"Because you did far more work than what you had been paid for."
"I liked the challenge."
"Christ, John.
"Don't judge me."
"She's not even sure if she's real or not."
"That's what I had been told to do."
"Your job was to provide a precedent for the insanity charges. That meant making her throw a scene in a public place because of you tricking her."
"I did that."
"Yeah, but you also gas lighted the living hell out of the poor woman."
"You'll still get your cut."
"That's your only real motivation, isn't it, John? Money?"
"Do you need a better one?"
"No.. Not really."
"That's what I thought. Listen, I gotta let you go. The default proxies on this are about to expire. The timer is in the single digits. Awright. It was a pleasure talking to you, Kailey."
"I prefer Kal."
"Too bad. Seriously, I have two seconds left. Bye."
"Okay. Goodby-"
CALL ENDED
John let out a soft sigh, and looked down at the cheap, already splintering phone in his hand. He had bought it a week ago, and it was likely to last maybe another month if he kept it before it broke apart into shards of plastic.
He was standing in the cramped bathroom of one of the Circuits noodle shops, places that only survived because they didn't have to pay any taxes on what meager earnings they got. This one had actual walls, instead of just canvas pitched against the cave walls. True, three of the walls were just stone made from a recess in the tunnels, but it was much more soundproof than similar establishments. Something that made John a regular here for when he needed to make his calls.
Prying open the case with practiced ease, John slid out two small SD cards, put the case back on. Tucking the chips into a jacket pocket, John dropped the now useless cellphone into a plastic baggy that was coated in wire mesh, a mini faraday cage, which was also stored in his jacket. When he returned to one of his safe houses, he would be able to dispose of it properly. Picking up his disguise suitcase, John opened the door and left the restroom. With a polite nod to the restaurant owner, he tossed a few coins onto the bar counter to pay for the untouched beer.
Feeling curious to get a state of the things in the Circuit, John walked towards the Market. Any community worth its salt lived and died by it's commerce. And the Circuit had the most interesting commerce of them all.
Name: Ezra Scultone Faction: Order Species: Human Gender: Man Age: 19
Appearance: A tall attractive young man in the prime of his youth, Ezra has tanned skin, eyes as green as poison, and immaculately groomed dark hair. Ezra dresses in motorcycle jackets and dark jeans. His reflective aviators are a permanent fixture upon his face, even indoors. The only mar on his otherwise handsome face is his nose, having been broken several times and now a crude lump. His hands are rough and callused from working on his bike and from playing guitar. His body is toned, and he is in peak physical condition.
Personality: Amber Valley's bad-boy heartthrob, Ezra has been told his entire life that he was handsome and intelligent. And while he's smart enough to know how to bend the rules, he still isn't mature enough to know that you shouldn't. Ezra is also incredibly lazy, and isn't willing to do anything he doesn't want to. Because of this, he's failing most of his classes except shop and history. Something of a cassanova, Ezra is the subject of much gossip and crushes among the female student body, as well as some of the men. Ezra hasn't stayed in a relationship for longer than a month, preferring to drift from one girl to the next. Despite his somewhat lax nature concerning rules, he keeps a very strong sense of personal ethics, and most people think that he's a good guy. Passionate about magical history, Ezra intends to become a history major once, or if, he graduates. Ezra's relationship with the ORDER is one that came out of his love for his mother, as she had been a loosely affiliated member of the group. Ezra is incredibly close with his father, and, uncharacteristically, will cancel social events with friends to spend time with him. The grief over his mothers death is still traumatic to him, and he becomes especially maudlin on dates important to Rachel, Mothers Day, her birthday, and the day she was in the accident.
History: Born in Santa Monica California, Ezra was the only child of the Bernard, a mechanic, and Rachel Scultone, a magical scholar. Rachel was a professor for UCLA's history department, and focused in magical studies. Bernard ran his own auto-parts shop. Ezra grew up in a loving home, and loved nothing more than listening to the stories his mother told him about the past, and helping his father out in his shop. At the start of Ezra's freshman year of high school, Rachel was in a serious car crash when returning from work one evening, and had been put in a coma. Ezra and his father were highly traumatized, and when Rachel was declared brain dead after a month of extensive medical care, Bernard had already begun to come to terms that the love of his life had died. Ezra suffered the hardest from his mothers loss, and went into shock for a week afterwards, being completely mute the entire time. Because of Ezra's grief, he was taken out of school for the year, spending most of it in counseling offices or in the garage, tinkering with the motorcycle he would later ride. By the end of the year, Bernard, faced with mounting medical bills, decided to pull the plug on Rachel. Still overwhelmed by medical bills, Bernard sold everything, and returned to his old hometown of Amber Valley. The Ezra that started freshman year in Amber Valley was nothing like the old Ezra. Older and more mature than the other students, Ezra's intelligence, natural good looks, relative exoticness to the rest of the student body, as well as the new devil-may-care attitude vaulted him into the esteemed group known as 'cool kids.' While Bernard established the new repair shop in Amber Valley, Ezra buried his grief under a facade, and tried to move on. Ezra had been contacted by a member of AV's ORDER when he moved here, and has since then become a proud member of the group, thinking of it as a way to connect with his mother.
Skills: Crude fighting: Though he still has an aversion to physical violence, Ezra has learned to be able to back up his tough words, and is able to take and give a punch with the best of them. Anyone with actual martial arts training would knock him flat, though. Auto parts repair: Trained first by his father and then later through his own experiences, Ezra is able to fix everything that has wheels and an engine, though he loves motorcycles the most. Guitar Player: Originally just a way to get babes, Ezra has a deep love for playing the guitar, both electric and acoustic. He's certainly not the best in the world, but he doesn't sound awful. Magical Scholar: Inspired by his mother, Ezra is a hobbyist historian for all things magical, having even done original research on his own and submitting his findings to journals. Only one of them was ever published, a continuation of Rachel's own research into the inner workings of demonic magic.
Magic: The only magic that Ezra has manifested yet is a minor healing ability. He's been able to restore open cuts on himself and a feral cat that he found in a ditch. Doing so leaves him incredibly sleepy, so he tries not to use it often.