Finding Sage (The Rogue Book 1) (2 page)

4.

             
“Close your eyes, Silas.”

              “Dad—”

              “Do it.  This is for your own good, son.”

              The boy closed his eyes.

              “What do you hear?”

              He concentrated.  He heard all sorts of unconnected gibberish.  No words were connected, only sounds, syllables, and emphasis.  Nothing made sense.

              “What do you hear?” his father repeated, this time softer.

              “Chaos.  I can’t understand any of it.”

              “Don’t try and hear it all.  Just focus on one thing; one voice.”

              He tried harder.  His eyebrows joined at the middle, wrinkles forming in his forehead from his concentration.  Something came to him.

             
I can’t believe she left again.  Again.  All of my hard work for nothing.  No matter, she’ll be back.

              “I can hear something.  Someone is upset about a girl leaving them.  An ex-girlfriend, I think.”

              “Are you sure?”

              He listened again.

             
I just hope she doesn’t get herself into too much trouble this time.  My own flesh and blood involved in the occult, that’s not how I raised her.  At least she’s out of it now . . . I just hope she stays out of it.  Oh, here I go again, I need to stop worrying about it
.

              “A daughter.  She ran away from home and her father is worried about her.”

              His father smiled.  His father had a balding head and dark, scrutinizing eyes.  Many kids had no respect for their parents but Silas very highly admired his father.

              “Rules are essential, Silas.  You have a very special gift, which means that rules are even more essential in your case.  One of those rules is that you can never, ever make assumptions.  It is tempting, but you can never succumb to that.  Things are never what they seem.”

              “Yes, Dad.”

              Silas slowly woke and looked at the clock.  It read 4:03 a.m.  He rolled over and went back to sleep.

5.

            
 
Alice and Rodge sat in a coffee shop, eating their breakfast, neither speaking a word.  Customers and employees alike passed them without noticing anything out of the ordinary.  Despite the fact that every news station was describing them as armed and dangerous, people didn’t seem to care or pay attention to the fact that the people that the news anchorwoman on the television attached to the wall was rambling about were the same people sitting in the shop with them.  No matter.  These days the chances of them actually getting turned in if anyone did notice was slim.  Nobody wanted to be associated with targets.

              “Are you ever going to tell me why we’re going to New York?” Rodge asked.

              Alice sighed.  He had been at her for days, trying to get her to tell him what her plan was.  She would have told him from the start, but she was afraid.  She was afraid of losing connection with the only person she could trust.  It wasn’t like they were close friends, but she knew she could trust him.  If he ditched her when he found out what she was planning, well, she might as well turn around and go home.  And she refused to go home.

              “Do you find something peculiar about our predicament?” she asked.

              “You mean the fact that I had never done anything illegal before I met you and now I’m a wanted fugitive?  That predicament?”

              She gave him a scowl.

              “First of all, I don’t think you are technically considered a fugitive when they’ve never caught you, and second—”

              “I beg to disagree.”

              She gave him another dirty look. 

“It’s 'I beg to DIFFER', Rodge.  Not beg to disagree, beg to DIFFER.  For Pete’s sake, Rodge, for being so smart you sure are awfully dumb sometimes.”

              “You’re stalling.”

              He had caught her red-handed on that one.

              “The predicament I’m talking about it is how the government keeps hunting us.  We are the ones with the gifts; why don’t we fight back?”

              “They tried that already.  We lost the war, remember?” Rodge reminded her.

              “That was before the government got complete control,” Alice said.

              “That’s a matter of opinion,” Rodge countered.  “Most would agree that the appearance was the only thing that changed.  They got power so they stopped caring about what mask they were wearing.”

              “Whatever. The point is, I want to do something about it,” Alice continued stubbornly.

              “I’m confused.  You want to do something about what?”

              She pulled out a newspaper, and Rodge started reading.

              “Beatles museum to open in Boston next week—”

              “No you dimwit, right here!”

              His eyes shifted.  He read.  He looked back up, staring at Alice with incredulity.  She surely couldn’t be serious.

              “Are you for real?” he asked incredulously.

              “Look at what he says!  This guy releases a new article every week and every week he talks about the impending war between the government and who he calls the gifted.”

              “So you’re saying you want to start a war?”

              “Not exactly.  I want to find a safe place for people like me.  I figure if we find this guy, he can help us find others like me and we can find out how to get out of the government’s reach.”

              “The United Nations is everywhere, Alice.  It’s not like losing a loan shark.”  His voice was hushed now.  “Newspapers have been illegal for years.  This is black market material, it’s not like you can just look him up.”

              “All things must come to an end.”

              “And you want to trust this stranger?  Some guy named Sage?”

              “A name is no reason not to trust someone.”

              By this point Rodge was getting agitated.

              “Okay fine, but why do you need me?”

              “I still don’t know who this guy is or how to find him,” Alice said.  “Sage is obviously an alias so I can’t use that.  I’ve been reading this stuff for months and he uses the same writing style in every single piece of propaganda that he writes.  I mean I like this guy but he sure doesn’t know the meaning of the word variety.  We might be able to use that to find him.”

              “And what am I supposed to do about it?  I’m not a rogue, remember?  I don’t have a network I can tap into.”

              “You’re a hacker,” she pointed out.

              “What does that have to do with anything?”

              “It’s been decades since we’ve had freedom of speech.  There’s no way this is some shadow writer.  I wonder if he’s using hacking skills to get his message out too.  If that’s the case, you can help.”

              “Okay, fine,” Rodge sighed.

              “You’re in?”

              “It’s not like I have a choice.  I’m a fugitive, remember?”

              “I told you, you’re not a—”

              “Am too,” he interrupted.

              She scowled.

              “For a smart guy, you sure are dumb.”

              “I believe you said that already.”

              “Did not,” Alice snapped.

              “Oh, now who’s the immature one?” challenged Rodge.

              “What can you do?” Alice said, changing the subject.

              “Well a buddy of mine in high school was an anonymous blogger and he always had a bogus location on his websites.  My guess is that this guy works off of the same principle.  I doubt that he is actually in New York City, truth is he may not even be in North America.”

              “Okay, so where do we start?” she asked.

              “Again, this is only an educated guess, but if he is really serious about this stuff, that newspaper is probably not the only place his work is published.  Do you keep all of his articles?”

              “Some of them, not all.”

              “Okay, good.  We need to search for the same pieces online.  At least similar if not identical.  We may be able to find a fan site or blog for him.  If we find that, finding him should be easy.  I can start right now, actually.”

              “But hasn’t the internet been censored for years?” asked Alice.

              “Well, yeah, but censored is different from deleted.  They will block access to certain things that they consider to be dangerous or against them; but the information stays on the internet servers so that they have evidence to track guys like this.  They call them ‘cyber terrorists.’  If we find something, I may be able to hack my way through the block.”

              “Won’t they be able to track you?” Alice asked.

              “Yeah, there isn’t any kind of communication technology that isn’t monitored anymore.  We’ll need to find a public computer of some kind that I can work from.  I just need to have enough privacy and time to do it.”

              Alice’s eyes grew wide and she sat back in her seat, somewhat astounded that her idea had some merit to it.  She didn’t dare ask how Rodge knew so much about the government’s control over the internet, and frankly, she didn’t care.  What she did care about was finding a resistance.  Some place she could call home without cutting pieces out of her conscience every morning.  Rodge, as though reading her mind, smiled sympathetically.

              “I’ll do what I can.”

              “Stop acting all humble.  You wanna throw it in my face.”

              “Yep.”

6.

            
 
At three o’clock in the afternoon at Neskuchny Garden in the city of Moscow, a shady-looking figure waited for his drop.  If one thing was certain, it was that he had not mastered the art of blending in.  Most focused upon evading arrest, but the real trick was in looking and becoming so inconspicuous that you were never suspected to begin with.  Then the authorities unintentionally turned a blind eye to the poor boring man hiding in the corner.

              Silas stood about a hundred yards away, cautious of any sign of betrayal.  He watched for the normal cues;  someone putting his hand to his head or playing with his watch, denoting some kind of hidden communication device.  He did nothing but wait. Nothing happened.  He was still doubtful.  Despite the show he often put on, in reality Silas had little control over his powers.  He could look into one’s immediate intentions and focus, but most of the time he was unable to go past the surface.  The basis of his success in this case, as always, was in a lucky day with no hiccups.  Dangerous?  Yes.  Risky?  Absolutely.  Stupid?  Maybe.  But necessary.  Very necessary.

              The customer sat against a tree, looking for his merchandise.  Silas did as he was supposed to; he walked to a nearby tree and dropped the package, a small briefcase, without making any eye contact. 

Time seemed to crawl in slow motion. One second was like hours upon hours.  Time crawled as he walked away from the tree.  Paranoia kicked in.  All of a sudden every jogger, reader, child, mother, and dog looked like a federal agent.  Thoughts raced through his head like a mouse running from an owl.  What are federal agents like?  Are they cruel?  How do they treat black market dealers?  What if they found out he was a rogue?  What would they do to him? 

The blur of thoughts made every function of his brain fuzzy.  Before he knew what was happening, he was stumbling around like a drunk.  People started to watch him, either suspicious or concerned.  No, it had to be suspicious.  People don’t get concerned about strangers.  Not anymore.  He walked at a brisk pace, not thinking clearly.  His sense of hurry only made him look all the more guilty.

His heart started to race, his veins pumping blood faster and faster, adrenaline now racing through his body, making his hair stand on end and his heart feel light.  He had to move.  If he didn’t move he was going to explode.  His heart sunk as he heard the dreaded siren pierce through the air from the patrol car on the street, and the chase began.

“Who is this guy?” asked the agent.

“We aren’t sure,” replied the soldier.  “He is displaying some very suspicious behavior.  We suspect drug use; we may just bring him in for questioning and see where it leads.  Stoners tend to share quite a bit.”

The soldier, a male in his thirties, leaned against the squad car watching the strange man—kid, really, stumble across the park.  Sebastian Jefferson, an ebony-skinned U.N. agent in his early forties, stood beside the officer, eyeing the suspicious activity very carefully.

“Let’s pick him up just to be sure.”

“Sure thing,” replied the officer. 

He got back into his squad car and turned on the siren.  Without taking so much as a glance behind him, the kid immediately bolted. 

“Wuh-oh.”

“Well GO!” shouted the agent.

“I’m goin, I’m goin!  This hasn’t ever happened before.  A REAL LIVE CHASE!”

“JUST MOVE IT!”

“Sure thing, Sarge!”

“It’s
Agent
, you moron!”

“Yeah, yeah . . .”

The tires squealed as they sped after their victim, who was running on foot.  The chase was on.

Silas’ senses were still fuzzy.  His vision was a blur, his sense of direction practically nonexistent.  He blundered through the park, disoriented and confused.  He soon lost control of his abilities.  Flashes of thoughts and memories ran through his mind faster than he could process them: everything from a child on a swing to a man struggling with a gambling addiction to a man’s wife leaving him flooded through his mind.  It soon became too much for him to handle.  Continuing to run, not being able to see where he was running, he soon ran into a solid object and collapsed on the ground. 

“Yo, come on bro, wake up!”             

Silas slowly opened his eyes. 

“Where am I?”

“In an alley, man.  You went like boom and then like whoa! And then you collapsed like gum under muh shoe, man.”

Silas looked up.  This guy was definitely a stoner.  His red wool stocking cap and hot pink t-shirt made him noticeable.  These details, and the man’s scruffy brown beard, as well as the biggest pair of green eyes that Silas had ever seen in his life combined to create one of the most unique human entities ever seen.

              Silas’ fascination with the crazed hippie was interrupted when Silas’ thoughts returned to him.

              “How long ago did this happen?”

              “Just a couple, seconds ago, bro.”

              Silas took off before the stoner could say another word.  The soldiers were still on his trail.  He bolted out of the alley, running with all of the strength that his muscles could provide.  He soon ceased to feel his legs, but continued to will them to move.  The street he turned on was wide open: easy for them to run him down.  He needed to get somewhere that was harder to get to, but he had no time to do so.

              The U.N. cruiser drifted around the corner and sped in his direction.  Silas started to panic.  He had powers to be sure, but powers of the mind; powers that he didn’t know how to use.  If he tried accessing the mind of the driver, he could end up passing out again, making him dead meat for sure considering he was in the middle of the street.  The car was getting closer and he took a quick turn down an unknown street.  He soon found himself in the midst of a market, swimming through the crowd.  The car behind him screeched to a halt and the soldiers got out, running through the sea of people, yelling and pointing.  Silas heard them fire several rounds into the air, which cleared out the crowd within a few seconds.

              Silas ducked in among the hundreds of people that were still scattering, snagged a fur cap from an unsuspecting man’s coat pocket, and quickly put it on, hoping it would help him blend in.  He tried to calm his heart, taking slow breaths and trying his best to look like a local.  He was so focused on being calm, in fact, that he did not immediately respond to the second round of shots into the air.  He was the only one that didn’t scream, duck, or run wild, which was a dead give-away. 

              “HEY!”

              Oh boy. 

              Without looking back, he jetted once again.  The hat flew off his head and he took cover from the gunshots behind one of the unoccupied shop stands.  Or at least, he thought it was unoccupied.

              “Tight corner, ain’t it bro?”

              Sitting beside him was the hippie who had found him in the alley.

              “What are you doing here?!”

              “I was gonna ask you that.  As for me, I come here for a daily dose of adrenaline.  Life just gets too boring you know?”

              “What?!”

              “Didn’t anyone ever tell you what sarcasm is, ya dunce?”

              Silas stared at him.  He had no idea who this guy was or why of all places he was right here right now.  It was quite inconvenient timing on his part.

              “I’m here to help you, and unless you want to be a federal lab rat, I suggest you come with me.”

              “As if I’m going to trust you.”

              “Would you rather have the soldiers?  AKs don’t sit well with flesh and blood, you know that right?”

              Silas didn’t answer, but he didn’t move either.  He concentrated.  All he could pick up was telepathic static.  He couldn’t access anything.  Then he could feel something coming.  It was blurry, but still existent.  He was almost there, if he could only access it . . .

Sharp pain in the back of his head.

Blackness.