World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine (25 page)

Mee shrugged, unconvinced.

“One thing still confuses me,” said Seb2.

“Only one thing?” said Mee. Seb2 ignored her

“They just seem, well, a little disengaged, somehow. As if they were expecting their meeting with us to go one way, then—when it didn’t—they couldn’t adapt to the change in circumstances. Look at their weird attempts to communicate. There’s something we’re missing, something we’re not seeing. Do you remember that feeling of being watched?”

“Yes,” said Seb. “I remember.”

“Something doesn’t quite make sense.”

“I’m more concerned about why they’re heading for Earth,” said Seb.

 
Seb2 had briefly interrogated the alien computer systems when they were there. The information he’d found was incomplete and frustrating. The program he had left behind, gathering and decoding information, would give them a much better idea of what was going on next time Seb was ‘summoned’. Until then, they had—at least—built up more of a picture of what they were dealing with. One of the files Seb2 had brought back was some sort of basic learning library, containing information about the species, although much of it made little sense when filtered through a human sensibility.

“They’re the same species as Billy Joe,” said Seb2. “Although they don’t really accept Billy Joe as one of their own.”

“Why not?” said Mee.

“It’s down to the way they think of themselves, and of their position in the universe. I need to give you some background—just bear in mind some of this is conjecture, based on the information I’ve found. Their species only has one World Walker. As does the human race. From what I can gather, World Walkers are rare. And when I say rare, I mean one grain of sand on a beach as big as the Milky Way rare. Mic, Thelma, Louise, they only know of one: Billy Joe.”

“And now you,” said Mee.

“Well, no. They don’t know that about us. We’ve given them a slightly doctored picture of who we are.”

“Why?” said Mee.

“Simple caution. One piece of information has come across loud and clear from our two visits. They think of themselves as superior to humanity. And when I say superior, I mean in the same way we feel superior to a chipmunk. I suspect one of the reasons they’re not making a massive effort to communicate effectively is because they think it would be pointless. And beneath them. They are an ancient race. Billy Joe is the only World Walker they’ve ever known. The information I found shows they know very little about him. His very existence came as a profound shock to them as a species. And they don’t understand what he is exactly. They don’t know whether to feel proud of him, fear him, or ignore him. Their default position has been to ignore him. His appearance, many generations ago, was such a break with their world-view—or universe-view—that they haven’t yet recovered. They would never believe a race as immature as ours could have produced its own World Walker. And their reaction—if they did believe it—would be unpredictable.”

“I don’t quite believe it myself,” said Seb. “I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Is this how a World Walker is supposed to feel?”

“I doubt it,” said Seb2. “But think about this for a second. We weren’t ready for this. No question about it. Billy Joe didn’t give you all this power because he felt sorry for you. He didn’t see a dying musician and casually decide to turn him into one of the rarest beings in the universe. There must have been a reason.”

Mee and Seb were silent for a while.
 

“He knew they were coming here,” said Mee.

“Either that, or it’s just a coincidence that First Contact is going to happen eighteen months after he saved our life,” said Seb2. “Hardly likely.”

“So I’m supposed to do something?” said Seb. “What?”

“That’s the big question,” said Seb2. “And to answer it, I’m going to need contact with them again. I need to pick up the program I left on their ship and unravel the information it’s gathered.”

Mee rubbed her eyes.

“And what I need is some air,” she said. She turned to Seb2. “What
do
you know about these aliens, then? You said you had incomplete information. What have you got? Bullet points, please, because it’s been a long night and I need to take a walk to clear my head.”

“Bullet points,” said Seb2. “They’re scientists. They’ve traveled a vast distance to get here. The original crew are long dead. It’s taken generations.”

“What?” said Mee.

“Each of them only lives around thirty to forty years. This crew is descended from the original crew that left their system. When they die, strands of their DNA are harvested and woven into the next body they’ve grown.”

“They
grow
bodies?” said Seb.

“It would seem they left sexual reproduction behind millennia ago.”

“Don’t know what they’re missing,” said Mee. Both Sebs smiled.

“There are twelve of them onboard, all different ages. When a new body is needed, it’s seeded with a mixture of DNA from others who have died. That way, all of them are born with a racial memory. Each individual is a mixture of three or four previous personalities. The species as a whole is constantly growing in knowledge as each generation literally builds on the knowledge of the previous one. The disadvantage to this—which they acknowledge, but have long accepted—is that nature can’t throw a genetic wildcard into the mix, can’t use sudden mutation to advance the species. That’s why Billy Joe’s apparently spontaneous evolution to World Walker status was such a profound shock to them.”

“We can’t keep calling them ‘the species’,” said Mee. “Don’t they have a name?”

“They do,” said Seb2, “but the human voice box can’t pronounce it.”

“Well, we have to call them something.” She thought for a moment. “Everyone’s heard of Roswell. Let’s call ‘em Rozzers.”

“Rozzers?”

“Yeah. Why not? Now, carry on.”

“Ok. So, the, er, Rozzers that we met are, in fact, the descendants of the original twelve who set off from one of their planets.”

“
One
of their planets?” said Seb.

“They’ve colonized hundreds,” said Seb2. “Look, the information I brought back is the equivalent of a school book. Elementary school. I think the new bodies go through an accelerated learning program when they are born—if that’s the right word—and join the crew. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to effectively translate, because it’s aimed at the equivalent of a six-year-old. So don’t ask any complicated questions. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Bullet points,” repeated Mee.

“Yes. Their attitude to death is important. Not just their attitude to their own deaths, but also to others. When they die, they know they will be back in a different body, their own experience mixed with others. It’s happened countless times in the past, it will happen countless more in the future. The concept of ‘death’, in the sense of an ending, has no real meaning to them. Even if all of them were lost and their ship destroyed, their DNA from generations ago is still at home and will be used again. They will lose the memories of this mission, nothing more. There’s no fear of death at all. They don’t attach much importance to killing, either. I’ve found evidence that they’ve wiped out civilizations without a qualm.”

“How can a species so advanced be so cruel?” said Mee.

“You a vegetarian?” said Seb2.

“You know I’m not.”

“So you’ll happily eat a conscious being, so long as it’s stupid. Well, stupid enough to satisfy your conscience that it’s barely ‘conscious’ in a meaningful way.”

“That’s completely different,” said Mee.
 

“Is it?”

Mee stood up and looked out of the window.

Seb looked at Seb2.

“Are they here to declare war, then?” he said. “You said they were scientists, not soldiers. Should we be worried?”

“I don’t know,” said Seb2. “There’s no hint of aggression in the information I’ve found. Humanity gets no mention in the school book I’ve been reading. Their mission seems primarily concerned with contacting other species which have evolved sufficiently.”

“Sufficiently? Sufficiently how?”

“I’m not sure yet. But I know this is just one of thousands of similar missions to other galaxies. And it’s not their first visit. But this trip is significant, more important than the others. I found some kind of ship’s inventory. I know they brought something with them. Two of them, in fact—identical. Whatever they are, they’re big—they take up about a third of the space on the ship.”

“What are they?” said Seb. Mee walked back from the window. They both looked at Seb2.

“As far as I can make out, they’re transport for a device of some sort. The device is the important bit—it’s heavily featured in some of their written material. Its name is difficult to translate, but it’s all I can find for now.”

“So, what’s the translation?” said Mee, at the same time as Seb said, “What’s the device called?”

Seb2 looked back at both of them.

“The Unmaking Engine,” he said.

Chapter 28

Three uneventful days went by. Mee and Seb stuck to the usual routine. Mee went to the market in the morning. Seb stayed home and wrote music, or Walked elsewhere and did his superhero thing. They’d talked about the multiverse, about the nihilistic urge to stop trying to help, since helping in one universe just meant failing to help in another. In the end, they’d agreed that nothing had changed, really. You helped people because you could. In the final reckoning, Seb would never know if it made the slightest bit of difference to anything or anyone, but he knew it was the right thing to do. So he did it. Mee put it best.

“If you couldn’t swim and you were standing next to a river watching ten people drowning, would you throw a life ring to one of them? Or not bother?”

“You know I would,” said Seb. “Anyone would.”

“And which one would you throw it to?”

Seb thought for a second, then shrugged. “The nearest one,” he said.

“There you go, then.”

Mee’s afternoons were less busy. She no longer had meditation with Kate to look forward to. Kate had left for Innisfarne, so the building that had once housed the Order was full of new tenants. None of them were paying rent—Kate had just quietly let it be known that it would be unoccupied. The families she had told moved gratefully from the slums to something a whole lot better.
 

Mee spent most afternoons meditating alone, or with Seb if he was there. Her ability with Manna was becoming stronger and more natural. On days when she’d filled up her reserves at Casa Negra, she felt as if she was walking at the center of an invisible circle with a diameter of about sixty yards. She could feel the presence of anyone within the circle, and—if anyone noticed her—she felt them light up in her mind, as their intentions became clear to her. She and Seb had discussed her ability and guessed it was something to do with human pheromones being released and detected by a cloud of nano-tech. It still felt like witchcraft to Mee when it happened, but it made her feel better about walking around alone.

All things considered, Mee felt pretty safe. Mason was still out there somewhere, but it looked increasingly likely she wasn’t a priority for him now that he thought Seb was dead. She looked like a different person and she was in one of the most densely populated cities on the entire continent, living in a three-room apartment. She knew if Mason ever did find her, her Manna ability would give her a good chance to run. As long as she could get to Seb, she would be safe. And she’d always been lucky.
 

It’s one of the universe’s immutable laws that luck averages out over time. And people who’ve always been lucky are always the most surprised when that law finally takes effect.

***

Seb watched Mee walk to the market. Her step was light and she swung a basket by her side as she went. Even from his high vantage point, he could tell she was singing. He smiled.

He turned and walked toward the piano. There was an idea that had been bouncing around inside his head recently—mostly in those moments just before sleep. The fact it was becoming clearer now meant that it was probably worth exploring. Seb sat down and lifted his hands above the keys, feeling that old familiar sense of time drifting away as music filled his mind. Whatever else was going on, whatever was coming their way in that alien ship, he could still bring himself back to this moment. He was about to create something. It might be worth listening to, or it could be mediocre. Either way, it would be unique and captured for the first time in the following few minutes. And, in a little while, the woman he loved would be back.
 

He dropped his right hand toward the keys, ready to play an F major 7
^th
. His fingers never reached the keyboard. He felt his awareness shrinking to a pinprick and a roaring sounding in his brain, like a huge wave washing him away. Then he was gone.

***

It was just after 8am. Mee’s favorite market—
La Central de Abasto in Iztapalapa—was open for business and already beginning to buzz with activity. It was probably the biggest market in the city. Mee loved the way it looked from above—she and Seb had often gone walking in the hills and looked down on it. To Mee, the high white metal shelters under which the merchants displayed their wares looked like the pages of a giant book, laid open across more than three hundred hectares.
 

Under those pages, La Central de Abasto reminded Mee more of the markets in East London where she’d grown up. The fruit stalls in particular were bright, fresh and heaving with watermelons, kiwis, apples, lemons, oranges and bananas. The noise level was terrific, each vendor’s cry merging into the next as she walked. In her mind, she could hear the sing-song tones of the stall holders in New Spitalfields Market back home. “Come on, love, lovely pound of bananas ‘ere, now ah’m not arsking two, or even one-seventy ‘ere. One-fifty, that’s all ah’m arsking, any less and ah may as well take the food out the marths of me own children and send ‘em out as beggars. You won’t find ‘em any cheaper, guaranteed, me darlin’, guaranteed.”

Mee stopped to look at the display of piñatas hanging above the next stall. Rainbow colors, filled with cheap candy and in every shape imaginable: mules, cows, dogs, horses, bulls, mice, cats, spiders, lobsters. She was amused to see an alien hanging there, ready to tempt a youngster to take a swing at it.