The hum of the current moving through the barbed steel lines could be heard even from inside the truck.

“Do you think Mr. Pilcher is dead yet?” Ben asked.

“I have no idea.”

“But the abbies will eventually get him, right?”

“That’s a certainty.”

Ben glanced back through the rear window into the bed of the truck. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why are we doing this, Dad?”

“Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that thing back there.”

Now Ethan looked into the truck bed.

The female abby from the superstructure sat motionless in a plexiglass cage, staring out into the woods.

“It’s strange,” Ethan said. “The world belongs to them now, but we still possess something they don’t have.”

“What?”

“Kindness. Decency. That’s what it is to be human. At our best at least.”

Ben looked confused.

“I think this abby is different,” Ethan said.

“What do you mean?”

“She has an intelligence, a gentleness I haven’t seen in any of the others. Maybe she has a family she wants to see again.”

“We should shoot her and burn her with all the rest.”

“And what would that accomplish? Feed our anger for a few minutes? What if we did the opposite? What if we sent her out into her world with a message about the species that once lived in this valley? I know it’s crazy, but I’m holding tight to the idea that a small act of kindness can have real resonance.”

Ethan opened his door, stepped out into the forest.

“What do you mean?” Ben asked. “Like it might change the abbies? Maybe more would become like her?”

Ethan walked around to the back of the truck, lowered the tailgate.

He said, “Species evolve. In the beginning, man was a hunter-gatherer. Communicated through grunts and gestures. Then we invented agriculture and language. We became capable of kindness.”

“But that took thousands of years. We’ll all be dead before that ever happens.”

Ethan smiled. “You’re right, son. It would take a long, long, long, long time.”

He turned to face the abby. She sat peacefully in her cage, eyes still heavy from the sedative Ethan had ordered the scientists to administer.

Pulling his Desert Eagle from the holster, he climbed up into the bed, threw the locks on the cage, and eased the door open several inches.

Something between a purr and a growl rumbled in the abby’s throat.

Ethan said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He backed slowly away, climbed down out of the truck bed.

The abby watched him.

After a moment, she pushed the cage door open with her long left arm and crept out.

“What if it does something?” Ben asked. “What if it attacks—”

“She’s not going to hurt us. She knows my meaning.” Ethan caught her eyes. “Don’t you?”

He started toward the fence, the abby following sluggishly, several paces behind.