A Perfect Machine(76)

Inside the train, dozens were killed instantly, thrown around, batted from side to side as most of the cars of the train derailed, slammed into the sides of the tunnel. Glass and steel punctured lungs, ripped off limbs, crushed torsos, flattened heads, shattered spines. Many more were severely injured, and bled to death not long after the train finally came to a stop. Those who somehow made it through somewhat unscathed – mostly those at the back of the train – wandered around the wreckage crying, dazed.

When Milo and Faye heard the deafening crash, they ran toward it through the service tunnel that joined the old and new lines. Panic rose in Milo’s chest. Disbelief and horror quickly replaced that feeling once they saw the devastation.

Milo shone his flashlight toward the wreckage. Henry was lying on his back several hundred feet from where Milo and Faye stood. The car at the front of the train was mostly crumpled inward, had settled across one of Henry’s legs. Four or five cars beyond it were visible before there was a turn in the tunnel, and these cars were all tilted at crazy angles – one of them nearly vertical. A small pile of dead bodies had accumulated at the bottom of the closest car where it had been wrenched open by the force of the impact, spilling its contents onto the track.

Faye and Milo ran toward Henry, stopped short. Tried to block out the cries for help, screams of agony coming from seemingly every direction.

“Henry!” Milo shouted above the din. Milo put a hand on the leg that was trapped under the train car. He wanted to ask why, but he thought he knew why. So did Faye.

This was his only way out. Not escaping the city. Running forever. Out of control.

But it hadn’t worked.

Milo saw Henry’s shattered chest rise, pull in breath. One eye opened slowly. A nearby sparking wire caught the shiny part of that eye, and Milo had a horrible feeling that something beyond any of their comprehension was at work here. This wasn’t just ascension that had gotten out of hand. This had been calculated. By who or what, Milo had no idea. But there was something ageless in the spark of that eye. Something malignant. Persistent.

Less and less remained of Henry with every passing second, but Milo would stay by his side for however long he lasted. For however long he needed his friend.



* * *



Inside Henry, the blackness he’d hoped would be his world forever stirred. It churned into recognizable shape. A recognizable feeling.

He was alive. He cracked an eye. The first thing he saw was Milo. Then Faye. His other eye opened, and his head turned. He saw destruction. Death.

Pain everywhere, and all his doing.

He didn’t know it then, but the last words he would speak came out of his misshapen mouth. He looked at Milo, concentrated, and said, “Why can’t I die? I just want to die. I can’t feel myself anymore, Milo. There’s something awful happening… inside.”

And then Henry Kyllo grew again.



* * *



This time, he didn’t feel it at all. The tiny portion of his personality, his consciousness – whatever made him who he was – was thrown so far back from the experience that it could have been happening to someone else.

His legs and arms grew longer, his torso stronger, wider, his head bigger, sharper – and all of him a darker metal, a coarser rock, bordering on black.

Milo dragged Faye back, as far away from Henry as he could. Henry gained his feet, any damage from the train now fully healed, covered over. His head and shoulders burst through the tunnel ceiling, crashed through into the city street above. A few cars swerved around him, but most just shot straight into him, looks of rage and hatred on people’s faces before they hit.

Henry looked up, saw the choppers in the sky, saw police cars, fire engines, ambulances everywhere – and regular people on the street charging at him, throwing themselves into their attacks, heedless of any injury they might sustain themselves.

This is humanity’s last ditch effort to save itself, Henry thought, unaware where the thought had come from, but knowing its truth. We are the Other, and we cannot be understood.

Henry grew more, his gleaming black torso now rocketing up through the pavement, chunks cracking to either side of him.

He turned his massive head, saw a tank rolling down the street toward him. The tank fired, the shell catching him high on the cheek. Besides losing his vision momentarily, there were no adverse effects whatsoever.

Ridiculous, he thought. I am a ridiculous cartoon monster, but I will be the end of all these people.



* * *



The fear was contagious. More virulent than any plague in history.

The Other must be eradicated.

Far away in a war room in the country’s capitol, generals seized with this inexplicable, overriding fear gave the order that nuclear missiles – along with dozens of other rockets – were to be launched in Henry Kyllo’s direction. But that order was moot, since the personnel who turned the keys to launch the missiles had already done so.

And it was the same in as many other countries as were in range.

Humanity acted as one organism under threat of extinction, throwing everything it had at the enemy. A colossal worldwide Hail Mary to try to save itself from eradication.



* * *



Adelina Palermo walked through the dark of the old subway tunnel until she heard the crash of the train ploughing into Henry. She found the tunnel joining the old subway line with the new one, and headed down it.