Black Mirror

Chapter 20 - Midnight City

There's more screaming all around me. Who's getting hurt? I look up and all around, trying to get split-second glimpses of my friends. Gabe, Jay, and Ariel are struggling to get to their feet. Park scrambles out from underneath the front desk, swearing furiously as he gazes at the tablet's screen.

"I'll take that," Penner says. "Not nice to take what's not yours, Dominic." As he grabs the tablet, I see static all over the screen, like the video connection's been severed.

Wait a second.

"Kensi?" I stand up, my legs wobbling. "Kensi? Kensi! Where are you?"

"Fionna! Over here!" Jesus, she sounds like she's in pain - and when I move from the spot where I hit the floor, I see why. She was unlucky enough to hit the floor on a spot where a steel I-beam came down.

The beam hasn't touched her, thank God, but she's hurt anyway. Her arm's folded under her torso, and I'm pretty damn sure it's broken. I spare a moment to cover my mouth, gasping in horror from imagining the sight of her arm bending in a way it shouldn't. And so she doesn't hear me hyperventilating, even though she probably can't because she's hyperventilating herself.

"Kensi...?"

"Help me." She tries to sit up and relieve some of the pressure of her own weight on her arm, but she can't do it without crying out.

"I got you, I got you..." Half-blinded by tears, I grab her good arm, bend my knees, and pull her up. She bites her lip, struggling to keep in a scream, but she stands up on her own. Then she pulls away from me so she can cradle her broken arm. "H-How bad is it?"

"At least my bones aren't sticking out."

"Which ones are broken? Both bones?" I snap my fingers, trying to recall freshman-year health class. "Radius? Ulna?"

"Yeah. Both."

I'd hug her, but I'm afraid I'd hurt her more. So I lay my arm over her shoulder and call out to the room at large, "Anyone else hurt?"

Everyone else says "No!"

Everyone except Penner, who's been standing idly by the whole time, curiously unfazed by everything around him.

Including the long shards of what look like frosted, textured Plexiglas from the remains of the ceiling panels that used to filter the overhead lights.

Shards which stick out of his collarbone, blood pooling around the points where they're embedded in his body.

"Uh...Kensi? I thought you were the one who got hurt. So why am I hallucinating?"

She blinks a couple of times. "No, no, I see it...I see it too."

Penner finally figures out what's wrong. He looks down at the shards, but his expression doesn't change. Not even for a second. All he does is pull the shards out, looking as nonchalant as when he walked in. Minus the whistling, and thank God, because that would just be too creepy for words. Not that he's not creepy enough.

I swear to God, Penner's not a living thing. He must be a robot.

A bloody Terminator.

I expect to see vintage-1991 CGI liquid metal healing his wounds any second now. No such luck, though. Unless he's not inclined to show off his secret powers?

"How could you?" It's Park, and he's almost lost his voice. He sounds like he's spent hours screaming himself hoarse.

Penner lays the shards on the front desk. "Here's the thing. We could never convince Russell to stand back and let us do our work. Work which Ariel here was now interfering with - I, for one, suspect he was in contact with Russell all along."