***ALEX***

The truck with the Black Mirror on it - we think - is already at least a mile out by the time we're well and truly on the move. But that's what the V8-powered Taurus is for, and the rest of us with our wings. Even Kelly, wearing artificial wings for the first time ever, has no trouble keeping up with me and Gideon in flight. And she's got such a light-up-the-sun smile from it.

God, she's got a lovely smile. How did I not notice before? I could watch it all day.

But I can't. I've got work to do, just like everyone else around here. It'll be all on me to weaponize the water against the Peppermint truck, wherever and whenever we catch up to it after its considerable head start. How long will that be? I'd calculate it off the top of my head if I were any better as a polymath.

Once again, I'm bummed that I'm not blessed with Peter Parker's intelligence. And certainly not Gwen Stacy's.

But I can make a good estimate. The truck's got a head start of about five or six minutes, but it can't travel as fast as we can. Maybe fifty miles an hour at the most. We're going ninety, easy. Good for us in the air. Dangerous for the Taurus, especially if the mountain roads are as windy in this 'verse as they are back home...but then, going west from Bearville, they'll be descending into the San Joaquin Valley very soon, and the road wouldn't be so windy there.

By the time we got out of the wall, they would have been maybe five miles out. At ninety miles an hour, it would take us a little over three minutes to travel that same distance, by which time they'd be two and a half miles ahead. At minute four, we'd be at six miles, and they'd be at...two miles ahead?

Okay, so maybe it'll take at least six minutes to catch up at our current speed.

I think that'd still be too long, though.

I tap the earpiece embedded deep in my ear. It's uncomfortable as hell - how do the cast of Person of Interest wear these damn things? Give me my faithful Music Junkie earbuds any day. Faithful until they cheat on me with the pocket elves and get fucked into oblivion, that is. "How much faster can we go?" I ask the group at large.

"As fast as we need," says Ty. "We're pushing triple digits right now."

Really? I could have sworn we were going more like ninety. Or eighty-eight. "Can we do 120?"

"That'd probably wear out Kelly's wingsuit," Freddie warns us.

Kelly considers it. "I'll take that risk." She's the first to fly faster, and way down below, I see the Taurus speed up, Ty taking the curves like a champ.

"You sure you've only raced once or twice before?" I ask.

"You know I play a lot of Need for Speed, bro!" Ty keeps on weaving the car expertly around the curves. "WHOO! Living the dream!"

I turn to Gideon, who shrugs and says, "All the points for enthusiasm." Then we streak through the sky (oh God, why'd I say "streak?" It's not like we're naked or anything), accelerating to match Kelly and Ty both. And Freddie, I suppose, though he's playing a pretty passive role at the moment.

Now that we're going a little faster, maybe we'll have shaved a minute or two off our chase time. Not that we'd notice, because we're only in one universe, one timeline. But we'd probably find out if the Peppermint people really work the Black Mirror and plunge us all into some other, more alternative timeline. Gabe and I would probably be the only ones who'd notice, in that case, because of our general immunity to space-time bullshit.

The woods start to thin out, giving way to rolling hills covered in scrubby grass. The Merced River continues to flow alongside the road, which I follow with my eyes until I see it. The truck. It's continuing to travel on a straight road a few miles ahead, somewhere in the general direction of San Francisco. Or perhaps San Jose. Is Peppermint a Silicon Valley company? I'll need to ask Freddie or Paul at some point.

But anyway... "Guys!" I point at the truck in the distance. "We can cut over the woods and cut 'em off ahead!"

"I'm down for it if you are," says Gideon.

Kelly's good with it too. Once again, she's the first to get ahead of the game, flying out towards the truck. Both the Jacksons, really, they're so eager to help.

Right before we leave the woods behind at last, Kelly lets her hands dangle down. Looking down, I see a huge amount of moss sneak off the tree trunks and follow her, hovering about five feet off the ground like an airborne feather boa. It only gets more feathery in appearance when she starts picking up grass as well, forming herself a massive rope of braided plant life. That rope, she forms into a giant lasso, swinging it cowgirl-style until she throws it and snags the very back of the truck.

I'm not even sure how she did it, but then again, my elemental is water, not land.

Even so, though, Kelly's not-inconsiderable physical strength isn't enough to keep her from getting dragged along when the truck accelerates to try and shake her and her lasso off. "This is gonna put a strain on the engines! Literally!" She's tugging on the moss-and-grass lasso, her arms stretched taut, her muscles working to their limit. And her mechanical wings are beating way too quickly, like they're attached to a hummingbird.

"Gideon!" I point ahead of the truck. "Get ahead of them!"

"On it!" He swoops under Kelly's rope, getting a bit of tall grass in his face as he does so.

"Where's he going?" Kelly asks.

"Probably to make a sinkhole in the road." My eyes flick over to the river, but it's on the other side of the road. "I can't do anything from here, but I don't wanna leave you alone-"

"No, no, no." I can barely hear her speak through her gritted teeth. "Don't hang around here. I'm good."

"You sure?"

"I swear."

I still don't want to leave her, but if she's cool with it, I'm needed elsewhere. "All right, Kelly. Stay strong."

"Can't do anything else!" she calls after me as I start to cross the road.

No sooner do I put my head over the asphalt, though, than the truck's back door slides up and reveals a pair of black-suited commando-types armed with what look like submachine guns. "SHIT!" I immediately fly back with only milliseconds to spare before they open fire.

Wait. Not submachine guns. The rate of fire is way too fast. These are more like miniguns, but they're actually mini, relatively speaking. And they're not vomiting spent bullet casings all over the place either. Well, at least that means they don't have to police their brass, since they have none...but how do they have none to begin with?

Then it hits me.

When Gabe and I were really young - like, eight years old young - our favorite show wasn't SpongeBob or iCarly or anything else kids our age dug. It was Revolution. Why Mom let us watch that so young, I have no idea...but then it was also the time when Marvel was really coming into style, and we think she figured, why not let us absorb all the geek stuff and get into some geek fandoms early? I guess she figured she'd rather see us cosplay as superheroes than as Panic! At The Disco circa 2005 - those child-sized red suits were bloody expensive.

Revolution fandom isn't big, but it's at least got me and Gabe as members, and we've forgotten more about the show than you'll ever know. But one thing I'll never forget is the impossibly cool - and impossibly lethal - the coilguns they used in the Tower at the end of the first season. Those things looked like good old-fashioned machine guns, but were entirely electromagnetic and discharged enough destructive punching-holes-in-meat-suits power to rival any elephant gun.

So what I almost got shot with just now? No bullets. None solid and metallic, anyway. Just solid and invisible.

I press my earpiece again. "Guys, they got coilguns!"

"Coilguns?" Freddie repeats.

"What does that mean?" asks Ty.

"It means they can kill us with a single shot!" I fly higher, keeping closer to the truck so I can stay in the two shooters' blind spots. I don't think they're about to shoot through their own vehicle - that would either be a horrible mistake worthy of Indiana Jones' father, or a ballsy, borderline kamikaze move. "Stay out of their sight line, whatever you do!"

"What sight line?" asks Freddie.

"They're shooting out the back!" Kelly yells. "I see them too!"

"Kels? You okay?" In the distance, I see the Taurus emerge from the woods. Ty looks to be going even faster now, and he'll only have it easier throttling up to whatever the Taurus' top speed is now that the road is a little straighter. Probably 150 or so, maybe even 160.

"I'm fine!" Kelly says. "I know, everyone's concerned, but seriously-"

"Is that you trying to lasso the truck?"

"You sound like...like you don't believe it!"

"I don't! Kelly...you...wha...?" Ty's reduced to spluttering.

"But seriously," I say, "stay back from the truck! We don't know what kind of range these coilguns have, but I'd bet dollars to donuts they can pick you off even a mile away."

"Try two." Freddie sounds pretty sure of it. "The guns we use on the wall, they're coilguns, and that's the amount of range they've got. But how do they have-"

"They're handheld."

"Oh...oh shit." I hear the sound of Freddie typing something. "But if they've got coilguns...dammit, how are we gonna get close enough to them?"

"Close enough for what?" asks Gideon.

"I've got an experimental computer virus," says Freddie. "I could deploy it and possibly wreck their onboard nav system, maybe even shut them down remotely..."

I tune out all the other voices for a moment. I'm still above the truck, with the river flowing serenely to my right. Untouched, unsummoned by me. I need to weaponize this. My elemental magic will defeat their scientific terror. But how do I get enough control of the river, even at a reduced speed to keep level with the truck? I'm spending most of my concentration keeping myself aloft. And even though I'm sure the gunners won't try to shoot through the semi-trailer's sides and/or ceiling, if I land, what are the chances they'll shoot anyway just from hearing my feet over their heads?

I look ahead of the truck. Gideon's working to try and collapse the road, but he doesn't seem to be doing much good. Asphalt in general is known to be fairly resistant to land elementals, particularly in California where natural, not man-made, quakes are such an ever-present threat. To my left, Kelly's really straining to keep on lassoing the truck, not that it's doing much good to slow it down - and is that white smoke I see rising from the back of her wingsuit? And behind us, the Taurus has to hang back and stay within visual range, but Ty's now having to dodge blasts from the Peppermint coilguns, and it's got me even more on edge, watching him having to slalom around like he's taking driver's ed from Purgatory with Jason Bourne.

But if the gunners are going after the Taurus, that means they're a little less likely to notice if I land on the roof over their heads.

So I do. Gingerly, I touch the soles of my Hawks to the metal, retract my wings so they don't turn into wind sails and pull me away, then kneel. Hardly a superhero landing, but Deadpool's not here to judge my performance. Except in my own head, where he's an endlessly clapping sarcastic GIF.

How would I get in? Throwing ice blades at the roof and ripping holes in it?

It's an idea, but not a very good one. What if one of the gunners starts firing on me? No way would I be able to see it coming, much less dodge it as expertly as Ty's doing right now.

Screw it. Looking around, I see that everyone else is busy, stuck trying to do what they've been doing. Kelly's still trying to lasso the truck back. Gideon's still having trouble with his sinkhole thing, but there's a bridge ahead, way off in the distance. I'm not sure how well he can use his elemental on metal, but if he can weaken the bridge or even take it out, that'd be awesome.

So that leaves me to storm the truck from above. Maybe not with ice blades, though. Those might just shatter if I throw them. No, I'll have to try a slightly different tactic.

I clench my fists, feeling them frost over. Normally, when I make my ice knuckles, the ice only covers my hands, but now it's spreading a little further up my arms, even under the ends of my hoodie sleeves. The more I freeze my elemental, the more I myself freeze. I'm not exactly ready to repeat my cryogenic shower from a few days ago, but for now, playing as a genderbent Killer Frost (it helps that Caitlin and I have the same last name, though we're not at all related) might be just what the doctor ordered.

I leave one hand on the truck's roof, then pound my other fist - my right, my stronger one - down onto the metal, leaving a sizable dent. Not enough - I've got it out of shape, but not broken. At least the ice absorbed the impact a bit, though it sure as shit rattled my bones. Luckily, we angels have naturally-occurring carbon fiber laced into our bones, to compensate for them being hollow, like those of birds, to aid in our flight.

But that's not important right now.

What's important is that I need to keep on breaking into this damn truck.

I keep on pounding that same spot on the roof. Several times, I have to re-form the ice around my hands, and each time, I feel the ice creep a little further up my arms. It's like my own powers want to take over me and turn me into some kind of snowman. But as long as I don't start giving myself frostbite, I think I'm good.

It takes almost a full minute before I finally form a hole in the metal. A small one, but it grows with every punch. Another idea strikes my brain like lightning, and I act on it. I direct the ice off my arms and coat the edges of the hole with it, then start adding more. Layers upon layers, building up thick and fast. The metal contracts in the face of this cold - not as much as I'd like, but it's a start. If I could blast the metal with liquid-nitrogen levels of cold...no, I can't even think about that. Elijah could probably do that, and I'm not about to beg him for the secret.

I can't really fit through the hole just yet, but I'm almost there. No more adding ice - instead, I start kicking the metal, careful not to lose my footing. Pieces buckle around the hole's edge, and eventually, I've got just enough room to slide in. Which I do - only to find myself stuck at chest level. Shit. I thought I'd been letting myself fall out of my workout routine too much, but that doesn't make my chest and shoulders any less broad than they are now I've finished growing. The mirror's been lying to me - it makes me look skinnier than I really am, I guess.

I hoist myself out and keep on kicking away until I'm sure I'll drop through the hole without a problem. Which, this time, I do, landing just as delicately on the floor of the trailer as I did on its roof earlier.

There's only the two gunners at the back door in terms of living presence, besides me. Other than that, there's a rack full of guns on one side - actual guns, with ammo, probably as backups in case the coilguns give out. I guess even those have to charge sometime.

But on the other side is a single large cardboard box on the bottom shelf. I drag it out - it's very heavy, because inside, it's filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts cushioning the Black Mirror. I scatter the peanuts until I can pick up the Mirror - seriously, who decided making it look like an old-fashioned TV, anyway? Peppermint, your marketing needs work.

Hefting the Mirror in my arms, I realize just how much I was neglecting my workout. Normally I can lift weights as heavy as fifty pounds, but after a week or two not visiting the Balthazar weight room, this twenty-five pound box of glass, metal, and faux-wood paneling makes me groan out loud.

That attracts the attention of one of the two gunners, the one on the left. My left. The passenger side, I mean.

"No!" I hold the Mirror in front of my chest, and it's enough to make him hesitate. He's not about to destroy what his bosses want him to bring home, so the Mirror's my perfect shield.

"Alex?" It's Freddie. "Alex, where are you?"

I clear my throat. "I've got the Mirror."

"Good. Get out - I've uploaded the virus. I'm gonna crash this thing any second."

"Copy that, good buddy." I tuck the Mirror under my arm and, faster than the guy can react even with his unnaturally fast weapon, I send a spray of ice darts at him. They penetrate his bulletproof vest, leaving bloody marks all over his torso, which I only see for a moment before the inertia of my attack sends him sprawling out onto the road.

"All right, get out!" Freddie yells.

Without another word, I fly out the door, kicking the other gunner in the head on my way. He falls out, somersaulting a couple of times before rolling to a stop, facedown, feebly stirring.

I fly out, still holding the Mirror, and watch the truck speed away into the distance. Kelly lets go of her lasso, which drifts under the truck's wheels and gets all tangled up, wrecking those wheels and making the whole thing jackknife.

"Goddammit!" Gideon yells. "I just wore the Bridge down!"

"What'd you even do?" asks Kelly. "It looked like it was accelerating right at the end-"

"I killed the brakes," says Freddie.

"Well, that sure sent them a mess-"

My own words slam back down my throat when I see the first gunner, the one I ice-darted, roll over on the side of the road and fire his coilgun the second the Taurus drives by.

Static and feedback scream into my ear from Freddie's and Ty's ends of the earbud feed. The car swerves to the other side of the road, then the front tire spins into a ditch on the edge, snagging and making the whole thing roll over into the grass.

"NO!" I fly down to the scene as fast as I can, almost dropping the Mirror as I race to rescue Freddie and Ty. Kelly reaches the now-upside-down car at the same time as I do and immediately runs to the driver's side so she can get Ty out first, so I go to Freddie instead.

One look and I know he's gone. The coilgun shot him to a bloody pulp.

He took the brunt of the impact, but I see through to the other side and find that Ty looks untouched by the same shots.

Kelly, though, can't get him out. She's struggling, both from her fear for her brother's life and from her sapped strength. Holding that lasso must have taken a huge toll on her.

"Kelly?" I fly over the car and kneel next to her, grabbing her arms. "Kelly, look at me. I'll get Ty out. Okay?"

"No, let me! Please!"

"No, you're in no condition to-"

She screams, jerks out of my grasp, and digs back into the wreck to keep working. She gets his seatbelt undone, but this means he slides down the back of the seat, and his head almost hits the busted metal underneath him. I have to slide into the busted window, cutting myself on shards of glass, to lace my hands together under the top of his head.

"Get out!" Kelly cries.

I look up and see her holding Ty in place, her tears dripping onto me. "You need my help."

"No, I..." She gasps, trying to get a good breath, but she's hyperventilating.

"I got him. I swear."

For the longest time, she stays put. Eventually, she moves out, letting me lift Ty away from his seat and pull him out the window with me. Somewhere behind me, I hear the sound of what I hope are Gideon's wings flapping as he joins us.

I lay Ty faceup on the grass, and a sobbing Kelly crawls over to him, cradling his head and feeling his neck. "Is he...is he...?"

I hold her hand steady so she can feel his pulse - which I already felt myself when I was getting Ty out of the car. I could have told her, but she needed to be shown.

"What about Freddie?" I look up to see Gideon glancing at the car.

I catch his eye, then shake my head.

He sits next to Ty, laying his hand on his left shoulder while Kelly holds him from the other side. I sit with Kelly, holding her and stroking her hair. She hasn't had a chance to straighten it in...two days now, maybe? It's started to curl.

"I'm sorry." I say the words out loud less than a second after thinking them. "Every time I go out fighting, people get hurt."

Kelly would answer me, I bet, but she's still crying over Ty - and she only cries harder when he wakes up and hugs her.

"I'm sorry," I repeat, still aware that nobody's hearing me. Maybe Gideon, but I'm not apologizing so much to him.

I never should have let them follow me. It was their choice, and I respected that...but if I'd have known how close Ty would have come to dying, I'd have made him and Kelly stay back.

Bad enough that we had to lose Freddie, but if we'd lost Ty, or Kelly, or Gideon too...

I don't know how many more people I care about have to die, but it's completely unfair that any have to die at all.

God, where are you and why are you falling asleep on the fucking job?