That morning, Equador woke up feeling much better than he had the night before, on his birthday. Instead of dreaming about that magical place that had appeared in his dreams in the early hours of December 31st, he had had a very strange dream in which he encountered a polar bear, a robot, and a peculiar mage at the Atlas Market.
He got up early, ready to help his mother at the boarding house and with other matters around the complex. That day, his mother would be leaving on the ferry that traveled to Manaus by way of the Amazon River, taking clients to the Manaus branch. So it was one of those days when a great number of people were arriving and leaving the Sol e Mar Boarding House, which meant more money for the complex.
On that specific day, Equador had awakened to his mother shouting:
"Equador, wake up, son! I need you to go to the municipal market and pick up the sacks of coffee beans for the Smith family. They said they won't pay until they receive their coffee order."
The Smith family had five children and never stopped making increasingly demanding and extravagant requests of the Sol e Mar Boarding House staff, which was not necessarily bad for the boarding house, although it turned the team's routine into true chaos.
Equador got ready quickly and climbed into a small cargo truck from the boarding house to go to the market with Mr. Cristóvão, the boarding house driver.
Even though he had woken up very early and had barely had time to do anything, Equador was happy to be going to the market. Not because he wanted to leave home exactly, nor because those annoying guests — though profitable — were about to leave. He was happy for the simple reason that he would get to see two old friends, whom he only met whenever he went to the market to pick up deliveries, since he no longer attended school.
They were Gustavo and Gisele, the most beautiful twins in school, also elected the most beautiful twins in Atlas in the city's municipal twin pageant.
Equador could never decide which of the two was more beautiful, nor which one made him more nervous. Even so, he could never resist passing by the peach stand every time he went to the market. It was the only moment when he had any contact with people his own age who were not the demanding children of the boarding house guests — children who looked him up and down with disdain or simply pretended he did not exist.
Of the two, Equador was closer to Gustavo. They had studied together during the early years of school, before their classes had been separated. It was through him that he got to know Gisele. Gustavo, like Equador, was a fan of Captain Brasa and dreamed of meeting him one day.
The difference between them had become obvious with time. When Gustavo entered puberty, he grew quickly, became taller and stronger. Equador, on the other hand, remained thin, changing slowly, as if every small transformation demanded enormous effort. Whenever Equador advanced one step, Gustavo seemed to advance two or three, as though he were light-years ahead.
As time went on, Equador drifted a little from the twins, who quickly became the most popular teenagers in school. Even so, they never completely lost touch. Whenever they met at the market, they talked as though no time had passed.
As soon as they arrived at the market, Equador jumped out of the truck as fast as he could.
"Leave it to me, Mr. Cristóvão. I'll get all the cargo," he said, already taking the Sol e Mar delivery list and the checkbook.
"What do you mean, boy? I came to help you," the driver replied.
"No, sir. You hurt your hand. My mother said you need to go at least a month without straining the tendon," Equador explained firmly.
The moment his feet touched the ground, he felt the world spin. A shiver ran through his whole body like a sudden wave. Before he could recover, he heard Gustavo's voice in the distance:
"Equador! My friend! Don't forget to stop by the peach stand. My sister and I prepared a birthday present for you!"
Equador grew shy, but smiled. The twins had gone to the few birthday parties he had ever had, and they never forgot the date — even after he had left school.
Equador was already picking up order after order so he would have more time left to talk to his friends. On the way to the stand, however, his view was interrupted by three very curious people coming in his direction with a fixed, almost hypnotic look.
"You," said a woman with brown skin and long platinum-toned hair. "Do you live between the sun and the sea?"
"Is that automobile yours?" asked the older man, observing him with excessive attention.
"Ah… are you tourists?" Equador answered, confused. "Yes, the Sol e Mar Boarding House has rooms available. They were just freed up. We have exactly three beds, with curtains to separate the lady from the men. Are you family? We have a family discount."
"Ah, I see, young man," said the older man, still staring at him with that strange gleam in his eyes. "And what is your name?"
"My name is Equador da Silva. I'm the son of the owner and founder of the Sol e Mar Boarding House."
"Well, it's a pleasure, Equador. I am Zygon, magid master of Oblivion…"
"Yes…" interrupted the other man, casting a quick glance at Zygon. "We'll take it."
Equador turned and shouted toward the truck:
"Mr. Cristóvão, I got new guests!"
"Send them up, Equador!" the driver shouted back.
"All right. I'll take you to the cargo truck. Sorry about the mess, we weren't planning to take you right now. And sorry about the chickens… We'll be at the boarding house in no time. We're the best in the south zone of Atlas, where the best beaches in the city are."
The three tourists climbed into the truck, which was loaded with deliveries: cages of chickens on one side, sacks of coffee on the other, stacked beside vegetables and cleaning supplies.
"No, miss…" said Equador. "You come up front, in my place. It shakes too much in the back."
"This is Mr. Cristóvão, the official driver of the boarding house," Equador explained. "And this is the lady?"
"Sofia," said the platinum-haired woman, with a gentle smile in her eyes.
"I'll be right back, Mr. Cristóvão. I only need to stop by the peach stand. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Equador ran off before the driver could question whether peaches were really on the delivery list.
When he reached the stand, he found Gustavo distracted, looking up at the sky.
"I'll have to be quick, Gustavo. I'm taking some surprise guests, and my mother won't stop calling me to sort out the deliveries."
"All right," he answered. "Sis, bring Equador's present!" he shouted.
"I'm coming!" Gisele shouted back even louder.
Despite being in a hurry, Equador wished she would take as long as possible, just so they would have an excuse to talk a little longer.
"So, Equador," said Gustavo. "Three weeks until my birthday. Isn't that crazy? We're growing up, man. Remember when we used to spend entire days watching and reading Captain Brasa?"
"I remember…" Equador answered shyly.
"Remember that birthday party we threw together at school? We wanted to look exactly like him."
"I remember."
"Then come to the gym with me," Gustavo said.
"It'll be great. I'll give you my number."
Equador took a piece of paper from his notebook, where he had written his number many times before, long ago, without ever having had the courage to hand it over.
"Here," he said.
"Happy birthday, Equador," said Gisele, handing him a small wrapped package. "I hope you come to our birthday. January 31st."
"Beep beep. I'm the little boarding house truck!" Gustavo joked.
"Thank you… this is beautiful. It's a peach blossom," said Equador, moved.
"Gustavo made it," Gisele commented.
"I'm good with my hands," he said, laughing awkwardly. "Now go, or Cristóvão's going to lose it."
Equador had already ignored more than thirty calls from his mother. Even so, on his way back he felt strangely calm. First, because he was bringing three new guests to the boarding house. And second, because he had been invited to Gustavo and Gisele's birthday — and because, finally, he was going to the gym with the person who was, at the same time, his old and his new best friend.
But despite that sense of calm, something pulled him out of his thoughts when he looked more closely at the new guests riding in the back. They were among the strangest tourists he had ever seen.
The men watched him closely, as if they could see something in him — not in a poetic or inspirational way, but as though they could see something around him, something he himself could not see. Equador assumed it was his Brazil shirt, which gleamed easily when sunlight hit the fabric. So he gathered his courage and asked.
"I see you're looking a lot at my Brazil shirt. At the boarding house we sell this same one I'm wearing, only newer, of course."
"Oh, yes, thank you very much. We will be taking one of those shirts that shine in sunlight. But first we would like to know where we can exchange gold for your local currency."
"At Banco do Brasil," Equador answered.
"We'll need to stop there so we can pay you in your local currency."
"Ah, of course. We require half the stay in advance as a guarantee, and we only accept Brazilian reais."
Then Equador turned to the front of the truck and shouted so the driver could hear.
"Mr. Cristóvão! We're going to have to stop at Banco do Brasil or Caixa Econômica, whichever is closer. The travelers need to exchange gold for reais!"
"Lucky day, Equador!" Cristóvão answered.
He slammed the brakes and made a sharp turn, stopping right in front of Banco do Brasil.
"We were right in front of it!" continued Mr. Cristóvão with a hoarse, incredulous laugh. "Where did you say you were from again?"
"Obli…"
"Antarctica," the younger man interrupted the older one again.
The new and curious guests climbed out of the truck to take care of the currency exchange, and Equador and Mr. Cristóvão took the chance to cool off at a little street food stand. While they waited, they ended up having an odd conversation.
"Bit strange, aren't they?" Cristóvão asked.
"Did they tell you where they were from?"
"Yes. Antarctica. And you?"
"Antarctica?" Mr. Cristóvão said, so startled that smoke and tiny sparks escaped from his pipe, making him look more like a Chinese dragon. "The lady told me they were from Madeira Island, in Portugal. That's why they already spoke Portuguese, even if they didn't know much Brazilian Portuguese. Sounded very robotic to me, but she even showed me a picture of them. Says they have a peculiar house that looks more like a mushroom."
"How strange," Equador answered. "Either they were messing with us or they call Madeira Island Antarctica in Portugal."
When the guests came back and everyone settled into the truck again, Equador could not help overhearing the curious older man comment in a low voice.
"How absurd. They only let us exchange one hundred and twenty-five thousand reais. I hope that's enough."
Wherever those men were from, they were clearly very rich, Equador thought. That was when he noticed something else strange. The younger man was holding something that looked like a cellphone, but not exactly like the cellphones Equador knew. It looked like an old device, one of those thick, square models he had only seen in photos from the eighties or nineties.
The screen did not show numbers or messages. Instead, it blinked slowly, emitting a soft bluish light. A strange, rhythmic light, as though it were picking up some invisible frequency. Every few seconds, the device emitted a small pulse of light, almost imperceptible under the daylight.
Equador frowned and commented,
"What a strange cellphone…"
The younger man glanced quickly at the device and slipped it into his pocket in a fast motion.
"Old technology."
Equador was not sure. For some reason, that device gave him a strange feeling, as though its light were reacting to his presence. He shook his head, trying to brush off the thought. Maybe it was only his imagination. Or maybe he was starting to imagine too much that day.
The trip home was difficult, since Equador spent the whole way trying not to bother the new guests with his curious stares.
The day passed quickly. Equador spent the entire morning working. He cleaned hallways, helped guests with luggage, organized deliveries, and ran back and forth across the complex. His mother had already left for Manaus with the other guests, which was good for business but terrible because Equador had begun to feel sick again.
No, Equador, he repeated inside his head. Now is not the time to get sick.
Luckily, he only had to work until eight o'clock at night, when the night-shift worker would arrive.
In the middle of the afternoon, he received a strange request from the room of the three new guests. They wanted: three liters of water, a simple snack, one kilo of honey, an ice pack, a bucket, twelve white candles, a box of matches, a bowl of coarse salt, and a few completely random items from the small convenience store in the complex. Such as a seashell and a solar flower, which Equador assumed meant a sunflower.
He spent the entire afternoon gathering each of those items while handling all the problems that kept appearing in the boarding house.
As he sorted the things, Equador frowned. Why would anyone need all of that? But the complex was large, and eccentric guests were nothing new. He simply placed everything on a tray and headed to the room.
When he reached the door, he raised his hand to knock, but saw that the door was already slightly ajar. Then he heard something from inside. A word.
"But how do you expect us to return to Oblivion without a boy? It was already difficult enough to get permission to come to the surface and uncover everything we've discovered," he heard the older man's voice say.
His heart gave a small leap. It was the same name of the city he had heard in his dream the night before. Equador leaned in discreetly and peered through the crack in the door.
For one second, just one second, he saw something impossible. Sitting at the table was an enormous polar bear, dressed in strange clothes. Beside him was a woman who seemed half robot, with metallic parts shining in the light. Equador blinked several times as quickly as he could.
At that exact instant, the door was shut — slam! — and then opened so quickly that Equador had no time to wipe the expression of shock and confusion from his face.
Only three ordinary people were inside the room: Zygon, Sofia, and Polaris.
No bear. No robot.
Sofia smiled calmly.
"Thank you for the delivery, dear Equador."
Equador stood frozen for a moment.
Did I really see that? Or am I going crazy?
He simply nodded, handed them the things, and went back to work. The rest of the evening passed in a blur. More guests arrived for New Year's Eve, requests began piling up, and Equador ran around the complex until his legs felt heavy.
When he finally finished his shift, he went to the kitchen to have dinner. He sat alone with a simple plate of food and picked up his phone. By then, the fever had already returned and his head had begun to feel heavy. His cat, who had spent the entire morning and afternoon meowing as he followed him throughout the boarding house, would not leave his side. Even when Equador went to the bathroom to shower, Hermes stayed close. That night, Hermes seemed especially restless, even more than earlier. He walked back and forth across the room, jumped on the bed, jumped off, came back, and meowed again.
"What is it, Hermes?" Equador murmured.
He remembered the friend he had seen at the market, who had already added his number and sent him a short message:
Hi Equador, it's me, gustavooooooo.
The message came with a Captain Brasa sticker and an old photo of the two of them at a school birthday party. Equador did not even have that photo. Only memories of that day.
Then he finished eating and went upstairs to his room.
Hermes was already waiting for him, lying on the bed. The black cat meowed insistently. So Equador did not even waste time on his phone before lying down. He completely ignored his computer and his failed online store.
"What is it, Hermes?" Equador murmured. "It's okay, I'm here now."
Equador closed his eyes. It did not take long before he began to dream.
In his dream, he was in his own room. But something was wrong. Equador could see himself lying in bed, asleep, his body breathing slowly under the blanket.
Beside the bed there was no Hermes. Instead, there was a huge black jaguar, silent, watching.
Equador tried to speak, but realized something even stranger: he could pass through walls and any other solid barrier. Confused, he left the room and walked down the boarding house hallway.
Suddenly he passed in front of the room of the strange guests he had seen earlier.
Inside were Zygon, Sofia, and Polaris. But once again, instead of the large young man being human, he was a polar bear dressed in strange clothing and now tinkering with a somewhat old-fashioned computer. The woman who had called herself Sofia had completely silver skin and was largely made of robotic parts rather than flesh and bone as before.
They were speaking in low voices.
"We need to examine the boy," said Sofia.
"We're still not certain," Polaris replied.
"If he truly is the Aquaphoenix's mirror-soul, we cannot take risks," said Sofia.
The older man was sitting on the floor in a meditative posture, with a circle of salt around him and the twelve candles placed around that.
Equador tried to get closer, but something pulled him backward. A strong wind began to blow. A voice, sounding like wind itself, echoed from outside. Calling.
Equador… Equador…
He passed through the wall and went down the boarding house stairs.
When he opened the front door, the world had changed. He was no longer in Atlas.
He was in a gigantic city of gold and white stone. The city was surrounded by a wall so high that whole trees grew on top of it, and there was an opening to the sea. In the center of the city rose a colossal temple. The cries of crowds sounded outside the city. And the sounds of explosions and metallic clashes rang without ceasing. Spaceships flew from within the city toward a sky that held a full moon and several dark gray clouds. At the top of the temple, a blue star shone intensely. Beautiful as it was, Equador felt an enormous pressure of foreboding in his chest.
The star began to rise.
Then it exploded.
A wave of darkness swallowed the sky. The whole Earth was consumed by shadow.
And then came the roar.
A deep feline roar that seemed to come from the real world.
Equador returned to his room in fright. The room was dark. And three figures were bent over him, with strange devices in their hands. Like monsters.
When he suddenly woke up, all three of them were startled.
The devices fell to the floor.
Polaris took a step back and Sofia froze. Zygon stood motionless. Equador looked at them, confused.
"What are you doing in my room?"
The jaguar that had appeared in his dream was real and was there, on top of the enormous polar bear, who now looked terrified while the beast kept its fangs buried in his shoulder. In a single brutal motion, the jaguar had sunk its teeth into the flesh of the bear's shoulder, making him recoil with a muffled roar.
Equador still struggled to understand what he was seeing.
"Hermes? Where is my cat?"
The jaguar slowly turned its head toward him.
"Calm down, Equador. I'm here. It's me. I won't hurt you."
Equador put a hand to his head, feeling his heart pound.
"I must be going crazy… or delirious."
Then the older man stepped forward and spoke in a deep voice full of surprise.
"Hermetic warrior of the City of the Sun. I thought you had departed forever."
The jaguar moved its head slowly, as if recognizing those words.
"So did I. But the Blue Star brought me back."
The eyes were the same ones he knew.
It was Hermes.
The cat who was now a jaguar.
Silence filled the room for a few moments. Then the woman who had earlier appeared to be a robot came a little closer to Equador's bed.
"Before anything else, I think we owe you the truth. The boy understands nothing."
The robot-woman's skin gleamed, reflecting any light in the room as though it were made of living metal. Her hair shimmered in blue-aqua and pink tones, giving off a faint glow that softly lit the room.
Equador watched everything without being able to say a word, as though the whole world had changed shape in just a few seconds.
Equador was still sitting on the bed, trying to understand everything that had just happened, when the older man took a step forward and spoke calmly.
"Equador," said the man called Zygon. "I am Zygon, the great mage of the city of Oblivion, and we came from the center of the Earth to find a human connected to an ancient legend who lives between the sun and the sea. So we concluded that it was you."
Equador frowned.
"An ancient legend?"
Then the bear spoke, still pressing a hand to his wounded shoulder.
"Yes. The legend of the Aquaphoenix, the creature of fortune and pronoia. It was supposed to be born, but it was not. So the only possibility was that something had happened to that creature's mirror-soul."
Equador rubbed his face, confused.
"Of fortune and pronoia… I don't really know what pronoia is, but fortune has nothing to do with me, you can be sure of that. I think you've made a mistake."
The robotic-looking woman moved closer to him with a curious look.
"I am ninety-eight percent certain that it is you, dear."
She placed her hand over Equador's body. At that same instant, the blue-aqua light that came from that strange cellphone began to shine intensely, reflecting in her eyes and hair.
When her hand passed over Equador's chest, the light remained steady. But when it passed over his stomach, the sound of the device changed.
A low, strange sound.
Like the crackling of a bonfire.
The blue light began to tremble and then changed color. The woman's hair and eyes began reflecting an intense orange light, like flames.
She slowly raised her head.
"I believe I found the anomaly."
Zygon sighed and looked directly at Equador.
"I'm sorry to disturb you before the right time, but we need your help. Something happened to the Aquaphoenix down below, and our only hope of winning an intergalactic war and returning to the surface depends on you."
Equador shook his head.
"I'm sorry. I don't know how powerful this magical creature of yours is, but I wasn't born magical or anything like that. Quite the opposite. I'm all defective. I can't do half the things normal humans my age can do, and I'm always sick. You probably found the unluckiest boy in Atlas. I don't have a shred of luck."
Zygon suddenly began to laugh.
"Oh, boy. Luck is horrid and disgusting. It feeds on people like a leech. Do not wish that on yourself."
Then he pointed to Equador's waist.
"Besides, it makes sense that you're always so sick. You swallowed a Dark Phoenix. I do not know how or why, but you were unable to digest it and now it is trapped in your waist."
Equador's eyes widened.
Zygon continued naturally.
"We'll need to take you to Oblivion to remove it. Perhaps when the Dark Phoenix comes out, the Aquaphoenix's blockage will disappear. You return to the surface and everything becomes perfect again."
Equador looked at the three of them, still stunned by everything he had heard.
"How am I supposed to go to the center of the Earth? My mother needs me here. She won't be back for another week."
Zygon smiled calmly.
"That won't be a problem. Nothing the matter-fold necklace can't solve."
He pulled a strange necklace from his pocket, something that seemed to hold a small compass in its structure. The piece had old metallic details and symbols Equador had never seen before.
Zygon took the boy's hand.
"I only need a single drop."
With the tip of the compass, he pricked Equador's finger.
"Ouch!"
A small drop of blood appeared, and Zygon touched the compass to it before placing the necklace around Equador's neck.
At that exact moment, something impossible happened.
Another Equador appeared beside the bed, lying in exactly the same position.
Equador jumped backward.
"What the hell is that?"
Zygon answered as though it were the most normal thing in the world.
"It's you."
Equador looked at the copy.
"How is that me?"
"He freezes when you're near and goes back to normal when you leave. He'll be you here while you're down below."
Equador stared at the motionless body on the bed.
But Zygon continued.
"Think carefully. If you come with us, you will stop getting sick, and you'll be able to see that you've always been the most fortunate and never needed treacherous luck."
Polaris made a face.
"Ugh. Luck."
Zygon went on.
"And you'll be back before your mother returns. I assure you. Time passes differently in Oblivion."
Equador still looked incredulous.
"You really want to take me to the center of the Earth?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Zygon answered as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Flying. In a spaceship."
Then he looked at a small device on his wrist.
"In fact, as fast as possible. The London portal will be closing in a few hours."
Sofia was already moving toward the door.
"Hurry. Bring warm clothes."
Equador blinked.
"Warm clothes? It's blazing hot!"
Sofia answered without looking back.
"It's winter in London."