I pulled AJ back down from the windows as lights shone through, dividing the room horizontally into light and shadow.
“They- they got Terry,” he said miserably. I could tell he was holding back his tears.
I patted his shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll get him back. I just need to talk to them.” Without getting my head blown off before I can get a word out.
What was the best way to do this? Coming out without my armour on would appear less threatening, but the chances of me getting subdued instantly were too high. Perhaps I could raise some equivalent to a white flag? I briefly entertained the idea of growing flowers out a window at the tip of a branch, but I quickly discarded that idea. Anything I Shaped would likely be seen as an attack. No, I had to get my point across fast and hope that they would listen. I had no doubt that they were spreading out and surrounding the store with every passing second.
There was a quiet buzz that would get louder for a moment before growing distant again, like giant flies were buzzing over our heads. It was the sound of drones. Possibly ones installed with methods of driving us out of the store via tear gas or some other technology.
No more time to deliberate.
I took a deep breath and walked out the back door. Two intense beams of light flared to life, making me flinch in the split second that I’d thought they had just opened fire. I resisted the urge to raise my hands. They had just watched an alien figure clad in organic armour stride out to meet their ambush. Trigger fingers would be itching for an excuse.
A man spoke loudly, “Get down on the ground now or we will shoot.” His voice was a little muffled, likely by the masks that they all wore.
I kneeled and kept my head bowed. It wasn’t like I could see anything past the lights anyway. “I know what’s causing the waves of emotion that are being sent across Sillwood!” I called out. “It’s a Tree created by a Witch.”
The man was quiet for a moment. “Surrender and we’ll bring you in for questioning.”
“I’m willing to cooperate! I want to! But surely you know that we can’t afford to wait on this. Every second you spend detaining me and going through procedures, more people are dying to the Rings and that cloned Wolf running around Sillwood! I can help you now.”
“No more offers,” the man responded curtly. “As you said, we don’t have the time to entertain every Cast we come across. Tell your friends inside to come out with their hands up.”
I wet my lips and spoke, “I can stop the clones. All of them at once.”
Again there was quiet. The Tree boomed across the city. I could hear it now. The collective screams of everyone in the city as the anger hit them anew, like they were stuck in a loop of discovering something maddening. Like the city itself was roaring in pain.
Then the man threw me a lifeline in a single word.
“Explain.”
I started talking, explaining my plan to myself as much as I was telling it to them. “Every Wolf has mental triggers that they use to recall Shapes quickly and automatically. It’s like muscle memory. I use memories. Alek, the one whose clones are tearing the city apart? He has a Shape that he uses music to categorize. Specific tracks that when he listens to them, cause him to produce a Shaped object, a tuning fork.”
I patted my hip very slowly, barely moving my hand. “I have that music in my possession. It’s a long list of songs, each one producing a slightly different tuning fork. I think it can be weaponized against Alek. It only takes a few seconds for him to produce a tuning fork, but if we run through the songs in succession, only the first few seconds of each, we can incapacitate him by making him perpetually vomit up new tuning forks. If we broadcast those songs over the whole city-”
“Why do you know so much about this situation?” the man interrupted, clearly wary.
“Becuase it happened before. I was at Cathrow Farm when the locals activated a Tree there.”
“A Beacon.”
“R-right,” I stuttered. “A Beacon. I’m a Wolf. My Witch was the one who made that Beacon.”
“Did she make this one?”
“No. But she did activate it. Now, through the waves, I can tell where it’s coming from within the Old Town. I could show you…”
No response.
“Look, I actually know one of you. His name is Mackenzie North. He’s my friend, he was at Cathrow. Can’t you just verify with him that I’m trustworthy?”
“He’s not part of this team,” he said bluntly.
That seemed like stubbornness to me. “Surely you have some way to communicate between teams?”
He didn’t answer.
But he wasn’t shouting at me to stop talking either. I pressed forward, “If I’m being honest, you guys aren’t doing enough. I’ve encountered H.E.S.P. teams twice now and both times they were moving agonizingly slow. At this pace, you would have to have hundreds of teams across the city to quell this chaos. Which you don’t, because I would have run into more of them. Sillwood is filling up with the blood of innocent people. Who do you think they’ll blame? I would blame the people who knew. Who knew everything: about Shaping, about the monsters living next door, about the people who seem intent on hurting us, and about whatever those things hanging above our heads are.”
I let that last point hang for a moment, hoping that they would give me something. The man didn’t answer.
“I’m giving you all a chance to help me stop this now. Surely that reward is enough to try trusting me. Even if it’s at gunpoint.”
I could hear some quiet muttering. They were discussing it. Why were they not using their radios? I had a suspicion.
Two more pulses of the Tree came and passed before the man I assumed to be the leader of this team spoke again.
“Even if what you claim is true, your plan won’t work. Even using the speakers in the city square won’t be possible.”
I nodded slowly. “Will it not work for the same reason you can’t communicate via radio?”
A pause. “Yes.”
I thought back to the university. “It’s the Beacon, isn’t it? It’s sending some sort of scrambling signal. People’s cellphones aren’t working either. It’s the reason you all can’t communicate and coordinate properly.”
“Yes.”
I looked into the light, trying to convey my sincerity. “I can help you reach the Beacon. We secure it, then use it to broadcast our own message. Which will be Alek’s playlist. My Witch is there, she is experienced with Beacons. I’m confident we would be able to stop the jamming and the Aleks. Two birds with one stone. Then H.E.S.P. can sweep the rest of the city with proper communication and less aggression from people who don’t understand their Shapes.”
My plan was their best shot, I knew it.
“This all hinges on you being correct about the target’s weakness. And it requires that my team diverge from its objectives on the word of one unknown, possibly malicious individual.”
“After all this is over, I’ll surrender for questioning. Please. Take the chance.” I turned back towards the convenience store and called out. “Come on out slowly! Hands up! We’re going to cooperate!”
In a gesture of good will, the others exited the store, even Richard with his hands raised high. He must have left his gun inside.
The blinding lights lowered and I blinked as my eyes began to clear. The team approached us, guns still raised. Glassy black goggles glinted like insect eyes. A man came to the front with his gun hanging from its strap.
He subbed his shoulder as he spoke, “I’m going to lose my pension for this…”
I began to recede my armour. “Thank you,” I said.
He raised a hand. “You might wanna keep that armour on. We’re going to test this theory of yours. And by we, I really mean you.”