***ALEX***

On the front of the other car, Josh climbs up and kicks through the Plexiglas. I'm surprised to see him smash through it in one hit - even though he's doing it with both feet, and he's got some supernaturally strong legs because of course he does. I keep having to wonder how much of that is good Godly genes and how much is from walking around the Holy Land, preaching love above all else. (Yeah, and look where that got this multiverse. Seriously, do not enough people fucking listen to what Josh is really all about?)

"You say something?" Josh's voice, strangely calm, surprises me as I climb through the window myself, and I almost fall and faceplant on the floor on the other side.

"No..." I let my voice trail off for a moment. "I mean, I don't think I did."

"It's all right." He pulls the flash drive out of his pocket. "Now...anyone in here have a laptop we can borrow?" The small number of people seated all look at us blankly. "Well," Josh drawls, "don't everyone all get up at once, am I right? I get it, you're all paralyzed by fear..." He moves forward, approaching the crowd. "Don't worry. So am I. Metaphorically speaking. But, uh, seriously, a laptop would really help me out right about now, so..."

Finally, a middle-aged woman, about my mom's age, stands up and, while holding onto the nearest support pole with a one-handed death grip, starts unclasping her messenger bag. "It's a little old," she says. "Will that do?"

"It's not too old to have a USB port, is it?"

She nods.

"Then yeah, it'll do. Alex, help her out while I get the drive ready."

I start for a second, then lunge forward, almost falling flat on my face as I'm moving backwards relative to the train. But I get up quickly and take the woman's laptop so she can sit down and adjust the weave that's been flying in her face. Josh waits until I open the laptop up, but then we hit a roadblock. I turn around and say, "We need your password."

The lady holds out her hands, and Josh and I turn around for a moment. "You're in," she says, handing the laptop back to me.

"Beautiful." Josh nods to the laptop's screen - the wallpaper being a very tasteful high-def image of purple flowers in a field. "Let's plug this baby in...hope Ahmad knows what he's doing. Speaking of which..." He unlocks his phone and pushes it into my hand as he puts the flash drive in its place. "Call Ahmad. He's gonna need to walk us through this shit, unless we can get AK to fly him over here? No, but then he'd be leaving Firdaus with my dad-"

"You say that like I can't defend myself," says Firdaus' voice.

"No, no, no, I'm not-"

"Just kidding," Firdaus laughs. "Okay, are you in? Ahmad wants to know."

"Why do you have his..." I begin before realizing she must have Ahmad's phone for the same reason I have Josh's right now. "Never mind."

"Put on a video call," Ahmad orders us. "If I can't actually see what you guys are doing, how am I gonna walk you through it properly?"

"Text us?" Josh suggests.

I shake my head. "Ever seen Person of Interest? That's a terrible idea."

Josh smiles. "Yeah, no shit." He shifts into a Fusco voice. "'Curly brace? What the hell's a-'"

"Just follow my lead!" Ahmad says.

"All right, all right..." I press the button to open a video call between us. "Walk us through it, then."

"Open the command line," Ahmad says. "Then start typing in..." He rattles off some code, which Josh dutifully inputs after a small window opens, revealing a window of solid black with green text.

I look down the car, towards the back end, the one pointing away from the car we just came from. There's another car still attached to this one, and even at this distance, I see a couple of guys in black suits stepping up and making their way over to us, apparently unbothered by the scary speed at which we're all moving.

Why do they always have to wear black suits? Can't they wear casual threads like me and Josh and everyone else on our team? Hell, even Mr. G isn't exactly wearing a suit, as I remember - though I've already tried to purge him from my memory banks as long as he's not in front of me. A collared shirt, maybe, but that's as formal as it gets.

But then the black suits sit down, out of focus. Not entirely out of view, though. I see them lean into each other, one laying his arm over his buddy's shoulders, then said buddy coming in for a kiss. Okay, so they're not threats, then. Or are they? They could be putting it on, pretending to be a couple to try and lure me into a false sense of security-

"Alex?" Josh snaps his fingers.

"You're kinda pointing the phone at the ceiling," Ahmad says, his voice tight.

"Oh, sorry..." I point the phone's camera at the laptop's screen and smack my forehead with my other hand. "I got distracted for a second."

"Hey, you got the easy job here!" Ahmad yells. "Don't slack off, dude! It doesn't help any of us if you do!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I force my hand to stay as still as possible, even using my free hand to grab my phone hand's wrist. "I thought I saw something..."

Josh turns his own head for a second. "Oh, you mean those guys in the suits? Nah, they're just hugging until they're safe."

"I know, but still..." I shake my head, then grumble to myself when I see that I'm shaking the phone and no doubt distorting Ahmad's view. He doesn't call me out on it, though. Instead, he keeps on telling Josh what to type into the command line. I can't follow any of it myself. Even though I'm a pretty avid fan of techno-thriller type stuff, I've never understood coding at all. It may be just another kind of language, and I'd like to think I'm good with languages based on my occasional experiments with self-teaching by Google Translate (even though I know half that shit is wrong, or more), but it's a language I can't take to, for whatever reason.

"Excuse me?" The laptop's owner raises her hand and looks at me. "Can you please tell me what the hell is happening here?"

I can't walk up to her without taking the phone out of viewing range of Josh and the laptop, and telepathic communication would be a bit tough at this distance. Sure, it's not much - only about six feet - but thought-speak really is best suited for when someone's a little in your personal space. Though, to be fair, my bubble's a bit bigger than most, so her being six feet away certainly qualifies as "a little in my space."

Hacker attack, I tell her.

She blanches just a bit, her eyes flutter, and she clutches her purse tightly. Why us? Why are they trying to kill us?

It's not you, I say, hoping it'll reassure her. It's me. Well, me and my friend here, probably. Josh's head twitches, as if he hears that thought. I'm still a little confused on his power set - I thought he had no telepathy? Well, I know he's got no wings, and no elemental either, I'm thinking. Or maybe he does have telepathy, and it's just weaker because he began as a human instead of an angel?

The woman shakes her head and rolls her eyes skyward, her lips moving as if praying. I don't have the heart to tell her, telepathically or otherwise, that she should be looking sideways. The next thing I hear from her is, Shit, the one time I had to go into the office on a Saturday...

What do you do? I ask. No, no, wait, don't tell me...you're a lawyer?

She looks up, a soft smile playing out across her face, and her color starting to return to her cheeks. A lawyer? I only wish I had the discipline to have studied that field. Not that my field doesn't require discipline already. Her smile expands for a split second, then shrinks to barely the tiniest upturn of the corners of her mouth. Let me guess, you thought "lawyer" 'cause you thought I looked like Viola Davis, didn't you? I get that a lot. Especially from white folks.

No, no, I didn't- I can't unsee the resemblance now, though.

And Viola doesn't play a lawyer, she plays a law school professor. Just to clarify. The woman smiles broadly, and even laughs a little bit, at my visible embarrassment. But hey, at least she's smiling and not scared. I actually work in PR. Hold on a sec... She reaches into her purse and pulls out a small, rubber-banded stack of business cards, one of which she extracts and presses into my hand. I read the printed surface, which identifies her as Angela N. Clayton of the Murry-Reid Company.

I'm Alex Snow, I tell Ms. Clayton as I pocket the card, barely managing to do so without pulling my phone too far away from her laptop. And, uh...well, no offense, but you really think I could be a client of yours? I mean, if I knew what the hel- I stop myself, not wanting to swear in front of her. A challenge it's going to be, cleaning up my mental potty mouth. I don't even know what a PR firm does. Besides, I'm a teenager.

"Hmm." Ms. Clayton puts her business cards away. These days, age isn't really a barrier against fame and money-making. Just look at the sorts of kids you see taking off on YouTube and shit.

Well, even though her own brain isn't inclined to self-censor, I'm still going to stick to that policy as much as possible for her. You think I'm gonna need your contact info later? What, is it gonna be valuable in my quest?

What is your quest?

I look up at the lights in the ceiling, which are now flickering rapidly enough to potentially induce a seizure even in people not normally sensitive to these things. Right now, I'm just the assistant to my friend Josh here. And when he gets his work done, we won't be on a runaway train anymore.

Any chance you know why it's gone runaway?

We think Peppermint hijacked the electronics in this thing.

Ms. Clayton tilts her head. Who's Peppermint? Some hacker's handle?

I look down at Josh, who's entered a long string of incomprehensible (to me, at least) code into the command line and is asking Ahmad for confirmation that he should execute it. Sorry, I forgot, you wouldn't know who Peppermint is...um, but have you heard of Kristoff Scoville?

Oh yeah, him. He's a good man. I'm part of the team that handles his company. Shame about that accident with his self-driving truck this morning - that's actually why I'm heading into the office today, to try and contain this before it mushrooms into a goddamn dumpster fire-

I bite my lip. Hate to burst your bubble, ma'am, but Peppermint is Scoville. His company's a front for it.

The slow-mo way Ms. Clayton's face falls could rival that one Viola Davis GIF that's been all over the internet for years. You've gotta be fucking kidding me!

"Success!" Josh raises his fists into the air, almost dropping the laptop and knocking the phone out of my hand as he does so. "Now just wait a second or two, and this train will start slowing down..." He looks up to see me stumbling and struggling not to drop his phone, and Ms. Clayton jumping to her feet and shaking her head repeatedly as her thoughts betray her rising anger.

She finally looks at me again and reaches out to grab hold of my shoulders. "Alex," she says out loud, "please tell me you're not serious."

"What about?" Josh asks brightly.

"I, uh..." I scratch at the base of the longest bits of hair creeping down the back of my neck. "I told her about Scoville and Peppermint."

"You what?" I jump, realizing that I'm still holding the phone with Ahmad talking to us.

"I thought we needed to keep a lid on reading in too many civilians!" Firdaus says.

"Well, good thing you did," says Ms. Clayton, "'cause I'm gonna need one of you boys to come into the office with me and explain the situation. If it's true, what Alex said about Scoville causing all this..." She spreads her arms around to the rest of the car, where everyone else is still either sitting in their seats or gripping the support poles tightly. "Great, now I got so much more shit to get ahead of. Hell, I might even have to take this to the police..." Her face starts to pale a bit again at the very thought.

"Ahem." Mr. G's voice cuts in on the video call. "The boys here will be...otherwise occupied, Angela. But I can come with you. I'll just have to find you when you disembark at the nearest station - which, for you, I think, should be Civic Center."

"Why, where are we going?" I ask.

"And how'd you know my name?" asks Ms. Clayton.

Mr. G ignores her and concentrates on me and Josh. "You boys will go back to the hotel and regroup with everyone else. I'll call in someone else to keep an eye on you as well, make sure you don't get into any trouble."

Josh scoffs. "He says, like I'm not capable of watching over all of you myself."

"In the meantime," Mr. G says, "your train is slowing down now, and ours will as well soon...but until then, we're getting further and further apart. So..." I crane my neck to look at the screen myself and see him scratching his head. "Maybe I'll have you bring Angela to me at Powell Street Station instead."

Ms. Clayton reaches for her purse - prompting Josh to return the laptop to her, while removing the flash drive first - and also for her umbrella. "As long as none of us washes away in this weather, I'm good with that."

"Well, my boy Alex here is a water elemental," says Josh. "We'll be fine, all of us." He cocks his head at me. "Right?"

The train finally stops in the middle of the nearest station, and everyone around us breaks out in applause like their transpacific flight to Hong Kong just landed. Josh and I exchange glances, the both of us thinking along similar lines: Bow down, but don't take too much credit for saving their lives. Which is what we do as we slowly walk away, disembarking from the train and crossing the platform to take the escalator back to the surface with Ms. Clayton in tow.

The rain is still going on the streets above us, but thankfully not to the same level as when we all boarded the BART train in San Cas. As water flows gently down the steps leading to the street, Ms. Clayton opens her umbrella and waits for Josh and I to join her, each of us putting up our hoods. I hold up my left hand, palm up, and the rain lightens over our heads.

Josh looks up, the rain trickling down his nose and making him look like he's been crying. "Thanks, Alex," he whispers.

"Anything for Actual Jesus, am I right?"

We walk, Ms. Clayton leading the way to her office. The rain appears to be letting up on us, so I won't even need to deflect any of it using my elemental for much longer.

So, surprising only Ms. Clayton, really, these current conditions prove to merely be a calm before a real storm.

Lightning strikes one of the skyscrapers looming above us, hitting a rod on top of the building. Three seconds later, thunder rolls over our heads. Ms. Clayton tilts her umbrella back, then jumps as a second lightning strike hits the next-closest building. Not as tall, this one, but it still features sufficient equipment evolved from Ben Franklin's invention of legend to create a safe but shocking display.

"Don't tell me the lightning is Scoville's doing too." Ms. Clayton reaches up, poised to close her umbrella.

"I don't think so," says Josh.

"Yeah, not unless Scoville is secretly evil corporate twins with Thor instead of Wolverine," I chime in.

"Though that wouldn't surprise me," Josh says with a small nod.

Ms. Clayton finally closes her umbrella as the lightning continues to flicker and blast thunder over our heads. "They're gonna have to pay attention to me now," she says stiffly. "Damn, why didn't I think to film the whole thing?"

"You mean our little runaway train ride?" I ask. "It's okay, you'll have Mr. G with you. He can back you up."

She sighs through her nose, the sound a little wet because of the rain trickling down over the openings to her nostrils. "People never wanna believe a woman unless she's got a man to back her up."

Josh purses his lips. "I know. There are too many women in my life who've had to put up with that bullshit."

I'm about to ask who they are, but I'd rather not risk this conversation blowing Ms. Clayton's mind too much more than it's already been. As it is, my own brain is going to explode if I don't find a place to crash soon. So I keep on walking, knowing there'll be more than sufficient rest time at the end of all of this.

Well, more like "hoping" and "praying," but don't tell Josh I said that. And especially don't tell his dad, who sure as shit isn't getting any prayers from me anytime soon.