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Chapter 5

No Matter Where We Go

“Join me! Join my new perspective, we have so much to do!” Silk shouted at Eight.

“No, join me! let’s leave this place behind once and for all!” Eight shouted back.

Both were laid flat on the ground, completely limp save for their heads, until Eight slowly stood up—pieces of his armor falling off as the sickly green glow within his eyes returned and antennae sprouted from his head.

“Heh,” Eight picked up a piece of rebar, “If you won’t join me… Then I guess you will get what you wanted.” He limped closer to Silk, “But just before that, do you remember the story of Glint and Sow? The one Yard told us before—”

A chunk of concrete hit Eight right on the head—knocking him out instantly, his body falling onto his discarded armor, making a series of crunchy cla-clanks on impact.

“Old crazies…” Free dusted concrete off his hands, “Come on up, coast’s clear.”

Silk turned to Free, using his chin to move, “Aw, you didn’t have to help, I had him right where I wanted him. Good throw though, he’s going to be napping till next dusk!”

“Oh, he’s alive, wait a moment guys,” Free picked up another piece of concrete before being stopped by Frost, who had just emerged from the pit with Foxx shortly behind.

“Do not,” Frost whispered.

Free tossed the concrete aside, “You’re right, there’s a chance he has some useful info.”

“That is one reason.”

The trio walked over to Silk, who tried to wave hello but the best he could do was flop his arm a bit, “How are you three holding up?”

“Fine,” Frost answered as they hacked up another glob of coolant; they tried their best to angle it away from Foxx’s view. As for Foxx and Free, they did not answer, but Silk didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s good—Anway, thanks for the help, especially you little guy, you really saved my hide and gave me a whole new perspective,” Silk managed to move one of hands, gesturing a sole finger gun at Foxx. “Consider yourselves invited to my death party, it’s just a few hundred miles east from here—starts around dawn.”

“…Your what party?” Free thought he misheard Silk.

“Oh, you know, a death party. I was going to blow this place up once me and Eight finished our talk.”

“With us still here?!”

“You would have been fine, you three are clearly quite the tough bunch, and the bombs were duds anyway. I think I heard them go off a while ago and they only took out a small chunk from the side—didn’t even take out the Beam! That’s the last time I buy explosives cheap.”

Silk turned to the pillar of light and with his mouth he grabbed the rebar Eight dropped, “but I guess I can just…” he threw the rebar at the highest ring, hitting a minuscule button on its side—causing the pillar to vanish instantly. “Oh, and almost forgot,” he blinked three times then flopped his hand twice on the ground, dispelling the aroura in the sky like it had collapsed into itself, “Bit anticlimactic, but I got a lot better things to do.”

“Yeah, same,” Free chose not to say what he wanted to in that moment. “We’re too busy to join your death party, but do you have any supplies to spare? Persevered foods, electronics, water, fuel—the works,” he said bluntly.

“Sure, one of my supply caches is not that far from here. It's on the left side of the fountain on the ground floor of the mall, right under a tile marked with seventeen green dots. You can’t miss it!”

“Oh, great, how convenient,” Free’s eye twitched. “Also,” he pointed at Foxx, who had wandered over to a pile of rubble not too far from the group, “Is he one of yours?”

“The little guy? Nah, must be an Alien like you two.”

Out of the rubble, Foxx recovered Silk’s banjo, floating it above himself in the air and sniffing it before dropping it back onto the ground. His ears drooping down in disappointment as he hovered back to the other two.

“Free,” Frost nudged Free’s shoulder.

“What?”

“Ask him about the ‘Thing.’”

“Why don’t you ask?” Free groaned.

“How can I? As only you know what the ‘Thing’ is,” a faint grin appeared on Frost’s face.

Free sighed, “Fine, you win, I’m too tired for this.” He turned to Silk, “Do you know where we can find a… Thing-Mi-Find.”

“Ooo, a Thing-Mi-Find, that’s a hard one,” he took a long pause to think. “If I recall correctly: My old friend Seam knew a guy who used to be friends with this other guy named Hide. That guy had a cousin who knew the partner of a guy that lived on Hornnhealm. Now, that guy knew a guy who also lived there who had this black helmet with these big ole silver antlers.” He looked at Frost, “Kinda like yours—but not at all.”

“I have horns, not antlers,” Frost corrected.

“Right—Anyway, that silver-antlers-guy had one, I know that for sure!” Silk gave a shaky thumbs up.

“How helpful, thanks,” Free barely paying attention to about half of what Silk said until he suddenly lit up, figuratively, then scrounged around in his backpack—taking out the strange chip Frost gave him back at the lobby. “One last thing,” he crouched down to show Silk the chip, “Can you tell me what this is? Is it a controller, a key, a communication device… a bomb?”.

“That little thing? That’s a memory game for kids, Cloth Commands I think it was called.”

“…”

“You press the middle button to start, press the light that glows, then a new round starts and another color is added to the sequence of buttons you have to press.”

“……”

“Surprised it lasted this long, a good reminder of how life keeps on keeping on!”

“………”

Silk turned to Frost as Free lamented in silence, “By the way, I would like to ask—”

Frost collapsed—planting their face directly onto the floor, making a loud and worrying splat on impact.

“Welp, seems like we have to cut this short,” Silk rotated towards a door on the other side of the roof that looked just like the elevator in the lobby, “There’s the elevator If you didn’t know.”

Free slinged Frost over his shoulder, “Can’t use it, the elevator downstairs was jammed, exactly like that one.”

Silk chuckled, “Nah, you see, they just look like that. It’s a fancy thing, you just have to press the center then pull up.”

Free walked over to the elevator, with Foxx following, and did as Silk said, which caused the door to retract into its frame like an aperture.

“I hope you all visit again sometime!” Silk weakly waved the trio goodbye.

“Uh-huh,” Free said as him and Foxx squeezed into the elevator, Free trying his best to not bonk Frost’s horns on the frame.

Pressing the ground floor button, the last thing they saw was Silk using his chin to crawl to Eight’s unconscious body.

***

Be-be-be-ba—be-be-be—ba-doop, upbeat and chippy but serene and jazzy music fizzed out of the speakers overhead, pairing well with the cool wind from the A/C which breezed into the cramped elevator, Frost’s horns taking up most of its space. Free had to stand at a strange and uncomfortable angle as to not have them scrape against the stainless steel walls or hit Foxx on the head.

“Is… Frost… ok?” Foxx said, his voice was a little less static than before, but he still struggled to speak.

Free shrugged, “Eh, probably. This is the worst beating I’ve seen them take, but they most likely just overheated from coolant lost and their insulation jacket getting all messed up.” He reset his hold on Frost while wiping coolant off his shoulder, “Thankfully I know a thing or two about repairing dumb as—” He censored himself, “...butts, dumb butts.”

“How… about… you?”

“I’ll live. My hair took the worst of it and that repairs a lot faster than the rest of me.” Free yawned, “Need to do a check up on you too, just to make sure there’s no serious damage or something.”

After that the two stayed silent for most of their descent, not an awkward silence but a refreshing one. It felt like everything was finally going to be alright—there was nothing else that needed to be said. That was until they passed the third floor and Free realized something that he had forgotten.



There was still a horde of guards that infested the building.



He prepared to dash the moment the doors opened, although he was heavily impaired by having to carry Frost, “Foxx, when the door opens be ready to book it, got it?”

Foxx tilted his head curiously at Free as the elevator clicked into place, the music fading out with a hiss and the door retracting—revealing shadowed figures that swarmed the entire lobby.

The moment it was open enough to fit through, Free dashed out—immediately tripping on the gap between the floor and the elevator, falling onto one of the guards and hearing a loud rip.

He recovered as quickly as he could, standing back up and finding himself covered in… fresh soil. Frost was covered too and a scrap of burlap hanging off their horns.

However, still believing they were in danger, Free scanned the lobby for a path through the “horde” only to notice that none of them were moving. He looked down to see that at the “guard” he stumbled onto was just a bag of soil strapped onto wooden sticks and covered in thin flimsy armor.

“How in the—” a clump of dirt from Frost’s horns plopped onto Free’s head as Foxx gently hovered out of the elevator, briefly looking at one of the faux guards before moving to Free’s side.

“…”

Free took a long deep breath, made sure Frost had not sustained any further injury—finding nothing new, and with one last pained sigh—he quietly walked out of the building with Foxx in tow.

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