the location inside Central Park West. The brief was to witness any strange activity to do with the Angel beings. He’d said nothing about a potential hanging. Jay audibly gasped as he suddenly realised what was happening; yes, he’s been sent there to witness a sighting of the Watchers, but to ensure that happened, the client had sent bait.
Chapter 3
Tom Stone couldn’t believ e his luck, bumping into a real Private Investigator on a stakeout. He swung his backpack from his shoulders and settled it onto the floor. The guy hiding behind the tree was on a case and Tom intended to be in on the action.
Tom was seventeen and lived with his mom in a downtown tenement they shared with one other family, like most homes now, since the American people couldn't afford the rising costs of their own places. Those days, the downtown city apartments resembled slums, despite them being private homes. The exteriors were the worst. Shattered satellite dishes, graffiti, broken windows, and laundry hung on railings and ledges, drying in the midday heat. It was the relentless heat that made the whole image less appealing since no one could afford solar panels to operate the air-con. Now balconies housed mattresses and baby's cribs, chairs and homemade rotary fans. Sometimes in high summer, it seemed everyone slept outdoors.
His mother’s seriously overcrowded apartment, made Tom hungry to make his own way in the world as an independent news reporter and photographer, or Pap, as they were more commonly known. His ultimate goal, since there wasn’t much chance of graduating, was to make enough money to move out of his mom’s place and find something better. He’d even had a notion of moving to England to be with Mia, but he didn’t know how Mia felt about that yet.
Earlier, just before midnight, he was in his room with his leg propped up on the cold radiator beneath the window, waiting for the computer to fire up, closing his eyes, concentrating on the familiar sounds wafting in from the street outside, mainly the sound of Taxi's making a killing on their fees since gas had become in such short supply. Trump had seen to that. The late president's policies had divided America from the Arab States, so now the only gas available was their homegrown oil supply, mostly produced by fracking. What a frackin' mess, Tom often said without humour.
Tom swung around in his chair as Windows 12 flashed up on the screen. The Firefox logo was still on it, but the Internet was practically gone now. The government had seen to that. The conspiracy theorists claimed the powers did it to stop the domestic world communicating so easily. Fear! They put the phone lines charges right up, so now all they had were texts and SMS. They were free, but most of the population of America worried their messages were being intercepted by the enemy…the IRS.
His iPhone sat on the side of his desk, picking up its charge from the minute solar panel on his iWatch. The device had been Apple's innovation before they went under in the recession of 2019. He still used the phone for playing games already downloaded and of course, texting, and maybe an emergency camera when he was caught without his digital pro. Not that he went anywhere without that .
He banged the top of the PC stack. “Come on, come on!” He turned his watch so that it sat flat on his wrist. It was getting late, midnight , but he needed to check in with Mia before he went out. The New York curfew was set at two until six in the morning. The authorities wanted it to be set at midnight but the city residents had revolted on that one. As far as Tom knew, that was the only uprising they’d ever won. An extra two hours on curfew time. Yay!
He heard a thud coming from the room next to his. It was his mother’s, the one she shared with her boring new boyfriend. Tom looked at the wall dividing his room from theirs, where their headboard constantly thumped on the opposite side. His side was covered in posters
Chapter 3
Tom Stone couldn’t believ e his luck, bumping into a real Private Investigator on a stakeout. He swung his backpack from his shoulders and settled it onto the floor. The guy hiding behind the tree was on a case and Tom intended to be in on the action.
Tom was seventeen and lived with his mom in a downtown tenement they shared with one other family, like most homes now, since the American people couldn't afford the rising costs of their own places. Those days, the downtown city apartments resembled slums, despite them being private homes. The exteriors were the worst. Shattered satellite dishes, graffiti, broken windows, and laundry hung on railings and ledges, drying in the midday heat. It was the relentless heat that made the whole image less appealing since no one could afford solar panels to operate the air-con. Now balconies housed mattresses and baby's cribs, chairs and homemade rotary fans. Sometimes in high summer, it seemed everyone slept outdoors.
His mother’s seriously overcrowded apartment, made Tom hungry to make his own way in the world as an independent news reporter and photographer, or Pap, as they were more commonly known. His ultimate goal, since there wasn’t much chance of graduating, was to make enough money to move out of his mom’s place and find something better. He’d even had a notion of moving to England to be with Mia, but he didn’t know how Mia felt about that yet.
Earlier, just before midnight, he was in his room with his leg propped up on the cold radiator beneath the window, waiting for the computer to fire up, closing his eyes, concentrating on the familiar sounds wafting in from the street outside, mainly the sound of Taxi's making a killing on their fees since gas had become in such short supply. Trump had seen to that. The late president's policies had divided America from the Arab States, so now the only gas available was their homegrown oil supply, mostly produced by fracking. What a frackin' mess, Tom often said without humour.
Tom swung around in his chair as Windows 12 flashed up on the screen. The Firefox logo was still on it, but the Internet was practically gone now. The government had seen to that. The conspiracy theorists claimed the powers did it to stop the domestic world communicating so easily. Fear! They put the phone lines charges right up, so now all they had were texts and SMS. They were free, but most of the population of America worried their messages were being intercepted by the enemy…the IRS.
His iPhone sat on the side of his desk, picking up its charge from the minute solar panel on his iWatch. The device had been Apple's innovation before they went under in the recession of 2019. He still used the phone for playing games already downloaded and of course, texting, and maybe an emergency camera when he was caught without his digital pro. Not that he went anywhere without that .
He banged the top of the PC stack. “Come on, come on!” He turned his watch so that it sat flat on his wrist. It was getting late, midnight , but he needed to check in with Mia before he went out. The New York curfew was set at two until six in the morning. The authorities wanted it to be set at midnight but the city residents had revolted on that one. As far as Tom knew, that was the only uprising they’d ever won. An extra two hours on curfew time. Yay!
He heard a thud coming from the room next to his. It was his mother’s, the one she shared with her boring new boyfriend. Tom looked at the wall dividing his room from theirs, where their headboard constantly thumped on the opposite side. His side was covered in posters
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