He was trudging through the dark streets, trying desperately to retrieve memories of Faye, when a strange sound caught his ear: hydraulics, or something close to hydraulics. He looked around, saw nothing, then looked down. At his own legs. The sound came from his legs, whenever he stepped. He hadn’t noticed it before due to the noise around him, but now, cloaked in relative darkness down these side streets, he heard it clearly.
But not quite hydraulics. Something similar – organic tissue mixed with hydraulics? – but different enough to be noticeable. Henry stopped walking, looked down again. Air hissed from something mechanical, like a rig after hitting its brakes. But Henry had seen hydraulic systems before, and these weren’t quite the same. These were more powerful, more efficient. Using some other kind of technology he was unfamiliar with.
The entrance to the old tunnels, he knew, was just another block away, and he still had not encountered anyone on the side streets and back alleys he’d chosen for his path. He started to think maybe he wouldn’t see anyone, would actually go unseen the entire way. He hoped so because he wasn’t sure what he’d do if someone saw him – more accurately, he was afraid of what he’d do if someone saw him. Disturbing flashes of what had happened at Faye’s apartment occasionally bolted through his head, but nothing that made any kind of sense for the person he thought himself to be. These images felt fake – like a film he’d watched, or as though someone had poked around in his head, created false memories for some reason. Some larger plan he was part of but knew nothing about.
He hoped if someone saw him before he got underground, they would just forget. Maybe panic at first, run away, but then, by the time they reached anyone to tell about it, the memory would be trapped behind a curtain of haze.
But someone did see him.
And Henry saw him.
Palermo. Limping in his direction, his silhouette stretching out under a streetlamp.
Palermo glanced up as Henry lurched into view. Palermo stopped in his tracks. He said nothing, just stared up at Henry. His creation, to a certain extent.
Henry loomed over Palermo, stared down at him, breathing. One part of his mind recognized Palermo for who he was, the leader of the Runners. His people. Another part of his mind – the part that cared for Faye, for Milo, and the frustrated part that had no idea what he was becoming – wanted to end Palermo.
“This,” Henry said. “All of this. It’s your fault.”
Palermo held up his hands, said, “Look, I just need to get back to HQ, Henry. We can sort this out. I know what’s happening to you, and we can–”
Henry felt a shudder rip through his body. He lashed out with his free hand, swatted Palermo. Palermo flew through the air, smacked against a tree, his back broken.
Something in his mind – a new voice he was beginning to recognize as not of his making whatsoever – spoke up, said, He is no longer needed.
Henry stomped over to Palermo’s twisted frame. This voice in his head now issued forth from his mouth, almost completely separate from his will: “You are no longer needed.”
Henry brought a thick metal thumb down and ground Palermo’s head into the snowy earth beneath.
Once Palermo was dead, the presence receded, backed down from Henry’s consciousness. It felt like a darkness that had been hiding in his mind all his life had been awakened, and could now slither into and out of his brain whenever it pleased.
Henry continued walking toward the subway tunnels. One block, two.
Then about a block away from the entrance to the old tunnels, four more people saw him. They stopped as Henry lumbered into view, maybe thirty feet away from where they stood.
Marcton and Cleve pulled their weapons. Bill and Melvin followed suit. Marcton said, “Holy mother of fuck.”
Then the shooting began.
* * *
Five minutes earlier, Marcton, Cleve, Bill, and Melvin had been walking quietly toward the nurse’s apartment. Single file.
Like Sand People, to hide our strength and numbers, Marcton thought, and chuckled.
Cleve was about to ask what was funny when Marcton slowed down, stopped, pointed. “Check it out,” he said.
The other three fanned out to the sides, looked where Marcton was pointing.
Melvin said, “What the hell?”
Marcton said, “Dunno, but if Palermo’s there, shit has already gone south, and we’re late to the party.”
From their vantage point, the building seemed to be buckling near the nurse’s floor. Cracks streaked down the outer concrete. Something was going on inside the apartment, but they were too far away to see what.
Then sirens flared up behind them, getting louder.
“Ah, shit,” Bill said. “Do we need to bail, Marcton?”
“Goddamnit,” Marcton said. As good as a yes, so Marcton, Melvin, and Cleve turned around, started heading back to the car.
Bill was just about to do the same when the glass of the nurse’s living room window shattered and the top half of a body flew out, drifted over the balcony, fell into the parking lot.
“Fuck me!” Bill said. The others turned around. “A fucking body – well, half a body – just flew out the window!”