Author notes

PLAYING WITH FIRE, Page 16

alschroeder

on April 15, 2013

This one's kind of important.
 A lot of people have been gunning for Sage, both illegal and legal, for a loooooong time.  He's many things, but he's not bulletproof.  Still, he is a master strategist, and quick to grab ahold of any advantage he can see.
Flickerflame's/Lafferty's father used to be a criminal, head man of a hit squad. He was hired to get Sage—and came closer to succeeding than most.  This all happened thirty years or more ago, when most circuits were not connected to any sort of outside control.  Still, Sage's ability to meld with some electronic signals may be why the police came so fast—because he could tap into the police radio, and even broadcast on it.
Farley Lafferty may have been a criminal, but he genuinely cared for his family—even to the point of going to jail rather than pulling a cold-blooded murder in front of a five-year-old son who he could scar for life, or risk an out-and-out battle with Sage, which could also endanger his son.  By his lights, he's a fairly decent father.
In a way, it's Flickerflame's first betrayal—of his own father—brought on by nothing more than his curiosity which led him to crawl into his father's car before his father drove off on a mysterioius job.
This, and the installment after this, are important to the whole Sage/Flickerflame relationship.