“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.
Then, clear as a bell, this thought came to her, calming, serene: Something inside me set all this in motion. That thing that protected our people for so long. Hid us from prying eyes. It is different now, but taken root in me. It has become me. Henry is our future. Henry must survive at all cost. He is –
– a murderer, your father’s killer –
The thought slipped beneath her radar, inserted itself into her narrative. Coming from the four men:
– Kyllo killed your father –
– we need your help –
– we need you –
– No – the voice within her broke in: Kyllo must survive. He will redefine what you are. What we all are. He will reshape everything, bring about the end of –
Then back to the men again:
– come back, come back –
– he’s your father’s murderer, Adelina –
– you need to stop him, you need to –
Something like breath moved through the torso of the machine in the ground, and Marcton flinched back, tripped over busted concrete, chunks of dirt, fell flat on his back.
The other three men stared at the machine’s chest.
“Un-fucking-real,” Cleve said. He turned to Bill: “Did we do that? We fucking did that, didn’t we?”
“I think we may have fucking done that, Cleve,” Bill replied.
“Steady,” Kendul breathed. “Steady on.” He was concentrating on the torso now, directing his thoughts there specifically.
With Marcton out of the circle, still in shock, dazed, just staring, the remaining three men joined hands.
“Keep going,” Kendul said. “Focus.”
As true and as real as her previous thoughts had felt about Henry Kyllo needing to be protected, to be saved at all costs, these new thoughts were just as true and just as real: he killed her father. Rage boiled up inside her – a rage she was incapable of feeling until now.