Peppermint

Chapter 9 - Wicked Rain

***GABE***

There hasn't been nearly enough time to prep for Park's planned incursion on Peppermint. Well, maybe for Park himself - he seems to have been working on this for a long time. But for us newcomers to the plan? Me, Harris, TJ? We've been read in so recently, we can't possibly keep up with all the steps.

And yet Park, taking over as the Russell of our group of scriv friends, thinks nothing of having us come with him, with next to no knowledge of what exactly we're doing, and probably no backup either. Park even admitted before taking us out the door that Annie didn't know about this, and wouldn't sign off on it anyway if she did.

I should be in bed right now. Snug, warm, spooning with Harris, and maybe just now waking up to a beautiful sunrise. But no, the sky's torn open, spraying heavy rain over the whole damn Bay Area, and I'm shivering in the backseat of Park's Kia as the heater struggles to kick in.

At least I've got Harris' hand to hold. No direct skin contact - we've both got gloves on - but it helps anchor me to this reality.

The good news is, there's one advantage we have going into this mission, one which Park didn't need to elaborate on too much. His brother Jae works at Peppermint HQ in Bachman Creek - a site which, if I'm not mistaken, occupies roughly the same space in this 'verse that Apple HQ occupies in the Prime 'Verse. (Apple, meanwhile, is headquartered in San Jose here. Not that far off what we know, then.) Jae, apparently, has just enough sway to get us through the front door no matter how flimsy our covers may be. After that, though, I'm betting we're on our own.

Not that that's really stopped any of us before, has it? Like when Russell took us to that power plant in Washington to find the final Black Mirror fragment, the one Peppermint literally killed for. Well, we still don't know it was them, officially, but we're all smart enough to read between the lines, aren't we?

(I trust you're all raising your hands out there, mis amigos.)

"Is he gonna be there?" TJ asks Park.

"Who?"

"Your brother." He's echoing my thoughts. "It's Saturday morning. Unless he's the kind of workaholic who needs to come in every day, or he's got a ton of projects-?"

"He'll be there." Park steers onto an interchange that takes us one town closer to our destination. Well, more accurately, it forms the corner of another town between Spellman and Bachman Creek. A town that, of course, consists mostly of a bunch of concrete blocks crammed a little too tightly together. "I texted him myself, and he said he was on his way. He'll meet us in the parking lot, first things first-"

"Amaryllis, ryllis..." Harris sounds sleepy when he says it, but the speed at which he leapt to make that joke says otherwise.

Park reaches up to adjust his rearview mirror. "Next guy who quotes or even bastardizes Igloo Australia will be singing castrato for life."

Still with his eyes closed, Harris winces, then lets go of my hand so he can use both of his to cover his crotch.

As for me, I raise my middle finger and form a short but sharp ice blade, which makes me look like I just got a single French tip on that finger. "Next guy who threatens my boyfriend's manhood will find himself gutted like a fish."

Park covers his stomach. "I'd rather keep my organs internal and intact, thanks."

I blow on my ice blade until it fractures into snow, which flies by his face and hits the corner of the windshield.

"Nice to see how much you like me," he adds, "but not only am I twice your age, but I'm also a little too hetero for your taste."

TJ turns around, his fingers curled around the stem of his glasses. "Even I saw that, out of the corner of my eye. Hard not to see...well, I'm not even sure if that was supposed to be blowing a kiss or inviting him to suck your dick."