World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine (24 page)

Chapter 27

Mexico City

An hour after Kate left, the door opened and Seb walked in. Mee threw her arms around him and they stood like that for a few minutes, saying nothing.
 

Finally, Seb pulled away, looked at Mee and kissed her.

“Tequila?” he said, tasting it on her.

“Bit early for that,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“Yeah, you’re funny,” he said.
 

“Seven days,” she said, as she opened the cupboard and got the beans.

“I know,” he said. “Seemed like an hour or so to me.”

He looked at the table as Mee went through the calming ritual of grinding beans, boiling water, warming the pot and letting it steep for a few minutes before pouring. He could have just used Manna and saved the time, but he appreciated the importance of maintaining some activities regular humans indulged in.
 

There were two glasses on the table.

“Company?” he said.

“Kate,” said Mee, pouring two mugfuls and sitting down. Seb sat where Kate had been sitting for most of the night. He held the mug to his nose and savored the smell of the freshly ground beans. Somehow, knowing that some genuine effort had gone into making it, knowing the beans had been grown on nearby hills, picked, dried, roasted, then ground and brewed in a process repeated millions of times every day…well, it made it taste better. Seb knew it
couldn’t
taste better in reality, but that didn’t stop him from believing it did.

Mee sat opposite and sipped her coffee.

“She knows,” she said. “I told her everything. It can’t just be you and me against the world anymore. If you can’t stop yourself disappearing, we need to talk about Mason.”

Seb looked at her. She was never afraid of confronting problems. Being held captive by Mason’s people, having her finger cut off, thinking she would never see Seb again—and would live the rest of her life as the prisoner of the coldest bastard she’d ever come across—it had all added up to the most terrifying experience of her life. But she had no hesitation in bringing up his name, no thought of avoiding thinking about the man who had caused her such pain. Seb loved her for that.

“I understand why you told her,” he said, “but the Order—,”

“She doesn’t think you’re here to save the world,” said Mee. “Don’t panic. She never bought into the whole messiah deal. She doesn’t know what you are, why your abilities are different, how you managed to access the Roswell Manna. She’s curious, sure, who wouldn’t be? But she does want to help.”

Mee told him about Innisfarne, about Kate’s offer of refuge. Seb listened in silence until she had told him everything.

“No phones?” he said. “No internet?”

Mee nodded.
 

Seb stood up and topped up both of their coffees. He sighed.

“Then she’s right,” he said. “You’re right. I can’t protect you if I’m not here and that sounds like the safest place on earth to be if you want to hide from someone with Mason’s control of technology.” He hid the worry and sadness in his voice fairly well, but he wasn’t fooling Mee. He knew it and she knew it. They both decided to ignore it. “When will you go?” he said.

“When you next pull your vanishing act,” she said. “If you do. If not, I won’t have to leave, will I?”

Seb bowed to her logic. He knew better than to argue with her when her mind was made up.

“So, what happened this time?” she said. “You been filling in forms with ET again?”

“Something like that.”

“I have some information,” said Seb2.

Seb looked at Mee, who had caught his slightly unfocused look when Seb2 had spoken.

“Yeah, it’s him,” he said. “I think you should hear this, too.”
 

He reached forward to take her hands, but she sat back.

“Wait,” she said. “As lovely as it was going back to Richmond Park, can’t he just come here?”

“Can you?” thought Seb.

“Yeah. Sure,” said Seb 2. “Grab her hand, I’ll have to mess with her brain a little, so she can see me.”

“I wish you’d use a better expression than ‘messing with her brain’,” thought Seb, but took Mee’s hand anyway.

A fraction of a second after their fingers had touched, Seb2 was sitting on a third chair between them.
 

“Hi, Mee,” he said.

“Hi, you,” she said. “Why couldn’t you do this the first time, instead of all the drama?”

“It wasn’t really for your benefit,” said Seb2. “The Richmond Park scene was pulled out of Seb’s memory the first time we communicated. I needed somewhere with specific qualities. A venue I—he—had spent a lot of time thinking about. You made an impression on that first date.”

“Soft git,” said Mee and lightly punched Seb’s arm.

“I can construct any scene Seb can picture,” said Seb2, “but as that one was already fully formed, it was the default template when we needed it under pressure. What’s happening now is a little different. I’m communicating directly with your brain, and you’re projecting the image you choose to associate with me. The disadvantage is the speed of communication. It’s real-time, which is painfully slow.”

“Oh, well, excuse
me,
” said Mee.

“I can deal with it,” said Seb2, “but our last meeting lasted less than twenty seconds in real time. We’ve already spent double that just saying hello.”

Mee raised an eyebrow at Seb.

“Ok, here’s the skinny on the aliens,” said Seb2. “I don’t have everything yet, but I’ve left a program interrogating their mainframe. We should have more details next time. If there is a next time,” he added, looking at Mee.

“Let me tell her what happened first,” said Seb. “Then you can explain to me why it was a good idea to hack an alien computer.”

Seb told Mee about Mic, Thelma and Louise. About Seb2 hiding the extent of his Manna ability until they could find out what was going on. Mee made more coffee. Her Manna use meant she felt no ill-effects from the night’s tequila consumption, but her head still felt foggy as she tried to comprehend what the two Sebs were telling her.

“So, what do they want?” she said.

Seb shrugged. He was no closer to unpicking the garbled syntax that passed for communication with Mic than he had been the first time.

“First things first,” said Seb2. “I know why we were away for so long. And why it was shorter this time. Some of what I’ll get from the mainframe will confirm it. The Manna interaction with Thelma also helps to explain a little of who they are and what they want. Although I haven’t completely solved that mystery yet.”

Seb2 stood up and pointed at the table. A scale model of Mexico City appeared. When Mee looked closer, she could see tiny cars moving, smoke rising. She even made out a jet the size of a mosquito flying over the credit card-shaped Nabor Carillo Lake on its final approach into the airport. Next, Seb2 backed away to the window. The numeral ‘1’ appeared next to him, floating in mid-air. Seb2 took a couple of paces back toward them and ‘2’ appeared alongside him.

“Ok,” said Seb2. “How long does it take to Walk from one place to another?”

Seb considered the question for a moment.
 

“It’s instantaneous,” he said. “I see where we’re going, I make the decision, then we’re there.”

“And when we met Mic? Any different?”

“You know it wasn’t. I was here, then I was there.”

“Yes, it seems the same way to me,” said Seb2. “but the keyword there is
seems.
”

“It isn’t instantaneous?” said Mee.

“Walking is, pretty much,” said Seb2. “Although I don’t know how. You’re the one with a science background—,”

“Hardly,” said Mee.

“Well, you’re better educated than me, so you understand the laws of physics. I can’t be in one place, then immediately in another with no travel time, right?”

“Well,” said Mee, “I’m just playing Devil’s advocate here, but at the subatomic level, experiments have shown that certain particles seemingly affect one another instantly—with distance playing no part in the process.”

“Oh,” said Seb2. “So it is possible, then.”

“Not necessarily,” said Mee. “Subatomic behavior appears to follow completely different laws to those of everyday reality. The microscopic rulebook is different to the macroscopic, if you like. If Walking is instantaneous—or as close to it as makes no difference, I can only think you’re using wormholes somehow. But I don’t know enough about the theory to see how.”

“More than we do, though,” said Seb2. “And it fits with my hypothesis. Much of what goes on in my—his—our body is automatic. Even if I managed to see
what
was happening when we Walk, or Use, I still wouldn’t be able to understand it. But I have a theory about the blackouts that makes sense to me.”

“Go ahead,” said Seb.

“Right. Imagine the distance between Mexico City—,” he pointed at the table, “—and Mic’s crib is six million miles.”

“Crib?” said Mee. Seb2 ignored her.

“Why six million?” said Seb.

“It just makes the math easier, ok? And I need all the help I can get.”

“Point taken,” said Seb. He was the same person, after all, and mental calculations had never been his strong suit.

“Now, what if we weren’t Walking there? When we were summoned. You made no conscious decision, you didn’t go through the usual process, right?”

“Right,” said Seb. “I had no say in it at all. I was just pulled away—like being grabbed.”

“Exactly,” said Seb2. “I don’t think we Walked at all. I’ve been looking at our memory of what happened between blacking out and meeting Mic. There’s a gap there. Our mental state just stopped. We didn’t think or feel. It’s as if we were in a state of suspended animation, everything frozen until we arrived at our destination. And milliseconds before blackout, something surrounded our body. You were right to say it felt like being grabbed. It was like one of those games where you pick up a soft toy with a claw.”

“Except, I never do pick it up,” said Seb.

“Yeah, well, I think their claw is designed for accuracy, rather than conning tourists at Coney Island. They got close enough to use it, and it homed in on the most powerful Manna user in the species. I think they grabbed you and reeled you in. We were traveling incredibly fast by any normal standards, but excruciatingly slowly compared to Walking. Like taking a bus instead of a jet. You just made two interstellar journeys longer than any human being before you. We were away so long purely because of the travel time involved”

Seb was glad he was already sitting down.

“Interstellar,” he said, his throat suddenly dry.

“Yes,” said Seb2. He walked from the table to the floating number 1 at the window. “Our first trip took six days there and six days back. Well, not quite, but I’ll explain that in a moment.”

Mee had gone pale.

“You were on another planet?” she said.

“No,” said Seb2. “Not quite.” He walked toward them and stopped at the floating 2. “This time, we were away seven days total, which is three and a half days’ travel time each way. And, when we go again, I doubt we’ll be away more than a day or two.”

Seb rubbed his forehead with both thumbs.

“Different planet?” he said.

Mee stood up, her chair clattering to the floor behind her. She walked over to the window, then walked slowly between ‘1’ and ‘2’, looking at the tiny Mexico City on the table as she did it.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

Seb spread his hands wide.

“What?” he said. “You two geniuses have got it? What am I missing?”

“You went to the same place both times,” said Mee, softly.

“How?” said Seb. “What?”

“You’re missing the obvious,” said Mee, pointing at the two floating numbers. “You didn’t travel faster. The distance was shorter.” She turned to Seb2. “You said not quite six days there, six days back. Is that because the trip back was slightly shorter?”

Seb2 nodded.

Seb looked at them both.

“But that means they—,”

Seb2 nodded.

“They were nearer to us,” he said. “And getting closer all the time. Remember the background noise we could hear while we there?”

Seb nodded.

“I’ve been thinking about this, trying different hypotheses. There’s only one explanation that fits all the facts,” said Seb2. “We were on some sort of spaceship. And it’s heading straight toward Earth.”

***

The two floating aliens and the model of Mexico City had disappeared. Mee, Seb and Seb2 sat at the table. A fourth Manna-produced pot of coffee was half-finished. Seb2 had reached for a cup more than once, seemingly forgetting his body didn’t exist outside Seb and Mee’s consciousnesses.

Once Seb and Mee had accepted the probability that an alien craft was on its way to Earth, the obvious next step was to find out what they wanted. And then to decide if this was something Seb should be trying to deal with alone.

“What are you saying? That I should go to the White House, knock on the door and say ‘excuse me, space aliens are on their way and they seem to think I’m Earth’s ambassador’? Good plan. And after they release me from a secure psychiatric facility?”

Mee shrugged. “It’s not as if they could hold you there,” she said.

“True, but if I pull a vanishing act and Walk, we’ll have the US government looking for us—as well as Mason. No, for now, we have to deal with this alone. I promise, if I think for a second that we need help, I’ll go get it. Ok?”

Mee reluctantly agreed, but she wasn’t happy. “This is a colossal mindfuck of the first degree,” she said, “and if you think I’m ok with you arsing about with space aliens while I sit at home knitting, you’ve got another think coming.”

“You can knit?” said Seb2.

“And you can shut up, tosspot,” said Mee.

“Mee, I don’t think they can do much to us,” said Seb2, ignoring her colorful language, half of which he understood. “The Roswell Manna—our Manna—is different. It’s more advanced.”

“More advanced than the aliens who can cross space and grab you whenever they like?” said Mee. “Yeah, that makes sense. You really
are
a tosspot.”

Seb2 ignored the insult.

“I didn’t say I understand everything,” he said. “I’m still skimming the surface of any real knowledge of the nano-technology we’re carrying. But, trust me, our Manna is in a different league.”