Peppermint

Chapter 17 - Secrets In The Dark

***GABE***

"Slow down! You can't just..." Yash grabs my arm, the one with which I'm not currently tugging on Harris', in an effort to stop me from tearing out the door back to Second 'Verse Spellman. "Dude, don't go off all half-cocked! You're just gonna lose before you've even begun fighting!"

"Don't you see what's happening?" I gesticulate wildly at all the Terminal doors around us. "Penner's mind-fucked my cousin into being his slave!"

"'Slave' seems like kind of a strong word for this," Aditya says.

"I'd go with 'drudge' myself," Harris says. Everyone else, me included, looks at him funny. "What, no Z Brewer Minions around here? Gabe, I thought you for sure-"

I shake my head and let go of Harris' hand, then yank my other hand out of Yash's grip. "Penner got into my cousin's head. We need to help him. There's no time to waste making plans for this! Penner's already too many steps ahead of us!"

"I know, I know..." Yash paces on the spot. "Believe me, if I thought there were a way to take a shortcut in this race, I'd jump on it too. Nobody pisses me off more than brainwashers."

"Same here."

"But we can't just barge into that place and spring TJ before he springs Penner," says Yash. "What if Penner makes him kill himself? What if we get arrested ourselves? We need some kind of plan."

"Didn't we just say there's no time for plans?" Aditya points out.

"That's what I said." I copy Yash's pacing. We're practically circling each other like wolves, the two of us. "Can we..." I look around the Terminal, at all the doors, then another idea comes to mind. "One of these doors could get us there. Couldn't it?"

"To Bearville? Of course. It's just..." Yash scratches his head, looking very uncertain as he considers it. "Listen, you know Penner's locked up in prison, and it's supposed to be maximum security or some shit-"

"Some max security," Harris says, "if he can still do this kind of computer shit."

At her desk, Grace clears her throat. "This is why more people should've watched The Following in Prime." She then picks up her phone and dials a number.

"Who are you calling?" I walk up to her desk, my heart thudding right in my ears.

"A guy in Bearville. He might be able to help you."

Aditya whistles. "You have guys in Bearville? And everywhere else too, I bet."

"A girl doesn't kiss and tell." Grace winks, then holds the phone to her ear and covers the mouthpiece long enough to say, "Find the third green door, the one with the mountain symbol on it. Kinda looks like the Twin Peaks logo - oh, hi, Kaufman. Grace here. Listen, I've got a group coming into your place in Bearville. No, they're not gonna take Penner out of your care - in fact, they're gonna make sure someone else doesn't do it himself." She waves us onward, holding up three fingers on one hand to remind us of our goal.

"So that's the secret," I say as we follow the near-infinite Terminal hallway till we spot the door Grace told us about. "The symbols."

"And it's color-coded by 'verse and dimension," Aditya adds. "Or did you not notice?"

I look around, seeing all manner of doors in shades of red, blue, white, black, green, orange, etc. etc. "I kinda overlooked it, I guess."

"And it's based on distance from where you entered the Terminal in the first place," Yash says, ushering us through the green door into that familiar forest clearing outside the Bearville city limits. "Like, you guys came in through Spellman, so go a little further down the hall, you could've gone to Vegas or LA or Star City or someplace."