A Perfect Machine

by Brett Savory

  Henry, however, did not understand what was happening. In his addled state of mind he thought Milo had done something to “Faye” – the woman he’d brought with him in his hand from the apartment. For him, the two women on the ground blended into one.

  Crouched low, back scraping the ceiling, he advanced on Milo, his eyes having adjusted enough to the near-pitch dark that her could just make out his shape. Milo glanced up at the sound, stood up, put his hands out in a supplicating manner, realizing that something protective in Henry’s scrambled brain must’ve just clicked in.

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa, Henry, hang on, man. I don’t know what you think just happened, but Faye’s OK.”

  Henry kept coming, looming over Milo now.

  “Faye’s fine, man. I think. I hope.” He glanced down at her still-unconscious body at his feet. “Ah, Christ,” he said, took three steps behind him, now backed up flat against the wall.

  Henry brought his face down close to Milo’s. Stared, breathed hard.

  His breath smells like furnace ash, Milo thought, then shut his eyes, and waited to be pulped by Henry’s massive hands.

  But then: “Henry?” a thin, female voice spoke near their feet.

  Milo cracked an eye, looked down at the sound, his own eyes now adjusting to the gloom. Faye was stirring.

  But did Henry hear her?

  “Henry! Henry, look down, man. Look down!”

  Henry did not look down. His gaze just burned a hole in Milo’s face – the only thing stopping him from flattening Milo likely being whatever recognition Henry still had of their friendship. But Milo knew that might not be enough if he actually thought Faye was dead.

  Milo had to take a risk. He lifted his hands slowly upward. “Look, look,” he said. “I’m moving my hands, man. Take it easy. Just wanna show you something.”

  Henry’s eyes darted to either side of his head, tracking Milo’s hands. Then the hands settled on the sides of Henry’s massive cranium – Milo’s arms were outstretched as far as they could go – and tried to angle it down to see Faye.

  At first Henry resisted, his scowl darkening, but then he let Milo guide his gaze.

  Faye, he thought. There you are.

  By this time, Faye had maneuvered herself into a sitting position, and was rubbing her head. She glanced up to see Milo and Henry looking down at her.

  “Everything hurts,” she said.

  “I bet,” Milo replied, still breathing hard, but only mildly terrified for his safety now that Faye was awake. Milo smiled, looked at Henry. “See? She’s OK. For now. I had hoped the bullet had gone right through, but I don’t think it did. We need to patch her up, at the very least.”

  Henry moved his head away from Milo, stepped closer to Faye, leaned back, and sat down hard on his butt, making a crater in the concrete. He rested his elbows on his knees.

  The Casual Monster, Milo absurdly thought.

  Something like the sound of a cement mixer starting up crunched in Henry’s chest, and one word came out: “Faye.”

  Faye looked at Milo, said, “Gimme a hand?”

  Milo helped her up. She brushed herself off, careful to avoid the bullet wound.

  “Henry,” she said, walked toward him, realized there was nothing she could hug on his body except maybe an arm or a leg. She moved toward the closest leg, wrapped her arms around it as far as she could, like it was a tree trunk. Pressed her face against the cold steel there.

  “Patch her, Milo,” Henry said.

  “Yeah, I was thinking about how to do that. Shirt, maybe?” Milo took off his shirt, bit into one of its edges, then tugged furiously at it till a strip came free that was long enough to wrap around Faye’s armpit and shoulder. She winced as he applied pressure to the wound while he wrapped.

  When he was finished, Milo shrugged what remained of his shirt back over his torso. “Better than nothing,” he said.

  “Barely,” Faye said, and smiled.

  Milo didn’t know where they were going to go, but he knew that staying still wasn’t a good plan, knew they needed to keep moving to avoid the police – and anyone else who might’ve been put into the service of catching the giant beast rampaging around the city.

  “We need to keep going, Henry.”

  Henry appeared to think about this for a few seconds, then said, “I remembered you telling me to come here. To meet with Faye. But I also knew I needed to hide.”

  “You’re kind of big for that, don’t you think?” Milo said, but didn’t get the desired reaction from Henry, who just looked away toward the tunnels. When he brought his eyes back toward Milo, they settled on the dead woman on the floor.

  Milo saw him staring at her, said, “Margaret Shearman.”

  Henry looked at Milo blankly for a moment. Then: “What did I do?”

  “Her husband died, Henry,” Milo said. Because of you, he thought but didn’t say. “And then she died of her… her wounds,” he finished.

  Inside Henry, something broke. Up till now, he’d been effectively distanced from nearly everything that had happened – the results of his rapid transformation into something he couldn’t possibly understand. The strains on his mind and body were incredible, but he’d gained a sort of equilibrium during the recent respite from activity – from the growth spurts and the constant running away from everything he was becoming.

  Flashes of the scenes in the apartment building blitzed through his brain, and he knew Margaret Shearman and her husband were not the only ones dead because of him.

  He felt a sadness so profound settle in his chest that he didn’t know if he could move at all, let alone continue running. Tears were no longer physically possible, it seemed, but grief assailed him where he sat on the floor of this abandoned subway tunnel. It gathered in his heart, immobilizing him.

  Milo saw the shift in Henry’s demeanor, but didn’t know what he could do to make him feel better. He had killed people – some innocent, some not so innocent. Maybe through no direct fault of his own, but he was responsible. All Milo could do was try to let his friend deal with it the best way he knew how. And better still was to just keep running.

  Always keep running.

  “Come on. Let’s use the tracks themselves, Henry. At least there you can fully stand up. He moved to take Faye’s hand, started walking toward the tracks. “Seriously. Hanging out by the entrance is ridiculous. We need to get deeper inside.”

  Henry nodded once, slowly. He got to his feet, then, back bent under the ceiling. But instead of turning around to follow Milo and Faye, he moved one hand toward Margaret Shearman’s body, did his best using his huge steel fingers to arrange her corpse so that she was lying flat, instead of crumpled in a heap.

  The wind whistled through the tunnels as the storm aboveground raged on.

  He turned, then, and followed his friends into the deepening darkness beyond.

  * * *

  Back at the warehouse, Marcton assembled his crew. They sat on crates and boxes, as they’d done when Palermo had killed Carl Duncan. It seemed like years ago.

  Marcton stood in the middle of the group, pacing, still hopped up on adrenaline from the night’s events. He brought everyone up to speed as quickly as he could, then opened the floor to suggestions about how to proceed. He had some ideas himself, but they were fairly weak, and he wanted to get input from his people in case something they said bolstered his own plan – if “plan” could even be applied to the handful of halfbaked notions bumbling about in his head.

  As for the term “his people,” he realized that’s exactly what they were now – his. With Palermo gone, he was now officially in charge. The idea simultaneously thrilled and terrified him. Palermo had a certain weight to him. A gravitas that he wasn’t at all sure he could muster. Not that he had much choice. He knew that to effectively lead, people had to believe in you. Really believe. They needed to feel that what you said and did was what was best for the group – whatever group you might be trying to lead. And this group had history. This group
– and Kendul’s Hunters, too – went back a long, long way.

  As if thinking about Kendul at that moment had somehow summoned him, he walked through the back door, his own crew in tow. Marcton had immediately called him again upon learning of Palermo’s death. Even under more normal circumstances, Kendul would’ve been called due to his and Palermo’s long relationship, but these were nothing even close to normal circumstances, and Marcton knew he could use all the help he could get. So not only was Kendul invited, so were all his Hunters.

  For Marcton’s Runners it felt bizarre and vaguely uncomfortable to be so close to the Hunters. As they filtered into the warehouse, the air itself seemed to stiffen somehow, became harder to breathe. A certain tightening in the muscles that every man and woman in this warehouse felt deep in his or her bones. There was an understanding between the crews – and they knew they’d all been brought together for a purpose that profoundly affected them all – but the predator/prey dynamic was ingrained, and came with no on/off switch.

  “Marcton,” Kendul said as he approached. He extended his hand. Marcton took it, then drew him in close. The men embraced briefly, slapped each other’s backs, the clapping sound echoing loudly around the rafters.

  “Kendul,” Marcton said, returning the greeting, stepped back and began pacing again. He found it difficult to catch any of the thoughts whizzing around in his head and, as a result, his speech was even more clipped than usual, as if the act of providing additional details was just too taxing. He quickly filled Kendul and the Hunters in on what had happened.

  Then: “Thoughts?” Marcton said to the room. “Anyone?”

  A man sitting cross-legged on one of the stacks of skids piled up nearby cleared his throat, said, “Well. We fucking kill it.”

  A few chuckles, some uncomfortable shuffling. The man smirked, glanced around, apparently happy with his contribution.

  Marcton said, “Insightful,” and gave the man a withering glare that wiped the smirk off his face. “Anyone else wanna tell jokes? If so –” he lifted an arm, pointed “– there’s the fucking door.”

  Silence. A few coughs. More uncomfortable shuffling.

  “Actually, kid–” Kendul said.

  “Don’t fucking call me kid,” Marcton said. “Do not.”

  Kendul raised both hands, palms out. “Actually, Marcton,” he said, “can I have a private word? My crew can get weapons ready. Your crew can jerk it. Or whatever the fuck they do when they’re not being run down by my Hunters.”

  A few people way at the back chuckled, but quickly stifled the sound.

  Marcton cocked his head. “Over here, old man.”

  The two men broke away from the group, their footfalls like rifle reports in the ensuing silence. Once they were out of earshot, the larger group divided itself into Runners and Hunters, with only the occasional cluster of both – unlikely friendships formed in the heat of battle.

  Marcton brought them back to the warehouse’s main office, closed the door behind them.

  “Listen, Marcton,” Kendul said, leaning against the doorframe. “This is gonna sound melodramatic, but… we have a secret weapon.”

  Marcton barked out a laugh, then another. When he realized Kendul wasn’t joking, he frowned, said, “What, you’re serious?”

  Kendul waited a beat, then said, “Adelina.”

  Marcton’s frown deepened. His mind scrambled.

  “Palermo’s daughter,” Kendul continued when Marcton didn’t respond.

  Marcton moved behind the desk, sat down in the office chair – now, he realized distractedly, his office chair. “Yeah, I know the name. And?”

  “She’s alive,” Kendul said.

  “Like fuck she is.”

  “Well then fuck is alive and well, Marcton, ’cause I know exactly where she is, and I might know how to reanimate her body so that–”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, back the fuck up, Kendul,” Marcton said and stood. “What kinda crazy bullshit do you think–”

  Kendul moved forward quickly, got right in Marcton’s face, his voice now dropped an octave. “This isn’t bullshit, and you need to shut your fucking hole and listen to what I have to say, you little dickhead. We don’t have time for anything else. It sounds ridiculous. It sounds impossible. I get that. But that day in that house when Adelina… changed… whatever Palermo told you happened, that ain’t what fucking happened, OK? He thinks she died, but she didn’t.” Kendul stepped away from Marcton now, slowly. He dropped his eyes to the floor, raised them back up to Marcton. “She didn’t.”

  Marcton’s face clearly showed his confusion. His mouth opened and closed several times, words nearly coming out, but never quite making the leap from thought to speech. Kendul wanted to keep explaining, knew that time was of the essence, but he also knew he had to let Marcton process this information, or nothing else he said would properly filter in.

  Marcton sat back down in the chair, looked out the window into the warehouse. His eyes darted from person to person, never settling on any of them. Processing, processing…

  “OK,” he finally said. “Let’s say Adelina is alive. She’s one person. How the fuck does that help us?”

  Kendul said, “She’s not a person, kid. Not by a long shot. Not any more.”

  Marcton let the “kid” remark slide. Kendul’s words hung in the air between them for a moment longer, then Marcton said, “You’re going to have to just fucking say it, man. I am completely lost, and in no mood whatsoever for guessing games. Spit it the fuck out.”

  “She’s a machine,” Kendul said. “Well, not entirely, but mostly. About the same as what you describe this… beast as.”

  And just in that split-second hesitation before Kendul said “beast,” Marcton had a flash of insight, knew Kendul hadn’t originally intended to use that word. He was about to say something else.

  “What were you going to say instead of ‘beast,’ there, Kendul? What do you know that you aren’t saying? I find it very fucking hard to swallow that this is your only secret in this situation.”

  Marcton stood again, walked over to Kendul, looked hard at him, watched his eyes. Kendul was good – very good – at schooling his face, but not quite good enough for Marcton. The new leader of the Runners saw it in Kendul’s eyes, saw it as though it were written right on his forehead:

  “You know, don’t you? You know what this thing is. Because it’s happened before.” Marcton saw the truth of it plain as day on Kendul’s face. “And it was Adelina. Jesus fucking Christ!”

  Kendul knew there was no point in trying to hide it any more. Besides, there was no time for games. Palermo was dead. The whole society was at risk of exposure with Kyllo now rampaging around. “Yeah. Henry Kyllo is the guy’s name,” Kendul said, sagged against the wall near the office window. “We tried to hide it again – just as we tried to hide it when Adelina ascended.”

  Marcton was genuinely shocked – but mostly at the first part of Kendul’s little speech; he barely heard the second part. The color drained from his face. “Wait, what!? This? This fucking abomination is ascendance? This is what we become when we reach–”

  “Yes!” Kendul shouted. Then: “Yes,” he said again, quieter. He couldn’t look Marcton in the eyes any more. Just stared down at his feet. “We didn’t know what would happen if people found out. We thought it would be over. Everything. Our whole way of life. To be fair, though, we didn’t know – still don’t know – what the final ascension looks like because we stopped it happening in Adelina. Palermo couldn’t bear to lose his daughter, even for something that was supposed to be an honor. We knew it would happen again, but we hoped it wouldn’t be while we were leaders. But it did. And he’s bigger than Adelina was, and certainly more exposed. We thought we could contain it, thought that by the time it happened, we could–”

  Marcton launched himself across the room, tackled Kendul. Both men crashed against the window behind Kendul. It bulged, but didn’t shatter, then they were on the floor, Marcton on top of Ken
dul, right fist pummeling his face over and again.

  At the sound of the scuffle, Cleve, Bill, and Melvin came running. The door was open and they burst in. Cleve immediately grabbed Marcton by the shirt collar, yanked him off Kendul. It took both Cleve and Bill – one with each arm – to subdue Marcton. He didn’t say a word, just stared at Kendul where he lay bleeding on the office floor, and struggled against Bill and Cleve’s bulk, trying desperately to break free so he could pulverize Kendul’s face some more.

  Melvin stepped outside the office, told everyone everything was OK. A friendly disagreement. Sorted out in a matter of moments.

  “What the fuck happened?” Cleve said in Marcton’s ear. “Calm down, man. Come on. Calm down.”

  At Cleve’s words, Marcton struggled a little less, sanity slowly filtering back into his brain. His breathing calmed, arm muscles relaxing enough so that Bill and Cleve felt safe releasing him. Marcton shrugged his shirt back into position, smoothed his hair back, said, “This piece of shit killed Palermo. It’s his fault.”

  Bill and Cleve said nothing, just looked down to Kendul for his reaction. Kendul pulled himself into a sitting position on the floor, back against the front of the wooden office desk. Caught his breath. “Sure,” he croaked, leaned to the side, coughed twice, spat up blood. “I killed him. He killed himself. I guess both are true.”

  Cleve and Bill just looked to both men, confused.

  Kendul stood up slowly, arranged his clothing so it settled on him properly, wiped blood from his nose, said, “We let it happen, Marcton, and we shouldn’t have. We should have told people. At least you. Probably others. But we didn’t, and Palermo’s dead. That’s on me. That’s on Palermo. But there was something… intangibly bleak about Adelina when she started changing. It washed over Palermo and me in that house. By stopping her ascension, we felt like we were simultaneously saving her and damning her… But listen, we can do something about it now. We can take Kyllo down. Bury him. Like we buried Adelina all those years ago.”

  “Why not just let him ascend?” Marcton said. “What’s he to you? You’re not saving a son or brother or something, so just let it run its course.”