Chapter 21:
The Whispering
Hey kid, your backpack is ringing," Finnigan said, exiting the tent where they stored most of their gear and throwing Titus's bag to him. Titus caught it and frowned. He'd last checked in with the other Indestructibles almost a month ago, and they hadn't seemed particularly worried about him. Kate in particular wanted nothing to do with his little spiritual sojourn, but Titus knew that was mostly his fault.
Still, for them to try to reach him out of the blue made him nervous. He was almost afraid to answer the call.
He pulled out the slim block of plastic that connected him to the Tower and looked at the screen. Weirdly, the call was from Neal.
"Huh?" Titus said.
"Problems?" Finnigan asked.
Titus shrugged.
"Let's find out."
He answered.
"What's going on, Neal?" he said.
"Designation: Fury, I have a message from Designation: Dancer," Neal said.
I see the computer is as upbeat and charming as ever, Titus thought. Although hearing directly from the AI instead of Jane or Billy, or even Kate, raised the hairs on the back of his neck. During the early part of his trek every call came from someone in person, never through the computer.
"Go ahead."
"Designation: Dancer gave me explicit instructions to tell you that she needs you to come home."
Titus dropped his backpack, and nearly dropped the communicator he had held to his ear.
"I'm sorry — that message is from Kate?"
"Yes, Designation: Fury. Those were her precise words."
"Are you sure this was Dancer?"
"Yes. I will play you the recorded message," the AI said.
"That's not necessary — "
Before he could stop the AI, Neal played back Kate's voice. She sounded ragged, amped up, angry, and afraid.
"I need you to find Titus. Tell him . . . Tell him I need him. Be very specific about that. Tell him I need him to come home."
"Neal, I'm a long way from home. I need to get back as fast as I can — can you track a bus route or something for me from here? Do you even know where I am?"
"I know your exact location via your communications device," Neal said. "Designation: Dancer also gave express instructions that I am a bloody spaceship and I am to come and fetch you if I have to. Do you need me to play back that recording?"
"No, Neal," Titus said.
His legs were watery, his hands halfway to numb. Kate doesn't need anyone. Kate doesn't ask for help. Something terrible has happened and I'm not there. I've let them down. I need to get home. I need to get home now. "Neal, come and get me."
"As you wish, Designation: Fury. I shall be there shortly."
Titus rung off and looked at Finnigan. He could feel a buzzing in the back of his eyes, felt his vision blurring. Deeper inside of himself he could feel the wolf growling, ready for a fight. Someone has hurt my friends.
"I need to go home," Titus said.
Finnigan's face scrunched up into a sneering frown.
"Damnit," he said. "I suppose it had to happen eventually."
* * *
The floating ship where the Indestructibles called home had been drifting over the City for more than a year, ever since the building where it had been hidden for decades crumbled to the ground. It was still called the Tower in casual conversation, both by the heroes themselves and by the residents in the city; the building where it once perched, the home of more than one generation of super-humans, had always been called the Tower, and as with most language it was tough to change the name of a thing once it had been christened.
And so the City still had its Tower in the sky, watching over them.
Not everyone liked the flying fortress, of course. For many, it felt invasive, an oppressive presence watching their every move. For others, the Tower provided a sense of security; there, high above them, were extraordinary people who did extraordinary things, and they were watching, to save the day, to make the world a better place.
On a sunny afternoon, just hours after news was released of a breakout at the super-human prison known as the Labyrinth — where the Indestructibles had flown into and not come back out, according to reporter Jon Broadstreet, who, with an unprofessional tone in his chosen language, indicated he suspected foul play against the young heroes — the Tower moved from its quiet orbit around the perimeter of the City.
It was almost unnoticeable at first, a slight drift, out over the harbor, the shape of the airship becoming smaller, more distant. But on the streets, a child, a vendor, a college student, a homeless man, one after another, they pointed to the Tower, and said, it's flying away.
The Tower's mighty engines rumbled louder than they had since the attack that destroyed the faux building that housed it last year, enormous thrusters, long dark, glowing bright as they propelled the Tower away.
More and more of the City's inhabitants watched as their silent guardian abandoned them, flying north, casting a vast, blocky shadow over city streets and residents.
Even those who hated the Tower, who felt oppressed by its presence, voiced concerns at this movement. The City, as one, held its collective breath as the Tower disappeared over the horizon.
For the first time in decades, their watcher on the wall abandoned them. And for many, it was impossible to explain why they felt so suddenly vulnerable, and so suddenly alone.
* * *
Titus could see the Tower approaching on the horizon. Another time he might have fretted about how he'd get there, whether Neal would send a hoverbike for him or beam him up with some forgotten technology Doc Silence never told them about. But he was too full of fear, too worried about his friends, and too heartbroken to need to leave his new family behind.
Finnigan, Gabriel, and Leto sat around the fire, watching the behemoth drift closer.
"I wish we had more time," Leto said, her voice like breaking glass.
"I'll come back," Titus said. "I promise."
"If you go to the City, you won't return," Leto said.
Titus turned to her. She seemed to know things no one else did, a quiet prescience. He wondered if she had some foreknowledge of what was to come.
"Do you know something I don't?" Titus asked. "Am I going to die there?"
Leto shook her head.
"I don't know anything about the future, Titus Whispering," she said. "All I know is that the world of Man takes and takes and takes. If you give yourself to them, they will never let you leave. It's the way of humanity. It's the selfishness of mankind. Even if you want to come back here, they will always need you. They will always call you back."
"But they do need me," he said.
"We know, kid," Finnigan said. "And this is why we came to find you. Because you bloody Whisperings always did the right thing. You were always there to right the wrong things."
"And it always destroys you in the end," Leto said.
Her face was a blank mask, but there was a glint in her eye as if she were seconds away from tears. "Your family has always, always thrown their lives away on people who didn't deserve it."
"My friends do deserve it," he said. "They deserve it more than I can even describe."
"It ain't your friends we're talking about, kid," Finnigan said. "It's the people. All those people. Helpless and selfish. They'll eat you alive a little bit at a time and you'll never know until it's over."
"Your mother and father tried to make the world a better place," Leto said. "And that is why you were hidden. Because of all the enemies they made doing so."
The Tower drew closer now, a huge monolith in the sky.
"Whispering," Gabriel said, the first word he'd spoken since Titus told them he had to leave. The sound of the dark-haired werewolf's voice sent a chill down Titus's spine.
"I'm sorry, Gabriel. You've worked so hard to make me better," Titus said.
"If you didn't go back now, then we failed," Gabriel said.
He tossed something to Titus, a staff, not a practice weapon but a finely crafted piece. A metal blade gleamed at the top. The wood was carved with emblems, clearly crafted with a werewolf's claw. The blade had been etched as well with strange runes and sigils, dead languages long forgotten by the minds of man.
"What's this?"
"You worked with the magician Doc Silence. If you ever see him again, ask him about the words on that spear," Gabriel said. "Your mother learned them from him. That wood won't break. The tip will cut through steel."
"I can't take this. It's yours."
"It was never mine," Gabriel said. He pointed at Finnigan. "That madman over there found it among their things after they'd died. We've been saving it for you."
"Now you're making me sound sentimental," Finnigan said.
"You are sentimental," Leto said. "You've always been a sentimental old fool."
"I wouldn't have followed you all these years if I wasn't," he said. The redheaded werewolf threw his arms around Titus, crushing him in a massive hug. "These two are being dramatic, you know. Maybe you'll be the first one to come back."
"I'm sorry. I just . . . my friends need me."
Leto stood up, took Titus's face in her hands, kissed his forehead. She pressed her head against his, not letting him go.
"This is the way of things," she said. "We knew the world would call you back. We did all this so that you could survive there, with all the wounds it will inflict on you."
Gabriel handed Titus a belt with one of his signature, curved knives looped to it.
"This, this one is mine," Gabriel said. "I'll be proud if you'll carry it for me."
Titus nodded, both men holding the belt for a moment before Titus looped it around his waist, letting the staff Gabriel gave him rest against his shoulder like an old sentinel.
He looked at Leto, staring into her otherworldly face.
"Am I making a mistake?"
Leto shook her head.
"I just wish we had more time," she said.
Titus could hear the Tower's engines humming to a stop, and saw a smaller vehicle, one of the hoverbikes, darting down riderless to the ground. He turned away from his friends, and Finnigan grabbed his shoulder.
"I don't care what anyone says, kid," the older werewolf said, whispering harshly into Titus's ear. "You ever need me, I'll bloody well come running. Go make us proud."
Titus smiled, slapped Finnigan on the shoulder, and climbed on the bike, the rising pride in his chest almost overwhelming his fear of flying. The bike took off, Neal clearly in control and Titus holding on for dear life, and he watched Leto, Gabriel, and Finnigan shrink as he rose up into the sky, disappearing behind a canopy of green.
The bike buzzed into the landing bay, the doors closing behind him, this new, metallic silence causing his ears to ring. It was too quiet inside the Tower, too cold, too clean, too sterile. The place felt alien, and he felt very alone.
He was shaken from his thoughts by the sound of little nailed feet running around the corner, and a dog no bigger than a loaf of bread came barreling toward him.
"We have a dog now?" Titus said aloud.
He crouched down, let Watson jump into his arms, and scooped him up into the crook of his arm, walking toward the control room.
"Welcome back, Designation: Fury," Neal said.
The AI honestly sounded happy.
"Thank you, Neal. First things first. I need you to change my designation."
"Of course. Please state your official designation now."
"Please update my file to Designation: Whispering."
"Done. The Tower is yours, Designation: Whispering."
"Good," Titus said.
The dog licked his face and Titus, on impulse, bent down to press his forehead against the animal's. "Let's go help our friends. You can fill me in on the way."
Chapter 22:
The dead man
It didn't feel like a prison cell, Jane thought. More like a sparsely appointed hotel suite. Two rooms, two beds and a cot, a couch, even a television, which Emily sat in front of, flipping channels ruthlessly.
The door was locked, which was not a good sign, but Jane was pretty certain she could just rip the thing off the hinges if she had to. Of course then they'd need to try to fight their way back to the exit, and Sam hadn't lied about how the Labyrinth got its name — she had no idea which direction to even start in to find their way back out again.
Billy sat on the floor in the corner, his head hanging between his knees. He hadn't said much since the fight. He looked smaller somehow, frailer, as if part of him had been ripped out when the weapon Prevention hit him with knocked the alien parasite sharing his body from him.
"You guys should break out," he said, finally.
It had been so long since he'd said a word that Jane was beginning to think he'd become catatonic, that some cataclysmic psychological damage had occurred when he and the alien had been separated.
"We're not leaving without you," Jane said.
"I'm useless," Billy said. "Look at me. I'm a liability. I can't help you. I'm worse than a liability. They're using me to handcuff you."
"We're not going anywhere without you."
Billy looked at her with terrifyingly dead eyes, the sockets shadowed with bruises. He looked half in the grave.
"You should."
She was about to continue to argue with him when a horrifying squealing noise tore through the room. Jane and Billy both startled, looking for the source.
Plaster and dust crumbled from the ceiling, and cracks had formed along the entire front wall of their cell. Jane looked close and saw the whole wall had moved two inches forward. She looked at Emily.
"So I can knock this whole wall down if we want," she said, smiling with creepy innocence.
As if to prove it, the wall creaked forward another inch.
"Don't do that," Jane said.
"Why not?" The wall groaned as it slid another inch forward.
"I want to say because I'd like a chance to negotiate peacefully, but really it's because I have no idea how far underground we are," Jane said.
Emily wrinkled her nose and the wall cracked down the middle. She folded her arms and went back to channel surfing.
"How long have you known you can do that?"
"About ninety seconds," Emily said.
"Anything else you can do that you haven't told us about?"
Emily looked at Jane defiantly and touched her nose with her tongue.
"I en oo iss," she said.
Jane almost got mad, but she caught Billy's face out of the corner of her eye and saw he was nearly smiling. It was a small sliver of hope. Let him laugh at Emily. They would need him later.
Someone knocked on the door. Before Jane could say anything, Emily answered.
"Entropy Emily's Funhouse Bonanza, what's the password?"
The door opened without a word. Prevention walked in, with one of her agents — the dark-haired one, Lock — and another man, older, haggard, leaning on a cane. It took a moment for Jane to register his face.
"You," she said. "You're supposed to be dead."
"In the eyes of the law I believe I technically am," the man said. "But tell that to these people. They refuse to let me die."
"You're on the wall back at the Tower," Emily said.
"I am," the man said. "Henry Winter. You must be Doc's kids."
The man in front of them was a shell of the smiling hero in the group photos Doc had left hanging up around the Tower. His dark hair had turned gray, almost white at the temples, and he'd grown a fully beard where once a perfectly groomed goatee had been. His hair looked dry and brittle, his face creased with pain. It clearly hurt him to walk, even with the aid of the cane in his hand. Jane could see his arm trembling to keep himself upright.
Winter had been known to the general public as the hero Coldwall, named after the company the Winter family owned. An innovation think tank, they created a riot control suit meant to lock down dangerous situations with minimal casualties using a combination of protective measures for the users and extreme air temperature control. The suit could, in its earliest iterations, create the walls of ice its name implied, lay down sheets of frozen ground, create fog of freezing conditions to break up a dangerous crowd.
Of course this was the plan only until the Winter clan's scion, Henry, stole the suit for a joyride and found that being a hero was more rewarding than being a rich brat with an engineering degree.
Over the years, Winter turned out to be smarter than anyone gave him credit for — he inherited his family tendency toward scientific discovery, though he hid it behind partying and adventuring. Secretly, though, he contributed most of the technology in the Tower that hadn't been co-opted from aliens or stolen from the future by one of the other heroes. His family was about to disown him for betraying their fortune, but Henry Winter went public with his identity years ago. Some thought he was being brave, but really, Doc told Jane one night over dinner, Henry just knew his greedy family couldn't stand the public relations flack of throwing out a blood-related hero.
And then ten years ago Henry Winter died saving the world. Or at least that's what everyone thought.
"You blew up in orbit," Jane said. "You stopped that negative energy bomb from going off in Chicago and you died."
Winter smiled.
"Y'know, I had wanted to retire for years," Winter said. "I was burning out. I was tired of being in the spotlight. So I had this wonderful escape plan."
"You faked your own death?" Emily said.
"You got it."
"That's awesome."
"It should have been awesome," Winter said, warming up to Emily, the way smart people always seemed to do. "Except I shattered half the bones in my body on reentry into the atmosphere and spent the next eighteen months in a private hospital."
"Then how did you end up here? The other heroes didn't come find you?" Jane asked.
Winter gave a sidelong glance at Prevention, who was staring at him passively, as if waiting to see how he responded as an experiment.
"Someone else found me first," he said.
"And why are you here?" Jane said. "What's the point?"
Again, Winter looked at Prevention. They seemed to have an entire conversation with just their eyes.
"They paraded me up here to be your new mentor," Winter said. "But — "
"Henry," Prevention said.
"No, dammit, you can pretend all you want, Laura, but these kids are too smart for some half-baked lie," Winter said, raising his voice. The hand that was gripping the cane shook even worse now.
"We talked about this," Prevention said.
"Too bad. You've pushed me enough. I'm doing this my way."
Prevention stared him down again, but acquiesced with a thin hand gesture.
"They wanted me to come up here and play mentor for you," Winter said, his voice drained of the fire it had just a few minutes before. "But I'm really here to tell you it's not worth fighting. They always find a way to win. They're not — "
"That's enough, Henry."
The entire front wall moved again, so sudden a shift that Lock reached for his weapon. Jane raised an eyebrow at Emily.
"On't ook a'ee," Emily said, touching her tongue to her nose again. "I didn't do it."