A Perfect Machine(23)

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? What 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?

Milo took one more look at the place the woman had appeared and disappeared – half expecting her to reappear again – then followed Henry and Faye to the door.