World Walker 1: The World Walker

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  The rest of the afternoon was spent working on Seb's skills. First, he needed to make sure his homunculi lasted more than a few minutes. This turned out to be achievable by working a greater amount of originality into the music he used in the creation process. Second, he needed to work on his fighting skills - and this was a more telling weakness. He just couldn't match Walt's moves.

  "Guess I didn't watch enough martial arts movies," said Seb. If he was going to win any of these bouts, he needed to think laterally. After a few beatings at the hands of Walt's superior fighters, he vaguely remembered watching a movie where a boxer was up against a huge wrestler. As long as the wrestler got in close, the boxer couldn't do a thing - it was down to bulk, physical heft.

  Donalds MkII, III and IV showed some progress. MkIV was the one that turned things around. Although he didn't have the fighting skills to match Walt's homunculi, MkIV was unstoppable, however much punishment he was given. He just waded forward into the punches until he could wrap his arms around his opponent and start squeezing. Seb's homunculus didn't go for the death blow, just lifted his opposite number clear of the ground and waited, unmoved by the thrashing attempts at escape. Walt's creation eventually collapsed into dirt while Seb's stood for another half an hour. Walt glanced at his watch when he saw how much longer this particular Donald had lasted, then nodded, impressed.

  "One more, Seb, one more," said Walt, fashioning his last beast before heading into the house to get more beer.

  Seb started to create mkV, his mind already adapting quickly to the new skill, the shape spinning quickly into human form in the yard. This time, it was taller, slimmer, much more human-looking. Its body was well-proportioned, more muscle-bound man than orc. Its face was more realistic too, looking like an ugly guy who'd walked into a wall. Twice. But a man, not a monster. Seb heard Walt coming back and, with a snap decision, darted a last burst of energy toward his creation, squashing its features and forcing its body into a hunched, crouching figure. He couldn't justify why he didn't want Walt to see the improvement, he just knew he wasn't ready yet. He had never been quick to make friends, always holding back from intimacy until the time felt right. Mee had always said he'd wait so long, he'd miss every opportunity to be happy. She was annoyingly good at seeing, and stating, the obvious. It was just rarely so obvious to Seb until Mee had pointed it out.

  "Wow, I actually think you've surpassed yourself on looks this time," said Walt, carrying two beers in one hand and carefully holding something metal in the other. "This guy looks like he fell out of the top of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."

  Seb shrugged. "Well, like you said, I can't be good at everything."

  "Well, you're a prodigy whichever way you look at it. Not sure there's much more I'll be able to teach you." Walt sat down, handed Seb a beer, then tossed two kitchen knives out into the yard. "Let's make things a little more interesting," he said. "See how they get on with these."

  Before he consciously knew he had moved, Seb was on his feet, white and shaking. As he stood, staring in front of him, both newly created homunculi were thrown backward as if picked up and flicked away by giant hands. In mid-air, they exploded, dirt, earth and stones pushed outwards at high speed from the center of each figure, smacking against walls and fences, breaking two windows - one in a upper story. Some of the blast headed back toward Walt and Seb, and both were left scratched and bleeding as well as covered in dirt. Walt picked himself up from the floor and began to brush himself off, looking up at Seb, who was still shaking, his lips pressed together in a tight line.

  "No knives," said Seb, quietly. Walt nodded slowly. "I don't like knives," said Seb.

  Walt walked to the other side of the yard and looked at the fence. Both knives were buried up to the hilt in the wooden panels.

  "Yeah," said Walt, "I think I got that." He looked down at his ruined clothes and brushed some dirt from his hands. It was dusk, and the dirt looked like dried blood in the glow of the setting sun. "Something you want to talk about?"

  "No," said Seb, "not really." He made an effort to recover some equilibrium and walked over to Walt. "Sorry about your clothes."

  "No problem," said Walt, glancing down as his shirt began to repair itself, the material reaching out tiny threads, re-binding and repairing. In a few seconds, it looked new. "Look, no need to apologize. I don't know anything about you. You're under an incredible amount of stress, however well you think you're dealing with it. Let's get something to eat. I suggest you get an early night. I really have to get over to Red Rock, though. I'll go later - Steve will be here if you need anything." He turned to walk back into the house.

  "Thanks," said Seb, "I think I'll do that. And Walt?" The older man stopped and looked back. "I was in a fight once. With a knife. I -," he stopped. "I'm sorry."

  "Me too," said Walt. "I was pushing you too hard. Come on, let me show you something you'll never beat me at. You cook?"

  "Not well," said Seb.

  "Good. You like Asian food?" Seb nodded. Excellent. Then you have to try my Pad Thai. Worth coming to Las Vegas just for that."

  Chapter 32

  Dinner was great, the conversation easy. Seb admired Walt's ability to keep the conversation flowing, to move Seb quickly away from the dark mood he was ready to sink into. Within a few minutes, he felt better, in a half hour he was laughing at a story about a gangster mistakenly putting his wife and mistress in the same hotel room. Walt had plenty of charm, no two ways about it. He was likeable, roguish, self-deprecating and funny. But Seb was slow to call someone a friend and a truckload of charm wasn't going to change that any time soon.

  Walt had to make some calls after dinner and suggested Seb take in a movie. Seb wasn't surprised to discover Walt had a small movie theatre with surround sound installed in the basement. The computer system seemed able to call up any movie or TV show Seb could think of. He tested it by asking for Tom and Jerry, filtering it only to include those episodes produced by Fred Quimby with music by Scott Bradley. It still made him laugh, despite the fact he must have watched every episode hundreds of times.

  Later, he sat in front of the mirror in his room, practicing changing his appearance. Walt was right, it was easy. Either he was getting better at this stuff, or this was the equivalent of first grade. Maybe a little of both. He only had to create an intermediate state of consciousness, a nudge toward the 'one pointed' mind he had needed to make homunculi. The interior music could be as simple as a single sustained bass note. Then he only had to think of someone's face, real or imagined, to see it replicated in the mirror. It was a fascinating exercise, looking into a stranger's eyes in the mirror and knowing them to be his own. Just changing the face was almost instantaneous as he pictured what he wanted. Changing the body was slower, more of a challenge, but he soon got used to it. He became famous actors and musicians, historical figures. Albert Einstein was fun, but when he managed to reproduce the current pope, he made himself feel like a ten-year old again by blowing raspberries and giving himself the finger. He experimented with a few women, but found the feeling disconcerting, particularly when he chose one of his favorite actors, undid his shirt and started admiring the magnificent breasts he'd imagined many times but never seen.

  Ok, this is getting seriously out of whack now. Time for bed.

  Seb woke suddenly, convinced he had heard his name spoken. He sat up in bed, grabbed his glass of water and checked the clock. 4:11am. He had been asleep for a little under three hours, but felt rested and alert. It was a clear night and a strip of moonlight divided his room in half with a clear, straight silver line. He sighed and swung his feet onto the polished wooden floor. He had been dreaming about Meera. He was playing a new song to her and she was listening in that intense way she had. Music was one thing she was never cynical or flippant about.

  Seb stood up and paced around the room, the floorboards cool under his bare feet. He remembered Mee talking to him about music in bed one night after a gig.

  "The way
I see it, you can't have background music," she said. "It would be like having background sex. I suppose it's possible in theory, but why would anyone put in such a massive effort to disengage with something so amazing?" It was the reason she'd made him turn off the music before they had sex.

  "It's for your own good," she said. "You really don't want to think you're taking me to love heaven, only to find I'm really digging the way the bass player went into swung eighths in the chorus. Do you?" Seb conceded that he didn't. Mee was the most amazingly focussed person he had ever met. When she decided to focus, that is. Most of the time, she seemed to exist in a hazy, detached state, her disassociation with everyday reality exacerbated by heavy pot use. Other people, when they were acknowledged at all, were slightly irritating distractions from whatever was going on behind those dreamy eyes. But music always snapped her into that incredible state of attention. And, for a while, Seb seemed to occasionally have a similar effect on her. Especially when she was listening to him playing a new song. That's what she had been doing in the dream. He sighed, heavily. They had broken up amicably, she was still his best friend, but he knew it was always going to be more than that for him. He still loved her. And he didn't know what to do with that. The knowledge that unrequited love was a very common problem didn't help much when no one had come up with a foolproof way of dealing with it. Should he tell her? And risk their friendship? Or not tell her? And - one day - lose her forever to someone else.

  He padded over to the window and looked out. The sky was a vast upturned basin full of stars, the moon low on the horizon. Seb had never been able to look at stars without feeling a sense of awe. Just knowing that he was looking into the past was hard to believe, even though he knew it was true. The same few facts from school always came into his mind. He had never forgotten them, they'd never lost their brain-boggling impact. The most distant star visible by the human eye - Deneb - is more than 1500 light years away. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Traveling at the speed of light, you'd be able to loop the entire Earth seven and a half times per second. Per second. And, if you'd got bored of circumnavigating the planet after an hour - which would be 27,000 circuits - and decided to take a trip to Deneb, it would take you 1500 years to get there at that speed. 1500 years! At the speed of light! Seb smiled. He was glad to be alive in a universe so vast, unexplored and mysterious. Thinking he saw something move below, he glanced down into the yard. There was a naked woman standing there looking at him. She waved. It was Meera.

  Grabbing a robe from the back of the door, he made his way downstairs. The rest of the house was quiet. He slid open the door leading to the yard. Cold air wafted over him as he stepped out into the moonlight. The yard was lit with reflected sunlight from the orbiting moon a quarter of a million miles away, painting everything blue, gray and silver. Meera stood in the middle of the yard, her head tilted slightly to one side, that mischievous smile on her face.

  "Seb," she said.

  "Mee?" said Seb, coming to a stop a couple yards away. On the way downstairs, Seb had wondered what he would say if there really was a naked woman in the yard. And if it was Meera. Logically, he knew the first part of his conjecture was unlikely, the second near impossible. And yet he wasn't surprised by the reality when he saw her. He just wished he could of think of anything to say that didn't sound stupid or inadequate. But he couldn't. "What are you doing here?" he said.

  "Seb," she said again, this time taking a step forward and taking his hand in hers. Her skin was smooth and warm. The pad of her thumb stroked the back of his hand. Her eyes, almost black in the moonlight, looked into his. His throat dried up. He coughed.

  "You must be cold," he said, taking off his robe and wrapping it around her shoulders. Now he was just in his boxer shorts, he realized it really was cold - the desert air dropping to a cool 55 ºF at night. Not uncomfortable if you're dressed, not so great naked. He realized Meera hadn't been shivering. She was holding his hand again.

  "I came to tell you I love you," she said, and that's when Seb realized something was wrong. Mee didn't talk about love. She said it was nothing to do with fear of commitment, just that talk was cheap, words were easy to say. According to Mee, if she ever made it to five years in a relationship, she would consider saying the words. So this didn't make sense.

  There was a sound from the other side of the building. The crunch of tires on shale. Seb looked back toward the house. Walt was back from his trip to Red Rock. What the hell was he going to say to him?

  Suddenly, there was a familiar voice in his head.

  "It's not what you think," said Seb2.

  "What? What's not what I think? And why do I have no control over when I can speak to you? Or vice-versa?" said Seb.

  "Well, there's good news on that front," said Seb2. "You should be able to speak to me any time from now on. And, hey, don't get upset about me disturbing your romantic scene here. I am you, after all."

  "Fair point. Now answer my question."

  "Mee. It's not her. Look at her."

  Seb turned back to look at Meera. She was still smiling, the robe half-open, revealing the swell of her breasts. Why is that so much more erotic than when she was naked?

  "Seb," said Meera again. Then he felt the pressure of her thumb disappear from his hand. As he looked at her, a sequence of events lasting less than a second, which had become familiar to him that afternoon, unfolded. Mee's 'body' collapsed inwards, skin and hair instantaneously become millions of particles of dirt. All that was left was his robe on top of a slightly raised mound of earth.

  "You did it in your sleep," said Seb2.

  "What? I dreamed her into existence?" said Seb.

  "Yup."

  "But she was perfect. How is that possible? I couldn't make anything better than a troll that looked a bit like Donald Trump earlier."

  "That's not quite true, though. You could have, you just decided to stay at Walt's level. He doesn't have to know everything about us."

  "I don't know everything about us," said Seb. "Am I going to be dreaming homunculi into existence every night?"

  "No, I can stop it now that we know it's possible. I was as surprised as you, even though I know more about our abilities now."

  "You keep reminding me you're me," said Seb, "but I don't know what you know."

  "You do, it's just that our consciousness has divided. Otherwise I think we would have died on the mountain when we were given Manna. Er, something else I need to say about that, actually."

  "What?"

  "There's another one of us, buried deeper."

  "Another me? Oh, god, tell me I'm not just suffering some kind of psychosis and this whole thing is in my head."

  "You know better than that. But I can't really communicate with the other one. Let's call him Seb3, for the sake of argument. He's there, he's necessary, I think he absorbed everything we couldn't. But he's not like us."

  "Not like us how?"

  "He feels less human. But more human."

  "Loving the meaningless aphorisms."

  "Hey, a cheap shot like that might work on someone else, but you're just wasting time using it on me."

  "Fair point."

  "He's at such a deep level, it's hard to get anywhere near," said Seb2. "I want to get closer to him. But I can't, and I'm scared to try. There's something...ancient. And there's terrible pain. And joy."

  "Great," said Seb. "That's all clear, then. Glad we had this little chat."

  He heard the front door open back in the house. He picked up his robe, brushed off as much dirt as he could and put it back on.

  "One more thing," said Seb2.

  "Yes, Columbo?" said Seb.

  "Go with your gut. I think we're right not to trust Walt."

  The door slid open and Walt stepped out into the yard. He was full of energy, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. Seb remembered how lit-up he'd been after filling up at Red Rock before.

  "Beautiful night," said Walt. "Bit cold for a walk, though."


  "Oh, I couldn't sleep," said Seb, stepping forward to cover the new mound of earth, although it was unlikely Walt would notice a new one among the handful they had made that afternoon. "And I love looking at the stars."

  Walt stood beside him. "Yes, they sure are pretty," he said. "Makes you wonder if we can really be alone in the universe, doesn't it?"

  Seb thought of Billy Joe. He remembered the touch that healed him and gave him these strange, barely explored abilities. The touch of a being from an unimaginable place. Maybe somewhere even further than Deneb. "Yes,"he said, "it sure does."

  Chapter 33

  17 Years Previously

  St. Benet's Children's Home, New York

  As Seb's body drifted inevitably back to sleep, he fell forward before jolting awake and shifting his weight on the wooden prayer stool. He half opened his eyes. The gray-blue pre-dawn light soaked Father O'Hanoran's office in surreal monochrome. Seb clenched his leg muscles and tried to find a position on the narrow stool that was even slightly comfortable. Father O seemed to be experiencing no trouble at all sitting still, he was a silent Catholic Buddha to Seb's right, his only movement the slow rise and fall of his stomach.

  Seb mentally went through Father O's instructions again. Posture upright. He straightened his spine self-consciously, wondering if Father O was aware of the many times he had almost fallen off the stool as sleep beckoned. Hands still, placed in your lap. Breathing normally, just being aware of your breath. Seb wondered if anyone was capable of breathing normally when their breath was the only physical movement they were making. When his training had started, nearly four weeks previously, he had spent most of the thirty minutes seeing how slow he could make each breath. He figured he was taking two breaths a minute. He wondered if that was good. Possibly exceptional. Then he wondered what the world record was for breathing slowly, if there was one. Probably not. Then he remembered the last instruction Father O had given. When your awareness moves away from your breath, bring it back by sounding your word. Seb had chosen 'silence' as his word. He idly wondered what Father O's word was for a while, then realized he had become distracted again. He sounded the word. Silence.