The dark reality

[Sage]

Sage laid back in his hospital bed, music was playing in his head - quite literally. Everything felt beyond comparison. He'd had a fast processor augmented with brain power, but now, the processor was faster and every time there was a hiccup in the connections the tiny nanobots were fixing it before he even knew what was going on. They noticed the fluctuation as he did. It was perfect harmony.

Rebuilding an identity was easy. Getting the prestige he'd once had - that was going to be difficult. He was no longer Phaser. No longer b0rg. He didn't have his collective working for him. But Sage started rebuilding his digital empire one block of code after another. He missed the world. He missed the code. He missed the information a mere thought away.

As Sage rebuilt his chasers - Nick Trano, Connor Kent, Ayden Hayes, even one for Nox and Cruz even though he knew them personally and knew more about their lives than before. He built the chasers one by one, even the digital ones. It wasn't hard, the code was something he did often enough before. The processes ran in the background. And Sage was missing his server. The protection and security of knowing he had one to use.

Sage sent an order for the right equipment to Dorian's estate. Transferred his money from the account he'd made in Nox's name to his own account leaving Nox a portion of it. A gift.

But there was an alert from one of his chasers - Voxel was live. But Sage didn't have any cred. He was a nobody. That hurt more than anything, that Grim destroyed his entire identity just because he thought he should continue his work. Now he had to start over.

He was looking at a list of attendees - Cruz was going. Nox's name was also listed. Nox couldn't afford it. But Sage was out of the loop he'd have to follow the tracks back to that information. But he was far more interested in seeing what the fellow hacker was up to.