The revelers of the Midnight Garden were well into their parties and activities but Tibby mostly kept out of it. Not that she really had a choice. Daniel only let her out for the less raunchy parties but she didn't mind. Whenever Cass and Mina had their hours off, they would hang out in her room and Tibby got to know the two women better. She much preferred their company over the other people at the parties.
For the first time since she could remember, she had friends. She knew that Cass had a younger sister she was taking care of, was dating a police officer from the main city named Marina, and loved pineapples. Fresh fruit was a luxury but Tibby had only asked Daniel for some to be delivered to her room so the three women could enjoy the rare treat with honey. Mina was married with three children, she had mind bonded with her husband when both of them had been in the wombs of their mothers, and she was deathly afraid of drowning.
Tibby didn't really have anything to say back to them, well nothing she would ever want to talk about. When Mina asked her personal questions and Tibby had no answers, Cass usually filled in the silence with some juicy tidbit on one of the guests. But there was little she knew about the one man that had taken up permanent residence in Tibby's head.
"So, have you seen that Ezekiel guy again?" Cass asked for the seventeenth time, wiggling her eyebrows.
Tibby flushed. She had told them everything about her encounter with Mr. Ezekiel, everything but that strange feeling she had gotten off of him when she'd met him for the second time.
"Of course not, I've stayed in this room since the first night." Tibby speared a tomato and chewed on it longer than necessary just so she could avoid any further explanations. Not that she hadn't wanted to see him, hoping to catch a glimpse the few times she had left her room to see Daniel or have a private dinner with him.
"Well don't seek him out, he's dangerous," Mina finally spoke up. Every time the subject of Ryan Ezekiel came up, Mina had stayed surprisingly quiet and this was the first time she had anything to say on the subject.
"Why the hell not? I saw the man this morning and daay-um, I swear I'd proposition him into a threesome if my girlfriend let me." Tibby knew Cass was only joking since she knew Cass had never had any desire to be with a man. In her words she was a "golden lesbian."
"Wait, where did you see him?" The question slipped out before Tibby realized what she had said reeked of an interest she should not be feeling.
For once Cass looked sheepish and reluctant to divulge that information. Borrowing her chop stick, Cass took a mouthful of her spaghetti and chomped noisily.
"Tibby, dear, please stay away from him. He's dangerous," Mina reiterated.
"Why, what have you heard of him?" Tibby already knew he dabbled into illegal things, but her family made a business of it. Who was she to cast stones?
"Not much," she hedged, "But all the men he had dealings with are just a little bit afraid of him. I've heard that no one can get a read on him and his mental barriers are impassible."
"Well that just means he's got enough money to buy the latest net from Xerxes Corp," Cass pointed out.
"His barriers have never been seen. It's just a smokescreen." Every Psych could feel and see another Psych's shields, a tangible maze of walls and wires in their mind.
Cass frowned at Mina, looking affronted. "How would you know? I didn't even know that!"
"I was talking to Mistress Kadara. You know she has that security company that tried to hack into barriers right?" Both Cass and Tibby nodded. "Well, she was telling her daughter while I was doing her hair that she tried to break in but she couldn't even enter his mind to communicate."
Tibby just nodded, wondering what all that meant. Being a full human, she had the bare minimum knowledge of barriers and Daniel hadn't expanded that further than what she needed to know to survive. By the awed look on Cass's face, Tibby took that to mean that is was a big deal but she didn't think that qualified Ryan Ezekiel as a dangerous man.
"Okay, that is weird. But that can't mean he's a bad guy," Cass cried, unknowingly echoing Tibby's thoughts.
"Don't you think he's trying to hide something? He has the security of an Elite and he's clearly from the Badlands. My advice is to just steer clear of that whole mess."
Cass let the subject drop and said something about another guest but Tibby didn't hear a word of it. What Mina said made her think about what he had to hide. Again she remembered that feeling she had had of him when her brother introduced them. It was like meeting another person. The first man she had met had been warm, teasing and brazen. While not exactly safe, Tibby had felt comfortable around him. But the man she met the second time was cold and disturbing. Safety was the farthest thing from her mind when she looked into his eyes. It seemed like they were two different men but that was impossible. No one could inhabit the mind of another person, not even if the vehicle was a human. Tibby decided she was just being silly. Mr. Ezekiel had probably just acted standoffish because her brother was there.
~
Tibby, come see me now.~
She jolted at the invasion of her brother's voice. Both Cass and Mina stopped their conversation and looked at her with a frown.
Mina reached out towards Tibby. "Hey, you okay?"
Forcing a smile, Tibby shook her head and merely said that her brother wanted to see her. Mina began to clear up their plates and Cass gathered up their bags. It was like clockwork. Every evening, Tibby's brother would call her just when she was having dinner with them. They knew enough about Daniel both from Tibby and previous visits that they rarely protested.
"We'll see you tomorrow 'kay?" Cass hugged Tibby with one arm as she ushered them to the door. Tibby smiled and hugged Mina before closing the door.
Pushing away from the door, she reluctantly made her way across the room to the adjoining door. It was usually left locked on Daniel's side unless he called for her. As an extra precaution, she also locked it on her side even knowing that Daniel had the key to override the lock. It made her sleep easier at night even if it was futile.
She found Daniel with his usual contingent of guards stationed around the room at various points. Daniel himself sat in a chain in the middle of the room and the very man that had been on her mind stood beside him with his PACT. A larger projection of a maze of nerves was set on the blank wall in front of Ezekiel. Mr. Ezekiel didn't even glance up from his PACT, making her just a little miffed. Daniel noticed the way she hesitated to take her seat and frowned slightly.
"Ezekiel's here to work on the Visa. Sit down."
