Walking had become impossible. The Machine had stopped to allow Watley to rest and it felt like the sweetest relief he’d ever experienced in his life. He’d been heavily favoring his left leg, almost hopping on it. Now, he sat in the middle of the road.

“Thank you,” he’d said, but the Machine did not respond. It just kept looking into the distance. That’s what Watley supposed it was doing – it stood as rigid as stone and hadn’t moved in almost five minutes. Then the head, always suspended from the main chassis by some invisible force, levitated twenty feet into the air and hovered there.

They were at a fork in the road and maybe the Machine was searching for the proper route. Or possibly scanning for other life in the vicinity. The left branch fell downhill toward a forest-lined roadway that curved away into shadow. Watley found the dark there soothing. He imagined sneaking away, into the underbrush, to lie in the coolness and just fade away. That would be the sweetest relief, he thought. Death.

He could no more sneak away than crawl, however. His right leg was utterly destroyed. Badly decayed, Watley had expected to become ill from the odor, but the rotten flesh odor had evolved into an earthy scent, like freshly turned ground, or maybe compost. He felt with his hand and discovered that the black substance that had been encroaching onto his torso was now just below his neck. The bio suit and he were one now, for the most part. He tugged at what had once been the suit’s fabric and realized it felt as though he was pulling at his skin. Fused. Most of his teeth had fallen out; only two left now. The tip of his nose and ears felt numb, like what he supposed the beginning stages of frostbite felt like. But this was summer.

Watley chuckled. “Hell of a way to go,” he stuttered. “Huh?” He looked around, remembering that he was alone. He was with the Machine, sure, but that was really like being alone. The thing hardly spoke to him. He studied its robust build, the heaviness of its limbs.

“What are you made of, anyway?” he called. The strain of elevating his voice caused a wave of dizziness and he closed his eyes, nearly falling backward. Instead, he toppled sideways and caught himself on his right elbow.

The right of the forked roadway was bordered by a fence, the wooden kind. Watley imagined it had once been light brown, but now the wood was gray and old, splintered here and there. It seemed to go on forever, outlining acre upon acre receding toward the horizon. There were trees scattered about, but most of it appeared to be farmland. Lush green land, too. Not the dull, colorless earth they’d been roaming through. Everything seemed gray and dying. Except there, beyond the fence.

Close, now.

That strange voice again. Like the one that had come from the light in the barn. Talking and talking inside his head. Never shutting up.

Then he shook his head, trying to ward off the voice and concentrated on the green land. He saw rows of corn that dipped into a little valley, then rose back up maybe a hundred yards off. Watley tried to remember eating corn on the cob. When he was a kid. With butter, salt and pepper…It had been a while since he’d last eaten, but he wasn’t in the least bit hungry.

A small structure sat off to the left side of the last row of corn. A shed, maybe. It was then that Watley saw the Machine; it was walking toward this shed. He turned back to where it had been standing a moment ago, thinking that perhaps there were now two of them. But no, it had just moved.

Seizing the opportunity, Watley lay down, resting his head on his right arm and closed his eyes. Darkness rushed at him. Just a quick nap.

*********

Watley watches incredulously as Lacy is swallowed by the white light; here one second, gone the next. In awe, he wakes from his trance when the heavy steel door is blown from its hinges by a deafening explosion. The concussive wave sends him flying backward to the ground.

There is commotion and movement as two Machines enter the large room. Watley scrambles to his feet, finding that his weapon has been lost. Disoriented, he sees Mo discharging his own gun, the blasts visible as bursts of light, but not audible. Mo is yelling something at him, but he can’t understand. His hearing is gone.

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Glancing around the floor, he finally finds the rifle ten feet away. He runs for it, grabs it and swings around to fire, but is hit by another wave that hurls him into a wall. He struggles to open his eyes and when he succeeds, his vision swims in lethargic peaks and valleys. His ears now decipher sound, although it’s only the muted rumblings of the Machines and distant crackling of gunfire, like he’s in a vast cavern and all the action is taking place at the far end.

Rolling onto his belly, Watley sees Gray. After remaining petrified for so long – as he supposes had been necessary to hold open that portal or whatever it was – the giant moves. Sustaining round after round, some bouncing off, some sinking into his hide, Gray clutches the orb of light with his open hand and begins closing his fist around it. Two more Machines enter the room and begin firing upon Gray. It’s then that Watley hears his name.

“Watley! Godammit!”

It’s Mo, pleading for him to get off his ass and help. Watley snags his weapon from the debris on the floor and rises, his weapon discharging hapzardly. After gaining control, he aims, squeezes and lands a direct hit on one of the Machine’s globe-like heads. The round ricochets off the impenetrable surface, leaving not so much as a mark. Then, concentrating their firepower, the Machines overwhelm Gray and he hits the ground hard. When the Machines turn to Watley, he drops his weapon. Mo is forced to do the same.

One of the Machines lumbers to the orb, its light now weak and transparent, and appears to inspect it. As Watley and Mo are escorted out of the room and into the adjoining tunnel, there arises the sound of a scuffle. Watley glances back and finds that Gray has somehow gotten up and is engaging both machines. His left hand – the one like a club – is glowing, gaining intensity by the second.

The machine behind Mo turns to go back into the room, but suddenly the door, previously shorn from its hinges is flung toward the open doorway. An instant before his vision is obscured, Watley believes he sees Gray’s hand outstretched…as though he’s directing the flight of the steel door.

The room is sealed off once more. There is a brilliant flash beyond the door and a deafening BOOM!

And then all is silent.

*********

Awakened by a baritone, but eerily electronic male voice, Watley squinted and looked up. The Machine was standing over him. The thing grabbed his shoulders and hauled him to his feet, albeit very gently. There was a wheeled cart beside it that must’ve been retrieved from the shed. Watley, shaky even on his good leg, took hold of the cart’s side for support. His head felt weightless, like at any moment it might float away.

“Whasss going on?” Watley mumbled.

“Almost there,” the Machine responded.

Nodding, Watley felt the fading sun beating on him. Everything seemed amplified: the light, the heat, the humidity. He was woozy.

He heard himself say, “Good.” It sounded like it came from someone else however, so he repeated it. “Good.”

Despite the onset of the heat, he wasn’t sweaty, but, rather dry. No sweat dotted his brow or matted his hair. Watley could feel himself absorbing the heat, though. He should be sweating. His dry fingers began to slip away from the cart and his momentum took him backward. His balance compromised by his condition, he prepared to slam into the ground. Instead, he was floating through the air, light as a feather. The Machine had him. Over his shoulder, Watley saw the ground moving away from him and then the gray, overcast sky. He’d almost forgotten there’d been a seed storm not long ago.

In the Machine’s arms, Watley was a mass of putty. He was laid into the wagon, and the wagon attached to the Machine’s chassis. Then retractable wheels emerged from the robot’s four limbs and the two of them began to roll over the road.

It began to rain; the warm precipitation felt soothing. Lulled into an ever-deepening haze by the wagon’s rocking, Watley barely noticed his right leg collapse into a heap on the wagon’s s floor. It was gone, all the way to the hip. It looked like overturned dirt. “Look…at that,” he murmured. He didn’t feel a thing.