World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine (28 page)

She turned, knelt, and waited while they handcuffed her. She still had the garroting wire secreted inside the necklace holding the crucifix around her neck. An opportunity would come up sooner or later. She expected to be free within a few days.

Meanwhile, Beta knew the unit would leave her behind. The loss of both leaders triggered automatic withdrawal from the field.

Meera Patel would have to wait. For now.
 

As the police squad pushed through the crowd and put Beta onto the back of a car, First Sergeant Caravantes smiled broadly as he considered his enhanced career prospects. All from an anonymous email tip, which had disappeared from his cellphone immediately after he’d read it.
Inspector
Caravantes. Now that sounded good.

Chapter 32

Seb woke up with his eyes shut. He tried to open them, but as his eyelids flickered, he passed out again. Almost immediately, he regained consciousness. This time, his eyes opened.

He was strapped to a bed in a hospital room. He looked around quickly. Not just any hospital room. It was the exact duplicate of the one he’d woken up in after being stabbed at the age of fifteen. There was a needle in his arm. A tube was connected to the needle, which in turn, was hooked up to a drip hanging from a metal stand. An alien—a Rozzer, he reminded himself—was backing away from him. Worryingly, the alien was holding something that looked a hell of a lot like a scalpel. Standing by the door, Mic looked on.

“What the f—?” thought Seb.

“They brought you here, they pumped you full of anesthetic, I countered it immediately. They can’t understand how you’re still awake. And I think they’re a bit scared. You were supposed to stay unconscious, so they could slice you up and have a look see.”

“Well, thanks for stopping them. Can you pick up the program you left in their mainframe?”

“Doing it now.”

“Great. I’m going to ask some questions.”
 

Mic had opened the door and was waiting for his colleague with the scalpel to join him. Seb glanced at the door and it slammed shut, sealing itself against the wall. Mic tried the handle, then waved his hand in the air in a series of tiny gestures. An aperture appeared in the wall and grew rapidly. Seb raised a finger and it shrank even more rapidly before disappearing. Both aliens stiffened in an almost human-like gesture of surprise, then turned and faced Seb.

Seb sat up, the straps holding him falling away as he moved. He swung his legs over the bed and hopped down onto the cold tiled floor. He was barefoot, wearing a hospital gown. He blinked and his outfit was replaced by sneakers, jeans and a T-shirt.

“You fellas want to tell me what this is all about?” he said.

Mic took a small step forward. His voice came from a monitor on the wall at the foot of the bed.

“Classification incomplete, results unsatisfactory,” he said. “Specimen study initiated for further research on return.”

“Ok, let’s take this a step at a time,” said Seb. “Am I the specimen in this scenario?”

“Correct.”

“And you are trying to classify me, but you haven’t succeeded.”

“Success delayed, facilities inadequate.”

“So, you were going to poke me around, probably kill me, then take my body home with you?”

Mic’s expression was, as always, unreadable.

“Termination unnecessary, stasis possible with cooperation.”

“I don’t have to die, but you can take me home by—what? Putting me into some kind of hibernation?”

Seb was sure his better comprehension of the Rozzer’s opaque speech patterns was down to his Manna-enhanced brain processing at speeds he couldn’t consciously control. But he could almost understand them now, that was the main thing. Not that he much liked what they were saying.

“Correct,” said Mic. It seemed the aliens were quick to adapt to a new situation. Seb had demonstrated superior power, taken control of the technology on their craft sufficiently to prevent them from getting away. They had shown no further resistance, just passively accepted that Seb was now asking the questions. They seemed far more comfortable answering questions than asking them. Something nagged at Seb’s mind, something he had felt each time he had been here. Something that didn’t quite fit.
 

“We’ve gotta go, right now,” said Seb2. “I have some answers. You’re not going to like them. And we only have a few days to decide what we’re going to do about it.”

“About what?”

“I’ll tell you at home. While I’m still here.”

“While you’re what?!”

“Just Walk, will you.”

“I can do that now? From here.”

“I sure as hell hope so. And we can ignore any future attempts to grab us now.”

“Good” thought Seb. “But there’s something else. I think I know what’s been bugging me.”
 

He turned away from the aliens and looked up at the featureless ceiling.

“Come and visit me,” he said. He waited for a few seconds, but there was no response.

Seb Walked.

Chapter 33

Upstate New York

Thirty-four years previously

Isaac Newman had made his millions from property, so when he finally decided to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labors, he bought a fifteen-story Manhattan brownstone within sight of Central Park. The first twelve floors were converted into luxury apartments which commanded eye-watering rents. The thirteenth floor was left unoccupied for two reasons. One was practical. Isaac wanted the top two floors for himself and didn’t want to hear any noise from downstairs neighbors. The second reason was pure superstition on his late wife’s part. “Issac,” she’d said, “you’ve been pretty lucky so far. Why tempt fate now?”

A man who had backed all of his hunches and had won nearly every time was not easily rattled. But when his son turned up with a broken nose, a weeping woman who looked like she probably lived in a trailer park and a sick child in a wheelchair, he wasn’t sure how to react. Luckily, his daughter, Rosa, was visiting, and bustled around the visitors, offering drinks and making them comfortable.
 

Isaac watched his daughter fuss over her brother, getting him an ice pack. Jesse was moaning a little and looked scared. Isaac hadn’t seen his son for over a year. He looked healthy enough, apart from the nose. Evangelical Christianity evidently suited him. Particularly with the $3m startup loan from his old man. Not a loan he was ever likely to see repaid, since Jesse had never been dependable, reliable, honest, or interested in doing an honest day’s work in his life. Sometimes Isaac was glad Greta hadn’t lived to see how their boy had turned out.

“And how about a drink for you?” said Rosa to the boy in the wheelchair. Funny, the skinny kid couldn’t move his legs, but he looked so healthy he was almost glowing. It was hard to take your eyes off him. Was he some protégé of Jesse’s, another miracle healing he was going to try to convince Isaac that he’d brought about? Issac rolled his eyes. He hadn’t actively practiced his Jewish faith for half a century or more, but it still stung a little that Jesse had turned to Christianity, when the religious bug finally bit him at college. Still, Isaac had been convinced his son would end up a drug addict, petty criminal or worse, so he had agreed to finance the church upstate when Jesse had come to him. Even if he thought it should have been a synagogue. God is God, though, right?

Rosa sat down finally, smoothing her blouse over her swollen belly. Seven months pregnant, and Jesse hadn’t said a damn thing about it. Probably hadn’t even noticed. Isaac felt a twinge as he recognized a weakness—or was it a strength?—he and his son shared. When they had their eye on the prize, their focus became so narrow they barely noticed anything going on around them. If Isaac hadn’t been so intent on winning a bidding battle for a huge development in Montana, maybe he would have noticed how tired Greta was getting back then. Maybe he would have taken her to the doctor earlier. Maybe there would still have been time.

“Dad? Dad?”

Isaac snapped himself back to attention. It was easy these days to get a little lost in memories. He was eighty-one and Greta had been gone for fifteen years. About time he let it go.

“Sorry, son, wool-gathering again. Retirement gives me time to reflect and sometimes I get caught up in it.” He smiled at Jesse. Still had Greta’s eyes. “What brings you here? Are you going to introduce us to your friends? And what the hell happened to your nose?”

Isaac saw Jesse flash a look toward the crippled boy. Was that fear in his eyes?

“Dad,” said Jesse. “This is —,” He stopped short, remembering the boy’s angry reaction when his mother had tried to say his name back at the church. He swallowed hard and looked over at his attacker. That boy—that evil boy—had someone perverted God’s power. He still couldn’t believe what had happened. He was waiting for God to restore order and punish this sinner.

Jesse had been introduced to God’s power while at college. A female Christian, twenty years old with the longest legs he’d ever seen, had taken him to an old clapperboard church in a poor neighborhood. Despite his misgivings—which bordered on scorn—Jesse went along because he hoped the Christian in question might sin a little with him later. But he’d found power there, real power. It had changed his life. The first change he’d noticed was that he didn’t want heroin any more. The urge just vanished, which was supposed to be physically impossible. He converted to Christianity. Then, as long as he kept going back to that church, he found he could heal other people, not just himself. And they wanted to give donations in thanks. Jesse reasoned that God didn’t want him to be poor.
 

When he’d moved home, to his growing alarm, other churches had no power to give. He’d spent weeks going from church to church, finding nowhere that provided the energy he needed. He even began to feel the old cravings to get high. He got desperate, but then he found another place. Not a church, just the corner of a park, near a lake. He’d felt the energy there, then gone back at dawn to find someone else kneeling by the water, drawing on the power. He concealed himself until the woman had gone, although he couldn’t say why he’d been scared to be seen. Then he’d knelt himself and felt God’s power surge through him again. That’s when he swore he’d find a place rich with God’s presence, and start his own church there. He would do this by himself, with God’s help. And with his father’s money.
 

And now, as he looked at the boy who had somehow sucked God’s power out of him and out of the ground in his own holy place, he had a sudden stab of doubt. If someone evil, a killer, could use the power, how could it be God’s power? He searched his heart for a vestige of that feeling, that energy, the source of all of his efforts over the last decade. It had gone completely. With a gasp of dismay, he realized it was worse than that. He really,
really
wanted to shoot up.

Boy looked over at him and smiled. Jesse looked away, the tears starting again.

“What’s going on?” said Rosa, her face full of concern for her older brother.
 

“Perhaps I should make the position clear,” said the boy in the wheelchair. All heads swiveled to look at him. Isaac couldn’t help but be impressed by the natural authority the boy exuded. His charisma was unmistakeable, a rare enough quality in adults, but Isaac had never before seen it quite so strong in one so young.

“I am here for your money, Mr. Newman.”

Isaac was very still for a few seconds. Was the boy a thief? What possible threat could a child in a wheelchair be? Even to an old man like himself? Was the woman involved? Isaac looked at her. She seemed to be in shock, her breathing a little shallow, her complexion pale. No threat to anyone, either.

“A few hours ago, I was on the point of death,” said the boy. “My mother would have mourned my passing, but no one else.”
 

The boy’s mother showed no sign of even hearing what her son was saying.

“I have an inoperable brain cancer,” continued the child.

“I’m so sorry,” murmured Rosa, leaning forward slightly.
 

“I don’t need your sympathy,” he said, coldly. She sat back, her eyes widening.

“I cannot rid myself of the cancer, but interestingly, I find I don’t want to. I’ve been weak most of my life but lately, I finally started to fight back. And my doctor tells me it’s all down to a peach-sized tumor in my brain. The tumor has been growing. Fast. Today, it should finally have killed me.”

Boy stopped talking. He knew the tumor was still growing. No power on earth could stop it. He had merely slowed its progress to an infinitesimal crawl. Instead of having hours of life left, Boy reasoned he had many decades ahead of him. But had he shrunk the tumor or destroyed it, he would no longer be
him.
He had to keep it, but stop it from killing him. He looked over at Jesse.

“Things have changed. You think it’s all down to Jay-sus, right?! Jay-sus gives you the power to heal? You’re blind as well as stupid.”

During the drive to Manhattan, Boy had felt the presence of the same power he had used in the church that morning. Six times, he had known they were close to sources of the same energy. As close as a block away, there was a place practically glowing with power. And Jesse hadn’t known a thing about it, the deluded fool.

“Wake-up call for you, preacher man. You can use the power you found, right? For your little healing sessions. But there’s more to it the that. I was
born
to use the stuff. You have no idea. I’ve been sleepwalking. This morning, when I felt it, it was like waking up for the first time. I was just half a person. Now, I’m whole.”
 

He pointed a finger at Jesse, held it there, and looked over at Isaac.

“Now I could waste time threatening you, or Jesse here, or your pretty daughter, but what’s the point? I need you to take me seriously, I need you to agree to turn over your considerable fortune to me. And now that I’ve met Rose, Rosie—?”

“Rosa,” she said, quietly.

“Rosa, right. Now that I’ve met you, it looks like you all have the ideal set-up here to help me. Where’s your husband?”