The Power of Silence
Chapter 35 – A Novel Friendship

IT WAS ALMOST DARK BY THE TIME X WAS NEARING CENTRAL PARK.

That wasn't because it was becoming late, though. In fact, there was still a couple hours of the late spring sunshine left. It was growing dark early because of dark clouds that began to creep across the sky, and X immediately knew there was inclement weather. It pushed him to drive a little faster through the abandoned city streets, pushing whatever cars and debris he came across out of his way with his bulldozer-like van.

X tried to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand. As far as he knew, the Torturer had direct surveillance of the inside of the zoo and had it for some time. That means that he could have been waiting for him to leave so that he could ransack the zoo for any supplies he might need. Wait, supplies? There was a whole city of abandoned stores out there; he had no use for supplies. He was a predator, and he wanted prey.

Suddenly X was glad he had given Andrew the handgun. It wouldn't do much good against the entire group, but at least it gave the businessman a fighting chance. That was, of course, only if Andrew could pull the trigger and shoot another person. From everything X saw so far he was one who generally seemed to avoid conflict. X knew, however, that people tend to do crazy things they normally wouldn't do in a life or death situation.

X still couldn't shake the vision of the penguin and the dolphin at the power plant from his mind. They were both at the facility he blew up. Why would they be working on a power plant? Were they trying to blow it up because they were still trying to finish the job they had been trained for? That seemed like an awfully animal-like thing to do, but at this point X didn't even know what they were thinking.

Suddenly he was jarred by his thoughts by a bump in the road. It made him swerve slightly and he narrowly missed the back end of a fire truck that was sticking out of a ruined storefront. Knowing he had to focus, he tried to put all of his attention on the road. Unfortunately he found that to be a pretty difficult thing to do when his phone rang, startling him. He still wasn't used to it.

"'Sup," he greeted, keeping one hand firmly on the wheel and the other holding the tiny phone up to his ear.

Surprisingly, there was some static. "Jeffery?" X asked. It wasn't like the service's phones to cut out so easily.

"...X... can... me... X..." was all that came through the static. "Storm... due... fall... fifteen... shelter... most powerful... Hurricane... X..."
X gritted his teeth as the line went completely dead. He had interpenetrated the point of the call, though. Those dark clouds that were now spiraling over his head were just the beginning of a massive Hurricane. From what X could see there was no wind or rain yet, but he was sure he didn't have much time until it began. All the more reason to get back to the zoo as fast as possible.

Thankfully, it was only a few more blocks away. X rounded a corner and he could see the outskirts of Central Park, where the leaves on the trees were just beginning to sway. By the time he pulled through the smashed front gate of the fortress-like enclosure, the trees were bending beneath the pressure of the leaves.

X hopped out of the van quickly, making sure his gun was at the ready. Even with the wind howling in his ears, making it impossible to hear much, he needed to stay alert. There were no immediate signs of the Torturer or any of his baddies, but X wanted to be sure.

Hastily he pressed forward, glancing around at the exhibits. It seemed like all of the animals had either been herded inside shelter already or knew how to get there themselves. It was definitely a good idea, the wind was now whipping so fast that X was having trouble maintaining his balance. He saw the tables in front of the souvenir shop topple over and knew that he only had a few precious minutes before the full force of the hurricane overtook the city. He needed to find Andrew and he needed to find him fast.

He headed for the tool shed, as that was the only place in the entire zoo that he had seen the businessman go regularly. When he got there the wind had already forced the wooden door open and he stepped inside, hearing the structure groan under the force of the wind outside. The food supplies, the zoo golf carts, and the tools were there but there wasn't a man. X cautiously checked behind a hay bale, peeking first with his gun to make sure the Torturer hadn't found shelter in the tool shed as well.

He froze as he felt something touch his shoulder.

Not hesitating for more than a second he whipped around and used the butt of his sub-machine gun to knock whatever it was had touched him out of the way. Then he peered down its barrel, ready to shoot what he presumed was the Torturer before he had a chance to disarm him. What he saw on the business end of his weapon wasn't the Torturer, however. It was a very frightened looking Andrew Green.

X lowered his rifle and Andrew took a sigh of relief. "You have to stop doing that," he said loud enough to be heard over the roar of the oncoming storm. "It's not good for my health."
X watched the stout man walk over and pick up his handgun from where X had swatted it to.

"You had your gun out, too?" he asked.

"I saw some shadows I didn't like. Then when I saw you come in here I called out to you, but you didn't hear me. So I followed you," Andrew explained. "Why did you have yours out?"
X opened his mouth, but a foreboding groan of the structure around them made him instead beckon them back outside. The gale force of the wind made it hard for X to even keep his eyes open, but he still made sure to keep his gun at the ready. Andrew followed him, pressing hard against the wind and the rain that it was beginning to carry with it.

X glanced around the zoo as he saw a tree just over the wall of the zoo topple entirely from the force of the wind. They needed shelter, but where would be safe enough? The souvenir shack? No, he realized. It had too many windows and many of them were already broken and letting in the full force of the wind. He continued scanning and his eyes found the office structure. It looked to be made of solid brick and only had a few windows; perhaps there would be a safe room near the center of it.

Rather than try to shout over the rain and the thunder, X signaled his plan to Andrew by waving his arm over his head. They pressed forward, directly in the face of the wind. It wasn't too far from where they were but X knew all it was going to take was a loose tree branch to the head and they'd be done for. With the debris beginning to swirl around them at an alarming rate, he knew they didn't have any time to loose.

That was until, however, he saw the penguins.

They were struggling against the force of the wind, and it was a miracle it didn't just sweep them away completely. The flat-headed leader had his flippers in front of his face and was trudging along strongly, but X could tell it was an agonizingly slow process. His penguin buddy followed him closely, blinking into the wind as it sent wave after wave of torrential rain towards them.

Why were they even out in all this? Surely they must be smart enough to know it's certain death to be caught outside in a hurricane?
X saw Andrew take off from beside him and charge towards the penguins, who didn't notice him. He scooped up the larger one of them in his arms, unable to carry the second and manage his gun at the same time. Then he turned back to X and gestured with his head towards the other penguin who was holding a piece of plastic in front of his face to shield it from the rain.

X wasn't entirely sure why, but he found himself pushing forward to help that little penguin. The flat-headed leader that seemed to hate him more than the tall avian he once tried to kill. He lowered his rifle as to not alarm the tall bird, even though it still took a terrified swing at his face when he picked it up. He squeezed it between his arm and his side to prevent it from struggling any more and then signaled to Andrew that they needed to keep moving.

With his sub-machine gun held with one hand and the struggling penguin restrained with the other, he bashed through the door to the office. The front desk had already suffered heavy damage from the storm, as the front window had been long since blown out. Papers were drenched and strewn everywhere and debris clung to every surface.

Andrew followed him in with the other bird who didn't seem to be struggling at all, compared to the one he was holding. Then X went to close the door, but not before he caught the glimpse of another bird.

It looked an awful lot like a penguin, but there was one distinct difference. It was flying. More or less trying to, as the wind was forcing it back. Eventually it tumbled out of the sky and rolled a few feet on the ground. It laid there, unmoving. The last thing X saw before Andrew slammed the door shut against the gale was another penguin-like entity come and scoop the wounded bird up.

"Are you insane?" Andrew shouted over the sound of the wind howling through the destroyed window. "We've got to get to a room with no windows."

X nodded. He noticed that Andrew was no longer holding his penguin and went to let the one he was holding go. As soon as he moved and the penguin freed its flippers, however, it was on top of him. He felt it slam him over the back of his head with its flippers, but it didn't even make X flinch. He tried to throw the bird off of his back but by the time he reached over his head it was already back on the ground.

At that point the penguin Andrew was carrying had somehow flung itself on him and grabbed his arms, dragging them down behind his back. He felt the sub-machine gun leave his hand and it clattered on the ground. The leader penguin scooped it off the ground and in a flash both penguins were gone down the hallway of the office.

Damn. They were fast.

X moved to chase them but Andrew held a hand to his chest to stop him. "Let it go," he instructed. "They just don't understand that they're safe now. We still need to get to the break room. It's the only room that doesn't have an external wall."

"Right," mumbled X, then had a sudden need to crack his knuckles. Those penguins had just made him angry, that was for sure.

Mr. Green led him down the hallway, entering a room that X knew he hadn't seen the penguins enter. On the inside were a few snack machines that were dark with the lack of power and a large, round table with some chairs. It was very dark and Andrew flipped open his phone for a bit of light. X did the same after he closed the door behind him, thankful that it hadn't gotten too wet to work.

"I hate storms," commented Andrew, raising his arms and watching the water drip from his drenched suit sleeves. "This suit cost me seven thousand dollars, can you believe that? They said it's supposed to be water resilient."

The smile that Andrew finished his note on rubbed X the wrong way. He didn't respond and instead pulled one of the small chairs into a corner and sat down, removing his soaked shoes and putting his socks on the table.

He saved that ungrateful bird's life from the storm, and it didn't even seem like it cared. It struggled and fought, even disarming him with its little buddy when X wasn't even intending to shoot it. X knew they had been working together, but he hadn't expected the other two to attack him like that.

"So," began Andrew. "Why were you carrying your gun, anyway?"

X shifted in his seat slightly, feeling uncomfortable in his soaked, dirty police uniform. Plainly, he responded, "Thought the Torturer might be around."

"The Torturer, here?" questioned Andrew. "Why would he be here?"

"He stole the CIES monitor from me. If he's after me or you, he knows where we are."

Andrew glanced down to the handgun that, for some reason, hadn't been stolen from him by the penguins. "Wonderful," he said with a sarcastic tone in his voice.

"Don't be acting like this is all my fault. I came back to make sure you were safe," responded X.

Andrew frowned, the water dripping off of his face reflecting light from his cellphone back at X. "I didn't blame you at all."

"Good. If your damn penguins didn't steal my gun, maybe we'd actually be safe."

"We're safe," assured Andrew on a smile, showing of the handgun as if to tell X that he was an expert with it, "machine guns or not."

X crossed his arms. With the storm raging outside, the knowledge that he just got disarmed within seconds by a pair of penguins, and the fact that the Torturer might be just outside the zoo walls waiting for the eye of the hurricane to break in after them and now he didn't even have his gun, he felt the sudden urge to say something that he knew would be like a knife to the gut for Andrew.

"Maybe you should tell that to your fiance."

X had expected Andrew to crumple to the ground in a defeated heap or something as soon as he had uttered those words. Actually, he was disappointed that the man didn't even react. He just stood there, the light from his cellphone reflecting off of his glasses. After a moment he looked at the picture of him and his wife-to-be on the phone again, like he needed some time to absorb X's statement first.

Without looking up, he said, "That's why you're such a loner, isn't it?"

"Huh?" X asked, confused.

"You know that anyone close to you isn't safe. That, and asinine statements like that force them all to avoid you like the plague."

X gritted his teeth. That statement was like hitting the bulls eye in a game of darts. Surprisingly he didn't find himself with a sudden urge to defend himself. Instead he partly agreed by offering,

"Things are different when you've killed men with your own hands."

"Maybe so. That doesn't mean that you have to avoid all human contact, though." Andrew looked back up from his phone and towards one of the snack machines. "You hungry?" he asked.

X merely nodded, and then watched as Andrew proceeded to smash the glass front of the machine with the handle of the gun. He knew the businessman had a point. Ever since his days in the service, he had been alone. Besides business partners and a very rare call from Jeffery, his days had been filled with nothing but his weapons, his surveillance equipment, and his underground tunnel system.

At that moment X realized that Andrew must have been that way before he met Alice. So enveloped by his corporate empire that he wanted nothing to do with any other human being that didn't have to do with pure business. Was the businessman trying to teach him a valuable life lesson? Show him that maybe life is just a little bit better if you have family and friends to share it with? To inform him that he continues to go out of his way to always be alone?

X wasn't flattered. For all he cared, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And besides, he had at least formed an alliance with one of the last trustworthy people left on the planet.

Trustworthy. Was that a word really worthy of the man that only a week ago X wanted nothing to do with simply because of the fact that he ran a corporation and wore a suit everywhere he went?

"Potato chips or pretzels?" asked Andrew.

"Pretzels."
Andrew tossed the bag across the table and X grabbed it out of midair, despite how dark it was. He opened the bag and munched on the salty snack for a while, listening to the sound of the storm outside. It was clear to him that they would be safe in that room; the building was more than sturdy enough.

After some time Andrew said, "Hey, Alexander."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for helping me rescue the penguins from the storm. And in general, sticking around."

X found himself smiling. "The world is empty. There ain't anywhere else to go."

"I suppose you are correct," nodded Andrew, then he looked towards the door. "That was only two of the four penguins that we carried in here. I hope the other two are unharmed."

"They'll be alright," X said, thinking about the tall penguin at the power plant. "They're a lot tougher than you think."

~Author's Note: Uh oh, two weeks without an update? My apologies! Lately I just haven't felt all that much like writing.

Nonetheless, quick shoutouts to Zyar, Asmith137, TheSkySpiritsTalentShow, GoTeamSkipper, Hipturtle15, Penguin-pirate-lover, elite commando985, and Pip4 for being regular reviewers! Thanks to you guys This story has reached 200 reviews and has become my most reviewed story!

More on topic, I really don't like how this chapter turned out. Then again, for some reason I'm just not liking this whole story a lot right now. Any comments?