Finding Sage (The Rogue Book 1)

Finding Sage

The Rogue: Book 1

Logan Judy

© Logan Judy 2014, All Rights Reserved.

1.

              Click.  Clack.  Click.  Clack.  Click.  Clack.

              Carter cringed with every step as he heard the metallic clashing of the chains that bound his wrists and ankles.  United Nations soldiers surrounded him: one at each side, two behind, and two in front.  They walked with their firearms close to their chests, ready for action at any moment.  He scanned his surroundings, looking for an exit: blank white walls, glass security panels, and grey tile ceiling.  Blue uniformed soldiers guarded every door, and he saw the door to his doom approaching.  He could see no windows looking into the room, only a solid white wall and the grey door, guarded by two soldiers.

              Click.  Clack.  Click.  Clack.

              The soldiers stopped at the door.  They exchanged a few words, told the guards of the door why they were there, showed their I.D.s, then entered the room.  It was far less menacing inside than Carter had imagined.  There were none of the flickering bare light bulbs, blood stains, or pungent aromas of decaying bodies that he had conjured in his mind’s eye.  The room, like everything he had ever seen in this building, was remarkably and shockingly bare.  So bare, in fact, that it was creepy.  Was this routine for them?  Was it normal?  Was there nothing extraordinary, nothing even immoral about what they were going to do? 

              They walked him to the wall on his left, and a touchscreen panel popped up.  One of the soldiers pressed a few buttons and he felt his wrists and legs pin against the wall. 

              “Sure is a
sticky
situation, eh?” remarked one of the soldiers to his buddies.  Soldiers often made comments like this, but always to their friends.  Common soldiers were forbidden from talking to prisoners, especially rogues.

              Ten gunmen filed in from a door on the opposite wall and lined up with their guns pointed upwards.  Behind them approached an agent, instantly recognizable with his black and blue suit.  He held his military stance with his hands behind his back and recited the appropriate words.

              “William Carter Jackson.  You have been found in violation of Sovereign Order 21, which dictates that no biologically outstanding person, defined as those exhibiting phenomena deemed supernatural or otherwise extraordinary, shall be allowed to live, under the equal opportunity statutes of the first United Nations Sovereign Order.  Your crime has been deemed punishable by death, and will therefore be carried out in a swift and humane manner, by firing squad, authorized by this Agent Sebastian Jefferson.  Do you have any last words?”

              Carter lifted his head and established eye contact with the agent.

              “Yeah, I do.”

              He waited for the soldiers to shift, to listen to what last words he had.  None of them budged, but that didn’t change what he had to say.

              “What’s so wrong with having good hearing?”

              “Ready arms,” said the agent. 

              The boy refused to break eye contact.  He looked the agent in the eye, determined in a last act of ideological rebellion that they would not ignore him.

              “Fire.”

              All ten rifles fired at once.  Blood spattered the wall behind the boy and spread into pools on the ground.  The force broke the wall’s magnetism, leaving the boy lying upon the ground.

              One of the soldiers who had escorted the boy knelt down and took a look at him.

              “Affirmative,” he said.  “We’re clear for the clean-up crew.”

2.

            
 
Inside a small bar in the city of Moscow, a mysterious man sat in the corner booth with a hood over his head.  He watched the traffic carefully out of the dirty window, aware with both his eyes and his mind of any peculiarities.  You had to be careful when the United Nations had you on their blacklist.  There was no way to truly escape a global government.  A government that saw all and knew all.  A government that wanted the world’s best for itself.  A government that was determined to rid the world of the extraordinary.  But if you were smart, you could hide. 

The city of Moscow served as a sort of refuge for all kinds of criminals.  There were more people who were hostile to the rule of the United Nations in this city than perhaps the rest of the world combined.  Of course the sad truth was that very few—if any, were willing to do anything about it, but it still played its part.  This was where this mysterious man had lived for the past five years.  He was twenty years old, but that was not apparent to the casual observer.  If you were to look underneath his hood, you would see a face that was worn from years of running.  He had been able to hide in the criminal underbelly of Moscow, but that did not come without its costs.  Light scars across his face.  Dark bags under his eyes.  Most of all a hard, stubborn cynicism. 

He waited patiently for his contact.  He was a black market dealer, searching out the hard-to-find objects.  Some dangerous, some far from it, but all illegal.  The United Nations had blacklisted nearly everything you can imagine: most music, most movies, all weapons, and anything accessible on the internet that was deemed dangerous or anti-government was outlawed, and had been for several years.  He found ways to get this merchandise and sold it to whoever was willing to buy it.  His customer contacted him anonymously, telling him to meet in the back corner of this particular bar.  Silas suspected it might be a trap, but if it was, he would see the soldiers coming long before they made a move for him. 

Or so he hoped.  Being supernatural meant many things, one of which was being unpredictable, even to yourself.

He started to feel edgy as the clock moved to ten past nine and his anonymous friend was nowhere to be seen.  The clock hanging from the white plaster wall across from him made no noise, but he could hear it all the same. 

Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock. 

With every moment that passed he became less sure of himself.  More anxious.  More fidgety.  Sure it was a trap.  Sure he would see it coming if it were.  Sure he could trust the man.  Sure he couldn’t. 

You’d think five years doing the same gig would give you a little confidence.  It didn’t.

He reached out with his mind, gathering all the information that he could from everyone in the establishment.  He had to be careful to avoid the outside world.  If he reached out past the bar’s front door, he would be overwhelmed.  All those thoughts, all those emotions, all those memories.  It was like jumping straight from the kiddie pool to the middle of the Atlantic.  Even in this room, the emotions, memories, sensations, and thoughts—it was enough to drive a man mad.  He was on the brink of madness quite often, which accounted for his short temper and constant paranoia. 

The information flooded into his mind and he clenched his fists to keep control.  A man afraid because he’d hidden his son from the recruiters.  A woman afraid because she had bought a CD from a dealer.  A young man afraid because he loved a woman above his social class.  All of them afraid.  They were always afraid.  Every last one of them.  Bars were good business these days.  Dozens of miserable men and women were in the bar right now, all going to the poison to numb their own pain, to forget their fears for one God-forsaken night; but it never worked.  It was always waiting for them when they awoke from their drunken stupor. 

He knew.  He’d tried it.  A half a glass of beer and he was beyond drunk.  It nearly got him captured.  Now he knew better.  Everyone in his business knew better, which was why he knew he was looking for a sober man.

Five men had unimpaired minds.  None of them had the aura of soldiers: cold, ruthless, and trained to follow orders almost robotically.  Full of hate and fear tactics.  He could smell a soldier or an agent from a mile away.  Not because they were obvious, but because they were all the same.  Creepily similar, actually, as if they all rolled out of the same assembly line.  It was comforting, then, to find a complete absence of them.  It didn’t quell his paranoia, however, as his mysterious customer was still missing.  His palms grew sweaty and his heart rate quickly rose.  He was just about to leave when a stranger slid into the booth across from him.  He was a man in his early thirties with short brown hair and dark eyes.  He avoided eye contact, keeping his eyes focused on the table.

              “What do you have for me?” asked the customer.

              He still didn’t make any eye contact.  His voice held a shaky tone to it. He was ashamed, conflicted.  Obviously a novice, possibly engaging in his first black market deal altogether.

              “I have rules.”

              The buyer said nothing.

              “Rule number one: never give away your inventory,” he expounded.

              “Then how are we going to do business?”

              “You tell me what you seek and I will give a response.”

              The dealer almost cringed at the formality of his own statement.  It was obviously feigned, but the man didn’t seem to care.

              “Ammunition.”

              “What kind?”

              “AK-47.”

              The dealer laughed incredulously, though quietly to avoid unwanted attention.

              “You’re kidding me right?  I’m a dealer. I don’t kill soldiers.”

              “Alright, fine, then how about MP40?”

              “I can do that,” he said.  “I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”

“How much?” the buyer asked.

              “One hundred a shell,” He responded.

              “You serious?” the buyer said.

              “You know as well as I do that weapons are hard to get a hold of.  Most consumers are carrying swords and crossbows now.  If you want gun ammunition, it’s going to cost.”

              “How many shells do you have?”

              “I can give you two-hundred and fifty.”

              “It’s a deal.”

              “You’ll find the first fifty in the smuggling compartment of your car.  Consider it a down payment.”

              The man’s face grew from frustration to anger.

              “Don’t be upset.  I knew what you were looking for.  I always know.”

              The man was speechless.  He opened his mouth to speak again but the other man interrupted him.

              “The instructions for our meeting tomorrow are there as well.  Now before you say or do something you regret I suggest you very calmly stand up and walk out of here for your own good.”

              The buyer gritted his teeth, stood up, and walked out the door without another word.

              The dealer looked at the table and tightly clasped his hands together.  Showing off made him nervous.  What if he’d had the wrong car?  What if this man really had been an agent?  What if he’d been waiting in his car for some other purpose?  He cringed as he thought of the possible consequences of flaunting his talents.  It could easily get him arrested (and killed, of course).  He was careful, always searching the minds of his clients thoroughly before making any rash moves, but still he always wondered in the back of his mind which deal would be his last.  How long could he keep this up? 

              This mysterious man was a rogue in the year 2094.  A rogue was a very dangerous thing to be in this day and time, when you were automatically disqualified as a human being due to no choice of your own.  His very existence was outlawed and so he had no choice but to run and hide.  Run and hide until the soldiers caught up with him and he met his untimely yet inevitable end.  Such was the life of rogues. Such was the life of Silas Knight, rogue number 4-215-617-30.

3.

            
 
Adrenaline.  This was what it was all about.  The pure energy of fear for your life forcing your every step, making your every move.  Your heart pounding, the muscles in your legs contracting like you never thought they could, this is what life was about.  This was what it meant to be alive.  This whole sensation, the entire experience, it was all invigorating . . . until the moment was ruined by the voice of the paranoid computer geek behind you.

              “They’re right behind us, Alice!”

              She growled as she came crashing back to reality, still steering her maroon-red 1978 Honda Goldwing motorcycle between cars on the freeway, the wailing sirens of five U.N. cruisers echoing behind her and her accomplice, Rodger, who preferred being called Rodge. 

              “I know, Einstein, but you yelling that in my ear isn’t helping anything!”

              She kicked her modified bike into another gear and they stretched their distance from the soldiers.  She ripped back on the throttle, letting the air force its way through her silky black hair.  She could feel Rodge’s grip tightening around her waist.  Rodge’s grip was unwavering, but his voice betrayed his fear.  He was looking behind them constantly, threatening Alice’s control of the bike.

              “Will you just chill out?” Alice snapped.  “You’re starting to make ME nervous!”

              “Chill out?!  I could be dead in the next ten minutes!”

              “Oh, stop being a pregnant woman on cocaine, you are fine!”

              “There has got to be some part of your frontal lobe missing.”

              “I have no idea what you just said, but hang on tight.”

              The freeway was busy, seeing as it was the middle of the afternoon, creating a perfect opportunity for either death or freedom.  Either way, Alice was determined they wouldn’t take her alive.

              She took a sharp 180-degree turn, drifting across the grass median onto the other side.  The turn was so smooth that the soldiers barely saw her, and definitely couldn’t keep up with her.  She immediately took the next exit ramp, and sped down the nearest right turn. She found a parking garage in less than two miles, and parked in the perfect hiding place for her bike: underneath a tarp.  Of course the tarp was stolen, but the owners of the brand new SUV wouldn’t be missing it anytime soon, not with all of the nice toys they had inside of that vehicle.

              “There, we’re safe.  You happy?”

              Rodge ignored her.

              “Where are we?”

              “Nowhere near New York, I know that for sure,” Alice replied.  Her iridescent blue irises were glowing with satisfaction.  That city was like a virus, a poison that had infected her.  She had been away, running from it like a horrifying monster.  Yet destiny, it would seem, was bringing her back.  That, or her mother had a horrid sense of humor.

              “And why, might I ask, did you bring us so far off of our path?”

              Alice stopped and stared at Rodge like he was an idiot.  She did this quite often.

              “Because it would be like leaving a huge blinking sign in front of New York saying ‘we are coming here’.”

              “So what do we do next?” Rodge asked as he tossed his long brown hair out of his face.

              “You’re supposed to be the brains of this operation, you tell me.”

              “I am?”

              “Why else did I recruit you out of that scum-pit in San Francisco?”

              “Because you needed a hacker to help you get money to pay off your gambling debt,” Rodge reminded her.

              “Eh, details.  I kept you around, didn’t I?”

              “I guess,” he admitted.

              By this point they had walked to the roof of the parking garage.

              “What are we doing up here?” asked Rodge.

              “I wanted to make sure the soldiers didn’t somehow see us come here,” Alice responded.

              “Okay.  Now what?”

              “Well we need to find a place to stay the night, first of all.  Then we ride.  And after we ride, we get our revenge.”

              “
Your
revenge,” Rodge corrected her.

              “Details.”