The Watchers of Eden (The Watchers Trilogy, Book One)

by Edge, T. C.

  I see the second guard now, pulling out his own baton, just as the first lunges forward. The speed of Link's movement is incredible, so fast he moves like a blur. Within a split second he's stepped in between the two guards and punched them both out, simultaneously, knocking them straight to the floor. They land with a loud clatter on the wooden pier, the wind thumped out of them.

  “RUN!” he shouts, turning back to us.

  We go, dashing forward up through the street. I hear a few shouts as people come towards us. They must have seen what was going on. We duck down a side road, past small fish packing warehouses. I see people inside, grinding out the day, humming those endless productivity songs. They look up as we pass, and I hear the songs fading out. Then we're gone, moving away down the muddy, soggy streets, passing small residential dorms and quarters.

  I still hear shouts behind us and arch my head back. They're still chasing. But it's not civilians. There are more guards, armed guards, charging behind us.

  Then I see Link grab Ellie to my side. He shoves her to the left as a streak of white light zooms past her, just where she would have been. A second later, the sound of a gunshot rings through the air, a bullet following behind the white line. Then more lines whip by me, cutting up the street. I follow Link to the left as the world erupts in gunfire, deafening snaps crackling through the air. We round a building and I turn to see Theo, weaving up and down as he catches up to us, ducking through gunfire, his eyes blazing.

  “Stay here,” shouts Link, holding Ellie up against a wall. “All of you, stay here.”

  I watch as Link charges round the corner, heading back down the road towards our pursuers. Ellie turns and goes to follow, but I instinctively grab her and hold her back. “No, don't!” I shout.

  “But he needs help!”

  “You'll get hit,” I shout. “He knows what he's doing, Ellie!”

  Together we watch as Link sprints on, ducking and weaving. Gunfire fills the air as bullets rip into the ground at his feet, into the buildings behind him. He reaches the first guard and knocks him flat with a single punch, scooping up his gun in a single move. Then he rolls to the right, kneels to the ground, and quickly fires off several rounds. I see four men drop, almost instantly, to the dirt, each writhing and screaming in pain as they grasp at their shins.

  He drops the automatic weapon to the ground and scoops a pistol from the belt of the man at his feet. Then he comes running back up towards us, sliding the gun into his own belt. I release Ellie as he comes round the corner, and she dives into his arms and kisses him, before slapping him around the face.

  “What the hell was that! You could have died!”

  “I've been through that before. There were only 5 of them.”

  “Yeah, in simulations! This is real Link!”

  “And they'd have caught us if I hadn't. I had no choice.”

  “There's no time for this,” calls Theo, checking around the corner. “They'll be calling for support. We have to get as far away as possible or we'll be overrun.”

  “He's right,” I shout. “You two can have it out later. Come on, this way.”

  I begin running along the road further from the coast, the rest following behind me. The road stretches on beyond the town, the buildings thinning on either side until there are none left. A few hundred feet away I see an intersection, the road we're on linking onto a much wider one. We need to find a vehicle right now, I think. Out here we're sitting ducks as soon as reinforcements arrive.

  Soon we're at the intersection, the town now well behind us. We all look left and right, searching for a car, for some sort of transport.

  “There,” shouts Ellie, pointing up the road. On the horizon, the blur of a hovercar approaches, zooming along the highway.

  “All of you, get out of sight,” she says, before falling to the tarmac in the middle of the road.

  “Ellie! What are you doing!” calls Link.

  “Just get back,” she says through gritted teeth. “Stay hidden.”

  Link, Theo, and I rush to an area of shrubbery and duck in behind it. “It's an ambush,” whispers Theo. “She's getting us a ride.”

  Through the tangle of leaves I see the car continuing down the road. It begins to slow as it approaches, then comes to a complete stop about 20 feet from where Ellie lies. A man steps out, on his own, and tentatively approaches her.

  When he leans down, he gets the fright of his life. Ellie kicks his feet from under him, sending him onto his back. We all rush from the bushes and towards the car, jumping inside.

  “Sorry about all this,” I hear Ellie call back to the man, who's so dumbfounded he can hardly move. “We only need to borrow your car, I'm sure you'll get it back.”

  She's the last to get in, stepping into the passenger seat beside Theo, who's taken the wheel.

  “Do you know how to drive this thing?” I ask from behind him.

  “In theory,” he says. “Although I've never actually done it.”

  “Well, let's put that theory into practice, damn it,” shouts Link. “Hit the accelerator!”

  Theo slams his foot to the floor and the car lurches forward, straight towards the man on the ground ahead. He twists the wheel just in time, swerving to the right.

  “Full speed! Come on, go go go!” calls Link, his words frantic.

  Theo lines the car up with the road, presses a button on the dashboard, and the car begins shooting forward. My head hits the back headrest, my body stuck to the seat. The world becomes a blur, the entire vehicle rumbling beneath me.

  “Watch out!” shouts Link, as a car appears in front of us.

  Theo swerves around it, just in time, as the car bolts on.

  “Slow down,” says Ellie. “We'll crash at turbo speed.”

  Theo shakes his head. “We need to get as far away as we can. I won't crash, I can see the hits before they happen.”

  The sound of sirens fills the air and I turn back to look out of the rear window. There, in the distance, two hovercars come hurtling towards us, a blue glow flashing around each of them. I watch as cars pitch off the road, sinking into ditches and bushes and crashing into trees to get out of their way.

  “They're getting closer,” shouts Ellie.

  She's right. Despite our speed, the cars continue to gain on us, the flashing blue glow around them growing brighter, their sirens wailing louder.

  Link pulls the pistol from his belt and twists around in the car. “Keep it steady,” he shouts, before firing through the back window. It bursts open, shattering into a thousand shards, which scatter out onto the road behind us. The cars hover straight over the glass as Link's shots fly straight past them.

  “You can't kill them!” I shout, the noise inside now deafening. Link doesn't seem to hear me. He keeps firing, his face a grimace, eyes dark and unforgiving. Yet his bullets do nothing. They merely deflect off the windscreen, creating nothing but scratches on the surface.

  “They're bulletproof,” shouts Theo. “That's not going to work.”

  “Well do you have a better idea?!” Link roars furiously.

  Theo doesn't need to answer. He spots a train ahead, zipping along a track from left to right. It extends far into the distance, dozens upon dozens of carriages linked together and blocking the road.

  “Don't even think about it!” shouts Ellie, but Theo's already made up his mind. He doesn't slow down, doesn't hit the brakes. He keeps going, the train looming closer. Behind, the two cars slow, expecting us to plummet straight into the side of the train and send it crashing off its tracks.

  But we don't. Timed to perfection, the car zooms through a gap between two carriages, shooting straight through onto the other side and leaving our pursuers stuck behind thousands of tonnes of moving metal.

  We all let out a cheer as we hit the tarmac. “That'll slow 'em!” roars Link, reaching forward and shaking Theo's shoulder. “Nice one!”

  “It's not over yet,” Theo responds, eyes still keen and stuck to the road. Behind us, the t
rain still blocks our pursuers, stretching far into the distance. Through the gaps in the carriages I can see them, turning and driving in the opposite direction as the train.

  “They're gonna drive around it,” I say. “Get off the road or they'll catch up with us again.”

  I can tell it's already in Theo's mind. He speeds off the road, kicking up dust and dirt as he rumbles over open plains. In the distance I can see hills, covered in green trees, blocking our path inland. It looks just like Lignum, the region Ellie grew up in.

  I turn to her and see her eyes glazing over at the sight. The rolling hills, the beautiful, earthy greens and browns, just like the colour of her eyes and hair. I imagine she's thinking of her mother, thinking of home.

  A jolt snaps me from my thoughts as we skip over a series of rocks. “Sorry,” calls Theo, “that came outta nowhere.”

  “So how are we gonna get through those hills then?” asks Link, still checking behind us regularly for any sight of a blue glow. “Can we get through those woods in this?”

  “Ellie?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and turns back to us. “Not likely. It'll be too dense for this. We'll need to get back on the road if we want to go through.”

  “And do we want to go through?” asks Theo. “I mean, is this the right direction.”

  “As long as it's inland, yeah. We can make a better plan when we rest for the night.”

  No one says anything in response to me. Maybe they're regretting being here after the morning we've had. I wouldn't blame them for that. There's even a part of me that thinks I should have just stayed in Eden. Jackson could be anywhere beyond the Divide. There's thousands of square miles of nothing out there. How the hell do I expect to track him down?

  Theo slows the car as we near the wooded hills, before stopping entirely behind a formation of rocks. The howling of the wind abruptly ends, the world suddenly falling silent. We listen for a moment, but hear no sirens in pursuit, no vehicles following. We've lost them, for now, but that won't be the end of it.

  “We need to change vehicles,” says Theo. “They'll be tracking this one now. Ellie, ready to play dead on the road again?”

  Ellie nods. “Always.”

  We drive on a little, searching for a minor road where we might be able to catch another fly. After another 10 minutes, we come across a narrow track that winds down from the hills. Theo stops at the side of the road, and we all step out. “Pretend you've broken down,” he says. “We'll do the rest.”

  Leaving Ellie by the car, we creep off into the thicket to hide. It doesn't take long for us to hear the sound of a car rumbling along. This time, however, it's not a hovercar but an old fashioned one with wheels. It's larger, too, beaten up and tattered. A truck, similar to the sort I'm used to seeing back home.

  Ellie does her job well, picking on yet another Good Samaritan. This time it's a couple of men who Ellie won't be able to subdue. As they go about figuring out what's wrong with our fully functioning car, however, the rest of us sneak inside theirs. All Ellie has to do is dart off when the two men aren't looking and jump on as we rumble off into the hills.

  I feel a little bad for stealing another car, but we have no alternative. It's only temporary, and I'm sure the vehicles will get back to their owners eventually. For the next few hours, we make good progress though, despite the far slower top speed in this tin can. We pass hills and woods, rivers and waterfalls, just like on my initial journey out of Arbor all those months ago. I'm reminded of those days, when everything was constantly changing around me. Of how far I've come, we've all come, in only a few short months. It seems like a lifetime.

  Day soon fades to night, the sun dipping below the hills and smothering the green tops of the trees in a celestial orange hue. The woods thin around us, and Theo cruises off the road into the darkening bosk. When we're far enough in, he stops the engine, and the world falls silent.

  “So,” he says “this is the sort of thing that happens on the mainland is it?” He turns around to look at us, a flippant smirk on his face. “I think I'll go home now.”

  We all laugh, despite the day we've had. Sometimes, there's nothing else you can do. So that's what we do. We laugh, and tell jokes, and build a small fire. We cook some food and sit together, like four friends on a camping trip, and for the first time in our lives feel completely free.

  We enjoy it while we can. Because underneath it all we know that tomorrow, when the sun climbs over the horizon, things are only going to get worse.

  27 - The Mainland

  A small group of men run through the dirt, keeping low to the ground. They carry weapons at their shoulders, move in a tight formation. Their clothing is old and weathered, their mouths and heads covered in black rags to protect against the billowing sand.

  The dust swirls around them, kicked up by the wind, obscuring their vision ahead. Gradually, a shadow looms in the distance, standing high into the air, built of thick rock and metal. The men keep moving, darting quickly across the desert, until they reach the face of the palisade.

  One searches the stones, feeling with his hands along the surface. Then he stops and presses hard, and a single rock moves deeper into the wall. There's an immediate cough of smoke, and then the grinding of stone against stone as a small door slides open. The men step inside, one by one, disappearing into the blackness.

  The man who pushed on the stone is the last to enter. Before he does he turns, looking back out towards the desert, and I see his eyes, only his eyes. They flash blue, squinting in the sun, and then he turns and fades into the darkness beyond.

  Jackson.

  I wake, my eyes opening in a flash. I hear light breathing around me as the others sleep under the night sky. Our fire has burned itself out, only a few glowing embers remaining that give off a faint orange light.

  In it I see Theo, eyes shut, chest gently moving up and down. I look for Link, who's on the other side of the fire. His back is turned to me, but I can hear the rumble of his breath as he sleeps. Finally, I guide my eyes to Ellie. She isn't sleeping. Instead her eyes are wide and unblinking, her green irises glinting under the pale moonlight.

  “You're awake?” I say. She seems to snap out of a trance. “What are you thinking about?”

  She turns her eyes to mine, a grave look on her face. “Today,” she says. “About what happened at the dock.”

  A sudden wave of guilt fills me. “I'm sorry about that. For dragging you and Link into this.”

  “No Cy, it's not that,” she whispers, crawling a little closer to me. “I chose to come with you, you can't blame yourself if anything happens to us. It's not down to you.”

  “But all of this, it's all about me, about finding Jackson. None of you should be punished for that. Or worse,” I add.

  “It's about finding Jackson for you. But for the rest of us, it's about freedom. Don't you see that?”

  “Freedom? But how can we ever be free if we're always running? It's no life, Ellie.”

  “And being a Watcher of Eden is? I'd rather take my chances here. We can find Jackson and then disappear, just the five of us. No rules, no duties. Just us, together.”

  I had no idea she felt like that. That she believed all of that was possible. Beyond finding Jackson, I've spared little thought as to what we'd do after. In truth, I've only ever been taking this step by step, never quite knowing where my feet would land next. But freedom. Disappearing. I like the sound of those words.

  I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. The thought that Ellie, and perhaps even Link, are enticed by the thought of freedom is liberating, unshackling me from my guilt of dragging them out here with me.

  “So...what about the docks then?” I ask. “What's troubling you?”

  “Well, Victoria Rock isn't a big town. It's tiny, actually. I can understand there being security at the port, but why were there five other Custodians there with automatic weapons?”

  “Maybe they were passing through? Or maybe Knight's beefing up security alo
ng the shore for whatever reason. The entire military is being expanded, Ellie. Down on the military level on Eden there were stocks and stocks of munitions and military vehicles. Maybe it's the same on the coast.”

  “Maybe,” says Ellie, thinking. “I just think it's too coincidental. Like they knew we'd be there.”

  The thought strikes me like lightning. “You think another Watcher saw it happen?”

  Ellie nods. “I think someone saw us attacking those two guards, so they had reinforcements ready. I guess, had it been anyone else, they'd have caught us. But then Link goes and takes them out.”

  “But they won't know it's us will they?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “They will, Cyra. When they realise the four of us are gone they will. Only a Watcher could have done what Link did, what Theo did when he drove through those train carriages. They'll be coming after us now. All eyes will be on us.”

  Her words are portentous, sending a shiver running up my spine. “Then we have to get across the Divide as soon as possible. Then we'll be out of reach.”

  I watch her now as she scans the woods around us, her green eyes piercing through the darkness. I wonder if she's been up all night, keeping watch. It's not something any of us thought of, to take it in turns to keep lookout. Perhaps she's the wisest of us all.

  “You should get some sleep, Ellie,” I say. “You look tired. Have you slept yet?”

  She shakes her head vacantly, still searching the trees. “Not yet. I thought I saw something before, through the trees down the hill. Then it went away, but I haven't been able to sleep since.”

  “What was it?”

  “Just a shadow moving in the darkness. A bear, I think.”

  The thought of encountering a bear hadn't even crossed my mind. Or wolves for that matter. With us now fugitives of Eden, I suppose the beasts in the woods were the least of my concerns. Not Ellie, though. She grew up in a place like this. Her mother was killed by a bear. And suddenly I know why she hasn't been able to sleep.