World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine
Read World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine Online
Authors: Ian W. Sainsbury
THE UNMAKING ENGINE
Ian W. Sainsbury
For Anya
Copyright © 2016 Ian W.Sainsbury
All rights reserved.
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Cover design by Hristo Kovatliev
Previously in The World Walker...
Previously in The World Walker…
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Unmaking Engine is Book 2 of a series. The following contains spoilers relating to the first book in the series. If you haven’t read The World Walker and would prefer to read the books in order, please go read it first.
If you don’t care about the order or you’ve just dying to get reading, skip the following.
However, if you would like a quick reminder of what happened in The World Walker before you read The Unmaking Engine, this section is for you. You could always re-read The World Walker before starting The Unmaking Engine, of course. I did ;)
If not, here’s the quick version of what happened…
Terminally ill musician Seb Varden decides to end his life rather than let his brain tumor do the job for him. An alien that’s been waiting since the Roswell incident of 1947 has other ideas and gives him his life back, along with a body full of advanced alien technology he has no idea how to use.
Seb finds he has superhuman powers, seemingly can’t die, and situations involving extreme stress trigger an automatic vanishing act, taking him miles away from where he started.
Different factions are interested in Seb’s progress. There’s Westlake, who appears to be a government secret service agent with no qualms about taking any measures necessary to capture Seb. There’s the Order, a quasi-religious organization which thinks Seb may be the messiah. And then there’s Walt Ford, somewhat of a mentor for Seb, who takes him to Las Vegas and shows him a very good time indeed. He also teaches him about Manna - a source of power buried at many locations around the world and wielded by various individuals and groups. Manna may seem like magic, at first, but in reality is nanotechnology. Manna users have to ‘refill’ their Manna reserves regularly, but Walt is amazed to find Seb doesn’t need to do this.
Mason is the villain of the piece. No one - even those highest in his organization - knows his identity. As the strongest Manna user in America, he rules by fear and controls a network that, in effect, holds more power than any other group in the country. He sees Seb as a threat that must be controlled or removed.
Meera Patel, a singer in Seb’s old band and his ex-girlfriend, teams up with Bob Geller, Seb’s friend, to find the missing musician. They are helped by members of the Order who bring them to the outskirts of Las Vegas to hide them from Westlake while they continue their search.
As the story progresses, we learn that Westlake is Mason’s man, and Mason can see that his best bet of getting to Seb is by kidnapping Meera. Westlake does so, killing the members of the Order protecting her, and murdering Seb’s friend, Bob Geller. Walt Ford helps in this operation. He is also in Mason’s organization, although he hates what he has become.
Meanwhile, Seb has come to distrust Walt and has left Las Vegas. He is gradually learning some control over the nanotechnology in his body. This has been helped by his personality splitting into three parts. Seb2 is learning how to communicate with and control the nanotech - or Manna - and Seb3 is a silent partner in constant agony: a constant reminder that Seb was not ready to absorb the alien technology and is still struggling to do so.
While Meera is being kidnapped, Seb has gone to Roswell, absorbing the Manna there. No other Manna user has ever been able to do this. His power and control increases massively as a result. On his return, now able to consciously use his instant-traveling power, he ‘Walks’ to Vegas to meet Meera. She’s gone. Walt reveals his treachery and tells Seb Mason has taken Meera.
Seb meets Mason’s representatives, who show him a live feed of Meera having her pinkie cut off by Westlake. Mason intends keeping Meera prisoner for the rest of her life to control Seb. He tests Seb by sending him to battle his closest rival - Sonia Svetlana and her followers. Seb’s victory impresses Mason still further, but Seb refuses to be controlled. He says he will give his own life instead - on the condition that Meera is released. Mason agrees and the arrangements are made.
Seb meets Westlake and Walt at a New York building site, where Seb is beheaded and his body reduced to bones and ashes by a flamethrower. His remains are thrown into the foundations of the parking lot before being covered with concrete.
Mason has underestimated Seb. The body his henchmen killed was, in fact, a homunculus - an artificial creature made by Manna users. Seb’s homunculus was more sophisticated than Mason or anyone else thought possible. The real Seb changes his - and Meera’s - appearance. They escape.
His enemies think he’s dead. He got the girl. He is just beginning to explore the incredible power he has been given. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 1
Dover, Delaware
There were five of them and only one of him, which was the first problem. One of them—the biggest, ugliest one—had just unloaded both barrels of a shotgun into his chest from a distance of five feet. That was the second problem. The third, most serious problem was the presence of nineteen witnesses. This was causing Seb Varden a real headache.
He was in a bank in Dover. He was there because he knew the police weren’t going to show, the armed gang had already carried out similar robberies in the last six months, and the death toll attributed to them had hit double figures. The ugly guy was trying to kill him because Seb had asked whether his mother had had sex with a genetically-modified pig to produce him. Or if he’d got his good looks by running into a wall. Twice.
The alarm in the bank wasn’t ringing because the gang was backed by a sophisticated syndicate which had disabled all security systems, including cameras. This was one of the two ways the syndicate earned its fifty percent of the haul. The other was its handling of the Delaware police department which, even Seb had to admit, was inspired. Right now, the city’s finest were racing to a bank twelve miles west of the one currently being robbed, due to seven 911 calls apparently made from that location. Some remotely triggered explosions and a lockdown of the premises in question meant police resources were looking in the entirely wrong direction when the actual robbery took place. When the security system had gone down at the exact moment the cops were hauling ass in the opposite direction, Seb2 had nudged Seb into action. The gang thought they had everyone in the building covered until Seb walked out of an office near the main door.
Seb knew Ugly was going to shoot him 0.37 seconds before he pulled the trigger. The man’s eyes had dropped from Seb’s face to his chest at the same time as he’d raised the weapon and held his breath.
“Here we go,” said Seb2. Seb was used to his consciousness being split into three parts—although Seb3 was pretty much a silent partner. It was one of the consequences of having a body full of advanced alien nanotechnology, eight-seven percent of which, according to Seb2, he still had little idea how to use. He twisted to his left just before the flash of light at the end of the barrels let him know two cartridges of lead shot were heading his way.
A shotgun cartridge is designed to spread its payload of hundreds of lead pellets as it travels toward a target some distance away. Close up, as long as you’re facing the right direction, you can’t miss. No one gets up and walks away from a close-up encounter with a shotgun. Which was unfortunate for the two members of the gang directly behind Seb.
As he twisted, 57 of the 410 tiny lead balls tore across Seb’s ribs and stomach, ripping widening channels through his flesh. By the time the shot had passed through him, his body was unmarked again, blood vessels, muscles and skin knitting together so fast as to be virtually instantaneous. Since sound travels at a significantly slower speed than light, he only heard the near-deafening blast of the shotgun just after the two men behind him were blown off their feet.
The two gang members covering the hostages at the far end of the bank started to turn as Seb considered his options. The way he had twisted meant that the hostages would assume the shotgun blast had missed him completely. Today, his appearance was that of a fit, Asian man in his mid-twenties, which meant any witnesses would be likely to ascribe his speed and fighting skills to knowledge of some mysterious martial art. It was lucky, really—he’d only chosen this face after watching an old movie the previous night. If he’d decided on an overweight sixty-year-old, he might be in real danger of attracting attention. And, for Meera’s safety and his own sanity, attention was something he was determined to avoid.
It would take Ugly about four seconds to reload, under normal circumstances. Under abnormal circumstances such as, for instance, having just accidentally killed two of your colleagues during a robbery, Seb thought he might have seven or eight seconds to take him out. If it wasn’t for the hostages watching the action unfold, he could have easily sent tendrils of Manna directly toward Ugly and his two friends and cut off their oxygen supply briefly. Couldn’t do that with eight bank employees and eleven terrified customers watching.
The two men guarding the hostages had nearly completed their turns, but only one of them had swept his gun around. The other, a short, bald, older man—possibly the leader, turned his head but kept his weapon trained on the terrified men and women on the floor in front of him.
Seb hit the floor and rolled, fast. Ugly had no time to react before his feet were swept out from underneath him. His head hit the marble floor hard, he grunted once, then lay still.
“He’ll live,” said Seb2 as Seb picked up the shotgun and, with an enhanced flick of his arm, sent it sailing toward the taller man. It was an ungainly object to throw accurately and Seb had to give it some height to allow it to reach its target. That gave the tall man plenty of time to dodge to the side before it hit him. Which meant he was an easy target for the pistol Seb had thrown after it. There was a solid smack as metal hit flesh and the tall man crumpled.
The leader’s eyes narrowed as he began to evaluate the changed situation. All his men were out of commission, it didn’t look like he’d be walking out with any money. But there was only one crazy Asian guy between him and freedom. There were other banks, there would be other days. And he had hostages. He might have to shoot a couple of them to slow this idiot down.
Seb knew the older man would likely consider the hostages his best chance of retaining the advantage, so he did the most counter-intuitive thing he could think of. He ran directly toward the armed man, waving his arms and shouting.
The leader’s eyebrows shot up as the crazy man sprinted toward him. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be too complicated after all. He raised his gun.
As Seb ran, he watched the man’s arm come up toward him, the dark hole of the barrel slowly turning into a perfect circle.
“Now!” said Seb2. Seb threw himself onto the marble floor head-first. The molecular structure of the outward-most layer of his sweat pants and top changed to minimize friction as they made contact, so his slide was much faster than physics would otherwise have allowed. The leader had excellent reactions, and the bullet that ricocheted off the floor and shattered the front window would have hit Seb if he had been where he should have been. The man didn’t get the chance to fire again, as Seb plowed into his shins, disarmed him as he fell and jabbed him in the neck with three fingers. His body went limp. Twenty-nine seconds had passed since Seb had insulted Ugly.