I Hate Flying

[Sage]

Sage had been busy. Way too busy. Aiden was off doing things with the spear and his novel and they spent the nights together but their days were their own. And since neither of them had a real job it looked alot different than normal people.

Sage had completed the super cooled computer room in Aiden's basement. And he'd begun curating his list of friends and their secrets and starting up his services again. He had a lot more thanks to Nox's activity around Moscow. He had nearly the whole city as part of his eyes and ears. It was pretty amazing to be able to find anyone he wanted in Moscow. He'd had that in Alexandria and DC but that was home. This wasn't.

Things slowed a little while Nox was away, but while Nox was away Sage had connections now in London and throughout China thanks to his friend. Nox didn't even know what he was doing most of the time, though Sage imagined Nox knew everything wasn't rainbows and puppy dogs. He knew Sage well enough.

But Sage had kept tabs on the twins and had even visited Raffe a time or two, the first time taking Raffe up on that drink he had not gotten. Maybe he should have -- maybe Nox and Raffe would still be together, not that Sage beleived in lying but it might have been better if Nox were not so insanely 'good'. And that's pushing the envelope, he wasn't good -- not in the moral sense he was morally grey at best, but he always had the good intentions. Everything was all on the up and up. As long as you didn't tell him, he didn't care. Not that he'd ever turn Sage in for the things he did. Morally grey area again. Sage didn't hurt innocents. That's why they got along.

While Sage had been visting Raffe at the bar at Kallisti he'd found a special little ping from tiny little signals that he barely remembered where there. And after a little digging Sage had hacked the tiny nanobots in Raffe's blood stream too. Now he had a second body to determine natural things with. And Raffe, he could channel. That was awesome luck.

In Sage's cooled basement room he had a container of replicating nanobots he'd pulled from his own blood and modified for his own purposes. They lived in a special fluid which his parents had created for larger more complex machines but it was blood like and would keep the little guys alive without too much effort.

Sage had modified them to do all sorts of things and now with Nox's arm busted he had a perfect opportunity to inject his friend. Nox's power in channeling was the key to understanding how to get the imaging software from the holo program to render what a channeler sees when they do their healing thing. At least that was Sage's theory. They needed to understand how the so-called weaves traveled through the body and how they could be interpreted without having to inject every patient with the nanobots.

It was a complicated thing and Sage had algorithms running simulations and he still needed data. Lots of data. But getting willing participants for an undocumented study wasn't going to cut mustard and Cruz was slacking in his job. He was supposed to be doing things the legit way but he'd fallen into some thing that he just wasn't roused from. Sage had an idea of what was going on, the girls following him, their placement of stickers and such. Sage even imagined they were manipulating Cruz somehow, but he could never figure it out -- it was probably some monster thing.

The scans from Raffe were inconclusive, Sage really didn't have anything other than his own to compare them to, so he didn't know anything more with a small sampling. But after Nox did his thing, they were going to visit some old friends. Not his friends, mind you, they were friends of his parents. His fucking parents! The same ones who put the thing in his head. He was mad about it when he told Grim about what they had done, but really was he mad? This was who he was. He was The Wicked Truth! And he liked who he was, in all forms.

And he was all over Nox's strange life. A professed brother, a strange call from Connor Kent -- a dead man. A brand new bouncing baby girl. Sage was amused that Nox had named her Lily, after the lotus Raffe had given him. Gave Sage hope that maybe Nox and Raffe would reconcile, but Nox was happy. Sage hadn't seen him as happy ever in his life. And he'd seen Nox with his family, with Aurora and his mom. He'd been watching them for years through Aurora's eyes, and Nox had never had an easy life. And now with that tiny little thing strapped to him he was happy -- a fucking smile that was real. He'd seen it with Raffe, but Nox blew that to shit and back.

Nox's life was full of interest and intrigue and so was their new friend. Ryder Tate wasn't who he claimed, but then again did you expect some one the Ascendancy is sending with Nox to stop an assassination attempt going to be going in as who they were. It's a wonder Nox was, but Nox was a US citizen it is far easier just to say he's going home for a visit -- which he is -- than to hide his identity. His too, they were just going home, and Nox knew how to stay off the radar. Sage had to employ all sorts of tricks to keep tabs on him but it mostly helped that he had Nox's wallet tagged and the man never left home without it.

Ryder was really Ryker Petrović, a Russian military operative, and most of anything on his was classified. Sage didn't dig deeper just told Nox he was a dangerous man. Not that Nox would underestimate him, he was also a channeler, but he didn't tell Nox, Nox would figure it out easily enough. But Ryker went into the same algorithm as everyone else, digging up information on everyone he met, storing it for later use and ticking off anything of interest that might come up to be flagged for actually reading.

Nox and Ryder were talking and Sage blinked coming back to the real world. His connection wasn't gone but it was diminished as he focused on the real world. An announcement over the speakers as the flight attendant spoke. "First class now boarding."

That was them. Sage gathered Nox's bag and slung his own over his shoulder. Nox didn't have anything other than the one bag for himself and a small bag for all of the things Lily might need which was more than what Nox even owned for himself. Her bag was bigger than his. They had checked most of her things opting only for the essentials on the plane with them. Sage handed Nox his bag. "That's us. Figure out where everyone is sitting?"