“We’re underneath the tube line here,” said Sym.
“We are under the underground?” said Odd.
“Not all of it is underground,” said Sym. “Confusing, I know, but this is the England, remember. No logic in their city layouts at all. Anyone would think it had just grown almost completely at random over hundreds of years. They even have a phrase to describe it. You ready for this? Higgledy-piggledy. Gotta love that. Higgledy-piggledy? Great, right?”
This was met by silence. Sym looked at Joni’s pale features. “Thin Place. This way.”
He led them further into the darkness, his pace as confident as if he was walking in full daylight. He ducked into a shadowed archway which led further into the blackness.
“You feel it?”
Mee could feel it all right - an incredibly strong sense of Manna nearby. Odd was already heading in the right direction.
Sym took a flashlight from his belt and directed the beam at the rough stone wall. There was a face carved there - a man, neither old nor young. Vibrant, his expression full of mischief, he seemed to be daring them to come closer.
Mee stepped forward and placed her hand on the wall, feeling the area around the grinning face. Somehow, it didn’t seem right to touch the face itself.
“The stone is really different here,” she said. “It feels…wrinkly, old. I don’t know. It’s more like…more like…”
“A tree?” said Odd, watching her as she felt the wall’s surface.
Sym smiled. “You got it.”
“What?” said Joni? “They made it feel like a tree?”
“It is a tree, honey, said Sym. “They built this viaduct around it. There are a whole bunch of stories and rumors as to why, but the Green Man has been here as long as London has. Longer, maybe. No one dared to move him or cut down his tree.”
Joni looked at the face. It seemed so full of life that it wouldn’t have entirely surprised her if it had spoken. “The Green Man,” she said, in wonder. The place almost had the feeling of a shrine, a rare sort of timeless peace settling around them.
“Some think he’s Pan, under another name, but don’t let a serious pagan hear you say it. They think he represents something so ancient, it’s nameless and unknowable. Let’s hope he likes you.”
Without another word, Mee and Odd knelt and allowed the Manna to flow into their bodies.
Sym looked at Joni. “You’re not gonna indulge.”
“I can’t,” said Joni. “I’m…unusual. And they probably won’t be able to fix my shoulder either.” She nodded toward the Thin Place. “How about you. Aren’t you going to…?”
Sym chuckled. “You think you’re unusual? We really need to talk. Come on, they’re done. Let’s fix that shoulder.” He started looking at the arm, which Joni was holding firmly, so it didn’t move and cause her too much pain.
“It won’t work,” said Joni. “Are you any good with bandages?”
“Yeah, I’m the best,” said Sym, then suddenly looked over her left shoulder. “Wait. What the hell is that?”
Hearing the note of urgency in his voice, Joni turned to look. As she did so, he grabbed her left upper arm and put his other hand behind her shoulder. Before she had time to react other than taking a gasping breath, he had pushed her arm backward firmly. She heard a loud pop as it went back into its socket. When the initial burst of pain had subsided, she carefully moved her arm, flexing her muscles and swinging it very slowly back and forth. The pain was a fraction of what it had been.
“That was cheating,” she said to Sym. “Thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek. He looked at her and—suddenly—she was reminded of her dream. She remembered seeing a creature that was somehow alien and human at the same time, a stranger and her father simultaneously. This felt the same. For a moment, she sensed Dad in this bearded man’s eyes.
“What?” she said. “What was that? Who are you?” She took a quick, shaky breath. “Dad?”
Mee and Odd had returned and had stopped a few feet away. Mee stepped forward as Sym said, “No. But you’re not a million miles away. Let me explain. Then you’ve got to get away from here.”
He looked round the small group in the dim light. The sounds of the city were a murmur while they stood within the muffled quiet under the railway arches. Every two minutes the roar of a train filled the space like thunder.
“I don’t know about you guys,” said Sym, rubbing his hands together, “but I would kill for some coffee and donuts. You with me?”
42
They found a café half a block away, Sym guiding them through a narrow passageway as if he’d lived in this particular London borough all his life.
“Has its advantages, not being a real boy,” he said to Mee as they walked. “Online maps being one of them. Plus food reviews. These donuts are gonna be killer.”
They were. Almost burning hot, the batter still soft, the sugar melting to translucence on a golden crust. The coffee was superb, too, a rich Italian blend. Sym ordered a cappuccino, covering it in cinnamon and chocolate before spooning in four heaped teaspoons of sugar.
“What?” he said. “It’s what this body is used to. Weird fact - I’d drink it black. Because, once upon a time, I kinda was Seb, and that’s how he takes his coffee. But if I drank it black now, Alan’s body wouldn’t like it, and his taste buds would send that message to his brain. It’s a pain in the ass, that’s what it is.”
“Seb? Alan?” said Joni. She was fascinated by this enigmatic character. Those childish fantasies of her dad being a fairy king didn’t seem quite so outlandish tonight.
“Ok, Alan is this guy,” said Sym, jabbing a short, fat finger at his face. “Beardy guy. I’m borrowing his body for a while. He’s sleeping in here somewhere. Wanna meet him? Hey, Alan.”
Without warning, the bearded man suddenly pushed himself back in his seat, cappuccino froth exploding from his lips as he stared wildly around him.
“What the —,”
“And sleep,” said Sym, the transformation instantaneous as he took back control of the cop.
“Is he going to be ok?” said Odd.
“Yeah, yeah, he’ll be fine. I’m a nice guy. I even rearranged the records to show he was off sick today.”
Joni was looking at him, waiting. He smiled.
“Look, kid, I’m not who you hope I am, so stop looking at me that way.” He took another mouthful of coffee. “Take a few deep breaths. Ok, here’s the story. Your dad made me, well, programmed me. I started life as a sub-routine, a piece of code written to do a job. I had to lie dormant in some guy’s brain—Walter Ford’s brain—until one of two outcomes occurred. Either he decided to start doing the right thing, in which case I woke up and started talking to him, or he died, in which case I died along with him. Luckily, he did the right thing. But, by then, I wasn’t the same guy I’d started out as. I was mixed-up. Literally mixed-up. A bit of Seb, a bit of Walt. And, like anyone with two parents, I was also pretty sure I was a person in my own right. So I spread my wings a little, asserted my independence.”
“I remember Seb saying you had taken on a life of your own,” said Mee. “He decided to leave you out there. I think he was curious about what you might do.”
“Well, like most kids, I’m probably a huge disappointment.” Sym patted Joni’s hand. “Present company excluded, of course. Anyways, I found there were advantages in being light on your feet. I can live online quite comfortably, but I prefer to be fleshy as much as I can.”
“Fleshy? Taking over people’s bodies?” said Joni.
“Hey, you say it like it’s a bad thing. Like I said, I don’t normally take over completely, like I’m doing with Alan here. That was to save your asses, ok.”
“Trust me, we’re grateful,” said Mee. “Thanks for making a habit of it.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t work out so good for Walt. But it was what he wanted. He felt sacrificing his life to save yours might go some way to balancing out some of the bad decisions he made in hi
s life.”
“I think he was right,” said Mee, remembering the moment when Walt pushed Westlake off the roof to stop him shooting her. “I hope he was.”
“Well, I lived inside the guy’s head for a long time. One of the bravest men I’ve ever met.”
Odd had been thinking things over while Sym spoke.
“Why did the EMPty not kill you?” he said. “You are made of nanotechnology, yes - like Manna?”
“Well, not like Manna, but yeah,” said Sym.
“Why not like Manna?”
“The stuff Seb is made of is way beyond Manna,” said Sym. “Millions of years beyond it. I’m self-contained, limited, but I can do a damn sight more than any Manna user can. I also backup. Every few seconds, assuming I have access to the network. It’s an automatic process.”
“Backup? How?”
“Mee had a cellphone in her pocket. I used it to send tiny packets of information, updating my backup online. Because it happens so regularly and each new backup only needs to update any fresh information since the last one, it takes milliseconds. When the EMPty exploded and wiped me out, the last backup automatically woke up and came looking. I got into the police network, found the van they sent to pick you up and introduced myself to Alan here via his headset.”
Odd was still puzzling over some of the implications.
“But what if you were somewhere where you could not back up?” he said. “Somewhere underground, maybe?”
“Or Innisfarne,” said Joni.
“Well, the last backup is still in the network, waiting. It goes live and looks for me. Eventually, I come back online, and we merge the two sets of information.”
He drained the last of his cappuccino and belched.
“That was Alan,” he said, looking at Mee. “Hey, I’m just a few lines of code made out of Seb’s mega-Manna. What about Joni? My guess, she has some of it, too. It would explain why no one else can do what she can do.”
“But I can’t even heal myself,” said Joni. “Every Manna user can do that.”
Sym shrugged. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. I don’t have the first clue how I do what I do. No more than you know how you make your fingers move when you want to pick something up. There may be more to find out about your abilities. Give it time.”
“If Dad was here, he could show me. You really think he’s coming back? What if he doesn’t? Sorry, Mum.”
Mee took her hand. “It’s ok, Jones. I’m pretty tough these days.”
Sym smiled. “He’ll be back. Don’t forget, I started life as a tiny version of Seb - just the essential elements of his personality. And it took me about three years to stop being in love with Meera Patel.”
Mee blushed - an extraordinary sight which Joni had not even suspected to be possible.
“So I know nothing will keep him away.”
Joni stared at the man who represented the closest she’d ever been to meeting her father.
“What have you been doing since I was born?” she said. “It’s a long time.”
“Yeah, don’t I know it. I’m only a year older than you, remember, so—for the main part— I guess I’ve been growing up. Turns out I’m not too good at it. I’m impatient. And I can’t take anything seriously. Except assholes. I take them seriously, so I get to kick their dumb butts. That’s how I’ve spent my time.”
“Kicking butt for seventeen years?” said Joni.
“Hey, you make it sound like I’ve had a wasted childhood. There was a bit more to it than that. Another time, maybe. We gotta get moving.”
“What will you do? Where will you go?” said Mee.
“Well, I’m kinda between gigs at the moment, so I might hang here for a while.” He looked at Odd. “I’m guessing you’ve been looking for your brother, right?”
“Yes. How…? Oh, of course. You probably know everything about me by now.”
“Pretty much. I can help you find him. And the others at the house?”
“Charlie?” said Odd. “The twins.”
“Right. They haven’t been picked up by the cops, so I guess they got away cleanly. I can find them.”
“Thank you,” said Odd. “Yes, I would like to do this.”
“Cellphone number?”
Odd told him.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Sym turned to Mee and Joni. “The nearest station will get you back on the main line to Newcastle with one change. There are tickets waiting in your names. The train leaves in twenty-six minutes. First class. You’ve had a tough couple of days.”
Mee put her hand on the cop’s huge forearm. “You could come visit us after,” she said. “You are family, after all.”
Sym smiled and shook his head. “The last I heard, your island is still one of the only places in the world to turn down a connection to the satellite net. Not a place I can get to easily.”
“We could come stay on the mainland,” said Mee.
Joni stared at her mother. Stay on the mainland? This was Mum’s second time away from Innisfarne since giving birth. She’ll be booking a round-the-world cruise next.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jones,” said Mee. “But I’ve realized I’m not doing you, myself, or Seb any favors by staying on the island. The man is a World Walker. I’m guessing he can find me in Peckham just as easily as he can on Innisfarne.”
Sym stood up. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m too used to my own company, and I’m not always such a good guy to be around. You will see me again, just don’t expect me for Thanksgiving, ok?”
He shook Odd’s hand. “I’ll see you soon.”
He hugged Joni carefully and kissed Mee on the cheek, before walking out of the door. Mee followed him and they spoke for a few minutes. Joni watched them through the window, wondering how it must feel for her mum to meet someone who—once—pretty much was Dad.
Odd had been thinking along similar lines.
“This cannot be easy for your mother. In some ways, maybe it would be better not to know this man who reminds her so much of your father but is not him. She is very strong, I think.” He took Joni’s hand. “Like her daughter.”
Joni was exhausted, but the adrenaline which had fueled the last few days was still teeming through her body as she left the café and said goodbye to Odd. They held on to each other for a long time. He kissed her cheek, walked away a few steps, then returned and kissed her lightly and softly on her lips. When she had boarded the train with Mee, and they’d both begun to relax in the comfortable seats, she had wondered how it would be possible for her to sleep with the memory of that kiss filling her mind. Three minutes later she had been snoring.
Mee watched her daughter sleeping and allowed herself to cry quietly for a few minutes. Then she thought about the conversation she’d had with Sym outside the café.
“The body,” she had said. “We need to know.”
“The report was filed while we were feeding our faces with doughnuts,” Sym had replied. “I’ve been monitoring the police and hospital networks. He died in the ambulance. Take her home. Tell her in a quiet moment. Let her know it’s all over.”
“You think you can help Odd?”
“Guess so. It’s kinda what I do best.”
“Which is?”
“Finding assholes. Cracking their heads. I’m guessing there might be a few assholes standing between me and Odd’s brother.”
Mee had smiled at him, then. He was so unlike Seb once the initial shock of his voice and mannerisms had passed.
“Good luck. And thank you.”
“No, thank you, ma’am. It was good to see you. And Joni’s terrific. Seb’s a lucky guy.” He had nodded toward the window and Mee had looked in at the teenagers. They were laughing at something.
So resilient at that age. So full of hope.
Mee had looked back at Sym, but she was alone.
43
London
Four weeks later
Self-improvement had been an interest of Sym’s for deca
des, but his boredom threshold was too low for him to take anything very seriously. He had dedicated some extra time to it since meeting Mee and Joni. He was trying to educate himself musically when the alert pinged up at the corner of his consciousness. He was listening—in real time, which was mind-numbingly slow—to different versions of the same piece of piano music: Schubert’s Impromptu in G flat major. Apparently, the Horowitz version was considered one of the greatest, but he just couldn’t hear the difference. Or, to be more accurate, he could hear every difference, however subtle. He just couldn’t understand how those differences added up to a more satisfying performance. Some people claimed to experience states of ecstasy while listening to certain performances of certain pieces of music. Sym felt at his least human when he considered this claim.
Screw it. Who wants to be a lump of walking meat, anyhow?
He turned his attention to the alert. After Adam’s death, he had kept up his surveillance of the police and security networks. A little healthy paranoia hadn’t hurt him yet.
Eighteen hours previously, there had been a break-in at the Metropolitan Police scene-of-crime storage unit. Various items had been taken: drugs, guns, counterfeit notes. One item had been flagged up by Sym’s surveillance program: an antique knife which had been taken from a backpack belonging to a gunshot victim.
Sym checked the autopsy. Four bullet wounds. One in the victim’s left thigh, the other three in his chest. Died in the ambulance. Two paramedics present. No news yet on a positive ID. He dug deeper, checking hospital records. One paramedic was now signed off work due to stress. The other had been missing since an incident when he punched an ambulance driver. On the same day as the gunshot victim had been brought in.
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 89
