A Perfect Machine(22)

“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 grow 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.