***GABE***
"Maybe now you'll let me do a little bit of that light-virus purging?" Kaufman asks me, sounding uncharacteristically concerned.
"Maybe," I say. "But only 'cause I'm too scared of what'll happen if you don't. Pros and cons to weigh and all that shit." I kneel next to Harris, who's finally starting to stir back up to the land of the after-living. "Buddy? Come on, tell me you're okay."
He reaches up with two fingers. "Haha, these were on your other cheeks, like, an hour ago..."
Aditya grimaces at the thought. "Yeah, he's awake."
"Barely." I take Harris' hand and lower it to the floor, then help him sit up. "Harris, I'm so-"
"Sorry? You shouldn't be, 'cause that wasn't you, Sweaty Elf Boy."
Behind my back, I hear Kaufman pretending to gag. And I'm supposed to let that guy touch my face? Well, beggars can't be bloody choosers. I incline my head just enough to let him reach up and finally do the virus-purging thing. It makes my head vibrate horribly, but only for a second. I just have to treat it like getting a shot - a necessary bit of pain.
"Should you do the same for TJ?" I ask Kaufman when he's done working on me. "Just in case."
"Yeah, I'll see what I can do. Though if I run this kind of current through his head when there's nothing in there to chase out, the effects might be a little unwanted."
"Unwanted like how?" asks Yash.
"Something like...let's just say, you know how pharmaceutical companies do drug tests?" Kaufman asks. "They sometimes pay healthy people to take their pills."
"You say that like it's not done around these parts," Javi says pointedly.
"There's not nothing in his head," I say. "TJ? You okay with getting a brain cleaning?"
"How thorough? If I lose the ability to ride a bike-"
"You won't." Kaufman raises his hands, ready to go. "I may be a blunt instrument, but not when it comes to shit like this."
While he gets to work on my cousin, I sit back next to Harris and embrace him, kissing his cheek gently. "I'm so sorry-"
"What do you gotta be sorry for?" he says forcefully. "Seriously, I don't need you to feel that way. You're a good man, Gabe Snow."
"Then don't tell me that like I'm Charlie Brown."
"Done," Kaufman announces to the room at large. "So we're all safe from this guy's brain virus. Now what?"
"Let's think," says Aditya, tapping his chin. "We're dealing with a dangerously gifted technopath. What's the best way to get to him without him getting the drop on us?"
"Without tech," says Yash.
"Gee, thanks for answering my rhetorical question."
"You're missing the point," I tell Yash. "How much do we have to de-techify ourselves if we're to approach him?"
"What?" TJ gasps. "Who says we're actually gonna-"
"I dunno about you..." Kaufman's voice trails off as he stares up to the ceiling. "But you know what? I could do with getting to know some of this asshole's secrets. Personally, I never thought he had any worth giving up till now-"
"Then what the hell were we doing keeping him here?" Javi asks pointedly.
Kaufman crosses his arms. "Just following orders."
"From whom? The military-industrial complex, right?"
"Of a sort."
Javi snorts and leans against the wall, scratching his knuckles against his chest and pretending to check his fingernails. "Gringos."
"I just put him here 'cause they told me to," Kaufman says. "Don't you..." He looks at me, in particular, snapping his fingers. "Don't you know who I'm talking about? You've worked with them a lot in the past. The Troys and their people."
"I haven't actually worked with them in a while," I say. "Not since...not since the Black Mirror."
"But that wasn't so long ago," Harris points out.
"Not as long ago as I'd like." I tighten my grip on his hand, trying not to remember my initial terror when, after Fionna had used the Mirror, Harris had vanished. Time travel, it's such sticky shit. Even though, technically, it wasn't actually time travel, not when any of us actually went anywhere. We just looked into the past through a special window.
And now I'm starting to wonder, for the first time since I left the Parks' lab, about their discovery with the space rocks. Is that, perhaps, what the Black Mirror was really made of? Enchanted meteorites instead of enchanted obsidian? All we had to go on about the Mirror's main material was what Russell - and Dana Jackson's scriv - told us. Did any of us actually go down and explore the mines from which they supposedly got the rock to hew the Mirror? Now I want to go back up to Washington and do so myself, just to see. I mean, as screwy as the science for Dan Brown's Deception Point was, it's taught me a lot about meteorites, enough that I think I could recognize the geological signs of an impact.
Washington, though. Such a long way away. Look at how long it took us to get there last time, and that was because Russell insisted on leading us on a merry chase up and down the western US. Literally, stopping in no less than four states before returning to California. Looking back, all I can think about is how silly some of his schemes were. Not to speak ill of the dead. Or undead, if that's what he is while he's languishing in that Third 'Verse pod and knowing nothing but a fully immersive dream world.
Javi's already removing his phone and leaving it on the table where Aditya was sitting before. "I got a bone or two to pick with this guy," he says. "And I don't have light powers, so he can't fuck with me like he's doing with everyone else."
"Not everyone," Harris says. "He can't get to me."
"He already did." I rub his head gently.
"Indirectly," Harris says. "And if you apologize for it again, I'm gonna punch yours and knock you unconscious for a bit. Then you'll really be sorry." He winks at me, but I'm still not unconvinced he won't do it for real.
"I'm going with you," I say.
All around me, everyone cries "NO!" But nobody does so louder than Harris.
"Because I wanna see his face when I punch it," I say. "I'm allowed to do that, right?"
Kaufman clicks his tongue. "I'd have to be there to bear witness to something that never happened, you know what I mean?"
"See, he gets it." I take my own phone out of my pocket and lay it next to Javi's. "Harris, come on. You wanna come with or not?"
"Don't do this," he begs me. "You're just opening yourself up to another attack."
"I can't just run away from everything that threatens my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."
Harris chuckles, then scoffs, like he can't decide whether or not to appreciate my wit. "Who told you it's not manly to run away sometimes?"
"This isn't about me being a man-"
"Which you're not," Kaufman says. "You're not of age, right? So you're still a boy. Don't feel the need to elevate yourself-"
My fingers spark as I let Harris go and turn on Kaufman. "You wanna come with us too? Then don't insult me, dipshit."
There's a spurt of static on the computer screen, and the camera feed from Penner's cell returns. Grainy, but still there.
"Turn that off!" Yash orders Aditya.
"On it!" Aditya runs back to the chair, ready to get typing.
Before he can make a single keystroke, though, I see something in the corner of the frame. A little object falling through an air vent high on the wall. Small, shiny, and red. Not the first time I've seen this before.
"Sangrite," I breathe.
"Say what now?" Harris asks.
Everyone else jumps and races out of the room, and Harris and I are quick to follow. The last thing we hear is Penner's voice saying, "Ironic that you're using this against me, isn't it?" Then the sound is cut off when Kaufman smashes his open palm on a red button, triggering an endlessly whooping siren that echoes throughout the whole structure.
The elevator can't take us up quickly enough, so we all race up the stairs. Those of us who can fly take wing, and those who can't have to hop onto the back of someone who can. Which means I find myself carrying Yash on my back through the narrow gap between both sides of the stairs as they keep on rising, tens of stories back up to the surface.
By the time we're out of the building, I expect to see signs of a subterranean fire or explosion - like, smoke pouring from one of the exhaust vents or something. But no, there's nothing.
"How come nothing's happened?" I ask everyone. "You all saw what I saw, right? Sangrite on the floor? That shit should've blown up by now!"
"Maybe it was a trick," says Yash.
"Could be," Kaufman chimes in. "Sangrite and rubies, they're practically indistinguishable at a glance."
"Certified gemologists often have trouble telling them apart," says Aditya.
Kaufman's phone, which he hadn't left behind downstairs like Javi and I did with ours, goes off. Thankfully, we only have to hear his clanging old-fashioned ringtone for two seconds or so before he seizes the phone from his holster and answers it. "What? Talk to me!" Pause. "Shit!" He hangs up and takes off running again, his hand on his chest like it's hurting him. "Run! Everyone fucking run! NOW!"
"Run where?" I ask.
"And why?" asks TJ.
Kaufman points towards the woods outside the city. "Missile inbound!"
"What's he talking...oh. Oh God!" Harris points as well as he sees a small trail of smoke rise above the treetops.
Yash climbs on my back again, and Aditya climbs on Harris', then we all fly away to the north until we're out of sight of the prison. All except for Kaufman, who stays behind, likely to supervise the ongoing evacuation - as little time left as there is for it.
Out of sight, but not out of range of the shock wave of the missile's impact, which nearly flattens us all with so much pressure and decibels. As it is, when we're on the ground again, I'm not sure I'm able to get back up at first. But then Yash climbs off me and I'm able to stagger up to my feet.
"He didn't make it, did he?" Javi asks.
"Who?" I ask. "Penner? God, I hope not. Even though he was pretty deep down, so..."
"I was talking about my boss."
I take off flying again, just to see what's happened, and immediately, I regret it. The prison no longer exists. In its place is a blazing hole leading straight to Purgatory. A hole easily a quarter mile across.
TJ flies up to me and awkwardly reaches out to put his hand on my shoulder. I can't help that my wing almost buffets him off, but to his credit, he stays by my side with his arm as much in place as he can keep it. "Gabe, dude, there's nothing we can do. Come on, we gotta get back home."
I shake my head once, but then follow him anyway, returning to the ground. I don't follow the rest of the group out of the area just yet, though. I look towards the towering mushroom cloud marking the prison's former site. Mere seconds have gone by since I was down in the building's depths with everyone else. If we hadn't run out when we had, there's no way we'd have survived. Not against a bunker buster like that.
"Where are you gonna go?" Yash asks Javi. "You weren't, uh, living on the job, were you?"
"What, you mean, did I live there? At the prison? No." Javi looks out over the city. "God, and when this hits the news, my wife's gonna be begging me to call her and let her know...listen, guys, if you don't need me, I'm just gonna go home. Okay?"
Yash holds up one hand and sticks his other one into his pocket, pulling out a business card. "If you wanna get in touch," he says. "Something tells me you're not done working with us."
"Yeah," Javi muses. But as he pockets the card himself, I get the feeling he's going to forget it's there until it turns up in his laundry, washed and dried into an illegible mess of pulp. Not that that's a bad thing, really. Sure, it's a good thing to have allies in strange places, but those allies tend to die off. Like Kaufman did, even though I barely think of him as an ally. Mostly because of the bloody awful attitude he wore like a fancy tuxedo.
And he had to die right after helping out me and TJ. How much of a cosmic bad joke is that? If I were less of a devout atheist, I'd take these facts to God and throw them in his face to prove how little he thinks of us all. Not that he'd care, of course.
Without Javi, the rest of us go back to the Terminal gateway in the woods, where Grace is there to welcome us with a bowl of cookies. "I'm surprised you lasted this long without one," she says to TJ as she gives him a plate of white chocolate chip macadamia all to himself. Prodigal son and all that. "You ran through here like a bat out of hell before and completely ignored me-"
"It wasn't me," TJ's quick to say in between bites. "I, uh, wasn't myself."
Grace says nothing, just nods knowingly. She then looks around as Fionna comes out of a nearby door, the one to the Parks' lab, I'm thinking. Fionna sees me first and approaches me with arms outstretched so she can hug me.
"Did you hear what happened?" I ask as she stands on tiptoe to kiss my cheek.
"Something, yeah..." Her voice fades out for a second, then I hear her speak up again. "I didn't know if any of you were gonna come back. Thank God you all did." She checks her phone. "Oh God. They're still..."
"Still what?" asks Harris.
"People evacuating Bearville," Fionna says in a stricken voice. "They don't think that was the only missile."
"It isn't?" asks Yash.
I look back towards the door we came through, contemplating walking back through it just to see for myself if there've been any more strikes. Although if there have, who's to say the door will open onto the woods again? That tree could have been carbonized, or vaporized, or worse, still aflame from whatever the missile's payload was. Nuclear? Shit, I hope not. I don't want to have to surrender myself to an anti-radiation shower. Unless they've improved the technique since the fifties-era stuff they showed in Crystal Skull, which I sincerely doubt given the diminishment of the nuclear threat since then.
"It's not necessarily nuclear," says Grace. "Bunker-busters? They don't need that kind of toxic soup to do their shit. It's more about kinetic energy."
I shake my head. "No, no, no, I-I-I know a thing or two about bombs. Kinetic energy works best when it's a straight shot down. This was coming in over the woods-"
Fionna grabs my shoulders. "Gabe? Calm down."
"No, don't tell me to calm down!" I break away from everyone, running my hands through my hair and panting like a dog.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel the source of this surge of anxiety. A distant connection, growing stronger every second.
Somewhere in Prime, Alex is scared to death and I'm sharing his emotional pain.
But why?
Does he know what's happened here?
Or is there something else happening on his end, even worse than this?
"Gabe, what's going on?" asks Harris. "I'm hearing all sorts of crap from your head, but I can't tell-"
"I need to go back home."
"Yeah, all right, we can go home and rest-"
I shake my head several times and bite my lip, reminding myself of Alex so much. Or maybe my own non-verbality could be infecting him, somehow? Whatever's happening, my entire soul is screaming to get the bloody hell out of here.
"No," I tell Harris. "I mean, home to Prime. My family."
TJ stares at me, coming close to comically dropping the last cookie from his mouth. "You can do that? I didn't think you could do that, otherwise I'd have gone back to my family months ago-"
"Not officially," I tell him as quickly as I can. "But since I can go through the doors on my own...or, well, I could even when I was first alive-"
"No!" I now realize Park's come out of his lab. "Sorry, Gabe, but you gotta stay here until we get a handle on what's going on."
"Stay here? As if! Not when Alex is in trouble!"
Jae follows his brother outside and scoffs at me. "From what I've heard, you guys are always in trouble. He can survive without you a bit longer, don't you think?"
I glare at him until he finally stops smart-mouthing. "You must not love your brother as much as I love mine."
"Whoa, hey, that's uncalled for-"
"Listen!" Park cries. "Let's just keep a cool head and come up with a plan-"
"Oh, you mean, like, how we came up with a plan to steal that space rock?" I gesture wildly at the lab door. "Speaking of which, have you figured out anything else about it?"
As if on cue, Park pulls a piece of white meteorite from his pocket. "Why don't you look and see for yourself?"
He throws the rock at me, and keyed up though I am, I still catch it effortlessly.
In that moment, ten seconds compress into one, and what I see scares me more than anything else I've seen today. A very specific fear of mine, one that haunts my dreams when I'm not sharing them with Alex.
I know I've never shared these dreams with him because if I had, their prophecy likely would've come true months ago.
Alex, lying on a hospital bed identical to the one I woke up in after Leah Cabrera shot me dead.
Alex, the healthy olive tone of his skin swapped out for a sickly gray pallor, and his eyes similarly lightened to a pale, almost milky blue.
Alex, retching, trailing spit and bile from his mouth into a bucket, as happens to everyone first waking up into their Second 'Verse bodies.
I've had these nightmares too many times to count, but never when I've touched these stones that enable me to see through time.
And since the white stones are for future visions...
Paralyzed with unknowable fear, I shut down, convinced I myself am dying all over again.