Wandering the Capitol

[Sage]

Waking up from the drugs was never a pleasant experience. Sage's mouth was dry, his eyes hurt despite the fact that they'd been closed. His head felt like someone had stuff it full of cotton balls. He supposed it was better than the pain, but he wasn't going to be able to function at all like this - if this was comfortable he probably would rather just shoot himself now. But first he had to try something - he was never one to just quit despite the odds.

His parents had never successfully implanted another person - he was their lone success story - their own son. He hated them for everything, but he didn't know what he'd do without the chip in his head either. It was a no win situation.

Sage lay still and pretended to sleep as the nurses came in and out. He rested but he had too much to think about and just the thought of thinking about things made him anxious.

Sage opened his eyes and sighed. He was tired of pretending and didn't care of the nurses scolded him. He had things to do. Things he wanted to do but he couldn't do any of it. He had to wait on Sasha.

A knock on the door made Sage look up and saw a friendly face smiling back at him. It wasn't Sasha, he wasn't nearly as cute as the blonde with purple tips. But Bryan was like family. "Hey."


Bryan smiled and sat down. "You are up this time. Sasha seems to get you awake but not me."

Sage frowned. "Sorry man."


Bryan waved it away. "She gave me half that list. I got the paperwork from the bank completed. All your funds have been transferred to an account in Moscow under the name Nox Durante. You sure had a lot of intel on him, setting it up in his name was a no brainer. One of your friends?"

"Aurora's little brother."


Bryan nodded knowingly. "It's a shame what happened to her. I know you'll miss her."

Sage shrugged. "It'll be easy enough to transfer back if this all goes well?"


"Of course. He won't even know it's in his name unless you die. Why are you giving it to him? The collective could use it."

"I don't intend to die, I want the money where I can easily get it."


"Whatever you say Sage. You are the boss." Bryan chuckled, Sage knew it was because of the way things had started out - he was his mentor and Sage quickly passed Bryan. But his friend continued. "Sasha was working on putting every asset in Alexandria into my name - including the ownership of the den."

Sage interrupted. "There is no one I trust more than you to run the collective. You'll get full access to the server room, but you will have to be vigilante. I won't be able to protect it for a while."


Bryan beamed with happiness. His eyes were bright and shining and Sage thought his friend was about to cry. "I don't plan on dying so don't get used to it. Did Sasha get a hold of Nox?"


Bryan shook his head. "She said he keeps pushing her calls to voicemail. He must be busy with something."

Sage rolled his eyes. "Get my wallet."


Sage pulled up Nox's contact and sent him a message "I need a place to stay while I'm in Moscow. I'm calling in that favor. Pick me up in two days at the airport KLM flight DL 9650 at 4pm. I need a reply before I leave." Sage made the message pop up immediately and request a reply or it would lock out all of Nox's wallet functions until he did so.

There was an near immediate reply "I'll be there. A simple message would have sufficed, Sage."

"You ignored Sasha."

"Unknown number. Being hunted by people. A bit preoccupied babysitting a baby godling."

Sage looked at the last message with curiosity. He'd find out what Nox did for a living sooner rather than later.

"That's done. Only thing left is to actually go now..."