Milo sighed. Drifted over to his friend, sat cross-legged, floating several inches off the ground, like a genie out of his bottle. But he had no magic carpet. And no matter how much he wanted to, he could not grant Henry three wishes. Could not even grant him one.
Concentrating as hard as he could – as he’d done back in Henry’s room when he’d tried to close the curtains for his friend – he reached his hand up to a part of Henry’s head that was more or less completely turned to metal. His fingers brushed through the solid steel there, no friction whatsoever. He tried again, this time slower, eyes closed, visualizing his fingers gaining purchase on the smooth, blackened metal of Henry’s skull – this close to it, it looked scorched, as if burned by fire. But again, it just passed right through.
Around them, the snow piled up thicker, blown into drifts by the wind. Above the nearby street, a gas lamp flickered, blew out, deepening the shadows cast by the other lamps around it.
One more try.
His eyes as tight as they’d go, Milo imagined harm coming to his friend, imagined this transformation leading to nothing of any worth, of Faye running screaming from Henry, of Hunters killing him out of fear, or simply reprisal for what he’d done to one of their number. Milo imagined these things and felt the near-tangible dread of being left alone in this new world – this world that, to him, was a world in which only he existed, in which he could communicate with no one else.
His fingertips touched Henry’s head, then, just the tiniest bit. An emotional and physical connection formed, however briefly. Milo brushed his fingers near Henry’s left ear, which now looked more like a blistered spike jutting from his skull, and Henry turned his face slowly in Milo’s direction, squinted hard gray eyes against the wind and snow, as if someone had called his name.
I’m here, Milo said, taking up his mantra again, I’m here, Henry. I won’t leave you tonight. I won’t.
Henry, unsure what he was feeling, moved his head away from Milo’s hand. Furrowed his brow. Metal crunched as he lowered his head and waited for the night to end.
S E V E N
At the far north end of the train track that ran through the city’s center, an abandoned caboose sat huddled against the winter storm. Inside, a lantern burned. By the lantern’s light, Edward Palermo, leader of the Runners, wrote on a yellow notepad. He gazed out one of the little windows in the caboose that he’d turned into his home, and documented the storm.
If one recorded the weather, Palermo believed, documented each snowstorm, each calm day, each rainfall, how much rain or snow fell on any given day, the temperature, and other variable factors, one might glean just a little of what events lay ahead. He’d learned this practice from his father. Not everyone could do it, but Edward and his father seemed to just have a natural knack for it.
There were no calculations, no formulae, no mathematical equations to apply to it. Palermo just recorded the weather in a journal in his own words, described it with whatever emotions it stirred within him. As he wrote, images came into his mind. Sometimes he recognized the events playing out in his head; other times, they were foreign to him, like scenes from someone else’s dreams. He then recorded those scenes in a separate journal. Palermo – as well as those under him – believed this attempt at reading the passage of time through shifts in the weather had successfully guided him in his decision making.
But this snowstorm was like nothing he’d ever seen before, had lasted longer already than any in recent memory, and showed no signs of abating. It had caused his dreams to darken, his visions of events to blur, become indistinct, shadowed. A white curtain dropping on everything.
The wind whipped the caboose, rocking it on its tracks. Nearly two feet of snow lay on the ground, which would make tonight’s Run more challenging… if Palermo decided to continue with it. Given what had happened with Henry Kyllo and his friend, Milo, Palermo thought maybe a cooling-down period of at least a day or two might be advisable. Although what might happen if the Run was cancelled was something Palermo didn’t want to deal with. Under his guidance, a Run had never been missed – one had happened once a night for as long as he’d been in control. Nearly thirty years now. Individuals occasionally missed a Run, and that came with a heavy price, but to cancel the entire thing? Palermo shuddered at the thought.
If no one showed up, would we all just disappear? Or would people defy the order, too scared to think of the consequences? Happier to face my wrath than… whatever or whomever truly runs the show?
What Palermo didn’t know was that upcoming events would render the question moot, anyway.