“Move to—,” said Seb2, then “no! Wait, don’t move. It’s a taser.”
It was closer now and Seb saw that Seb2 was right. Two wires snaked toward his chest, sparks already slowly moving between the barbed contact points.
“It’s going to hit me!”
“I know,” said Seb2, “hold still, and try very hard not to bite your tongue.”
Seb braced himself as the hooked metal pierced his skin. There was a brief flare of pain. Then the sparks raced away from him, back down the lines. Straight into Broken Nose’s hand. He danced like some bizarre slowed-down footage from a children’s show; a wooden puppet controlled by a hyperactive three-year old, his limbs twitching and jerking, lips pulled back from his teeth and blood spurting from his mouth where he had bitten down on his tongue. After less than two seconds of frenzied twitching at 50,000 volts, he collapsed, jerked once more and was still.
“Ouch,” said Seb2. Time seemed to speed up slightly as the danger receded and Seb turned to the paramedic, who’d backed up against the wall and looked very pale.
“And what am I supposed to do with you?” said Seb. The paramedic hesitated for a moment, glanced at the hypodermic in his hand, then stabbed it into his own thigh and emptied the contents into his bloodstream. He sat down.
“One,” said the paramedic, “two…th…” As his head rolled forward, his shoulders slumped and his body fell sideways. After a short pause, he started snoring.
“Smart,” said Seb2. “Now let’s go find-,”
“Walt!” said Seb and turned and sprinted back into the corridor, vaulting the unconscious giant.
Walt admitted to himself that he was tempted. Sonia was beautiful, sensuous and achingly available. He hadn’t had sex for four days, and eighty years’ experience of his over-developed libido meant he was ready to rectify the omission. But the contents of his pants no longer ruled the roost - once you knew you could get all the sex you wanted, you realized not every opportunity had to be quite so eagerly grasped. And his brain was telegraphing clearly the message that Ms. Svetlana had an agenda beyond seducing him.
“Who are you, really?” he said. “Why are you here?”
She took a step toward him, one hand gently cupping a perfectly formed breast.
“Wrong question,” she said. “You should be asking ‘what’, not ‘who.’”
Although his resolve wasn’t wavering, Walt couldn’t help but enjoy the fantasy unfolding in front of him.
“As you wish,” he said. “So, Ms. Svetlana, what are you?”
She smiled and took a step closer.
“A diversion,” she said.
Walt hesitated, then cursed and turned for the door. He had expected others to be interested in Seb - a surge of power like that would be felt by outliers such as himself worldwide. But he hadn’t expected anyone so soon. And he had no idea who this woman was, which faction she belonged to, if any. He reached out for the handle, then gasped in pain as the metal stretched, then wrapped itself around his wrist, pulling him against the door.
Sonia smiled at him and shook her head.
“There’s really no rush, Walter,” she said. “We’re only just getting to know each other.”
Walt considered much of his manipulation of Manna close to an art form. He was proud of the creatures he could bring into being and often took minutes to slowly craft an intricate creation, either for his own amusement or to terrify a User who wouldn’t comply with his request to leave town. So on one level it hurt his pride to do what he did next. On another level, it was pure expedience. He couldn’t afford to lose Seb. The personal consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
Ignoring the pain in his wrist and turning away from the smiling centerfold leaning against his desk, he looked toward the huge bookcase. It wasn’t there because Walt was an avid reader. It also wasn’t the kind of bookcase designed to impress guests with his intellectual credentials. It was there because books are made of paper. And paper, as Walt had discovered over many decades of experimentation, was his favorite medium.
Nearly three hundred books flew off the shelves toward the middle of the room, each one opening as it did so. Spines twisted and ripped as pages tore themselves out. In a whirlwind of motion, the air crackling with power, the shreds of paper and cardboard packed themselves tightly together into a mass which thickened and grew. Within a few seconds, the whirling mass had taken on a recognizable shape - a huge hand, crudely made but unmistakable, twice the size of the woman it swooped toward, its huge fingers opening as it approached. Sonia offered no resistance as the giant fist enclosed her and she disappeared from view.
Walt didn’t waste any time once he had imprisoned her, immediately turning his attention to the metal holding him in place. He looked down at it - antique iron, not only practical and strong, but also one of those interior designer touches intended to lend the casino an air of opulence. Under his gaze the iron softened and became malleable, sliding away from his skin before reforming itself as a door handle. As he put his hand out to turn it, he darted a final look over his shoulder. The enormous fist held its captive firmly - no need to hurry back, she would be his guest for as long as he deemed necessary.
His hand closed over thin air. The handle had gone. He looked at the door disbelievingly. It seemed to have merged organically with the wall on either side. No hinges held it in place, the oak just melted into the plaster of the wall.
A low chuckle sounded from behind him. He turned. As he did so, the hand exploded into a million pieces. The word ‘exploded’ didn’t do it justice - it was more like thousands of tiny fingers had simultaneously grabbed individual pieces of paper and neatly ripped them two or three times within a fraction of a second. The naked body enclosed within was hard to make out for a few seconds as a cloud of confetti drifted down around her like snow. When the flakes had settled, she shook her head ruefully and waggled a finger at Walt.
“And we could have had such fun,” she said. As she took a step forward, her dress snaked up her legs and neatly peeled itself back onto her skin. “Your party tricks might scare the neophytes, but I left kindergarten a very, very long time ago.”
She raised her hands. Any hint of flirtatiousness had gone. Her gaze was blank, pitiless. Tendrils of black smoke curled around her hands before focusing into something harder and stronger. Some of the paper around her sparked into flame and her hair crackled with energy. Walt had a sudden conviction that the next few seconds would be his last. He still couldn’t help but be impressed by her, whoever she was. He hadn’t seen such power in a long time. Lesser men might have closed their eyes. Not Walt.
Seb stopped in the corridor. He had no idea which way to go. He felt/heard/touched a crackle of raw energy coming from his right. The door at the end of the corridor glowed like a heat source looked at with a thermal imaging camera. He ran toward it. As he got closer, he realized the door wasn’t right - no handle, no way in.
“Don’t stop,” said Seb2 as he put his shoulder to the door and plowed into it. The sudden lack of resistance when he had been expecting solid oak was a shock; he stumbled as he came through the door. It felt like running from a car to a house in a violent rain storm. His body was pummeled by tiny specks of force, smacking against his skin. Then he was through.
The stunning woman from the Blackjack table was in the middle of the room, surrounded by small fires. Seb felt Walt’s presence beside him as he half-fell through the doorway. He stepped in front of him, just as black lightning arced from her fingertips. Time began to slow again, but there was nowhere to move unless he was willing to let Walt take the blast.
“Oh, shit,” said Seb2 as the darkness reached Seb and engulfed his body.
In the room’s center, Sonia’s eyes widened as the situation changed. She and Walt both saw what happened during the next 5.6 seconds. For the first 2.7 seconds, Seb’s body took the full force of the attack and reacted as any organic matter would if suddenly exposed to a burst of tightly-directed heat. Th
e skin peeled away from his face and hands, his flesh bubbled, boiled, melted and shriveled to cling to his skeleton.
Walt decided he would never eat ribs again.
The next 2.9 seconds reversed the process. Seb’s body sizzled like bacon on a griddle as the blackened flesh sloughed off and fell to the floor. Red, bloody, raw muscle grew back, followed by skin, hair and clothes. Sonia had the ringside view as Seb’s face rebuilt itself around his teeth, which had been pretty much the only recognizably human feature left on top of his spinal cord. The final touch was his eyes, pushing back into his empty sockets with a slightly wet plopping sound.
There was a moment’s silence.
Sonia moved first, spinning around and sprinting for the wall behind her. She jumped as she approached it and sailed through as if it had been an open window rather than two centimeters plaster, three centimeters boarding and fifteen centimeters solid brick. Outside the building, twenty-three floors above the street, she spread her arms and legs as gravity did its job and pulled her toward the sidewalk. Her skin darkened and stretched as she fell. Anyone looking up would have seen a dark shadow in a dark sky, nothing more. A skein of flesh flowed from her spreadeagled hands to her feet and—as her limbs continued to stretch, bones hollowing as they grew—her descent slowed significantly. She moved her left foot upwards and her body turned right gliding away from the casino. She spotted a low building four blocks away and headed for it. At the last moment, she turned into the wind and wrenched her body into an upright position, dropping onto the roof with no more impact than a medium-sized bird.
23
Las Vegas
The sign outside advertised it as a Gentleman’s Club, which Seb could only assume was meant ironically. He had always associated the word ‘gentleman’ with Alistair Cooke, the presenter of Masterpiece Theatre in the late 80s and early 90s. It was one of the few programs the occupants of the children’s home were allowed to watch and Seb had always been fascinated by the well-dressed, well-spoken, well-mannered presenter. Seb looked around the table in the private booth the hostess had led them to. Three women were sat with him, two of them topless. The topless ones were kissing each other while the third one had one hand sliding suggestively up and down a champagne glass, the other hand between her legs as she looked first at the girls, then at Seb. Nope, just can’t see Alistair Cooke fitting into this picture.
Walt came back with a bottle of fine bourbon, a woman on each arm. They squeezed into the booth. Seb was drinking beer. A cold beer really seemed to hit the spot when you’d just had your entire body burned to a crisp by a beautiful naked Georgian witch.
“Ladies,” said Walt, “give us a few minutes. I need to talk to my friend.” The women started to leave.
“Go have a drink on us,” he called after them, then sat down and poured a shot of bourbon to go with Seb’s beer.
“Gotta tell you, son, I’ve never seen anything quite like that. Hell of a thing,” said Walt, knocking back his first shot then refilling his glass. “What did you do back there?”
“You do that, too, right?” said Seb, still slightly in shock from what had happened. He should be dead—again—but his body seemed to be able to take any amount of damage and recover. Seb2 was right, he couldn’t be killed. “Heal, I mean. You can heal yourself.”
“Yes I can,” said Walt, draining his third shot. He started to pour another, then grabbed a champagne glass, tossed what was left in it over his shoulder and filled it with bourbon before taking a long swallow. He smiled. “But what you did was incredible.”
He edged closer to Seb and put his hand on his shoulder. His hand was shaking slightly. Seb couldn’t decide if he was scared or excited. Both, probably.
“I heal, sure,” said Walt. “I’ve been beaten up, shot, knifed. Even had a hand taken off with a machete one time.” He laughed and waved a perfectly whole and healthy hand at Seb. “It didn’t take.”
“So we can both do it,” said Seb. “It’s part of using Manna.”
“Well, yes and no,” said Walt, encouraging Seb to drink faster. Seb felt impossibly, fantastically alive. He drank.
“Thing is,” said Walt, “anyone who Uses has some kind of accelerated healing. Some more than others. At one end of the scale, a broken arm might heal in days rather than weeks. When I was shot, they picked seven bullets out of my stomach and chest. I should have died within hours. Now I don’t have a single scar to show for it.”
“So your power is like mine,” said Seb.
“Hardly,” said Walt. “I thought I was a bit of a prodigy, but you just knocked me off my perch, big time. It took me six days to recover. Six days. You didn’t even take six seconds. You were burned alive, Seb, I saw your bones, your skull. I don’t even know how what I just saw is possible, but here you are, sitting next to me, good as new. Thing is-.” He hesitated as if unsure.
“What?” said Seb.
“Well, you already know Users live longer. Manna protects us from all sickness, as far as I can tell. With serious illnesses, we know it can slow down the spread of a disease to such an extent that it would take decades, rather months, to kill us. Unnatural deaths are very, very unusual in Users. But it does happen, and when it does, it’s always down to one of two possible causes.” Walt thought for a second. “Both, occasionally.”
“Which are?” said Seb.
“Brain death, or severe brain damage, is one. Your brain takes a bullet, you might be ok, but if it passes through whichever bit of you controls Manna—and the jury’s still out on which bit that is—then you’re dead.”
“I’ll try to remember to duck,” said Seb. “What’s the other?”
“Fire,” said Walt. “It may come down to the same thing in the end - the brain destroyed by fire, but Manna can’t stop the flames, so if you don’t throw yourself into the nearest river, your number’s up. At least, that was the lowdown before this evening. Then you got fried and came back. I was behind you, I felt the intensity of that heat. No way you should be sitting there right now. No way.”
“Guess the theory was wrong, then,” said Seb.
“Guess so. Or you’re doing something new.”
“Well, if I am, I don’t have a clue how.”
Walt sighed. “Yeah, I believe that. Anyway,” he said, smiling, “I bet you’re buzzing.”
“What?” said Seb.
“Don’t forget how long I’ve been using Manna,” said Walt. “Whenever any of us Use, it just makes us want to grab life by the balls and never let go. You feeling it, Seb, my boy?” he put his other hand on Seb’s other shoulder and grinned at the younger man.
Seb laughed.
“Yeah, I’m feeling it all right, Walt. In fact,” he said, recalling another of Mee’s favorite phrases, “it’s fair to say I’m buzzing like a bastard.”
“Good,” said Walt. “Life is out there, waiting for us. And this isn’t the movies. You get great power, you don’t have to turn into a boring schmuck. You can live a little. You can live a lot.”
The club’s hostess returned with the girls and a fresh round of drinks. Walt gave her a $20,000 casino chip.
“Call a limo for us, Trix. Take the rest of the night off. Bring the girls and bring your magic bag.”
The hostess—Trix—said something to the nearest girl who giggled and took the other away to get their coats. Then she leaned over the table, her flimsy blouse revealing breasts for which her plastic surgeon had—deservedly—won an award.
“Walt,” she said, “you are a very, very naughty man. Now bring your handsome friend and let’s go have some fun.”
Fun was something Seb had never been particularly good at. He knew what it looked like, even tried joining in, but it had never felt entirely natural to him. He didn’t need years of psychotherapy to tell him what he already knew. He was—effectively—an orphan, his mother dead hours after giving birth to him, his father unknown. St Benet’s had been the only childhood he had known and he couldn’t fault the love and care shown t
o him and his fellow outcasts by the Sisters and by Father O, but all the kids had seen TV shows and read books, so they knew what a normal loving family looked like. Was it possible to miss something you’ve never had? In Seb’s experience, yes it was, if what you were missing was a mother to stroke your hair and make you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Or a father to make you laugh, tell you stories and throw a baseball to you in the back yard.
There were plenty of opportunities for fun after leaving the Home. All of which were down to music. His musical talent had been recognized early and he had been allowed to skip basketball practice three afternoons a week to sit at the beat-up piano in the dining room. Some of the notes at the top of the keyboard stuck, the ivory was yellow and sticky, and the lowest notes carried on ringing tunelessly for half a minute after they sounded. One of the sisters—Barbara—had been a decent classical pianist and she’d guided Seb through early folk songs, gradually introducing some theory and scales. Then some simplified Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn. And, one unforgettable afternoon two years after Seb had first sat at a piano, Bach. The first Bach piece Seb learned, the piece Sister Barbara played to him that Fall afternoon, marked a clear turning point in Seb’s life. He had enjoyed playing piano before that, realized he had some talent. What Bach did was open up his mind to the seemingly infinite possibilities of existence. It was as if he’d walked around with his head wrapped in bandages and someone had just ripped them away, saying, “This is what life looks like. This is what life sounds like, what it smells like, what it feels like.”
Sister Barbara had sensed a little of what he was feeling when she finished playing the C Major prelude. She sat in silence for about a minute, then turned to look at Seb.
“That was good,” he said, “play it again.” So she did, then he said, “Can you teach me how to play it?” Nearly twenty years later, it was the music he had chosen to accompany his suicide.
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 18
