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. 

Rowan's fists collided with Renny's jaw with a sickening crunch. Rowan had just enough time to register the shock on Renny's face as the jaw broke, and the blue eyes rolled up into his head. Rowan grunted with satisfaction as the other man's body collided with his sending them both back into the wall. Rowan shoved the dead skin away. The neuroreceptors in the face were ruined. They could be fixed but with money like what the watchers had they'd just give him a replacement and he'd spend six months in the cooler working on how to use the new skin so mistakes like this wouldn't happen. They'd collected Renny out of it. Hopefully next time he was out he'd pick something with a little less giveaway. It was a costly mistake but he'd learn. Or die.

He turned to Dik who stood there impassively. 

"Damn, I was starting to like him," Dik said. He'd not moved a muscle. 

"Didn't you teach him anything?" Rowan muttered. He bent over and fished around in Renny's pockets. They didn't carry identification in the way that most people did but the man was carrying some keys to the cuffs. An electronic beep later and the cuffs slipped off of Rowan. He rubbed his hands and cracked his neck. 

Turning back to Dik, he smiled. "Well? You couldn't have brought Sykes? Declan? Hell, I would have loved to have seen how Dell is doing."

"Sykes, Declan, and Dell are all dead," Dik said. "Which you'd know if you'd stuck around."

"Damn," Rowan said. 

Dik's eye flashed, he was still in communication with whoever was running this op. They were keeping a tight leash on it. Rowan pulled up a middle finger at whoever was watching him through the man's eyes. He knew several of the officers behind the watchers. They'd cracked a few beers at one time or another. It didn't matter. Many had retired. Several of the pricks who demanded he still be in service hadn't been born when he'd started. (2000 Words) 

Hell, their parents hadn't even been born yet. But fuck them, officers got to retire. Start over. He didn't.

"After you," Dik waved towards the door and walked through. 

The police station was strangely quiet. At least Detective Karen and her disgusting smoking habit were gone. What remained was a smorgasbord of newly minted watchers. He recognized the tense looks of the first mission, some were afraid, others were ready for their first job, bodies tensed under black coats, ready to commit violence because some asshole at the top didn't want any more of hell's kitchen to spawn another upstart.

"I thought you brought the calvary," Rowan said out loud as he passed through. "These are all expendables." 

Dik followed and pulled out a cigarette. Rowan kept walking as the other men closed in. Not close enough for him to get his hands on them but too close for his comfort.

"The calvary is waiting, don't worry. They'll hold up."

"I hate it when you smoke," Rowan muttered as Dik puffed up next to him.

"I know, " Dik took a long drag and puffed out a cloud in Rowan's direction. "Our ride is outside."

Rowan sighed. Part of him wanted to bathe this precinct in blood. It wasn't fair to them either. Detective Smokey Mint was just doing her job. He was the one who'd retired from an organization whose motto was live or die by the code. The code was the government. It was so cliche for him to do what he'd done. Meet a girl, and change everything for her. Too damn cliche. They weren't going to let him have it.  

The cubicles of a hundred empty desks were quiet, screens open to current cases. Other lives wasting away but there was no one to stare at him outside of the other watchers. 

Two hundred years, he muttered to himself. Two hundred years wasn't enough.

There was a crowd outside. Over a hundred regular police officers stood waiting outside their own precinct. Even Detective Smokey Mint Karen was still there, arms crossed. Rowan smiled and waved as he passed her. The crowd talked in hushed whispers. There was no news helo though. That was odd. He wondered how they'd managed to keep the news at bay. 

A drone flew into view. He saw it and grinned opening up to connect to it. There was no block, but there should have been. He hesitated and simply stayed connected to the drone. The weapons dock opened on the small bird. 

No ties to anyone but the Watchers.

He heard the guns draw as realization struck. They were tracing the call, seeking his friends out. He was getting rusty. He sensed more than saw fingers on the trigger. It would have been a proper ending for his watch.  

The split second was all he needed.

"Rowan, it's her," Dik's voice paused everything. He froze as Miranda's voice filled his ears. The drone hovered, drawn.

Rowan had eyes only for the tablet between him and Dik. Damn, his former partner knew him too well. It was too bad. She was in a chair, at a table filled with other officers. She was in her favorite dress, a simple blue sundress. One he loved to see her in. Her hair was down and uncharacteristically messy. She was tense and uncomfortable but unharmed.  One man made to put a hand on her shoulder but was stopped by another officer. A word of warning was exchanged.

"You see?" Dik said. "Alive and well."

"Why didn't you say so?" Rowan said letting the sarcasm roll through his body.

"Can you call off your bird?"

Rowan let the connection go with one last command. The drone hovered in midair waiting. A shot rang out and it shattered the pieces raining down on the ground.

Around them, life continued like normal outside of the line of police wondering what the hell was going on. 

"I'll take you to her," Dik said. "But first, someone is dying to see you."

"Can we just make them dead?" Rowan asked.

Word Count: 1584