World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine (6 page)

“Mrs Harper, you have another daughter and a son. It’s time you start thinking about them. I will ask you one more time. Do we have an understanding?”

Her pause before answering wasn’t for dramatic effect. It sounded like she was trying to get enough strength into her voice to be able to respond at all.
 

“Yes,” she’d said.
 

Mason hung up.

The van drove to its destination, arriving in a little over an hour. Traffic in Manhattan was something even Mason couldn’t change. The journey was made in silence. Mason wasn’t much of a talker.
 

When the GPS announced they had arrived, the intercom buzzed.

“We’re here, sir.”

“Park at the lowest level.”

“Sir.”

Tiny cameras mounted outside the van showed Mason the view he would otherwise have been denied. The parking garage was new, as was the mall it served. The basement level was only half full. The van came to a stop and the intercom buzzed again.

“Are we getting out, sir?”

Mason turned off the cameras and dimmed the lights in the back of the van. He wanted to be absolutely sure.

“No,” he said. “This is perfect. I will let you know when I’m ready to leave.”

He closed his eyes, deepened his breathing and brought his attention into a needle-sharp point. When he was completely focused, he drove the point through the floor of the van and down into the cement below. When he reached the limit of the building’s foundations, he stopped and drew back a few feet. Then he let the point of his attention expand. It opened outward in all directions like a balloon being filled with air, quickly growing to a few feet, then a few meters. His sensitivity was such, he was aware of every insect, the corpse of every rodent, the old cigarette stubs, pennies, discarded subway stubs and pieces of garbage that had ended up being mixed with the cement as the foundations had been laid.
 

Although three minutes of concentration gave him his answer, Mason sat there for another ten, making completely sure his findings were accurate. When no doubt at all remained, he buzzed the intercom.
 

“Take me back,” he said.

Chapter 7

Mexico City

Seb cracked two eggs into the hot oil and ground the coffee beans. The noise elicited a groan from the bedroom. Thirty seconds later the snoring resumed. Meera had never been an early riser but it was around the time when the early morning sunlight etched honeyed lines of yellow onto the wall that the noise she produced most closely resembled that of a rutting elephant seal. Seb raised an eyebrow as the next snore physically rattled the glasses on the shelf. He flipped the eggs onto wheat toast and carried the plate through to the front porch. He loved watching Mexico City wake up.

Meera had stopped teasing him about the way he insisted on making breakfast every morning. Although she couldn’t accept that the coffee tasted any better than its Manna-produced alternative (which was a fair point, as it didn’t), she conceded that trying to keep a semblance of normality was good for him. She even let him cook dinner a couple of times a week.

“I think I get it now,” she had said one night as he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to whisk up an edible hollandaise sauce. “You don’t want to feel like a freak the whole time. You want to do normal stuff. Even though you don’t have to.”

Seb had just grunted and looked at the counter top. A plate appeared, seemingly growing directly out of the formica. It was topped with a gyro sandwich dripping in chili sauce.

“That’s more like it,” said Meera, taking a huge bite, juices running down her chin. She’d grinned. “You go ahead and make your sauce. Just so long as you magic up proper food for your girlfriend.”

Girlfriend. Seb still hadn’t got used to that. Faking his own death to help him and Mee escape from Mason—the most powerful Manna user in America—was scary enough, but finally telling Mee how he felt about her was truly terrifying. Finding out she was finally ready to admit she felt the same had been the best moment of his life. Better than writing a great song. Better than spontaneously healing from apparently fatal injuries. Better than being able to cross any distance on (or, possibly, off) the planet, instantaneously.
 

The morning light crept up the smog-shrouded hillsides opposite, slowly revealing what looked, at first, like an unlikely dusting of snow. As the smog began to burn away and the light strengthened, the abstract whiteness resolved itself into vague shapes. In the space of ten minutes, the shapes became houses. Tens, hundreds of thousands of houses, some no more than shacks, crammed into every available space on the hillside.

Seb ate his eggs and sipped hot coffee. He had sat in contemplation for thirty minutes after waking, and his mind was calm. He was aware of thoughts beginning to surface. Reluctantly at first, he turned his attention toward them.

 
Being a superhero had worn slightly thin after about six months. After watching Batman in his teens, Seb had walked out of the movie theater with a short-lived, intense desire to combat crime in an honorable, but—regrettably—violent, manner. If his initial burst of enthusiasm had lasted much longer than a five-block walk, New York City may have witnessed the birth of a new masked vigilante. Ok, Seb may have been lacking the weaponry, martial-arts training, incredible wealth and borderline psychotic personality of Bruce Wayne, but they were both orphans. That had to count for something, right? Luckily for the city’s criminal fraternity and Seb Varden’s physical well-being, it had been raining hard as he made his way back, and the desire to crack skulls in the name of justice had dissolved faster than the marshmallows he melted into his hot chocolate back in St Benet’s orphanage.

Now of course, everything was different. He had powers beyond any he could have dreamed of all those years ago. And, as an avid reader of science fiction and a lifelong fan of comic book superheroes, his dreams had been ambitious. But they’d never stretched this far. With his body full of nanotechnology from an alien race, to whom Earth’s proudest achievements were probably as impressive (if not quite as cute) as a toddler’s first, faltering steps, Seb had spent the first few months testing his limits. He had found few. And he still had no idea what price the extra-terrestrial donor of these powers might demand from him. If any. Billy Joe, the prosaically nicknamed alien who had given him the nanotech, had omitted to include an instruction manual with his gift. Seb’s encounter with the alien had left him with an intense impression of a fundamentally benign, incredibly intelligent, but utterly unknowable being. He had sensed immense compassion, but there was no meeting of minds, no sharing of knowledge, no empathy. Seb often dreamed of that night, and was always left with a powerful impression of aloneness. Not loneliness, just a sensation of being, in some sense, absolutely alone. When he woke, he wasn’t sure who felt that way—the alien, or him.

Mee came up behind him, an orange sarong wrapped around her. She stroked the side of his face with the back of her hand and sat down beside him. Seb looked at the table, visualizing blueberry pancakes, a glass of cold freshly squeezed orange juice.
 

“You read my mind,” said Meera, taking a sip of the orange juice. “Pancakes with a perfect blend of protein and nutrients and about as many calories as a couple of apples. You could make a fortune in the diet industry.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, she nudged him gently in the ribs.

“What’s up, big boy?” she said. “Existential angst?”

“Something like that,” Seb said, taking her hand. He stroked her fingers, then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the stump where her little finger had been. He had offered to grow it back for her, but Mee had refused. She didn’t want to forget how close they had come to losing each other. More than that, she wanted Seb to have a constant reminder that some people were irredeemably bad. Seb’s forgiving nature and willingness to see the good in everyone was all very well, but sometimes he needed a reminder about the real world. Even Seb would find it hard to feel much compassion for someone who had cut off his girlfriend’s pinky while he watched, helplessly, at the other end of a video call.

“How was Honduras?” she asked, before taking a huge bite of pancake, smiling at him with cheeks stuffed with food.
 

“No casualties,” he said, “and a shot in the arm for the local tourism industry.”

“Earthquakes usually have the opposite effect on tourism,” said Mee.

“True,” said Seb, “but, well, look it up and you’ll see.”

Mee tapped at the laptop keyboard and burst out laughing as she read about the families saved from the collapsed hotel by hundreds of monkeys. She spun the screen around for Seb to see. He nodded as he glanced at the story with eyewitnesses crediting the Monkey God for their miraculous rescue.

“Come on, cheer up,” she said. “Nobody likes a miserable git in the morning.”

Seb smiled. He loved Mee’s British expressions, even when he didn’t understand them. They’d once spent a long weekend in the north of the UK, where a succession of women had insisted on referring to him as “Duck”. Bizarre.

“I need to talk with Seb2,” said Seb. Meera rolled her eyes. The concept of Seb’s consciousness splitting into different parts to cope with the alien power was hard enough for him to understand, let alone explain. Mee made it plain that she found it bewildering.

“I know what you need first,” said Mee, grabbing the waistband of his pants, pulling him off the stool and backing away toward the bedroom. “I guarantee it’ll make you feel better.”

She was right. It did.

***

The two men walked slowly around the edge of Penn Pond in London’s Richmond Park. A casual observer might have thought them twins. Closer inspection would have confirmed an exact likeness, but they were more than twins. Not that a casual observer was present, of course, as the entire scene was a construct inside Seb’s consciousness, the location a perfectly replicated piece of his personal history.

Seb and Seb2 walked along a path through trees whose leaves were streaked with color.

“I was never here in the fall,” said Seb.

“But it’s your favorite time of year. I thought you’d enjoy it,” said Seb2.

“Your attention to detail is appreciated,” said Seb, admiring the huge ancient oaks towering above them.

Seb2 led the way into a small copse, where all of the trees had kept their foliage, making it darker as they walked. Seb hesitated, stopping at the edge of the old, twisted oaks. Seb2 held out his hands in a placatory gesture.

“It’s ok,” he said. “I wouldn’t bring you back here if there wasn’t a good reason.”

Seb swallowed and moved forward. Last time he was here, Seb2 had shown him the third part of his splintered consciousness: Seb3. This third figure may well have been identical too, but it was impossible to tell as he had appeared as a hideously tortured man, stretched across a stone, hairless, skinless, in constant agony. Knowing he was looking at part of himself had been a profoundly disturbing experience.
 

“We had no choice in any of this,” said Seb2, as if reading his mind. Which, of course, was exactly what he was doing. “Seb3’s function in helping you adapt to the nanotech is still a mystery to me. But without him, you would have died.”

“I’m not sure I can bear seeing…him…again,” said Seb. Knowing they were only seconds away from the center of the copse.

“Trust me,” said Seb2, and walked into the clearing. Reluctantly, Seb took a few more steps, his view mercifully obscured by Seb2’s back. Then his twin stepped aside and Seb saw immediately why he had brought him there.

“What the hell? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. But I have some thoughts.”

The clearing was as Seb remembered it, the large stone still in place, covered now in dark stains he knew could only be blood. There was one big difference this time. Seb3 had gone.

They walked back to the pond and sat on the bench where Seb2 had first broken the news of their split personality. Seb and Seb2’s roles had become clearer since then. Seb2 was effectively a savant, with access to every memory, no need for sleep, and the ability to access the entire internet faster than any computer. Yet, despite Seb2’s abilities, it was still Seb who ran the show, who preserved his sense of self. It was Seb who lived in the world, who interacted with other people, who had fallen in love, who had cried at the news that a friend had died. Seb was human, whatever that meant. But he was more than that now.

“Seb3 was still there while you were in Honduras,” said Seb2. “But when you Walked home, I felt something change. I looked for him.”

“But didn’t find him?”

“No.”

“Good change or bad change?” said Seb.

“Good,” said Seb2, then immediately qualified it, “I think. My awareness of his pain has dimmed. You?”

Seb thought for a moment.

“There is something different,” he said. “Hard to explain. Like a…broadening. As if something’s opened up. You said you had some thoughts?”

Seb2 reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper bag full of breadcrumbs. As he threw some toward the pond, half a dozen ducks winked into existence and swam toward the bread, quacking excitedly.

“I do,” he said. “I think Seb3 has gone for good. I think he’s been absorbed, although a better word is ‘understood’. I think he’s been understood.”

“Understood? In what sense?”

“It’s the best way I can explain what I think has happened,” said Seb2. “As I spend more time with the technology, I make breakthroughs here and there. But each time it happens, it’s not like any kind of learning we’ve ever experienced. It’s not as if
I’ve
understood something. It’s more like something has understood me.”

Seb sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Go on,” he said.

“This stuff is alive, intelligent, but—as far as I can tell—not conscious. The nanotech has bonded with you at an atomic level. At least, that’s the only way I can picture it. The actual bonds are totally beyond my comprehension—every explanation I come up with is not much better than a metaphor. But the tech is designed—again, bad word—to become inseparable from the host, to merge utterly on every level eventually. You’re human, but you’re not human.”