Episode 5: Frost Warning

Alaska was trying to kill him. Chillada was certain of it.

The cold wasn't just cold. It was aggressive. It was personal. It was the universe's way of saying "you really should have stayed in California."

"You're t-t-turning blue," Berry observed, somehow unbothered by the sub-zero temperatures. "Well. Bluer than usual."

"I'm a t-t-tropical fruit," Chillada stammered. "This is l-literally my hell."

They'd been trekking through the Alaskan wilderness for six hours. Berry's contact, a terrifying woman named Yuki who had indeed tried to kill Berry on sight (twice), had dropped them ten miles from Sector 7. Something about radar detection and "plausible deniability."

Now they crouched on a ridge overlooking the facility. It was massive. Industrial. Brutalist architecture designed by someone who hated joy and really wanted everyone to know it.

"That's where they tried to reverse-engineer fun," Berry said quietly. "The Beige Hand's main research facility. They brought party supplies here. Confetti. Noise makers. Music. Tried to understand what made them work."

"And?"

"They couldn't. Joy can't be dissected. It can only be experienced." She pointed to the eastern wing. "That's where they'll have Mike. Interrogation level. Four floors down."

"Security?"

"Biometric scanners. Armed guards. Thermal sensors." She paused. "Which is actually good news for you."

"How is any of that good news?"

"You're freezing. Your body temperature is probably reading as 'refrigerated fruit' right now. The thermal sensors won't flag you as human."

"Because I'm NOT human."

"Exactly. Sometimes being a sentient pineapple has advantages."

They moved at nightfall. Berry disabled the perimeter sensors with an expertise that reminded Chillada she'd been doing this from the other side for years.

Inside, Sector 7 was worse than the outside. Not cold, necessarily, but colorless. Beige walls. Beige floors. Beige everything. It was like walking through an office supply catalog's fever dream.

And the specimens. Rows and rows of glass containers, each holding something that should have brought joy. Frozen party hats. Suspended streamers. Confetti in cryogenic tubes.

"They tried to kill joy by freezing it," Berry whispered. "Victoria thought if she could stop celebration, she could stop the pain."

"She's insane."

"She's broken. There's a difference." Berry's voice was soft. "I was broken once too. The Beige Hand finds people like that. Offers them purpose. Direction. A reason not to feel."

"What happened to you? Before the rave, I mean."

Berry was quiet for a long moment. "My daughter. Car accident. Seven years ago. I couldn't... I couldn't feel anything after that. So when The Beige Hand came recruiting, promising to help me never feel again..."

"Berry..."

"Don't. I don't need sympathy. I need to rescue Mike and take down the organization that almost destroyed me." She checked her weapon. "Redemption's a bitch, but it's MY bitch."

They found Mike on the fourth sublevel. He was strapped to a chair, hooked up to machines that monitored everything, brain activity, heart rate, joy receptors (apparently that was a thing The Beige Hand could measure).

And he looked broken.

"Mike." Chillada rushed to him, started undoing straps. "Mike, buddy, we're here. We're getting you out."

Mike's eyes opened. They were... different. Haunted in a way they hadn't been before.

"Chillada." His voice was hoarse. "She showed me things. Victoria. Things about you. About The Source."

"Whatever she said, it was a lie."

"It WASN'T." Mike grabbed his arm. "She showed me footage. From 1965. From the island."

Berry was at the door, watching for guards. "We don't have time for this."

"The Source isn't just where fun began," Mike continued, urgent. "It's where YOU began. Literally. There's video, Chillada. The island... it GREW you. Like, there was nothing, and then there was you. Emerging from the ground. Fully formed. With those stupid sunglasses already on."

"That's impossible."

"Is it? What's your earliest memory? Where were you born? Who were your parents?" Mike's eyes were wild. "You don't HAVE answers to those questions because they don't EXIST. You're not a pineapple who became sentient. You're pure celebration given physical form. The Source made you to spread joy. And Victoria loved you. She loved you SO MUCH, and when you left..."

"GUARDS!" Berry shouted.

The door burst open. A dozen Beige Hand operatives poured in, weapons raised.

And behind them: Victoria Frost.

She looked at Chillada with sixty years of longing and hatred warring on her face.

"Hello, my love," she said softly. "I've been waiting so long to see you again."

"I don't know you."

"You don't REMEMBER me. There's a difference." She stepped closer. "The Source gave you to me. And then took you away. It said you had to spread joy. That the world needed you more than I did. And I was supposed to just... accept that?"

"So you started an organization to destroy all celebration?"

"If I can't have joy, NO ONE can." Her voice cracked. "Sixty years, Chillada. Sixty years of watching you throw parties for strangers while I..."

"While you what? Built an empire of misery? Froze confetti in labs?"

"While I WAITED. For you to come back to me."

The room was silent. Even the guards seemed uncomfortable.

"I'm not the person you loved," Chillada said quietly. "I don't have those memories. Whatever we had, it's gone."

"Then I'll make you remember. The Source has a way of restoring what's lost. And you're going to take me there."

"Like hell I am."

Victoria smiled. "You don't have a choice. I have your friend. I have the coordinates. And I have a fleet heading to the Bermuda Triangle as we speak."

A radio crackled. One of the guards answered, then turned pale.

"Ma'am. We have a situation."

"What situation?"

"The perimeter. It's been breached."

Explosions. Everywhere. The building shook. Alarms blared.

And over the chaos, a voice Chillada recognized.

"ATTENTION BEIGE HAND PERSONNEL. THIS IS HAROLD JENKINS. YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO EVACUATE BEFORE I BRING THIS WHOLE FACILITY DOWN."

Victoria's face twisted. "Jenkins. That interfering old..."

More explosions. Closer now. Guards scattered.

Berry moved. Fast. Two guards down before anyone could react. Chillada grabbed Mike. They ran.

Through hallways. Through chaos. Through beige corridors that all looked the same.

And then, suddenly, they were outside. Helicopters overhead. A familiar face in a parka, waving them toward a snowmobile.

Old Man Jenkins. Armed to the teeth. Grinning like a maniac.

"Get in, kids! I've got about thirty pounds of C4 on a timer and a very angry Director on my tail!"

They didn't question it. They ran.

The snowmobile tore across the frozen landscape. Behind them, Sector 7 erupted in flames. Whatever research the Beige Hand had done, whatever frozen joy they'd stockpiled, it was gone now.

"Jenkins," Chillada shouted over the wind. "How?"

"I was there in '65, son. I'm not just some beach bum. I was a Guardian, before Victoria corrupted everything. Me and Marguerite. We swore to protect The Source. And you."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you had to find your own path. The Source works in mysterious ways. It brought you back now, when it matters. When the island is about to resurface."

"Resurface?"

Jenkins checked a device on his wrist. "The Source doesn't stay in one place. It moves. Hides. But once a generation, it surfaces for one night. And according to my calculations, that night is in seventy-two hours. Right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle."

"And Victoria's fleet is already heading there."

"Which means we need to get there first." Jenkins tossed Chillada a radio. "Contact Marguerite. She's been rallying the old Guardians. Everyone who remembers the last party. We're going to The Source one more time. And we're going to end this."

Chillada looked at Berry. At Mike. At the frozen wasteland around them.

"What happens when we get there?"

Jenkins' smile faded. "The Source can restore your memories. But there's a cost. There's always a cost. The island giveth, and the island taketh away. Are you prepared to learn the truth, even if it changes everything?"

Chillada thought about it. The truth about who he was. What he was. Why a broken woman had spent sixty years hunting him.

"I'm tired of not knowing. I'm tired of pieces instead of answers."

"Then let's go home, son. Let's go home."

They drove through the Arctic night, toward a plane, toward the Caribbean, toward an island that shouldn't exist.

And behind them, Victoria Frost stood in the burning ruins of her facility, watching them go.

"You can't outrun this, Chillada," she whispered. "You can't outrun us. And when I find The Source... I'm going to make you choose. Me or the island. Love or joy."

She pulled out a satellite phone.

"Prepare the fleet. Full speed to the Triangle. And initiate Protocol Killjoy."

On the other end, a voice responded: "The pods are ready, Director. All five subjects are awake."

Victoria smiled.

"Good. It's time to fight fire with fire. If the island made one party pineapple, we'll make five anti-party soldiers. Let's see how much joy survives THIS reunion."

END OF EPISODE 5