World Walker 1: The World Walker (2 page)

At 3:13am, he opened his eyes sleepily. A mountain lion stood about ten paces away, watching him. Seb raised his head, thinking for a moment that he was hallucinating. Realizing he wasn't, he called out to it, his voice sounding far away and disconnected.

"Shoo!"
 

The mountain lion cocked her head to one side, considering whether this was a fight she wanted to take on, before abruptly padding away into the darkness.

At 3:49am, Seb opened his eyes again, much more slowly this time. His brain felt like it was trying to communicate with his body from the bottom of a dark, wet well. He struggled to focus, but when he managed it, he
knew
he was hallucinating. A huge thin figure stood in front of him. A huge thin glowing figure who looked exactly like the guy who stepped out of the spaceship at the end of
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
.

"Welcome to Earth," said Seb. "I would get up, but," He lapsed into a bout of weak coughing, his breathing shallow and rasping. Man, it was getting hard to breathe. Seb decided it was time to stop making the effort. His hallucination would just have to get along without him. The hallucination, however, had other ideas.
 

Chapter 2

The facility had originally been built during the Second World War, as part of a national strategy to provide the United States Government with a series of well-equipped underground bolt holes from which they could continue to govern in the event of a nuclear strike. It was an expensive strategy, involving the construction of thirty-seven such buildings across the country, and the irony wasn't lost on President Truman that if they hadn't invented the damn bomb in the first place, they could have saved millions of dollars. Still, throughout the Cold War, many workers in the higher echelons of public office took comfort in the fact they were rarely more than an hour away from a safe haven.

Like most ultra-secret facilities, the Los Angeles DF1 Suites (named after DefCon 1, the state of emergency which would automatically trigger their use) were hidden in plain sight. In the State Department's experience, huge fences, barriers, heavily armed guards and warning signs kept out all but the most curious; but it was the most curious who were crucial to keep out. So the government had started placing its most important facilities near to more prominent, traditionally guarded ones. Then they'd come up with cover stories to deflect the curious. LA's DF1 Suites had a better cover story than many. Sitting on top of a vast warren of underground rooms was a long, low building displaying a simple sign: FMR. There was a fence, of course, and a guard - usually a retired cop catching up on the sports pages or taking a nap - but no one ever came near the place because of the smell. The guard was well paid due to the stench, which was pumped out to the surrounding countryside day and night. FMR stood for Fecal Matter Research. The locals all knew it as the Shit Station.

For over fifty years, the secret rooms beneath the Shit Station had housed a single occupant. This occupant was watched - initially - by a 12-person team of scientists plus nearly fifty highly trained guards, all unaware they were embarking upon the most tedious job they'd ever draw a pay check from. The guards lost interest within weeks and, over a period of decades, their numbers fell as budgets were cut. The professional fascination of the scientists took years to begin to diminish, but eventually, even they reluctantly accepted the inevitable. By the time Seb took his final stroll just over a mile away, the Shit Station only got one scientific visit a month and that was purely a box-ticking exercise.
 

The occupant had arrived on US soil at Roswell, New Mexico on July 7
th
, 1947. He (although it had no discernible gender, 1950s American attitudes pretty much dictated the masculine epithet) had unceremoniously created a 500 ft wide crater in a thinly populated area, scared a few farmers and provided the raw material for decades of conspiracy theories. He had even been named: Billy Joe. This was in honor of the half-drunk old guy who'd come "for a look-see" about an hour after impact. The military response had been swift, a cordon was in place, but no one could prevent him seeing the figure standing in the wreckage. The old man had taken one look at the giant gray creature, spat on the dirt and stumped away, calling back over his shoulder, "Only came up to see Billy Joe, and that sure as hell ain't him." One of the soldiers raised his weapon as the drunk walked away, but an officer put his hand on the barrel and pushed it toward the ground.
 

"Let him tell his story, son," he said. "Couldn't wish for a better witness."

A thousand accounts of what had occurred that night sprang up in the years following the incident. The story got some attention at first based on the evidence of a number of reliable witnesses who had seen lights in the sky or heard the shriek of tearing metal as something big tore into the New Mexico desert. But the lack of any material evidence ensured the story was never given much scrutiny. If something had crashed, where was the wreckage? Even if the US government had somehow pulled off the fastest, most thorough cleanup operation in modern history, some fragment would have remained, some tiny piece overlooked. But nothing ever came to light, and years of alien-hunters with magnifying glasses, metal detectors, and increasingly complex technological equipment had failed to turn up any evidence.

The platoon of soldiers first on the scene were the only witnesses to the truth, and their exceptionally generous pension packets, coupled with some not-so-thinly-veiled threats, ensured they would never break their silence. But not a man among them would ever forget what they had seen. Colonel Harkett's statement from that night was still on file at the Shit Station and every scientist who had subsequently spent any time with Billy Joe had read and reread it so many times, they could have quoted it verbatim in their sleep.

"The alien stood in the middle of the wreckage, looking around itself. And glowing. It didn't seem to see us, or, if it did, it sure as hell didn't care. The wreckage spread out a fair distance, around 500 feet in diameter. You could feel the heat, but there was no fire. You ever seen a plane crash? Looked like that in some ways, the way the wreckage was dispersed, the gouge in the ground made by the impact. But I couldn't stop thinking, where are the seats? This guy's come from another planet, right? You telling me it stood up for the whole trip? Couldn't see any controls, neither. Every bit of wreckage looked the same, like it was the hull or something. Just plain metal. After a while, the alien closed its eyes and knelt down, putting its hands flat on the ground. That's when it happened, and Christ, I don't mind telling you I'm just glad you got other witnesses, 'cause I wouldn't believe it otherwise, in your shoes. Its whole body was glowing - did I mention that? It seemed to get brighter and for a second I just looked at it. Not an everyday sight, right? Then one of my men shouted and I looked back at the nearest piece of wreckage to me. It was getting smaller. I could see it happening. Now I've heard a couple of the guys say it sank into the ground but that isn't right. I know exactly what it reminded me of. You ever poured hot water on an ice cube? That's exactly how this looked. Like someone was picking it apart in tiny pieces. Then it was gone. All of it. And your gray fella was stretched out on the ground. Not glowing any more. We all figured it was dead."

To all but the educated observer, the alien
was
dead. No discernible breathing, no pulse. But even the relatively unsophisticated diagnostic equipment available to medical professionals in the 1940s detected enough signs of life to make it worth transferring Billy Joe to the Shit Station, the best hidden secret facility on US soil.
 

Billy Joe's arrival at the Station was followed by months of study by the cream of the American scientific community. Their initial euphoria was matched by the excitement and fearfulness throughout the select few in government who shared in the knowledge of what had really happened at Roswell. However, the reports emerging from the secret facility; daily at first, then weekly, monthly and finally six-monthly, contained many words, some of them extremely long, but just one message: we've got nothing. No news, no reports, no details of the alien's physical makeup, no change in his condition. Zilch.

The best scientific minds literally grew old and died trying to solve the enigma of the creature. The problem was they couldn't get a single sample to work on. Asked by an irate White House advisor to sum up his report in language they could actually understand, one esteemed professor simply scrawled across his original words,
 

"Doesn't eat. Doesn't shit. Skin like a tank. Questions?"

The strange thing was, if you touched the alien's skin, it felt warm, pliable, soft. But if you tried pushing a needle into it, the area where the needle touched the flesh suddenly became totally unyielding. Scientists noted it was almost as if the skin immediately pushed back at them, became rock hard. And throughout it all, the alien lay as if dead, stretched out on the slab, monitored by cameras and recording equipment.

There had been one near-disaster in 1982, where no less than a Nobel-winning professor of physics succumbed to a moment of madness resulting from years of fruitless, frustrating observation. Snatching a gun from the holster of a guard, he fired three rounds into the alien's body before a second guard shot and killed him. As the professor's body was dragged away, the medical team rushed into the room in a blur of professionalism. Within seconds they had stopped short, staring. There were no wounds on the alien's body. No bullet holes. No blood. No change in his condition. If it hadn't been for the fact they'd witnessed the professor's murderous attack, and later had seen the three empty chambers in the guard's gun, they would have doubted the evidence of their own senses. The bullets themselves had undoubtedly entered Billy Joe's body as there was no sign of them elsewhere.
 

The occupant of the Shit Station became the eighth wonder of the world. It was just a shame this was the only one no one could talk about. As successive governments came and went and presidents retired, died, or got caught screwing the American people metaphorically, or - in at least one memorable case - literally, Billy Joe lay on a slab in a secret facility just outside Los Angeles. Once every six or seven years, a vigilant Chief Of Staff with a desire to actually know where many of the larger drains on the national budget ended up would trace a chunk of change to the Station and demand some answers. He or she would subsequently be given the tour, allowed to poke the star attraction, given a strong drink and asked how exactly they might better spend the tax dollars. Given that the alien's body itself was no nearer to giving any answers and the craft that had apparently whisked him from God-knows-where to New Mexico had vanished without trace a few hours after crashing, successive Chiefs Of Staff reluctantly came to the same conclusion. They had to wait until human technology caught up with the alien. Or until the alien did something: spoke, moved, yawned, broke wind. Anything would do. Until then, they just had to sit on their hands and throw money at it. And stop anyone finding out. On that they all agreed.

So when, at 5am one Sunday, Billy Joe swung his legs off the slab, stood up and walked through a solid wall 150 feet underground, no one was quite prepared for it.

There were two guards on duty, both three years into a 10-year assignment at the Shit Station. Each displayed the kind of vigilance that might be expected from well-trained soldiers asked to babysit someone who hadn't moved a inch in over half a century. They were playing poker. Chad may have missed the alien's initial movements, but he was chasing an unlikely flush that would bring him a ten-buck pot if the final diamond hit. As it happened, the river card was the Queen of Diamonds, but Chad never saw it, his eyes having finally flicked to the monitor. Carl was staring at the cards disgustedly, having suspected the flush all along, but when he glanced up and saw the expression on his partner's face, he swung around and checked the monitor before assuming an identical expression, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging.
 

"What the f-," managed Carl before Chad stood, knocking the cards flying. He unholstered his gun, punched a combination into the airlock and was in the room just in time to see Billy Joe's heel disappearing into a solid steel wall, a faint glow lingering in the spot for half a second before fading.

"What the hell do we do now?" said Chad, his gun pointing at the empty slab. Carl managed to gain a little equilibrium, swallowing hard.
 

"We get topside," he said. "You make the call."

As the elevator doors opened at ground level, Chad hit send on his cell phone, calling the number he had been trained to call should the alien's condition ever change, however minor that change might be. Chad guessed this probably qualified. It was picked up immediately.

"Tell me exactly what's happened, soldier," came the calm voice at the other end of the line. Chad swallowed. He'd never met the owner of the voice, but had been briefed by phone when he was first assigned to the Station. It was the voice of someone who demanded unquestioning obedience, someone who could bypass the usual channels, someone who got the job done, whatever the job might be. You either did what you were told or you got yourself suddenly disappeared. Permanently.

"It's Billy Joe, sir," said Chad. "He's gone." There was a fraction of a second's pause before the voice continued as calmly as it had before.

"Describe precisely what you saw." Chad did as he was told, including the impossible exit through a solid wall. Carl listened to his partner's account while checking his ammunition. He handed Chad some night-vision goggles.