The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 15

Manhattan [August 2008]

—Axle Riddle–

Oh, he was so bored. He was done with all that Kamar Taj could teach him with respect to TK and Extra sensory 360-degree spatial awareness so they had promptly kicked him out of the New York Sanctum although he tried to bribe the Sanctum Master with free coffee and croissants from the cafe down the street to no avail.

They had revoked not just his building access but also his WIFI access, wifi! Who does that? Even breakups would not have been this thorough in terms of shutting down all the bridges.

Anywho, he was now back on the job market and was now employed by the company of a Master who lived permanently in Kamar Taj, or rather, the company his descendants ran.

It was actually fairly successful in what they do, i.e, building rail lines. Somehow, a tiny Asian company had managed to gain a foothold and a decent market share in the rail-building industry of America.

Apparently, the Master did not interfere much, aside from stopping any supernatural entity from interfering of course, but that was to be expected. He had just mentioned off-handedly when Master Wu had come to visit him, growing curious about the happenings as he heard from the Sanctum Master about his wondrous abilities, and voila! He had an appointment letter in his hand the next day.

He was now the assistant deputy Digital Prophet of Wu Rail-Cons Pvt. Ltd. Now, that was a job title that was completely made up.

He only had to go to the office two times a week to report to his superior, who was actually one of the many family members of the Wu joint family. His superior was very respectful and even reverent to him sometimes and as such, he could choose to report or not, to the office. When he does go to the office, however, he has his own personal cabin, with his personal bathroom and everything. All he had to do was sign a bunch of documents and send a couple of messages to all the team members at the location, completing his job for the day. 

Or, he could type in the messages for the next month or so, and not show up at all.

It was awesome!

It allowed him to concentrate more on his other civic duties, mainly maintaining deep surveillance over a million people who lived in his awareness radius and through a deep violation of their fundamental rights, stopping any crime that could happen to them, or from them. Once, he had stopped a crime from happening on both ends. Somebody tried to mug an Italian dude, not knowing that he was carrying three different guns on his person and was more than willing to shoot the poor mugger in the head without even flinching, as was evidenced by the two bullets that floated in front of the mugger’s forehead.

He had to knock both of them out to sort out the situation while cackling like a madman in his cabin. He got more than a few weird looks on his way out that day, especially since he was leaving the office during lunch hours.

Ah, he loved his job. Plus, it was fun to stay in his air-conditioned cabin while doing his other job, thankless as it was. He also made sure to work on his side project with Chris but apparently, one of the club members had pointed out the legal hurdles they would have to cross to make that viable and upon finding out the time and money that would be involved in making sure that the road could be opened anytime soon, they had promptly given up on and he had also obliged, more than willing to make sure that nobody knew of the emergency evacuation space he had built under the city.

You see, he had a plan. Using his abilities, which would grow considerably by 2012, he could rip out the upper sections of the streets to expose the way down to the highway, making sure that people were safe and secure from the bomb blasts. Even in the movies, they had people huddling down into the subway for protection from any stray blasts. 

Then, once the people were brought into the safe space, either by themselves or by him throwing them inside, he would close down the entry, cutting off Loki’s access from civilian hostages.

It would greatly benefit them as then, the Avengers could freely exert all of their powers in the city. He too, would be rest assured that even though he let something as horrible as that happen, at least he made sure that not many people became victims. Of course, he would try to ensure that nobody died but he was not God. He could not guarantee that, at all.

Currently, he was sitting in his cabin and looking at the news while reclining on this ridiculously comfortable chair. He smiled upon hearing about the zero crime rates and thriving business in the city because of the new 24/7 business zone declaration. Apparently, the Mayor had gone all out and even had tours declared of the city, to see him in action.

Of course, people being the curious bunch that they were, flocked in masses to see the Invisible Man in action. 

SHIELD allowed it because they wanted to catch him and having more opportunities to see his powers in action meant that they could create a more thorough way to deal with him.

His smile dimmed as he realised that the crime syndicates had also figured out his trick. They now knew that he did not act beyond the borders of Manhattan. They did not know why but that had probably relieved them as they just shifted their base elsewhere. There had been intense gang wars as gangs found rival gangs encroaching and settling in their “territory” so to speak.

Well, once the invasion happened, he would be more than free to deal with the scum of the highest order but he had a feeling that he would have to tone it down. There would be a massive uproar if it came to public knowledge that he was capable of conducting mass surveillance over an entire city and then acting on it, without anybody being able to hold him accountable.

He might still use his powers for the worst of the crimes but for the most part, he would probably get a restraining order from the President or something, to tone down his activities.

“Sir, your coffee,” He looked up as the door opened and his beautiful PA walked in, a cup of hot coffee in her hands. The same coffee from the cafe down the New York Sanctum was brought to him from 4 blocks away. Ah, once again, how he loved his current job and life.

The perks, the salary, and the existentially zero workload made it great but the Eye Candy made it even more attractive.

“Careful, it's very hot,” She said and smiled as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Thank you, Helen,” He smiled as he took the coffee and dismissed her, her smile dimming a bit for some reason.

What? Just because he was her boss and she was the beautiful, young, curvaceous blonde secretary, he was not going to fool around with her. That would be the epitome of foolishness.

Well, not in the office anyway, he smirked to himself as he drank the scalding hot coffee, his enhanced constitution making the probably second-degree burn marks into just a slight stinge.

Oh yeah, Dear Helen had found herself being subjected to rigorous exercises in multiple positions, in his apartment of course. He was anything but professional in his conduct in the office. It was also made explicitly clear to Helen that he was not involved in her promotion whatsoever but that had not deterred the blond woman.

After all that, if he had refused, well there might have even been allegations of not being straight then. He couldn’t have that, could he?

Anyway, aside from Helen and their regular exercise sessions, he had been busy with his other pursuits as well. Procuring enough food, water, and medical necessities for the evacuation zone underneath the city was a very challenging task because accumulating the supplies slowly was not the problem. The problem was making them last and making them accessible for the required people.

The emergency support people would be transported by him personally and even if he couldn’t do that himself, he would open up a couple of pathways that should ideally be protected and hidden, known only to the Captain who would then relay that information to the first responders, making his job even easier.

Fresh air would be taken care of by the ends and the forced circulation systems he would eventually install, once he found some big enough to be useful in that scenario. Aside from that, once the Invasion started, he planned to create huge openings at both ends of the highway, and then personally protect those entry points.

“This just in, Tony Stark’s convoy in Afghanistan was attacked by rebel forces. As of this moment, his whereabouts are unknown. Please stay tuned as we….”

He swivelled his chair to look at the TV on the side which showed Tony Stark’s face.

Well, he smirked to himself, It had begun then.

You can read upto 5 extra chapters on my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.