***FIONNA***

"Deal us in, Data."

Gabe pushes up a translucent plastic visor, revealing a smudged makeup job on his forehead as he glowers at his twin, now with longer hair than ever. A wig, of course. "How can I, Cisco? I barely know how to play poker!"

"It's all right." I reach out with my hands encased in fingerless lace gloves - of course I'm attending this dream in a dream cosplay of mine, gender-swapped John Bender. "I can deal."

Gabe blinks - which, if he's wearing contacts to simulate Data's robotic eyes, must hurt like hell. "Sure," he says, handing me the cards. "Sorry, Fionna, I just...I barely remember the rules of this game anymore."

"How 'bout we play a game that's more your speed, boys?" I ask as I shuffle. "Like Go Fish?"

"I vote baccarat," Alex says, crossing his arms over his Big Bang Theory T-shirt - one of Cisco Ramon's favorites, if I remember correctly.

"You would, you cheeky bastard," says Gabe with an un-Data-like laugh. "You've read Casino Royale too many times."

"I'm down with that too," I say. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a fourth chair appear at this round table. "That way I don't have to explain the Texas Hold 'Em rules to you, again..." My voice trails off as another figure joins us, a blond man armed with a box full of cards. A "shoe," I think they call it.

"Les jeux sont faits." Even in French, Elijah Emery's got that strong Southern drawl going on. "Banco?"

"I thought this was your dream," Alex whispers to me. "Aren't you usually the one with all the cosplay dreams?"

"As all y'all can see," Elijah says, slapping the shoe to dislodge a couple of cards, "I ain't cosplaying. Banco?"

"Who do you think you are?" Gabe asks.

"You stupid..." Alex shakes his head, his wit temporarily deserting him. "Fine, fine, we'll play along. Banco, cinq cent mille." I watch quizzically as he slides five chips, each one marked "$100,000," into the center of the table. "That's how they started it in Casino Royale," he whispers for my benefit. "The book, I mean. Not the movie."

Elijah slides a pair of cards across the table with a large wooden paddle. "This game ain't exactly formal," he says. "Normally there'd be a one guy who deals the cards - a 'croopier,' I believe-"

"Croupier," Alex corrects him. Good pronunciation, dude.

"Ne me sassez pas!" Elijah yells.

"Fetchez la vache!" Gabe butts in. "See, we can all fake-French around here. Let's move on."

Elijah produces two cards from the shoe for himself. "As I was saying...there's a croupier" - he says the word slowly, with an extremely thick French accent that hurts my throat from imagining the sharp rocks he must be gargling - "dealing the cards, and a pit boss who's in charge. I'm pulling double duty tonight."

I slam my fist on the table, startling Alex and Elijah both as they reach for their cards. "What the hell are you doing here?" I yell. "You weren't invited! And besides, you're dead! Again! You can't be here!"

Elijah's hand reaches for his cards again, then he picks them up one by one by the corners. "And yet..."

"And yet you're ruining our dream time again," I say. "You never know when to quit, do you?"

He ignores me and removes another card from the shoe, which he examines, again by looking under one corner. "You want another card?" he asks Alex. I don't want to say "poker faced," but...

"No thanks," Alex says. "I'm good."

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Alex lifts up his cards - an ace and a seven. "Le huit," Elijah says, lifting his first two - a four and a two. Is it coincidence that Alex's cards are black and Elijah's are red? Same goes for his third card, a seven. "Et le trois." Poker face failure.

"Uh, correct me if I'm wrong," I say, "but doesn't your point count total treize, not trois?"

"In baccarat," Elijah explains, "points are determined by the ones digit of your total only. So against an eight, a thirteen is really unlucky."

I shrug. "I'm not a big gambler, so of course I don't know this."

"You should read more James Bond," Elijah says. "Casino Royale? That was clearly the inspiration for this one."

I lower my head and slam it repeatedly against the green baize table. (Seriously, green baize? We really are in some kind of casino Purgatory.) "I'm sorry I mostly read YA books. I know they're not real literature."

"Oh, I dunno," says Elijah. "I read that story about the kids with cancer. Quite the intellectual pissing contest." He grins, as if he's just offended us. Nope - no John Green fans around this table. Joke's on you, sunshine.

"Can we stop playing games already?" Gabe asks. "We kinda need to talk. Just us indie kids. Not that you would know-"

"But I do understand that reference," Elijah says, gathering his and Alex's cards and tossing them aside, then pushing the five chips back his way. "Before y'all joined the staff at the Bearville Library, Fionna, I worked there. In the teen division, if y'all can believe that. I used to be very good with kids of all ages, actually."

"That's incredible," I say.

"You don't mean that."

"Of course I do. It's impossible to believe."

Elijah splutters, then looks around wildly. "God damn, where's a fucking martini when you need one?"

"None of us drink," Alex says. "So whoever's making this dream didn't account for your taste."

"What kind of teenagers are you?" Elijah asks, peering at us all through splayed fingers as he holds his head in his hands. "And are you saying you don't know whose dream this is?"

"Could be any of ours," says Gabe. "We're cool with sharing."

"Everything but your naughty bits, I hope."

I turn my back on Elijah. "Boys?" I get out of my seat and beckon the twins away. They follow me away from this baccarat table and out the door, into a crowded casino full of noisy slot machines and shit. "Okay, seriously, have any of you ever been to an actual casino?" I ask, shaking my head.

"We've seen one from the outside," Alex says. "Remember when we went to Reno, Gabe?"

"Yeah, and Nanna went into the casino, and we tried to follow her and the bouncer or whoever kept us out?" Gabe snickers into his hand.

"But whose dream is this?" I ask.

"I dunno about you, but now I get the feeling it's mine." Elijah walks out of the baccarat room, armed with a cloudy greenish martini in a glass. Oh wait, maybe it's not a martini - do they normally light those on fire? "It's a mojito, sweetheart," he says, raising his glass to me.

"Don't call her that, perv!" yell the twins in unison.

I hold up my hand. "It's all right. I can handle myself." I hold out my finger and pull all the flames off Elijah's drink, then send them flying in the direction of the nearest slot machine. "But seriously," I say, letting some lingering flames fly out and come close to burning Elijah's mouth. "Listen to your sons."

"Temper, temper," Elijah taunts me. "I guess it's true what they say about fire elementals. They're hair-trigger-happy."

The blue mojito flames burn out, replaced by my natural ones, which are more orange-white. These, I bring near the more overgrown parts of his hair. "You were saying?" I ask as he visibly winces. Then I lower my hands and fold them - no pun intended. "So. Why the hell are we in your dream? I thought we'd be in one of the boys' dreams."

"Don't I count as a boy?" Elijah asks petulantly.

"No, you're too old a soul." I turn my back on him again. "So. Alex, did Gabe have any time to tell you what's what before I tuned in?"

"No," Alex says slowly.

"I was too busy wondering who decided on these cosplays," Gabe says, wiping his forehead and smudging his Data makeup further.

"You melting cyborg, you," I laugh. "Well, here's the thing. You might remember how last time you were in the Second 'Verse, Annie mentioned something about a Black Mirror?"

Alex scratches his head, his eyebrows arching ever so slightly. Why did Gabe have to be the only one to do a Star Trek cosplay? Alex could've made a good Vulcan if he wanted to.

"It's for time travel," Gabe explains. "If you have a counterpart who dies, it lets you go back in time and try to prevent it."

"I was gonna use it," I say, "but then the Mirror's keeper decided to raise a stinking shitstorm when we came a-call..." My voice trails off when I see the way Alex's eyes are widening. "What?"

"Black Mirror?" he asks. "So does that mean it's made out of black glass? Or...or obsidian?"

"It looks like a TV screen, actually," Gabe says, "but there are pieces missing. Pieces we've had to travel up and down the Rockies and Cascades to find-"

"Does one of the missing pieces look like an arrowhead?" Alex cuts in.

I tilt my head at Gabe. "Maybe," I say, "but it's probably the one we haven't found yet. The others were all random shapes. You'd think they wouldn't be able to perfectly break one piece to look like an arrowhead...which you've seen already, haven't you?"

"Kelly Jackson's brother." Alex smacks his forehead. "That's why that guy that looked like his buddy...oh my God. Ty's got that missing piece!" He bounces up and down on the spot, giddy like the schoolboy he technically still is. "You guys, the missing piece is in Coldfire Creek! In Hell!"

"Does Ty still have it?" I grasp his shoulders, trying to hold him still - and his motion jostles my bones. I'm surprised my arms haven't been dislocated.

"Well-"

"No, no, no, wait!" Gabe turns and gets into some kind of fighting stance against an invisible enemy, then after a second or two, he vanishes.

"Oh crap," I whisper. "They're waking us up. Alex, tell Ty to keep that piece safe!"

"But he doesn't-"

I feel pressure on my shoulder, then I fall and wake up on that cot in the cell under the power station. A guard's shaking me awake and pinning Kensi to the wall.

Fuck fuck fucking fuckballs! We weren't done yet! Thanks to fucking Elijah capering around, we lost valuable dream time!

But at least we were able to find out where to go next, when we get out of here. Now to get that information to Russell. I really, sincerely hope he's spent time planning an escape. Preferably with that Israeli dude, Ariel - he looks plenty badass.

I turn my head to see a similar scene play out in the next cell, where another guard muscles Gabe off his cot and pins him to the wall, his mouth forced open as it's pressed against the Plexiglas. It makes him look like a dying fish. At least Harris is on his way out the door, but with his hands cuffed behind his back. On the other side, Russell and Ariel are similarly bound, and now, so is Kensi. Gabe and I are next.

Overkill much, Dana? It's not like we really have anywhere to go. Without the Mirror, we're not leaving. Count on that, lady.

But then comes something I'm not counting on, and I'm sure the same goes for everyone else.

"Handcuffs off, gentlemen," Dana says as the guards bring us up to her office overlooking the falls. They obey her command and back out of the room, leaving us alone with her...and the Black Mirror, TV box casing and all.

Now I finally get a chance to inspect it more closely and see that there really is a missing piece shaped like an arrowhead.

"What's your game now?" Ariel asks, crossing his arms as he stares daggers at Dana.

"No game." Dana steeples her fingers and stares at us with unbearable serenity. "Go ahead. Take this Mirror-"

"-and shove it?" I ask.

Dana grins at me, as if to say, "Ooh, what a mouth on this one." What she really says is, "Take it. Please. My gift to you."

"Not to look a gift horse in her toothy mouth," Kensi says, "but..."

Dana actually winces at the insult. "Kids, as much fun as it is to yank your chains, I think it's more fun to skewer less small fry. As those bad apples at the Peppermint Corporation will soon be able to attest."

Ariel raises his eyebrows, and Russell asks, "My parents didn't assign this job to you, did they?"

"You'd be surprised," Dana says. "And your dad actually chose me well. Even I surprised myself with how well I was able to swindle the shit out of those Peppermint people." She stands up, a goofy-ass grin on her face. "No offense, Ariel - I know you're one of their stooges-"

"You still don't believe me when I say I don't work with-"

"-but I find it so incredible," Dana laughs. "They actually thought I was sitting on the very vein of obsidian from which the Black Mirror was hewn? Either they're playing me back, or they don't know I'm playing them." She pushes the TV across her desk. "And they're about to announce this new quote-unquote 'window into the past' at their next keynote. Oh, the eggs I could fry on their faces..." She stares into space for a moment, then blinks back to reality. "Just sit tight. The last piece should be on its way. I'm just waiting for my man to report in-"

"I don't think he will." Gabe and I both think it, but he's the first to voice it.

Dana's mask cracks visibly, her mouth hardening into a sharp line. "What?"

"While we were asleep," I say, "we shared a dream with our friend - his brother" - I jerk my thumb at Gabe - "who's still alive in Prime. He says they tried to take the piece back, but they didn't get it."

"Your friend knows my demon's son..." Dana starts muttering to herself. Then she slams her fist lightly on the table. "He wouldn't know. Is this...is your friend the other Breaker? The brown one?"

"He's olive," Gabe corrects her.

"I thought you were out of contact," Russell says. "How would you know-"

"When Marian was alive, I was a confidante of hers." Dana stands up and gazes out over the falls. "The other Breaker. Of course he'd be fucking paranoid. He's not gonna want to cooperate, is he?" Reflexively, she reaches for the TV and stows it under her desk. "You came here to use the Mirror, right?" she asks us all. "Then you have 72 hours to get that piece back, otherwise I'll send Binag again...oh wait, he probably popped his cyanide pill. I won't make that same mistake twice."

"What's the deal with Peppermint?" Harris asks.

It's a pretty valid question, but Dana's in no mood to answer. "You need to move!" she barks. "Clock's ticking! Help me put the Mirror together long enough for you to use it, then you can scatter the pieces again, away from Peppermint!"

"Lady, you're not making sense-" I begin.

"72 hours!" Dana repeats frantically. "Go, go, go, go, go!"