I appeared back on the bus, and to my great delight, I was fully clothed! The rift travel containment field had worked as advertised. Even better, my wallet, phone and keys were still in my pocket. Looking out the bus window, I could see that not much time had passed, maybe a minute or two since we were only a few blocks further along. My stop, if I wanted to hit the bank, would be here in a few minutes.
Before I got to the bank, I wanted to see what rewards I had received. A leather sack was lying on the seat next to me and I wasted no time looking inside. There was the usual mess of copper coins, but also quite a few silver ones. I even caught sight of a small blue and a small red gem among the coins. There was one additional item inside my bag, a short, carved wooden stick that was giving off mana vapor like crazy. As I touched it a system prompt appeared.
You have acquired a compact wand of magic missile. While this wand was fully charged when added to your rewards, the charge on the wand will quickly dissipate as your home world absorbs the energy. While the wand will not store a charge, you can push your own mana into the wand to activate it. A wand of this quality and power will…
The information faded as the last of the mana stored in the wand dissipated. System prompts must be connected to the item somehow, and once the mana was gone, the system prompt disappeared. I think I got the most important point, that I could use the wand with my mana. The prompt hadn’t disclosed how much mana per shot the wand would require, but it gave me another option other than my Psionic Jolt spell.
Looking inside my core, I could see that my mana had regenerated and was full. The mana pool was now sitting at twelve. Pushing one mana into the rift travel containment field, I was ready for my next adventure. With only eleven points remaining, I could probably cast Psionic Jolt three times here on Earth but was also tempted to try out my wand to see how much mana it would take to fire.
I’d hold off on the wand, for now, at least until I had a chance to ask Minerva about it. Burning up all my mana, only to find it wasn’t enough to fire the wand could be a deadly mistake. Psionic Jolt was a sure thing, so it’d have to do until I had more information.
The bus began to brake as we approached my stop. I was apprehensive and looked around for anyone that seemed suspicious. There were plenty of people on the street, but I was no James Bond spy that could pick potential enemies out of the crowd with just a quick glance. Despite my trepidation, I exited the bus once it stopped.
I wasn’t ambushed by corporate agents or crazed cultists right away, so I had that going for me. Inside the bank branch, it was a bit busy since it was getting close to lunch time. My balance was just over $2000 which should at least get me somewhere safer to hide out and buy something to melt down my coins. I felt a bit freaked out walking around with that much cash, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. There was just over a hundred left in my account, enough to keep the account from accruing any fees.
After the bank, I went to a burger place on the corner and bought myself some lunch. It was crowded, but I found a table outside the restaurant where I was out of easy view from the street. While eating, I looked at my phone before remembering that I had to ditch it as soon as I was finished. Better yet, I’d leave it on the seat and hope someone stole it and led my enemies on a wild goose chase.
Lunch passed uneventfully and I said a silent goodbye to my beloved phone. A nearby convenience store had prepaid phones for sale, so I was able to snag two of the phones for fairly cheap. Stopping inside the restroom, I got one phone activated before I left. I needed to find a hotel next, but I wanted to get at least a little bit outside of LA.
Before I left LA, I would need another ID. I didn’t know about the cult, but the corporate goons would be able to search hotel databases to track me down. It was better that I moved around under an alias. A quick check of the internet revealed the place to go for a fake ID in LA, it was 7th and Alvarado by MacArthur Park. I had about a fifty-fifty shot of finding what I wanted or getting robbed.
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The bus trip over to the park wasn’t bad, and there were a few stores nearby where I found a cheap backpack to put all my stuff in. It wasn’t long before I found someone that had a few IDs on hand as well as quite the collection of illicit substances that I wanted no part of. I was about 5’11” with short, dark hair, and pretty average features. One of the IDs matched close enough as long as someone didn’t scrutinize it too carefully. My new name was going to be Raymond Durrant.
A hundred and fifty bucks poorer after buying my ID, I made one more stop before heading out of town. There was a pawn shop nearby, and I needed to convert the silver and gems from my last reward into real money, and mess with my pursuers a bit. The visit would quickly attract the attention of the people chasing me, and would hopefully make them think I was still hiding out in LA. This pawn shop was locked down pretty tight, and the guy at the counter gave me a harsh look before buzzing me in.
The whole way this pawn shop was set up led me to believe it was the kind of place that wouldn’t ask too many questions. On the bus ride over, I had picked out all the silver coins and the two gems. I had a total of thirty-three coins this time, not bad at all for one summoning.
“What do you want?” the pawn shop clerk asked. He was in his late thirties, overweight, and sported a scraggly beard that might have had something living in it. The clerk looked about as excited to see me as I was to see him.
“I have some silver and a couple of gems I wanted to sell,” I said, pulling the coins and gems out of a pocket and onto the dirty felt pad the clerk laid over the glass counter.
“I’ll need to check these, give me a minute,” the guy said, pulling out equipment that looked like what Gary had used. Thinking about my old pawn shop made me fear for Gary, I had no idea what had happened to him, but I couldn’t see the corporate goons doing much more than scare him a bit. They were after me, not after killing shopkeepers that would draw attention to them. If Gary kept his mouth shut, he should be okay.
“The silver’s not great, lots of steel mixed in with it, and these gems are fake. I’ll give you $50,” the clerk offered.
“No thanks, I’ve got somewhere else I can take them,” I said, not even bothering to negotiate, given he had already lied to me. The coins were the same as always, pure silver, not cut with a bunch of cheap metal. The weights weren’t the same as some coins were rather worn down. While the gems might be fake, I doubted it and Gary had taken all the ones I had brought to him so far.
“I might be able to go up to $75,” the guy offered as I dropped the coins and gems back in my pocket.
“Nah, I usually get around $350 for all this,” I replied.
“Fine, I’ll give you $150,” the guy countered.
“No, that’s way too low. Any pawn shop in town will give me $300 for this much silver and the gems,” I stated.
“I’ll go $200, no questions asked,” the clerk tried.
“I’ll tell you what, I’m pressed for time, so $250 and not a penny less and we have a deal,” I said.
“Fine,” the man grunted, pulling out the cash and handing it over after he checked the coins one more time.
Leaving the pawn shop, I checked the bus routes on my phone. Going cross country was out, the people chasing me probably had the airports and the train stations under surveillance. To rent a car, buy a plane ticket, and the like would require using my credit card, or if they took cash, a better ID than old Raymond Durrant’s that I was now using. The Greyhound bus station was also likely being watched, so for now, I’d have to look at someplace not too far away, someplace the city bus could take me.
I would take a bus heading south toward Orange County. It was close to LA, but I had no connections there so I could probably lose myself in the area easily enough. I could hole up there until I decided what my next step would be. I found a cheap motel in Garden Grove that, from digging through its abysmal Yelp reviews, revealed that it took cash and offered cheap monthly rates.
Maybe I should have watched more spy movies or police dramas, I had no idea how to disappear and I was playing it by ear. I needed time to do some research and figure out how to get out of this mess. I was sure I was making a bunch of mistakes, but I was doing the best that I could.
Taking a glance behind me, I noticed the pawn shop clerk was following me and talking on his cell phone. I had expected my pursuers to offer a bounty on information for someone selling the coins that I had, but I didn’t count on the clerk tailing me. It was time to ditch this guy and make my exit from Los Angeles.