A Deal With Ezequiel

Ignacio closed his eyes as the pain in his chest swelled again. “What do you want me to do?”

Ezequiel sat forward in his chat, clanking his bottle down on the table in the middle of the couches. “I want you to help me in return by doing two things. One, you’re not leaving this joint until I say you can, hear me?”

Thiago raised his bottle again, pointing a finger at the man. “Now hol’ on, Ez-Ezequiel. We never did-”

“Shut it, biker,” Ezequiel snapped, holding up a finger to Ignacio. “Agreed?”

Ignacio sighed. “As long as we have a place to sleep and food to eat.”

Ezequiel nodded, flipping up a second finger. “And two, you don’t use your ability to clone my powers. Ever. You understand?”

Ignacio frowned. “They already told you about that?”

“Answer the damn question,” Ezequiel said, nose wrinkling in a snarl.

Ignacio raised a hand. “Yes, sir. I won’t use your powers, that’s a promise.”

Ezequiel rested a hand on his knee, glancing over his shoulder at Koharu as she pulled a cyberette from inside her hoodie. She stood against the wall behind Ezequiel, one boot up against it. The cyberette’s tip glowed pink as she pressed its side, the dull light warming her face and casting a gentle shine to her jet-black hair. She glanced up at Ezequiel with those half-dead eyes, and shrugged.

Ezequiel sighed, turning back to Ignacio. “So, Iggy, my boy. What time do you think it is?”

Ignacio grimaced. “Iggy?”

“Since you’re my new pet, I call you whatever I damn well please,” Ezequiel said, leaning an arm back. “Now, what time do you think it is?”

Ignacio scooched up in his seat. “We arrived around half-past ten this morning. So it can’t be later than eleven-thirty.”

Thiago sprayed alcohol from his mouth as he burst out laughing, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Ezequiel shot him a look of disgust. “Beltran, please take that sack of crap to his bedroom, he needs it. And don’t put him on anything soft, he’s probably gonna piss himself soon.”

The man with the long black hair stood up, grabbing Thiago by the arm and hoisting him to his feet. Thiago mumbled something as he was dragged away, the bottle slipping from his hand and clinking to the floor.

Ezequiel chuckled. “That’s better. Now, eleven-thirty ante meridiem, today?”

Ignacio nodded. “Yes, we’ve been here for about forty minutes.”

“It’s eleven-thirty at night, boy,” Ezequiel said.

Ignacio rubbed his eye. “What?”

Ezequiel ran his tongue over his teeth, leaning back and placing his hands behind his head. “Yep. You heard me. You were in the Ethergeist for…”

“Thirty-one minutes and twenty seconds,” Koharu said from behind him, her elbow in her hand, cyberette between her fingers.

“Multiply that by twenty-four, that’s how much time was spent in the real world,” Ezequiel said. “Then divide by sixty if you want the number of hours.”

Ignacio shook his head. “So time moves slower in the Ethergeist?”

“Much slower,” Ezequiel said, grinning. “An hour in the Ethergeist is a whole day in the real world.”

That changed things. If there was less time in the Ethergeist, that meant Celeste had been Ether-abducted for almost two days already. But in his mind, day two was just beginning.

“And,” Ezequiel said, raising a finger. “You never, ever spend more than one hour in the Ethergeist at a time, you hear me?”

Ignacio nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Ezequiel said, his unbuttoned waist coat trickling with lines of red code, much like those on Koharu’s boots. “If you spend more than an hour, which is a day in the real world, your body exhausts and your brain follows, which will lead to your starvation or Etherpsychosis. Or both. And you never go back in without waiting a full two hours.”

“So you can’t eat in the Ethergeist?” Ignacio asked.

“Oh, you can. But it’s more of a placebo effect, helps take your mind off the hunger. It won’t help your body in the real world.”

Ignacio wrinkled his nose. “That makes sense.”

“Now,” Ezequiel said, leaning forward. “Your sister. Do you know what the First Nexus is?”

“Someone who can enter the Ethergeist without a Cypher machine?” Ignacio asked.

Ezequiel smacked his lips. “Yeah, sure. Do you know why Cypher Corp would be so interested in someone with such a trivial sounding ability?”

Ignacio paused. “I’m not sure.”

Ezequiel nodded, scratching the back of his head. “Your lil’ sister, Iggy, has the potential to use powers outside of the Ethergeist. That’s why they want her.”

Ignacio snorted. “What, so they can take over the world?”

“The world is where they’d start,” Ezequiel said, clasping his hands together. “Iggy, you aren’t hearing me, boy. There are Aspects that exist in the Ethergeist that, if they were brought into the real world, could allow a single man or woman to wage war with entire nations.”

Ignacio’s stomach sank. “And that’s what Cypher Corp wants Celeste for?”

“Seems like it,” Ezequiel said. “Which is why we can’t let them do it. I ain’t letting them do it. We got enough crap to worry about from them the way they are now. Imagine if they had a Titan, or a Dragon, or a Druid…” he shook his head. “Nah, I don’t wanna imagine it.”

They wanted to use Celeste to take over the world?

“But she’s just a kid. Why would they do that to her?” Ignacio asked.

Ezequiel paused, staring at him for a moment. “Oh, you’re being serious?” he threw himself back in his seat, laughing so hard tears rolled down his face.

Ignacio sighed, and he calmed himself down, drying his tears with his palm.

“You think these bastards care how old someone is when they use them?” Ezequiel said. “They’d cut you out your mother’s womb with a rusty nail if they thought they could make a profit from it.”

Ignacio lowered his head. He was right. It was a stupid question. Why would they care? To them, it was like stepping on an anthill, just with a lot more malice.

“So, how are we getting her out?” Ignacio asked.

Ezequiel stretched his interlocked fingers, the knuckles popping. “Right. We know Cypher Corp Ether-abducted her, and I have a good idea where they’ve taken her. Since you’re too broke to hire me and my Crew directly, you’re going to fight with us.”

Ignacio’s heart flipped. “You want me to fight with you?”

Ezequiel nodded. “If you’re a Ronin, you’d be pretty damn useful in there. Cypher Corp has got top of the line Cypher users guarding the Citadels. Aspects you’re to stupid to imagine exist work for them.”

“Citadel?” Ignacio asked.

“It’s where they keep their Ether-abductees. And I’m assuming they’re going to have her in the largest Citadel, which means they’re going to have every type of Sect fighting for them. Except for you,” Ezequiel said, extending his long, bulky arm and poking a finger into Ignacio’s chest. “Because you can take them all on.”

Ignacio’s eyes moved to Koharu, her skin tainted by the pink glow of her cyberette as she stared ahead into nothing.

“Koharu saw how I fought,” Ignacio said. “I’m not ready. And I can barely keep the powers I absorb for more than a couple of minutes.”

Ezequiel laughed, patting him on the shoulder and rocking his whole body to the side.

“We all start off a little pathetic, Iggy,” Ezequiel said. “It’s not about being made on day one. It’s about making it to day one-thousand.”

Ignacio cleared his throat, the thought of that thing staggering towards him flashing in his mind.

It’s what you fear, or it’s Celeste’s life.

He clenched his jaws, lifting his head. “When do we go back in?”

Ezequiel grinned. “That’s more like it.”