Tony's Famous Pizzaria [DC]

[Sage]

Sage laughed. "How can I free her? No more than you can." But Sage quickly sent Nox a message.

How long is she trapped?"

Sage waited impatiently. But got distracted by the woman pounding on the invisible wall. "Get me out of here."

It was a while longer while Sage waited for Nox to respond. She continued to pound on it.

Right about now

Sage was about to say now, but Ayden pounded on the wall and then she was falling forward. She used the forward momentum and lunged for Sage. He put the baby in front of him to stop her. "You hurt me. I won't help you. You touch the baby and Nox will hunt you down and you'll be just as dead as the assassins he was sent to kill."

[Ayden]

The power flooded her mind and she wrapped the boy in air as he moved the baby in front of him. Ayden wasn't afraid of Nox. And what kinda of person uses a baby as a shield. "You're a monster."

She snatched the baby carrier from the kid. "Who the fuck leaves a baby with a junkie anyway?" Ayden lifted the carrier to check on the child. "Connor he's not a valid parent."

[Connor Kent]

Relief flooded Connor as Ayden surged forward, apparantly free. In this big mess of things, it was one small reason for joy.

Ayden though....despite the situation, he smiled, seeing the mama-bear take over. Which he got. The kid seemed loopy, as if he only partially lived in the real world.

Normally, he'd write it off as addiction or mental illness. But the guy knew things. And he seemed to know exactly when Ayden would be freed. At least, it has happened just as he was talking about getting her free.

And then there was Hayden. Gears of War....Jesus, but he hadn't thought about that in a long time. He was never much of a gamer himself, so that wasn't surprising. Except that he still had Hayden's stuff in boxes at the house. They moved with him everywhere he went.

But he also didn't open then. He might have stopped trying to kill himself over Hayden's death. But that didn't mean he was ready to go down that rabbit hole.

In his experience, you had to be ready to go memory mining, spelunking into the past, following threads of music, of movies, of trips, and snippets of conversation, down into the recesses of his memory.

He had a good one. Partly natural, but also partly by a powerful sense of nostalgia even during childhood. I mean, why would a 13 year old feel nostlagia about 10 or 12? But that was how his brain worked. Add to that a near constant stream of reliving and analyzing recent and distant evemts, making connections and looking for structure, of writing and rewriting his life story, and...well, it all converged to put him clearly in multiple time periods. 

It took little to go down the hole, just a single but of song or movie quote. And now the kid had done it with Gears of War. And even as he stood next to Ayden to examine the infant, he had already slipped into a secondary time stream, the child his son, holding him for the first time.

Happy. Impressed. Angry. Sad. Relieved. Concerned. Afraid. Take your pick. Connor was all of those things.

The here and now took precedence, though..and Ayden's concerns were valid. But there was more her. The child looked well enough. Nothing that seemed to indicate neglect or abuse. "I think the baby is ok, Ayden, he said, gently putting his hand on her shoulder.

He wss aware of onlookers and then said, " We need to get somewhere private. But... he looked at the guy. This was a setup. We were pawns. Let's talk to this guy. He's off. I know that. But I dont think he's mental or anything. He knows what's going on. He can help us, I think.

He looked at Ayden and then the kid. They were a team. But he was willing to take the risk.

[Sage]

Ayden moved to take Lily from the carrier. But Sage moved quickly and snatched the carrier violently from her carrier. "Please don't do that. She's safely cocooned in his scent and if she leaves before he's close, I'll never get her shut up. So don't."

Sage hailed a cab or at least that's what it looked like. It was the signal to his driver that he was ready to go. Money had it's perks. "We can talk in the car. I'll get you a room in our hotel under different aliases and we'll go from there."

Lily slept most of the way to Alexandria and to their hotel.

Sage was true to his word and put them up under certified aliases and their identification was digitally sent on their wallets so they could easily pass through check points with them. Before he left them he made sure to put his 'number' on their phones. "I'll send you new ones that can't be tracked." Which was a lie, they could, but he would be the only one tracking them.

He also told them as he left them outside their room door. "I can help you better in Moscow. My network is more established and I can keep creeps like this off you easier. Here in the States it's harder, my resources are limited. I can clean your life and let you do your thing. Or you can come back to Moscow and do your thing and I'll keep everyone away from you."

It was their choice.

They'd have new phones with his tracking software installed already by the end of the day. And they'd have all the proper credentials with them when they arrived.

It was time to go back to their room and feed Lily she was starting to stir. Nox would be back soon, he hoped. They had things to do.