The transition from the hospital lounge to the Dupont estate was executed with a terrifying, surgical silence. Silas's men moved Mild through the service elevators, bypassing the public gaze in a gurney draped with a "Biohazard" shroud. To any passing nurse, he was just another medical transport; in reality, he was a captive being spirited away from the only people who could protect him.
Mild was heavily sedated for the journey, his mind drifting in a hazy grey void. Every time he tried to claw his way back to consciousness—thinking of Zen's garden or the cold, honest wind of the woods—a fresh needle found his arm. He wasn't taken toward the city center, but toward the "Dupont Sector," a heavily fortified private enclave where the law of the land was replaced by the whim of the former President.
