A Perfect Machine(71)

“Not that I’ve heard, no. I kinda forgot about that, actually, with everything else blowing up. You?”

“No. Weird. Maybe whomever or whatever’s responsible for punishing our transgressions has more on its mind tonight, too.”

Marcton looked worried. “Maybe. It’s still early, though, too.”

Kendul nodded. The moment passed, then:

“So,” Marcton said. “What now?”

The sky was darkening, and snow was still falling – hadn’t stopped in days, and showed no signs of doing so.

“Well,” Kendul said. “Since none of the king’s horses or men are coming, I’d say we have to put her back together again ourselves.”

“I don’t like the Humpty Dumpty analogy,” Cleve said. “Can we use Frankenstein instead?”

“You mean Frankenstein’s monster,” Kendul said.

“I mean fuck you,” Cleve shot back.

“Alright,” Marcton said, “Frankenstein’s monster, it is. So how we do it? I know you said you feel that she’s alive, Kendul – in your bones, or whatever – but she looks real fuckin’ dead to the rest of us.”

Kendul shot him a look, considered further arguments, but then just dropped his eyes. I’m so goddamn tired. Exhausted by all this. Just wiped the fuck out…

“So what do we do now?” Marcton said. “Just tell us. Just tell us.”

Kendul looked back up at Marcton and in that instant – in a brief flash of insight – knew the kid would make a good leader. Probably better than Palermo ever was. He couldn’t put his finger on what made him think it, but it was suddenly there in his mind, like a memory of childhood, brought back to the surface. Never gone, just buried for a while, but always true.

“Alright, look. I don’t know exactly how we do it, but we need something to bring her back to us. I said earlier that our ace in the hole could be the fact that Kyllo killed her father. I think that was wrong: it’s not our ace in the hole; it’s the only fucking card we’ve got.”

“Séance,” Cleve said.

“No,” said Kendul. “Not a fucking séance. Dipshit.”

“Fine, not a fucking séance. Then what?”

“I think we just need to tell her. That her father is dead. That we know who killed him. All of us. And she needs to know we truly need her.”

“Do we need to, like, hold hands and shit?” Bill said.

“Yes. Yes, we do,” Kendul said.

“Oh. Um. I was kind of joking, but… OK.”

Kendul reached out his hand toward Marcton. Marcton took it, clasped it tightly. Nodded. Marcton grabbed Cleve’s hand. Cleve took Bill’s. Bill took Kendul’s.

Every one of them wanted to make a joke to relieve the awkwardness, but no one did. Almost immediately, each man felt the thrumming Kendul had experienced – was experiencing stronger than ever now.

Snowflakes fell gently outside. Marcton watched it through one of the dirty basement windows, and just let whatever was happening fill him up. Some of the snow sifted down through the side of the house that bore no wall. It blew in under the basement door, drifted down the stairs.

“Adelina, we–” Marcton began.

“Shut up,” Kendul cut him off. “Just don’t. Doesn’t feel right. Just think. Just… thoughts.”

Silence wrapped the room so tightly, it felt like the air was being sucked out into the night.

And Adelina heard them.

She heard them loud and clear.



* * *



Adelina felt Kendul’s and the others’ presence like a soft blanket draped slowly over her body. As she concentrated on connecting to their thoughts, her world of mostly formless swirls and forks of lightning began to solidify into something more concrete. Something tangible.

Crumbling walls, rubble, and dirt crisped into her mind. I know this place, she thought. I know where this is. This is home. My home.

As the scene continued to sharpen, four men took shape along the walls. Kendul. Dad’s friend. That one I know. The others… have I seen them before? I can’t remember. But they’re familiar.

A warm feeling washed over her, then – the warmest feeling she’d had in as long as she could remember.

Their thoughts were intensely focused on something in the ground. Something in the dirt. Exposed.

And then Adelina saw what they saw.

At first, she only saw it as the horribly mutated machine it would appear to be to most people – even to her kind – but then memories flooded her brain, and she realized that this was her. This was her body. She was inside that thing.

Or could be.

That was also the moment she realized she’d been here all along. Stuck in the cold ground, dismembered, left to rot for years.

Why would they do this to me? What could I have done to deserve this?

But those memories would not return. The part of her that understood what all this meant – what she’d been manipulated into doing all along: the plan for Henry; the goal; what needed to be achieved – that part of her would not allow any of her experience to become truly distasteful.

Though she did not know why – or at least no conscious idea why – she was instrumental to what Henry was destined for. What he was made to do, to become.