. Steve Newman: Murderer, they’d called him. Why?

Behind him, a voice shouted, “Stop, you can trust me, I swear.” The kid had come up to him not more than ten minutes before at a gas station.

“I’m innocent,” Steve had shouted crazily in front of the startled employee behind the counter. “I have no idea what’s going on, but I swear I never killed anybody.”

The kid’s calm brown eyes had watched him and, seeing that he had no intention of turning himself in, had tried to apprehend him. Now he had the audacity to claim that Steve could trust him.

“Just slow down,” the kid shouted again. “I know this is all crazy, but there’s no way you can keep running. If you haven’t done wrong, then there’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”

Common sense began to find its way back into his crazed mind for a moment, before he felt something sharp and painful stab him in the neck. He stumbled with a high-pitched scream and gave out a harsh gasp before becoming entirely still in the middle of a large puddle of murky water.

The kid stopped in his tracks as he came nearer to the fallen man. A dart stuck out from his neck, and the man’s eyelids fluttered drunkenly. The kid’s eyes darted from one end of the alley to the other. He hadn’t asked for backup; where the hell had that come from?

“Nice job bringing him to us,” someone laughed loudly from above him. He glanced up, the nose of his gun immediately facing upwards at the invisible voice. “Who is that? Peters? Which of you damned Benders thought you’d steal our blood-worthy?”

The kid’s shoulders tensed as he changed the gun’s direction, trying to determine the whereabouts of his stalker. He heard someone’s footsteps banging against the metal fire escape of the building to his right.

“No reason to point that little toy at us, we’ve got ten on you right now,” the man scoffed as he jumped down the final steps. “Now who’d the Benders send us as a little bonus?”

A flashlight flicked on, its beam of light blinding the kid for a second. He kept his gun trained on the man before him, whose face became illuminated by the wide arc of light coming from the torch. The dark scar running down the man’s otherwise handsome face was distinctly familiar, and a name popped into the kid’s head immediately.

“Nate Fisher,” he gaped at the man, noting the signature tranquilizer gun hanging at his side. “Where the hell did you come from? I thought you were done with time bending.”

“No, no, no,” the man chuckled. “I said I was done with the Benders, not bending itself. And what about you? I’m surprised they let you out of the clubhouse. Little Penn Erickson’s all grown up now, eh?”

Penn scowled at the man’s proud smirk. He wasn’t sure what to make of his newfound arrogance. Fisher hadn’t even known how to read when the Benders had picked him up in the Middle Ages during a misfortunate trip to the past. The group’s blood-worthy, the only one in the group with the ability to bend, had been killed in an ambush by outlaws. The group had been lucky enough to find another one, the fourteen year old Nathan Fisher, and used him to get back home. Of course, without someone staying behind to act as a lifeline to that parallel dimension, the time-line was closed off from their one True Time-Line for good. Nate had been trapped in a better time, but he’d never seemed very grateful.

“What do you think you’re going to do with him?” Penn nodded towards Steve. “You’re already a blood-worthy."

“I believe that’s my business, isn’t it?” Fisher raised one thin eyebrow at him. “Now, you have two options, which I’m only offering because I’m your Godfather,” the man smirked at him coldly. “Some sense of duty on my part, I suppose. You can throw down that toy of yours, and let us take this old man back home with us, or you can become a prisoner yourself. I wouldn’t mind having you as a Seeker for the Rogues, you know. You would’ve been a very talented time-bender, if you’d been born a blood-worthy like your father.”

Penn scowled at the man’s reference to an old wound.

“Bastard,” he spit at him as he dropped his gun.

Fisher ignored him and waved skyward, at which several men climbed down from the roofs of the buildings around them. Three of them gathered around the old man on the ground, lifting him up to carry away.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way, Penn, but I can’t take any chances,” Fisher raised a gun to point at him. Before he could react, Penn felt the sharp point of a needle plunge into his arm. A wave of dizziness came over him as he stumbled forward against his Godfather, the world turning from dark to black.