A Perfect Machine

by Brett Savory

  “Listen, I … something has happened to me, Faye. Don’t know what to do. Where to go.”

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” Faye couldn’t respond to the content of the question. “It’s… wrong.”

  “Sun will be up soon. Need to get somewhere darker. Away from people. Can you help me?”

  “Tell me what happened, Henry. Let me see you, and we can try to figure out what to–”

  Just then, a car drove by, its headlights illuminating the edges of the shadow in which Henry hid. She saw one of his legs, part of his torso, and the fingers of one hand.

  Her jaw dropped, her eyes bugged, and a hand shot up to her mouth. But she stayed where she was, even though every fiber of her being was barking at her to run, get the fuck out of there right now.

  The headlights whipped past the dumpster as fast as they’d lit it up. Henry pulled his leg in closer to his body, unsure of how much Faye had seen, knowing that at this point even a few inches was enough to have caused her reaction.

  “I’m changing,” Henry said. “Into something else.”

  Faye stared, slowly brought the hand down from her mouth, consciously lifted her jaw till she heard her teeth click together.

  More people were moving around inside the hospital now. Outside, too. More cars, more buses.

  “What do you need me to do?” Faye heard herself say, not entirely sure why she was still anywhere near this spot. She should’ve rocketed out of there as soon as she’d heard that voice – and certainly the moment she’d seen… whatever it was she’d seen. This was not Henry Kyllo. It might claim to be him, might even sound a little like him under all the growling gravel, but it couldn’t be. It’s impossible.

  And yet.

  “I just need to hide till I can figure out what’s going on. I didn’t know where else to turn. My only real friend was Milo, and he’s dead.”

  Milo looked hard at his friend, then. Felt something like breath come into his lungs.

  Faye glanced behind her. More people still. They were bound to start coming in and out of the loading dock doors soon.

  She opened her mouth to speak – maybe even to give an answer, she didn’t know – when two of her co-workers walked out of the door she’d come through a few minutes ago. They were laughing and talking shit about someone. One of them, a woman named Joan, looked up and saw Faye standing near the dumpster. “Faye?” she said. “What are you doing? Dumpster diving?” She and her friend, Marissa something-or-other, laughed some more, kept walking arm in arm.

  “Ha,” Faye said. “Your face is a dumpster.” She tried to act as casual as she could so they wouldn’t stop and come over. They were work friends, but not close: the occasional joke here and there, acting silly in the break room, that sort of thing.

  They just made faces, flipped her the bird, and kept walking, headed for the bus stop.

  Unsure exactly why she was doing this – clearly there was something incredibly wrong with Henry – she stepped closer, whispered, “Alright, then. Follow me.” She felt strongly that she needed to help him, that there was truth to this. And that no one else would help him.

  She strode past the shadows where Henry hunkered, purposely not looking, afraid to see more of whatever she’d glimpsed before in that wash of headlights. Henry said nothing as she walked past, just scrambled to gain his feet.

  She opened the door to the loading dock, poked her head in, looked around.

  No one coming.

  She stepped inside, held the door open, but still didn’t look behind her. When she felt the weight of the door removed from her hand, heard breathing close to her ear, she carried on.

  Down the stairs, moving quickly. Behind her, Henry grunted, “Slow down. Can’t move so fast.” She ignored him. Then, two flights down, she said over her shoulder, “Keep up. I’m not waiting around,” and kept going. Henry shambled along behind, occasionally forgetting his size and cracking his head off the cement stairs.

  “And try to be quieter,” Faye said, reaching the bottom of the staircase.

  Milo grinned a little at that, whispered along in both their wakes.

  “Wait here a sec,” Faye said. “I’m going to check the boiler room, make sure no one’s in there. Should be somewhere in there you can hide – at least for a little while.”

  Henry nodded, looked nervously around, expecting at any moment for someone to come out of one of the many doors along this hallway. But the hospital was still fairly sleepy at this hour of the morning. He didn’t know what he’d do if someone came out and panicked at the sight of him. Would he lose his shit and just crush their tiny skull? Christ, he hoped not.

  Since he’d woken up this morning, intense dread had welled up in his chest when he thought too long about what was happening. Surely his mind would also be changing as his body was, but the pre-change part of his thought processes occasionally choked on the reality of his situation. He’d feel panic burst into his brain, a mad feeling of suddenly needing to be outside his changing body. Then, fairly quickly, that feeling would be tamped down by another part of his brain – the part that subconsciously knew what was happening. Or that at least was becoming used to his new form. That dread filled him now, but he didn’t know whether this time it was because of his own situation, or because bringing Faye into this was setting her up for whatever disastrous road must surely lie ahead.

  Faye walked down to the second door on the left, opened it, went inside. Ten seconds later, she emerged, waved her arm frantically for Henry to follow. Henry, keeping his head ducked so as not to destroy the light fixtures in the hallway ceiling, closed the distance to the doorway in three strides. Once inside the boiler room, Faye closed the door behind him.

  It was nearly pitch dark inside. A thin stream of weak sunlight filtered in through a small window near the back wall. Machines hummed all around Henry, easing his nervousness a little. He instantly felt more at home here. Unseen. Surrounded by steel and mechanical things.

  Is that what I’m becoming? A machine? He shuddered at the thought. If he was a machine, how would he start to see Faye? What would she be to him? He brushed these thoughts aside. Shook his head quickly, physically trying to rid them from his mind.

  “It’s dark,” he said.

  “I turned out the lights,” Faye said. Henry sensed her close, but not within arm’s reach – not even his mammoth arms.

  “Thank you,” Henry said. “For hiding me here.”

  Faye said nothing. He sensed her move closer. Closer still.

  “What happened to you, Henry?”

  “I changed.”

  “Into what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you come here? Why did you come to me?”

  “Because Milo is dead. And I wanted to see you. I thought you could help me.”

  “I know. But what about other friends? In your… group. Society. Whatever it is.”

  Henry had never shared much about the Inferne Cutis. Faye knew what he was to a certain extent – knew that he was different, that he healed quickly from injuries that would kill another man. But her mind somehow separated those facts from her growing love for him. She felt no need to ask more about what he did at night when he left her apartment. Maybe simply because the less she knew, the safer she’d be. That’s certainly why Henry never elaborated on his nightly Runs.

  “I’m scared to go back,” Henry said. “I don’t know what they’ll do to me.”

  “What do you mean? What would they do to you?”

  Henry was silent for a moment. Then: “Whatever I am. Whatever this is… I don’t think it’s supposed to happen. It just…”

  Though her eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness in the boiler room, she could still only make out Henry’s general shape. But it was enough for her mouth to betray her. She said, “But I don’t even know what you are.”

  The words were out before she knew it. She wished she could take them back. She felt Henry stiffen, felt the air around him g
row somehow… colder. Even though he’d said much the same thing himself, hearing it from her was different.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that, Henry.”

  She knew her words made her sound distant, uncaring. She was trying to protect herself, but it was coming out wrong. But as close as they felt most of the time, this was uncharted territory. New boyfriends generally don’t turn into anything more or less than human.

  Behind Henry, Milo hovered, watching. He didn’t know why he was here, what he hoped to achieve by hanging around his old friend, especially when he couldn’t make contact. And even when he did make contact – if Milo’s fingertips actually had brushed Henry’s face – Henry didn’t know what he was making contact with. Milo was just the cold spot in a room to Henry, perhaps a half-formed thought.

  He’d stayed with him through the night, which he’d promised Henry he would. But the night was over now. Milo should get on with his afterlife. Maybe I’ll go haunt some abandoned factory somewhere, he thought. Or an old set of train tracks. Find a house where a bunch of people had been murdered, and whisper weird shit into the new homeowners’ ears at night. Something fucking interesting, for Christ’s sake.

  But he couldn’t leave yet. He didn’t know how he knew, but something still felt … unfinished.

  “It’s… It’s OK,” Henry said. “You’re right.”

  Faye stepped closer, plucked up her courage, raised her arm toward Henry, said, “Take my hand, Henry. I’ll lead you somewhere safer. Someone could walk in at any time.”

  Henry hesitated a moment, then reached out his giant steel hand, searching. He brushed against Faye’s tiny fingers, and she drew in a quick, sharp breath. “You’re so cold,” she said. Then her fingers found purchase on two of his fingers. She clasped them and pulled. “Come on.”

  She led them away from the door, away from the tiny window, away from any source of light, deeper into the boiler room. She knew her way around the boiler room because she often came down here for a sneaky smoke on particularly cold days in the dead of winter. Even so, she walked carefully, feeling ahead of her path with her right foot.

  A minute later, she stopped. They were tucked into a far corner of the room, sort of an alcove, with three walls very close around them. Cleaning supplies stacked neatly near their feet. Henry clumsily kicked a broom and bucket as he stepped inside.

  “Shhh, Henry, careful.”

  “Sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “Still getting used to these big clodhoppers.”

  The space was small, maybe five or six square feet. They were now so close that touching was unavoidable. Milo floated just outside the alcove, watching, listening.

  Tentatively, Faye reached a hand up to Henry’s face. She cupped her palm, feeling the edge of his cheek. Cold as ice, hard as stone. She flinched back for a moment, and Henry flinched away, too. She recovered herself, pressed against the cheek again, this time leaving her hand there, warming the steel.

  “I remember how hot you were in your apartment,” Faye said. “Burning up. But dead.”

  “Not dead, I guess, just changing.”

  Her hand moved down to his neck, where sharp protrusions nestled in clumps near his collar bone.

  “Careful,” Henry said.

  She felt around to the other side of his face, to his nose, his mouth, lips. He bent over more so she could feel his forehead, the top of his skull. He knew she needed to do this, to understand. To prepare herself for when she could no longer hide him in darkness.

  She moved her hand from his head, ran it down the length of his left arm. Smooth except for thin crevices where the steel had not yet fully formed. A gentle thrumming coursed through her palm as she explored. Whatever Henry was becoming, he was still in transition, and Faye was experiencing the change in real time. Her flesh to his, connected intimately.

  Faye’s fingertips down Henry’s arm were like a soothing balm applied to the skin of a burn victim. He felt as though he were on fire as the machinery inside him went about its work, but Faye’s touch calmed him, made him feel somehow at peace with what was happening to him. Although encouraged by this, at the back of his mind, he knew that she had still not actually seen him – all of him – clearly, and that when she did, there would be no more touching, no more sympathy, nothing. She would run from him, get clear of him as fast as humanly possible.

  And what would he do? Would there still be enough of who he was left to understand the rejection, to let her go? Or would he follow her, run her down, smash her to pulp?

  Faye ran her hand down his right arm. This one was less formed, thicker crevices, some small holes here and there, her fingers dropping into these empty spots, then popping back out, like a tire going over potholes.

  When she explored his chest, she used both hands pushed flat against him. This was different terrain. Not nearly as smooth as his head and arms. Being careful to avoid the sharper protrusions near his collar, she felt where his pectoral muscles would normally have been, and moved down from there. The metal here seemed to ripple – somehow reacting to her touch. Down, farther still, to his belly. His abdomen tensed as she neared it, then settled into a similar rippling motion as his chest. She wondered briefly what it meant, if anything. She was going to ask, but found that she couldn’t form the words. She was too entranced by the motion beneath her fingers to manage speech.

  After a few more moments with her hands on his stomach, she pulled them back, said, “We need to get you somewhere safe. Someone will eventually come in here for cleaning supplies.”

  “I know.”

  She waited a moment, felt her heart racing. Was she really going to say this?

  “You can stay with me, but I don’t know how we’re going to get you to my apartment without being seen.”

  * * *

  Milo had been floating outside the alcove, hypnotized by the scene inside. He suddenly felt something like the air pressure changing in the room. His senses prickled. He turned, drifted away from the alcove a few feet and, not more than an arm’s length away, a woman stood.

  Looking right at him.

  Tall, long dark hair, deep red lipstick, wearing a plain red T-shirt and dark blue jeans. Her mouth moved, but no sounds came out.

  Milo watched her for a few moments, then backed up, turned to look at Henry and Faye, with an Are you two seeing this? expression on his face. But, of course, neither of them looked in his direction. He turned back to the woman, looked down, and noticed that she, too, was floating off the ground – but where he felt insubstantial and was certain that, to others, he’d look how one expects a ghost to look, she was fully fleshed out, looked as solid as the rest of the room.

  As Milo watched her, he developed a sensation of warmth that could not be traced to any particular part of his being. It was as if his entirety suddenly became warm. Heated up from the inside. He watched her lips move, tried to read the words, but couldn’t make any out. But as this feeling of warmth grew, an acute sense of desperation accompanied it, and he began to feel sick. His head swam with these conflicting feelings, and he did not know what was happening to him, which only made the feeling worse. He simultaneously wanted it to stop immediately and go on forever.

  Milo realized that he could literally not take his eyes from the woman, particularly her lips. Even though he couldn’t make out a single word, his attention was rapt. Were he still alive and experiencing this, Henry could’ve stomped over and belted him across the mouth with a frying pan-sized hand and he would still have just stood there staring.

  He wanted to reach out a hand to see if he could touch her, but was unable to move. Rooted like a tree. “Whhh…” he said, his eyelids fluttering. Nothing coherent would come out, so he gave up.

  Using all his willpower, he was finally able to wrench his gaze from her lips. His eyes traced her body shape once, but then snapped up to her face again. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes. His heart pounded in his chest. Palms sweaty. Mouth dry as sand.

  What is this? Wha
t am I feeling? What’s happening?

  That’s when the woman vanished.

  * * *

  Back in the alcove, Henry and Faye had decided that the best way for Henry to get to her apartment would be to smuggle him out in an ambulance. Or, rather, enlist the aid of an ambulance driver (Henry would never fit in a car) who could drive him to her apartment in the dead of night, then keep his mouth shut about Henry’s existence.

  “How can we be sure he won’t tell?” Henry whispered, as best as he could, still somewhat unable to control the volume of his voice.

  “He’s a good friend,” Faye said, realizing how unconvincing that sounded, even though the driver she had in mind, Steve Mincener, was a good friend, and she’d known him several years.

  Henry was silent, and she knew it was because he was skeptical, but also knew there weren’t a lot of options. The only choice they had was who she asked to help. If she thought Steve was their best bet, then Steve it was. Whether he told or not was out of their hands at that point.

  Faye glanced at her watch. “I’ll go talk to him. I’m pretty sure his shift has started. Stay here and try to hide as best you can.” She allowed herself a little smirk, considering the impossibility of her statement. “Actually, better idea: follow me to the door, and we’ll put something heavy in front of it so it can’t be pushed open. Whoever wants in will just think it’s stuck.”

  Faye walked out of the alcove, with Henry following behind. Even though he didn’t need to, Milo stepped out of their way, still bewildered at the appearance of the beautiful woman who had vanished so suddenly. He questioned whether or not he had really seen her.

  I have been under a lot of pressure lately, he thought. But can a ghost see another ghost? And does every Runner – or Hunter, for that matter – wind up as a ghost after death? If so, where’s everyone else? Have they all fucked off to Heaven or Hell, and I’m stuck here forever, doomed to float around after my best friend as he morphs into God knows what?