***GABE***
"Where's the rest of our friends?" TJ asks me. "Fionna, Kensi, and them?"
Yash, who's just shown up again, rolls his eyes behind TJ's back. "If you're gonna forget my name, at least do me the decency of not assuming my gender."
"Where'd you come from?" I ask. "Didn't you...weren't you..."
"The elevator's taking its sweet time to get up here," Yash mutters. "That Javi guy says when it gets reactivated after a long shutdown period, it's not moving at 100% speed. It'll take a couple of minutes for that to happen."
"Is that my fault?" TJ looks so bemused.
Just as we reach the elevator, the lights shut down again for two seconds, then come back on for one second, then flicker repeatedly. After about half a minute, they stay off for good. "Goddammit," I growl. "Penner must've really screwed this shit up." With Yash's helping hands, and TJ lighting the way for us, I force some ice in the gap between the elevator doors and push them open. The elevator is stuck several floors down from us, immobile.
"So who wants to climb down this shaft first?" asks TJ.
I pretend to look around. "Where's Violet Baudelaire when you need her?"
"Not here, 'cause she doesn't exist, I'm afraid." Yash snaps his fingers. "But I think I can do in a pinch." He looks around and finds Javi standing by, his hand on the gun holstered at his hip. "Dude, where's the kitchen?"
"The...oh yeah, this way." Javi beckons us forward. "Lucky you, man, it's on this floor. But what do you need to eat for? Brain food? We don't got too many of that here, we're a prison. Unless you're talkin' 'bout the chili, 'cause I'm pretty sure that shit's got actual mad cow brains in it-"
Yash sticks his fingers into his mouth and pretends to gag himself with a spoon. "No, that's not cow brains, that's cow's arse. Shredded strips of a cow's-"
"All right, all right, I get it. You young millennial vegetarians and your guacamole bull-"
"It's not just 'cause I'm a millennial-"
"And don't tell me I'm Mexican and should know all about guac, I'm not even Mexican, I'm Salvadoran-"
"Guys. Guys. GUYS!" I yell until they both shut up. Almost meekly, Javi unlocks the galley for us and stands aside so we can file in. "All right, Yash, what's the plan?" I ask. TJ bobs his head furiously as he nods along with me. He keeps his mouth shut, though, like he's afraid if he'll speak up, Penner will hijack his vocal chords again.
"Step 1, get ahold of all the donut batter and saffron this place has to offer." Yash starts doing so, raiding the pantry and tossing anything he doesn't need over his shoulder, heedless of how dirty he's now making the floor by dropping boxes full of Cheetos and Fritos bags. "Step 2, find a pot to cook it all in. Step 3, demonstrate my superpower for you guys at last, 'cause I know it's been on all your minds."
TJ finally opens his mouth with a well-placed joke. "Step 4, profit?"
I fist-bump him. "Couldn't have said it better myself."
Javi side-steps Yash and his avalanche of the worst of the mass-manufactured chip world. And here I thought a lot of the big brand names from Nabisco and shit were harder to come by around here. "Special imports," I remember Russell used to call them. "You said saffron?" He reaches into the pantry and plucks a small container from one of those spinning spice racks full of ingredients nobody ever uses for anything. In my family, that is.
Yash eyeballs the container and scoffs. "L'Aquila saffron? Please. Indian saffron or bust!"
"It's all we got," Javi says with a scoff of his own.
If I know Yash, he'll play the hand he's dealt. And he does, though not without a bit of teeth grinding and muttering "Beggars can't be choosers." And also, "If my mom knew I was gonna make this with white-people ingredients...and why the hell do you guys have L'Aquila saffron anyway? Isn't that supposed to be, like, premium?"
"Only in Prime," says Javi.
"Sorry." Yash lays the saffron on the counter. "My mistake."
"Donut batter?" I ask as TJ and I join Yash in the pantry raid. "That's oddly specific."
"Would pancake batter do?" TJ points to a crate full of boxes of just that.
Yash opens the crate and lays a box next to the saffron. "Fine, I suppose. We're totally not following the recipe here, but whatever. This ain't meant for eating anyway."
"Then what's it meant for?" I ask. "Your secret superpower?"
"Not exactly. My secret superpower will make it ready for what it's meant for, though."
"Stop being cryptic and tell us already," I mutter.
"Or," Yash says super-dramatically, "I can just show you." He waves his hands over the pancake batter and the saffron, then the contents start pouring out of their respective containers. A pair of disembodied brown hands, looking like Yash's but transparent and ghostly, are lifting these containers and transferring them into the pot Javi's just laid down on the stovetop. "Couldn't be bothered to turn it on?" Yash asks with a withering look at Javi. "Even with these extra hands, I couldn't do it myself."
I bend down to look more closely at Yash's hands. His real ones, not the spectral ones. His fingertips are glowing white, like he's ready to unleash a few bolts of elemental light. But it's not light he's doing, not when he's actually moving the ingredients for this...whatever this food is going to be. Telekinesis? As far as I'm aware, it's rare in Second, virtually nonexistent in Prime, but maybe it's a standard power where Yash is from, like elementals for people like me.
"It's time manipulation." Yash's disembodied hands drop the ingredients into the pot, then we see them hurriedly forming them into the desired shape, about a hundred times faster than normal. "Well, if you wanna get really technical about it, space-time. But let's not get really technical. I'd lose you guys in, like, four seconds flat. Three in his case," he adds, jerking his thumb at TJ.
"What's that supposed to mean?" TJ asks.
"Just that your mind might not be operating at full capacity while ol' Simon Penner's monkeying around in there. Now be quiet. I need to focus." Yash wipes some sweat from his eyebrow, and the time manipulation simulation - whatever the hell it is - slows down briefly while he's got one hand otherwise occupied.
In spite of Yash's request, I do have one more question. "Can you, uh, slow things down too?"
"Yeah, I can." He wipes his eyebrow again, this time with his other hand. "But it takes a hell of a lot of precision, so...it's not really useful for fighting. Sorry." In only a minute or so, he finishes the job, and sitting in the pot is a tangled mass of what looks like thin, translucent golden pretzels. "Mmm," he says with a hearty sniff as his apparition-hands fade away. "Just like my mom makes. Better than the stuff she buys in North Spellman. That shit's good, but not homemade good, you get it?"
"What is this shit?" asks Javi.
"Hey, only I get to call it shit." Yash hoists the pot in both hands. "Someone get me a Tupperware or something. I can't carry this pot all day, not when it's hot enough to burn my junk off if I let it slip enough."
"But you'd rather burn your abs, huh?" TJ cracks, earning himself a fist-bump from me.
"Not literally, ideally, but I'ma risk it."
"But what's it called?" I ask.
"Yeah, you didn't answer," Javi chimes in as he hands Yash the Tupperware.
As Yash crams as much of the sweet-smelling pretzel-y stuff into the plastic box, he takes a taste, chews for a moment, then says, "Jalebi. Here, have a taste, but not too much. It's been known to get people hopelessly hooked."
"Hmm," says TJ. "Where'd Leigh Bardugo go from 'jalebi' to 'jurda,' then?" He pronounces it like how it looks to us English speakers.
"It's 'your-da,'" Yash corrects him. "And that stuff's supposed to be more like tobacco or opium anyway. Something more socially acceptable in the 19th century than now. Unlike sugar."
"All right, I get it..." TJ holds up his hands. "So what's the point of all this if we're not gonna eat it? 'Cause let me tell you, I'm seriously tempted."
"I said not too much!" Yash shoots angry looks at both TJ and at Javi, the latter having already dipped his fingers into the Tupperware and snagged a sizable piece of jalebi. "Oh crap, it's getting hard already."
"That's what she said." TJ earns strange looks from everyone. "What?" he asks two seconds later. "What did I say?"
"Doesn't make much sense, huh?" Javi asks.
I try not to think about whether or not TJ's ill-timed joke is a sign of further side effects from Penner's mind control. "What are you gonna do with this stuff, huh?" I ask Yash.
"I'm sure you know all about Spider-Man, right?" Yash shakes the Tupperware for a moment, then puts it down to help Javi push the elevator doors open.
"Um...yeah?" I cock my head. "But what does this sweet shit have to do with him? Didn't know he was a fan."
"He lives in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in any 'verse and you think he has no idea what jalebi is?"
"I didn't either, until today." TJ nods along with me. Javi, however, doesn't. Maybe he's seen this stuff before? Then again, he's older, so it stands to reason he's had more good experiences in life.
"Point," Yash concedes. "But think of it like this - the jalebi is Spidey's webs. What's his signature trick with 'em?" He opens the Tupperware and pulls out a length of sticky, dripping jalebi, which he throws against the other side of the shaft so it forms a long rope of sorts. "Here, take this back," he tells me.
"Back where?" I ask as he puts the Tupperware in my hands.
"Just take it back a few feet," he says. "Enough so I have some slack and I can drop myself down a bit."
I see what he's got in mind now, and I'm not so sure I'm down with this plan. "Dude, are you sure this shit can take your weight?"
"It's not Spidey's webs for real," Javi points out.
"You think I don't know that? I'm improvising here! I need to find my brother! Stop questioning me and help me the bloody hell out!"
I have barely enough time to jump back about a yard or so with the Tupperware still in my hands, more jalebi spilling out like a mass of baby Metal Heads. (Do Metal Heads even have babies? I've kinda forgotten, having not played Jak and Daxter since before I died.) Barely enough time before Yash takes a leap into the shaft. Not even a "Geronimo" or an "Allons-y," just a jump. I bite my lip, not daring to breathe as I watch a long moment of no Yash. No sight nor sound of him, except maybe the sound of his feet impacting on the shaft's metal walls. Or maybe that's just my own heartbeat in my ears.
"It's working!" he calls up.
"Yeah, for now," TJ mutters.
"I heard that, dude! Follow me down, if you got the balls!"
I look around at the other dudes, then shrug and say, "I'll go first."
"Really?" TJ scoffs. "You trying to prove something, cuz? You don't gotta-"
"No, he's right," Javi says. "After Yash, he's the tallest. We shouldn't be doing this thing top-heavy, you know what I mean?"
"So you're gonna be the last, then," TJ says. Under his breath, I hear him add in a suspiciously Penner-ish whisper, "Fucking coward."
"Excuse me, pendejo-"
I jump between TJ and Javi before a fight can break out. "Boss, remember, his mind isn't all his own."
Javi shakes his head, as does TJ, who I'm thinking is clearing Penner out again for a moment. "Then why the hell do we gotta drag his ass around? Put him somewhere safe where he can't hurt himself. Or us." He gestures all around, three hundred and sixty degrees in just about every direction. "I mean, kid, we're in a prison. We got plenty of places to stash him."
I fix him with my fiercest glare and, calling on what I've learned of his ancestral tongue from Harris, tell him, "No toca mi familia."
Javi rolls his eyes. "It's no toque, not toca. Easy gringo mistake."
"Well, I'm learning my Spanish secondhand, so..." I watch as the jalebi slips further down the shaft, Yash's weight continuing to pull it as he climbs on down. Carefully moving my long legs over and around the stuff, I lower myself into the shaft and look down to see Yash already about five feet ahead. Copying his rope-climbing position to the best of my ability, I place my feet against the shaft wall and start awkwardly maneuvering myself down.
"Is now a bad time to suggest maybe someone with flight skills be the lowest?" I call down to Yash. "In case someone falls and I can hold them up?"
"I could too," TJ chimes in. I look up to see him poking his head through the elevator doors and flashing me a thumbs-up.
"Good idea," says Yash, "but I'd rather keep my own powers in practice, thanks. Making all this jalebi in less than two minutes relative? That took a lot out of me."
I let myself slide down a little faster, then hear TJ climb in after me. "Then wouldn't you just exhaust yourself more?" he asks.
"I swear," Yash grumbles, "you want me to make 'Point.' my catchphrase."
"What else could it be, Yashi-ji?" He says that last part in what sounds less like an Indian accent and more like the unholy love child of Russian, Arabic, and Penner.
Yash stops short. "Tell me you didn't just-"
"I got this." I climb up a little more and approach TJ as closely as I can. "Dude, you gotta work harder to get Penner out. Look at the shit he's making you say!"
"What?" TJ asks, confused as ever.
If I had both my hands free to palm my damn face... "Penner, if you're still in there, your little stereotypical demon act isn't working. No one around here thinks you're funny."
"I dunno," says Javi as he joins us on the climb. "I could look back on that guy calling me a coward and have a laugh later. 'Cause of the irony." He plants his feet against the wall, then adds, "Oh, by the way, your box of candy's almost ready to fall in, so..."
"Pull some more out," Yash says. "And pray it doesn't draw taut on us. If so, it'd probably wanna cut all our balls."
As it is, I'm feeling the jalebi rope coming dangerously close to mine. Yash is right. With the way we're all forced to straddle this stuff, even if it's lightweight material, it's straying into some very sensitive territory. Especially for Yash, because as the rope passes between his legs, it goes up in front of him, towards where the rest of us are holding on, and also behind him, up the wall uninterrupted to the open doors above our heads.
Javi obeys Yash's order, then pretends to drop the jalebi, box and all, down the shaft. "Don't even," Yash says.
"If you kill me again," I growl at Javi, "you're next." I swear he calls me a faggot in Spanish, but I have better things to do than chew his head off for it. Changing tack, I ask, "How many floors down do we have to go?"
"Not sure," Javi says tersely. He's looking down at me like he's going to puke. Is he afraid of heights? Especially in these cramped quarters where, even if he had wings, they wouldn't do him much good. Not when they wouldn't be capable of reaching full span. "All the way, from the way you talk about this puto Penner."
"Do you just call any guy you don't like a faggot?" I ask, him having finally gotten a rise out of me.
"Nah, I called him a bitch."
"I thought that was puta," says TJ.
"Puto, puta. Same word, different gender. Least that's how it is in my head."
"Note to self," Yash says. "Advise your boss to sign you up for sensitivity training."
"Listen, sweetheart," Javi says with a loud, false laugh, "this is a motherfucking prison. Sensitivity will get you no-fucking-where faster than you can fall to the center of the planet, which I'm pretty sure is where Kaufman keeps his office."
"Well then, have fun when you inevitably find yourself brought up on harass-"
Yash's retort ends when we hear a snapping noise over our heads. Ours, but not Javi's. He's still holding onto the Tupperware, so all the jalebi is under his head. Including the segments that have just broken between him and TJ. Everyone else drops an inch or two, uncontrollably. Hell, so does Javi as our combined weight brings him down.
"Nobody move!" Yash says. "Here, let me-"
He moves. To use his powers, I know, but still, it's more than enough to dislodge another piece of jalebi and break it.
"Can I move?" TJ asks. "I got an idea." Before Yash, or anyone else, can answer, TJ places one hand on the elevator cable and sends a few pulses of light into it. The cable begins moving, pulling the elevator up towards us with painful slowness.
"This'd be a really nice time for one of us to-" Javi begins, only for the rest of the jalebi to break and cut him off as we all start to fall.
Below me, Yash windmills his arms, screaming in terror.
Above me, TJ's stuck to the elevator cable, electric light flowing from his hands into the swiftly running metal.
My own fingertips crackle as the lightning sparks and arcs my way too. Acting on pure instinct, I raise my hand and find myself connected, through TJ's light, to the elevator cable as well.
Wait, not his light.
Mine.
The energy's flowing out of me, an uncomfortable pins-and-needles sensation. I'm not redirecting his power like I initially suspect. It's all me here. We're independently powering this cable now, both of us.
And with more voltage, the elevator's rising that much faster to meet us.
Yash impacts on the elevator's roof first, with the rest of us following in short order. None of us do so gracefully, but at least none of us do so with injury either.
"Okay, that was really nice of you guys," Javi says, "but...we're kinda going the wrong way."
"Gotcha." TJ rotates his wrist and brings the elevator to a stop. "Gabe? Uh, maybe you could, I dunno...you're pushing the elevator up, and I'm trying to bring it down, and we're too evenly-"
"Whoa, sorry!" I copy his wrist twist. "I didn't know...I-I didn't even..."
"Yeah, I was about to ask," he says brightly. "Since when are you a light elemental?"
"I'm not," I say automatically in spite of the snow-white plasma flowing from my fingers into the cable.
With his one free hand, TJ gently punches my upper arm. "Incredibly good timing, buddy."
I nod wanly. As cool as my new power is, I'm more than a little scared, especially since that means I'm probably now as vulnerable to Penner's mind control shit as TJ is.
But for now, I have to leave myself open to such an attack, mingling light with TJ to bring us down to our friends. All for the greater good.
And hey, bonus, now I can hit Penner with a taste of his own medicine next time I see him.