A Perfect Machine(36)

He turned back to the woman, who was still repeating, “You cannot let him leave,” but had now added “They’ll kill him” to the repetitive refrain.

“I can hear you,” Milo said.

“You cannot let him leave. They’ll kill him. They’ll kill…”

Milo stepped forward, nearly within arm’s reach of the woman. She shimmered the air around her with her intensity. “I said I can hear you, I can hear you.”

The woman stopped speaking. She looked momentarily shocked, her mouth hanging slightly open. She closed it. Opened it again, said, “You can?”

Milo nodded. “I cannot let him leave. They’ll kill him.”

The woman nodded.

Milo took another step forward, close enough now to touch her if he reached out a hand – and if he were able to touch anything at all.

“Who are you?” Milo said.

“Adelina.”

“My name is Milo.”

“I know.”

They looked at each other for a moment longer, something powerful passing between them that neither really understood.

“Milo, you need to stop Henry any way you can. He doesn’t know how important he is.”

“To who? To what?”

“To me, to you, to everything and everyone.”

“Um…”

“I know it sounds ridiculous, and you have no reason to believe me…”

“Well, I’m inclined to believe you to a certain extent, considering you’re a ghost that’s decided to appear to me – a ghost myself – so there’s that.”

“I’m not a ghost.”

“Well, you look like a ghost. More substantial than me, sure, but still, uh, floating off the ground, you know?”

“You’re not listening. Nothing can happen to Henry. He needs to be left alone. He needs to let his evolution run its course.”

“Sure, and I’m not opposed to that – whatever it entails. That’s kind of the point of everything we’ve been doing our whole lives, so I get it. But I can’t touch anything, so that makes it a little difficult to stop massive metal behemoths from doing pretty much as they please, you know? Watch.”

Milo swept one of his hands through the coffee cups on the table – or would have swept one of his hands through them, if his hand hadn’t knocked them both off the table and onto the floor where they shattered into a hundred pieces.

Milo’s mouth dropped open. He looked at Adelina. Then at Henry, then Faye. They both looked back at him.

Or seemed to look at him. After a pulse-pounding moment, he realized they were just looking in the direction of the noise, not at what caused it.

“What the hell?” Faye muttered.

“No idea,” Henry said. “That was weird.”

“Yes. Yes, it was,” Faye said, her brow crinkling.

“At least they’ve stopped arguing,” Milo said to no one in particular.

“You can make yourself visible to Henry if you keep concentrating. Keep trying,” Adelina said.

“What? How do I do that? I didn’t try to knock the coffee cups off the table, so I clearly have no clue how I did even that much.”

“Once you’ve got a toehold, the more you assert yourself into physical space, the more it will accept you. The more it has to accept you. Trust me, just keep knocking things over. See if that works.”

“This is insane,” Milo muttered, but floated over to a bunch of knickknacks cluttering up another of Faye’s tables in the living room. He swept an arm across them, shattering the entire lot.

Faye and Henry stepped back, both wearing identical shocked Os on their faces. “What the fuck?” Faye said, standing now. “Is this something you’re doing, Henry? Because if it, it isn’t fucking funny.”

Henry said nothing, just stared at the spot where the knickknacks had gone flying. “Hang on a second, Faye. Hang on. I think I see… something.”

“Where?”

“By that table.”

Faye squinted. “I don’t see anything. And what do you mean by ‘something,’ anyway?”

“I don’t know. Just–”

A mirror in the hallway smashed.

Shoes on the mat by the door flew across the floor.

The glass doors of Faye’s china cabinet exploded inward. Everything inside, on all three shelves, was dumped out onto the ground. Pieces of cups, plates, and china dolls flew in every direction.

Faye just stood rooted to the spot, her eyes closed, hands over her ears as the destruction took place around her.

Henry, on the other hand, stared hard at the place in the air from which everything seemed to be falling. And then it happened. Not in gradients – like a fuzzy TV picture becoming slowly clearer as it’s tuned in – but like a balloon bursting. Suddenly, Milo was just there for Henry.

Henry stared at his friend, who held in his hands a large silver tray with a full teacup set on it, about to bring it down at his feet. His face was red with exertion.

“Milo?”

Milo looked up at the sound of Henry’s voice.

“Henry? You can hear me?”

Henry nodded. “I can see you, too.”

“Holy shit.”

“Henry, who are you talking to?” Faye said. “What the hell is happening?”