Read Watchman Novels & Stories

The shop was making enough to hire someone for help, and I wasn’t particular about who to hire, but discussing with Martha always brought perspective to the table. “Ma’am.” One of the guys knocked on my door and poked his head in. “We are done installing the cameras, the next step is to put the app on your phone and computer so you can monitor them anytime you wish.” I handed over my phone and computer to him, half listening to his tutorial of how to access the videos. He dropped a manual when he got the hint that I wasn’t following and I accepted it, throwing it into the first drawer of my desk.

Rowan started working on his plan. He stepped out onto the balcony. The two omega wolves followed him immediately. He had already placed them under his control earlier, and he had given them one simple task: “Watch everything. Count anyone who appears too often. Report quietly.” They moved around the central building of the castle in a slow, casual loop. Every few minutes, one of the omegas texted him. Two female delta wolves showed up in every area they passed. Rowan frowned. This was too easy. If Mother really wanted to spy on me, she wouldn’t use people this sloppy. Why are they so easy to spot? Are they a distraction?

The last entry reads: "Shows unusual understanding of institutional mechanics for a sixteen-year-old outer disciple. Watch." The System finds the word WATCH appearing in multiple people's notes about Host to be statistically significant. The System is watching too. --- I close the notification. Look at the archive text in front of me. Watch. Elder Qian. Elder Mao. The Twelve Thrones' monitoring formations, probably. The System itself. Everyone watching.

"Simpleton! What's happening? Why has the quantity of watchers in the live transmission room expanded all things being equal!" "Boss, the server closure has fizzled. The other transmission rooms have been closed down, so the watchers have all gotten into his transmission room." "Then, at that point, pick up the pace and restart the server!" "Indeed! Be that as it may, the restart will require 15 minutes. There are as yet 13 minutes until Bowen's passing. I'm worried it's past the point of no return." "For what reason didn't you say so prior! Advise the squad cars to speed up!"

“You said tap, but I do not want anyone listening to me. Ever.” He gave a little, almost sad smile. “I do not mean a tap in your everyday sense. Christian can set up a watcher on incoming messages that merely logs the header and the route. No content. No voice. Just the path. If a new message comes in from a new source we can mark it and trace where it traveled. If the person uses the same relay because they are sloppy, we can find them. If they use a new burner every time, it is harder, but the watch will help build patterns. We only want proof to hand over to the police when we are ready. The goal is to let them fall into their own mistake.”

No 911, no SOS, no cavalry tonight. Back at the watch house, the command center buzzed low—banks of monitors, thermal cams, encrypted radios. A tech—young, twitchy, called “Sparks”—frowned at his station, green glow bathing his face. “Uh, sir?” he called, voice cracking as he tapped the screen. “We just lost—”

I should not do something foolish. When my butler noticed me, he just bowed and said, "Take care, Ma'am. Just press your watch if there's an emergency." I nodded and smiled at him. He knew I'd clear my thoughts, and he constantly reminded me to click the button on my watch in case of an emergency. He modified this watch, which is linked to his watch. If I press it, his watch will emit an alert and track my whereabouts. He made it so that we could both connect if I wanted to be alone.

Then, “Flaw probability acknowledged.” I almost smiled. Because there it was. The crack. Not weakness but possibility. “Then allow me to offer context,” I said. Careful yet measured. “I have observed your system.” Not entirely true. But close enough. “I have observed the Watchers.” That part was undeniable. “And I have observed the Haven.” The patterns shifted again and became focused. Good. Now it was listening. “The Watchers enforce stability,” I said. “Through control.” No response. Agreement implied.

He kisses me again. He looks at the guys. “Let’s go.” I watch as the boys all shift and disappear into the city. Bastian grabs my arm. “Mia. We have cameras attached to River and Jayson. You can watch everything in this tent over here.” I follow Bastian and he shows me the monitors. The wolves are running on the screens. Bastian looks at the monitors. “Try your link.” I watch the screens. ‘Can you guys hear me?’ I link them.

They sat in the morning on the bench at the edge of Meridian Gardens, two people with a history that was exactly as complicated as it was and exactly as limited as it had to be, waiting for a five-year-old to finish looking for frogs. --- In his jacket pocket, Orion's phone buzzed. He looked at the notification. It was from R's watch—the GPS ping that fired whenever R moved to a new zone within the tracked area. The watch logged location updates automatically and sent them to Rhys and to the secondary monitoring device that Orion maintained for exactly this purpose. But alongside the location ping, there was something else. An accidental message, sent from R's watch to his contact list durin