That had effectively shut everyone up.
They began walking in the general direction of the apartment building. Not thirty seconds later, the ground shook, sounding like footsteps – but like no footsteps any of them had ever heard before.
“Holy mother of fuck,” Marcton had said when the creature stomped into their line of sight.
And now here they stood, facing the creature down.
When they opened fire, the beast just stood there for a moment, head nearly level with the streetlight above them. When it realized it was under fire, it moved its arm inward to protect whatever was still tucked against its body.
Marcton quickly realized the thing was made mostly of metal, so their bullets were ricocheting madly in every direction, and that one of them could hit Palermo – or whomever was hidden inside the monster’s hand. “Hold your fire!” he yelled. But at first he couldn’t be heard over the cacophony. He yelled louder, his voice cracking on the first word: “Fuck’s sake, STOP!”
The guns went dead.
The beast lifted its head, focused its gaze on them. There was no mistaking the machinery of the thing, but something in its eyes felt organic where they settled on Marcton’s face. Examining him. Assessing the threat level, of course, but more than that. In fact, despite the metal exterior, there was something organic about the entire creature. Something in the way it breathed, the way it shifted its weight from side to side. Marcton would never know it, but at that very moment Henry was trying to access his memories of Marcton. They’d done several Runs together in the early years. Never became close, but Marcton would know Henry to see him – the original Henry.
Unable to retrieve any true memories, instead, weird fantastical elements of several events in Henry’s past coalesced to form a picture in his mind; these elements would become the basis of Henry’s thoughts about Marcton from this point forward. Enough of the elementary wiring in Henry’s brain had changed, been reshaped, that he would never regain his real memories of the man.
But perhaps that was just as well, because Marcton would never even know that this was Henry Kyllo.
Now, standing in the street with the gaze of a monster fixed solely on him, Marcton was astonished to find his voice. Motioning toward the person the creature carried, he said, “Who is that?”
Marcton had no idea whether the thing spoke or understood English, but it was the only language he had with which to attempt communication. The creature seemed to understand. It looked down at its cargo, then slowly uncurled its fingers to reveal a woman. Unconscious. Not Palermo at all.
Marcton’s heart sank. So one of the bodies flying out the windows was likely Palermo’s. But he couldn’t know for sure. Not without checking out the bodies himself. Or sending one of his guys to do so.
Unless he asked. Long shot, but why not?
“And Palermo?”
No recognition. The beast just growled low in its throat, covered the woman with its hand again, put her back at its side. She groaned a little, then. It wouldn’t be long before she came around.
The monster took one tentative step forward, kept its eyes on Marcton’s gun. Moved its head in the direction of the entrance to the old subway tunnels. Back to Marcton. Back to the entrance.
Something clicked in its throat. Gears whirred, ground. Something resembling human speech tried to belch its way out of the thing’s neck.
Henry, of course, could’ve spoken if he’d wanted to, but felt he shouldn’t. Felt he should let them think he was nothing remotely like them. Internally, too, he was battling with that other voice that would have just had him crush these people to death. It had gotten the better of him before, with Palermo, but now he knew about it, felt its presence curled up, ready to pounce at the back of his thoughts. Better to know where the wasp in the room was than be oblivious to its presence.
Cleve, Bill, and Melvin stiffened. Cleve took a step back, raised his gun again, said, “What are we doing here, Marcton? Your call. Letting it go? It doesn’t look like it wants to hurt us, just wants to get past.”
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s just that…” Marcton said, fascinated. The creature was hard to look away from. It looked like no machine he’d seen before. There were familiar elements, of course, and something about the way it moved was… sinewy. As though beneath all the steel were flesh and blood muscles.
It had stopped trying to push out whatever sounds it apparently thought would help get its point across, and had fallen silent.
“Come on, Marcton,” Cleve said, keeping his voice low, placing a hand gently on his friend’s shoulder, so as not to startle him out of his state. “Let’s go.”
Marcton turned to look at him.