[Warbinger Returns Arc]

Chapter 04

Not a Villain

The escalator was still quietly rolling. Geoff hurried to the top. The air was filled with a subtle trilling that he could almost forget when something else caught his attention, but otherwise it was as incessant as chronic tinnitus. He would blame Warbinger for that too, until he learned otherwise.

As he walked carefully through the derelict mall he reached into his bag and clicked the radio on. He set it to the frequency the Pillars were supposed to be using, but hesitated before making the call. Unnecessary noise could get him in trouble. He set the volume low, but left the radio on. He could find Deilitus without calling.

When he reached the east end of the mall he jogged up the stairs to the third floor. The third floor was a silent partition even during peak hours, with few shops beyond the top floor of the big department store, but it was a popular hang-out spot for youths, especially with the Flout Chain in the corner.

Flout Chain only carried what the kids were into. If this floor had been full of kids when the evac order came through Geoff would expect more of a mess. The floor was too tidy. Deilitus was the type to clean out any noise-making mess. If someone was approaching, she wanted to hear them, not the crap on the floor.

The department store doors were still open and one of the floor-to-ceiling windows was smashed in. Broken glass was still scattered on the ground inside the store, forgotten where it fell, so the Pillars were probably not inside.

He continued toward the dead-end where the Flout Chain and the door to the roof were. A flaw in the floor made him suddenly halt. He stared at the smooth lavender tiles and ran his eyes over them again. He saw nothing, but his gut told him if he stepped forward he would die. The wall to his right had a mural depicting a family happy to go shopping together. Nothing stood out about it to him. He scanned the hall to his left, where a couple of benches squatted around some indoor trees under the skylight.

Geoff narrowed his eyes at the ground in front of him and took a step back. There was something almost imperceptible there that he never could have spotted without being trained to. A damn tripwire, clear as spider’s silk. He’d always thought the Pillars were insane. They had an obsession with controlling the setting of their engagement. Sometimes to the point where it became obvious they were nearby, but they would turn that to their advantage too.

He spent half a minute staring at the wire. He wouldn’t put it past Deilitus to use two together, so he squinted at it, around it, until his eyebrows hurt. When he was sure it was by itself he stepped over it, and now as he walked down the hall he did so slowly, scanning the floor and the air for anything hidden. Deilitus would put the nasty things at any height or angle that she thought would catch intruders off-guard. The next wire could be at waist height. When you’re used to looking for tripwires across the floor you start to miss the ones running floor to ceiling, or chest height. Or higher.

Neck height. He didn’t see the wire until it brushed his collar and even then it took him a moment to realise why his legs refused to move. If he’d been walking any faster one of Julielle’s explosives would have turned him into a stain on the wall. This second wire nearly escaped his notice by being at a forty-five degree angle with the wall. He backed away from the tripwire and took a deep breath.

“They’re just noisemakers.” a feminine voice said. A round face wrapped in a thin head-scarf poked out from the Flout Chain ahead.

Geoff sneered at Deilitus. “None of Julielle’s bombs this time?”

“They’re her noisemakers,” Deilitus replied. “That’s how you know they’re good.” The stout woman stepped into the hall and beckoned him forward with a wave of her arm. She was wearing her full-body fire suit with reflective tape around the arms and torso. “Besides, bombs and bullets don’t work on these things.”

So I was never a threat to Lamet, Geoff thought. He stepped under the tripwire and scanned the hall again. “Are you going to lead me through here?”

Deilitus approached carefully. “Where’s Richard Elliot?” she asked. She pointed with a short finger at a line in the air and Geoff strained his eyes until he found the wire.

“Vanished.” He put down his heavy bag and pushed it with his foot, then crawled under the wire after it.

“Where’s the rest of the HDF then?” Deilitus’s finger traced another line. “We asked them for backup.”

“I guess I’m it.” Geoff watched as Deilitus drew a second line in the air. This wire was in a T-shape… no, more of an H. He scowled at her. “What the hell is with these tripwires, Deil? Who are you trying to catch in these things?”

“Some of those things can fly,” she said bluntly. Her stare betrayed a lack of patience. “Entire HDF get the day off? Or are you trying to say they have more important orders than defending the city?”

“One of those things Shared the ability to understand their language with me. They’re not the enemy.” As soon as he was under the last wire he stood in front of her and met her eyes. “And the Hometoll Defence Force is evacuating the city. It’s going to be havoc in every other district with so many people hitting the streets at once. Or are you trying to say the Presidential Pillars can’t handle this tentacle thing?”

Deilitus took a step back. “What I’m hearing from you is, ‘I’m compromised’. You’re aligning yourself with these things, Geoff Friction?”

Geoff forced his temper down. He was worried about Rick, he was worried about his family and his city. He didn’t want to have to worry about the Pillars too. “That thing in the sky—Warbinger—he’s the villain here. Those visitors want to be here even less than you want them. They came with the trees, just as Rick went with the buildings.”

“How do you know they aren’t manipulating you?” Deilitus’s hand hovered over the long handgun at her waist. “You’re talking about sharing languages? How?”

“The fear in her eyes when we heard that thing scream was the same as mine.” He replied. “And what about Rick? He was next to me when he vanished. Should they see him as an enemy in their world just because he doesn’t belong, or should they work together to find out how to get him home?”

She glared at him for what felt like much too long. “You’re too idealistic.” She said, but it was clear she only said it because she had no rebuttal. “What happens if we trust them and they turn on us? They have powers we can’t explain. That language thing could be some sort of brainwashing.”

Geoff walked past her. Deilitus could think whatever she wanted, but they had to work together to make it out of this. He spoke over his shoulder. “If they’re on Warbinger’s side then we’re done whether we trust them or not. If they’re not on Warbinger’s side then teaming up is our only shot. Why is that so hard to understand?”

He stopped to look into the Flout Chain, and another Pillar was standing there watching him. Guy ‘Toy’ Hampton had been a member of the Resistance with Geoff and Rick. He was an ex-bomb-squad who got disarmed by a bomb that guarded the path to Julielle’s magnum opus. Now the cold stare of his good eye regarded Geoff as an enemy, instead of as an old companion. His prosthetic arms were folded across his chest, his fingers fiddling idly with a knob near his elbow. He never stopped playing with those things.

Geoff shook his head. He thought it was so easy to leave the past behind… until something came along and dragged it back out. At least he knew they would be strong allies. If they would cooperate.

“Good to see you Geoff. Glad you’re still on my side.” Toy’s expression softened as he nodded.

“Likewise, Toy Guy, good to see you,” he sighed, relieved the Pillars hadn’t made him as hard as he thought.

Toy ran a hand through his hair. The left side of his head was bald from the old burn scar, and he had a flat, black device where his ear used to be, but the rest of his head was graced by smooth brown hair that flowed around the right side to rest near his chin. “The employee halls run behind here.” He waved a thumb over his shoulder towards the back of the store. “There are restrooms and an employee lounge back there—”

“Why don’t we just show him?” Deilitus interrupted. She marched into the store, stepping around fallen clothes racks that had been picked bare until she reached a narrow door behind the counter. It had been a shop packed with useless crap from t-shirts to key-chains depicting whatever teenagers were into. But the shelves were bare now, leaving the store shockingly empty. Even the worthless gag gifts were taken.

A gunshot echoed through the walls from somewhere far away. The three of them fell to a crouched position and drew their sidearms simultaneously. Deilitus nodded Geoff towards the door.

Geoff nodded. “I can understand them.” he said as he pushed past Deilitus and pulled the door open.

He leaned carefully into the hall. It was long and narrow, with plain white walls and grey carpet all the way to the end. A sign hung from the ceiling at the corner, pointing the way to the restrooms. Beneath it, a pale white alien man with green hair in old-fashioned armour that looked like leather watched something down the other hall. His smooth tail swished absently.

The visitor turned his head and his green eyes met Geoff’s. His hand stretched out towards him. Geoff took a single step into the hall and raised his hand peaceably, but something flashed at the tip of the alien’s fingers and he ducked back into the store as lightning arced through the hall, blasting paint off the walls and leaving trails of scorch marks on either side of the corridor.

“Peace is not an option,” Deilitus asserted. “We need to figure out how to kill them, and get back there to support Barker and Julielle.”

Geoff’s heart skipped a beat at the name. They let her out for this? He wasn’t sure if it was Julielle who bothered him most, or the thought that the President was so concerned by Warbinger that she was released.

A rapid succession of gunfire began in the hall and Geoff leaned over to chance a look. The visitor was facing the other way, standing calmly as a hailstorm of bullets ricocheted off of the air around him and planted harmlessly in the surrounding walls. Every bullet was accompanied by the high-pitched whine of the turret that fired them. The sound was close enough to the bark of a small dog that once Geoff had learned the turret’s name he couldn’t hear the sound as anything else.

Geoff turned back to Deilitus. “Move,” he said, shooing her aside. ”Toy Guy, hand me that clothes rack.”

Deilitus glowered at him but moved aside without a word as Toy lifted the heavy metal rack over the counter. Geoff set it down and wheeled it into the hall. Barker’s Good Boy stationary machine gun ceased fire and the alien looked apathetically at Geoff.

With both hands on the rack in front of him he ran forward. The rack bounced on bad wheels so he pushed harder to make up for it. The green man tilted his head curiously as Geoff closed the distance with his screeching, wobbling rack of metal. He pointed his hand at Geoff again and when his fingers flashed he released the rack and rolled onto the ground. The lightning blasted the metal onto its side and it came to a clanging halt on the thin carpet. Geoff shielded his eyes from the flash as the walls were torn up and fried, but he was protected from the attack by the metal frame. The stench of burned paint filled his nostrils.

As soon as he thought it was safe he bolted forward and vaulted over the rack. “Stop fighting, you morons!” he shouted to everyone who could hear.

A metallic klink on the wall signalled Toy shuffling into the corridor behind him.

Geoff reached out to grab the alien’s cloak but he bolted around the corner and his fingers missed by a hand’s width. Shouting in Barker’s deep voice came from the hall on the right, far out of sight. He grabbed the edge of the wall and pivoted into the next hall just in time to see the billowing cloak of the visitor disappear into one of the restrooms. A sound like a little barking dog caught his ear and a bullet whizzed past his face. He dove to the ground as a half dozen more missed their alien target and penetrated the walls.

He held his head down a moment longer, until Toy came around the corner with Deilitus.

“Get off your ass,” Deilitus said. “You’re our only backup and you’re trying to get yourself killed in the first ten seconds?”

Geoff pushed himself to his feet. Barker was already gone from the hall. He hadn’t even glimpsed the man. The restroom signs hung like beacons above an open door on his left. The room rang with voices, some familiar, some alien. He hurried forward, and left his heavy bag against the wall in the corridor before going in with a warning shout.

“I’m coming in!” He kept his hands raised at shoulder height.

Inside the restroom, the back wall was gone and the stalls with it. Water squirted out of the pipes into pointy violet shrubbery below. Julielle’s analytical eyes watched him over her shoulder, her tall, thin frame matching Barker’s bulky form in height. Barker stared straight at the cloaked visitors without turning, a heavy Good Boy Turret clutched in one of his thick hands.

“I don’t think they want to fight us,” Barker said in his rumbling voice. “They aren’t attacking.”

“They want to go home,” Geoff agreed. “More than that, they want to kill the thing in the sky.”

Barker’s head barely turned, angling his ear towards Geoff while keeping his eyes on the visitors. “That you, Friction? Is Elliot here too?”

“Rick’s not here. He’s in their world, I think.” He stepped forward. Julielle moved away from him with an untrusting look in her eye. As if he was the one they shouldn’t be trusting. “Are you here to help us fight Warbinger?” Geoff asked the visitors.

Their posture relaxed somewhat hearing the name, but they stared intensely at him. The green one spoke. “So you are the one who understands? Lamet the Riteweaver warned us that she Shared the Rite of Tongues with one of your kind.”

Geoff nodded. “Yeah, Lamet Shared the Rite of Tongues so I can understand you.” He repeated for the others’s benefit. “Where is Lamet?”

The one who spoke nodded in return. “Lamet is not here.”

Another of the visitors chimed in, “She is elsewhere.” They grinned at each other as though sharing a joke he wasn’t in on. “She is always elsewhere,” they laughed.

“So are they enemies or not?” Deilitus hefted her heavy handgun in the doorway.

“These people aren’t the villains,” Geoff asserted. “Lamet is not a villain.” He would fight her over it if he had to. Although his kidney still remembered what her knuckles felt like. “Lamet asked for our help—our cooperation—in killing Warbinger. She is terrified of that monster, and I think if we understood what it was we’d all be a little more terrified too.” He remembered the excessive description Lamet had given of the creature’s name. The visitors voiced agreement, though not as confidently as he would have thought, and he translated for them.

Toy spoke up, his head poking in above Deilitus. “Should I radio in that we’re working with the, uh…?”

“No,” Deilitus snapped.

“Yes!” Geoff asserted again, turning to stare down Deilitus. “Come on Deil, go get your guns so we can get this started. Longhorn is in position right?” Longhorn the Sniper was always in position. That woman made restaurant reservations with her scope aimed through the window.

Deilitus, unsurprisingly, nodded the affirmative.

“If it helps,” one of the visitors said, Everyone turned to look at them. It was Lamet, having appeared from somewhere. Her blue hair and long skirt settled gently as though she’d just fluttered down from above. “We are called ‘purens’, and our world is Oval. It is very different from here, but we are peaceful people. Our Rites and spells are mighty, but we would benefit greatly from the strength of your warriors in defeating this enemy that threatens both of our worlds.”

Geoff cocked an eyebrow at Lamet’s sudden appearance, but he translated her words for the others.

“I don’t trust them,” Julielle said, backing away from Lamet. Geoff wasn’t surprised those were the first words out of her mouth since he got there. She was famously distrusting of folk on the ‘other side’, as she perceived. Even Toy, after all this time. “We can kill it ourselves.” She reached for the low-calibre pistol on her back.

Deilutis grunted loudly, and when she was satisfied she had everyone’s attention, she spoke. “Listen to that,” she said. “That chirping—or whatever—in the air. It’s getting louder. We keep standing here arguing, and it keeps getting louder.”

“That noise is Warbinger’s laughter,” Lamet explained. Her sharp ears drooped.

“We know that our weapons don’t work on these ‘purens’ anyway.” Deilitus continued, not waiting for Geoff to translate Lamet’s words. “We’ve been racking our brains trying to figure out how to hurt them. Now we’re being told that power is on our side. It sounds too good to be true, but…”

“The nightmare that dangles in the sky seems too evil to be true,” Lamet finished. Geoff almost forgot to translate as she continued. “Our spells protect us from your projectiles and flames, but we would gladly use these magics to your benefit if you allowed us.”

Deilitus’s face contorted with uncertainty but she made her decision finally. “Toy Guy, radio the update. Actually, I’m coming with you to get my guns.”