celebrating something we don’t understand.” He looked at her more seriously. “You don’t have to understand something to know it’s attacking you. You just have to defend yourself.” “I saw one once,” she continued. “Early on, in the first weeks after Invasion Day. I was visiting with family for the summer, and after the news we decided we better stay on the farm for a while, thinking it would be safer. “In a way it was; it was never harmed. But one of the Titans came through the fields. It was just as big as they say: taller than the barn as it walked by. I remember most that it shimmered silver as it walked; it seemed to be covered in lights, or some luminous material. It was near sunset, and it shone as it walked. “I had been out walking myself, and of course I stopped and hid in the corn when it came by. It turned, and seemed to look right at me. Then it just kept going. It went to our car, a Cabriolet, and tore it apart. That was terrifying. When it was done, there wasn’t much left but the tires. “Then it left. Just walked away.” After a while Russell said thoughtfully, “You know they changed over time.” “How do you mean?” “They were altering themselves. That’s why they always went for machinery, heavy metals. They used the materials to repair themselves, to make changes, to build new Titans. But they were slow about it, which was fortunate for us.” “I never heard that.” “Can I show you something?” He stood up. “Come on, I won’t hurt you. Won’t even hit on you, too much.” She let him lead her backstage. “I helped set this up,” he explained, as they passed a number of broken and mysterious objects, in strange shapes and hues. “Brought the parts here for people to see. But we didn’t use them all. Here, look at this.” And there they were, three great orbs, slung from a hook on the wall like a cluster of grapes. Her own eyes widened in surprise. “These are from a Titan?” “Yep. One of the last to fall, right here in Chicago.” “But they’re so ... human.” He nodded. “I’m not sure the machines even realized who and what they were fighting until late in the war. Maybe they thought they were fighting other machines, and of course in a sense they were. But they started to catch on, toward the end.” He unhooked one from its netting and handed it to her. It was smooth and glassy, surprisingly heavy. She sat down in a stool and cradled it, its gaze innocent as a child’s. 25
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