World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  The corpse had vanished. Cubby looked desperately left and right, then behind him. When he looked back at the house, the blackened skull, a few flaps of skin still hanging from it, appeared through the door to the trophy room. Hector tossed something toward Cubby. He flinched as it landed on the grass beside him. It was his cellphone.

  “One more thing,” said Hector. “You kill another animal and I’ll cut your head off and mount it on the front of your car. Now watch this, it’s a neat trick.”

  Cubby watched as the corpse burst into flames. As the human torch walked slowly around the trophy room, drapes, rugs, papers on the desk, then the desk itself, began to smolder then burst into flames. By the time the figure moved into the kitchen next door, the trophy room was blazing. Hector moved faster then, running from room to room, each one immediately lighting up as the flames followed him.

  In five minutes, the entire house was blazing. Cubby heard the sound of approaching sirens. A figure walked out of the house. Hector now looked exactly as he had when he’d first appeared from the bushes a lifetime ago. He smiled grimly at Cubby.

  “I’ll see myself out,” he said. “I’ll check back in one month. Pray to God you don’t see me again.”

  He walked away in the direction of the garages. Cubby groaned. There was a muffled explosion, followed by two more. The Rolls Royce and both Ferraris.

  Cubby picked up his cell.

  “Sanj?” he said, his voice small and shaken, “can you come over and get me? I need to stay with you for a while. And we’re going to have a long talk about the business.”

  Chapter 14

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Present Day

  Walter Ford sat out in his yard, a bottle of ice-cold beer in his hand, a photograph in his pocket and a decision he’d been avoiding for years finally made. He wondered, not for the first time, if his was the only property within five square miles without a pool out back. His backyard was plenty big enough. But he needed the space to practice, and to practice he needed plenty of earth. The yard was a mess, piles of dirt the only notable features. The local landscapers and gardeners must consider him eccentric, as he never availed himself of any of the offers they stuffed into his mailbox every week. He allowed himself a rare smile as he imagined their reaction if they knew what he was doing back here. His smile faded just as quickly when he remembered the whispered phone call he had received just a few hours earlier.

  Mason didn’t have conversations, he gave instructions. Walt’s job was to obey them without question. He had listened and memorized. You didn’t make notes when Mason called you.

  “Ford, your help will soon be required regarding the outstanding matter of Ms. Patel. Her acquisition is now a priority. She will be found soon. When this happens, you and Barrington will accompany Westlake and his team to her location. Do not go anywhere until this matter has been resolved.”

  After the call had ended, Walt had stood in his study for thirty minutes, staring at the phone. As always with Mason, his orders were clear and his motives were hidden. But he may have finally misjudged Walt.

  He laughed, the sound harsh and out of place in the silent house. From the outside, Walt knew, his life must look incredible. He lived in a mansion, he earned a fortune, he had beautiful women available to him whenever he wanted. He could spend all day drunk—often did—and yet wake up without a hangover, his liver in excellent condition, ready to grab the bourbon next to his bed and start over. He had been using Manna since his teens. Now that he was over a hundred years old, his abilities were as powerful as they were subtle and finessed. Of course, most centenarians didn’t have the option to maintain their body at the level of a fit, healthy man in his fifties. And he’d been happy with that for a long time. Not anymore.

  Recently, there had been more and more days when Walt envied those who lived and died naturally, having never experienced the seemingly-magical qualities of Manna. The regular absorption of the power suffusing many thousands of sites worldwide had given him many of the most amazing moments of his long life. It had also caused him sadness, terror and regret.

  Walt got up and started slowly pacing the yard. He couldn’t allow himself to blame Manna for the poor decisions he’d made, his tendency to always take the option that benefitted him most, however morally unsound that might be. As a very young man he had betrayed Sid, the User who had taught him how to use Manna. Sold him out and watched him die. Then, much later, when Mason had approached Walt, he’d had been quick to convince himself he had no choice but to take his offer. Looking back at it coldly, his life could be seen as a series of moral compromises designed to keep him safe, healthy and rich. And here he was, safe. Healthy. Rich. Alone. And so far from happiness, he could barely even remember how it felt.

  The yard was the only place he knew he wasn’t being watched. Walt had installed security cameras when he’d first moved in, but hadn’t placed any outside. He had long suspected Mason of hacking into every electronic component of his life. When you started working for Mason, he owned you. No point crossing him. You crossed him, you died. You failed him, you died. Walt planned on a third course of action he thought might just leave him alive. He planned to disappear.

  Walt got up and walked over to the figure in his yard, standing directly opposite it. It stood at six-feet and one-inch tall, Walt’s height exactly. Its posture was very similar to his own, its limbs were pretty much in the correct proportions. The thing before him could move like a man, even talk in a rudimentary way, but it wouldn’t fool anyone for more than a few seconds. Unless, Walt hoped, you were watching through grainy security footage and couldn’t make out the finer details.

  After receiving that email, Walt knew he didn’t have much time left. He couldn’t refuse Mason, but there was no way he would help him or his hired killers to kill Meera Patel. He had only met Meera briefly, in unfortunate circumstances, but he had spent time with Seb Varden and that time had left its mark. After the younger man’s death, Walt had looked at himself in the mirror and for the first time in his life, admitted he wasn’t one of the good guys. A week of heavy drinking, drugs and copious amounts of sex with multiple partners hadn’t helped. He felt hollow, dead inside. He kept remembering Seb, the way he had just knelt there, waiting for Westlake to swing the axe. Sometimes, when Walt finally shut his eyes last thing at night, he saw himself over and over, stepping forward with the flamethrower.

  There was something else on Walt’s mind. Something about that phone call didn’t quite ring true. Mason was a psychopath, granted, but an incredibly intelligent and careful one. He didn’t take unnecessary risks—period. Suddenly deciding to prioritize finding Meera Patel seemed strange to Walt. It just didn’t sound like Mason. There was something else at play here. Something bigger. Walt put his hand in his pocket and felt the piece of newspaper folded there. Surely it’s impossible. It couldn’t be.

  He walked back into the house. The silent figure paced around the yard as he slid the door shut. He would check on it tomorrow. So far, his record was nine hours before it would crumble back to dust. He was hoping to do better than that if he wanted to escape Mason.

  Walt headed down to the movie theater in his basement. He cued up Sanshiro Sugata, Akiro Kurosawa’s directorial debut, and started watching it, a large bourbon in hand. Cupped in his other hand was the newspaper photograph from his pocket. It showed the man who had single-handedly prevented five career criminals from robbing a Delaware bank the previous day. The eyewitness descriptions made it just about feasible that the man wasn’t a Manna user, but Mason had been suspicious enough to investigate further. The Sensitives in or near Dover reported no Manna use, and Westlake’s team’s report concluded, after seeing copies of all of the police interviews, that the ‘hero’ in question was no more than he appeared to be—some kind of advanced martial arts expert.

  Walt was always copied in to any communication when new Manna use was suspected, as most novice Users usually opted for a trip to Las Vegas after discov
ering they could manipulate physical reality. Walt’s job was to discourage them with a demonstration of what a mature Manna user could do after decades of practice. The casinos, none of which knew how he achieved his results, paid him a handsome retainer for dissuading those who would cheat them. And Mason, through Walt, kept tabs on new American Users. Those who showed real potential ended up working for Mason. Or they ended up dead. Seb Varden, for a while at least, looked like he might avoid either option. Walt had never seen anyone with a fraction of the power Seb had seemed to possess. But Mason still won in the end. Mason always won. So why go after Meera?

  Walt glanced at his glass and it filled with fresh ice and bourbon. He remembered walking forward that morning in New York, raising the flamethrower, and burning Seb’s body up, then doing the same to his head, which had come to rest twelve feet away. The man was dead. How could it be otherwise? And yet…

  Walt paid closer attention as the movie got to the scene he had been waiting for. The fight at the dock.

  Walt had long been a fan of Kurosawa, and he knew watching this movie wouldn’t seem out of the usual if Mason happened to be monitoring him. But he knew he couldn’t risk freeze-framing the action when the camera tracked along the group of fighters taking on Yano, the judo expert. He cupped his drink in both hands and lifted the bottom of the glass away from his palm, so that he could see the cutting from the bank robbery clearly by looking down his nose. Throughout the scene in question, his eyes flicked from the photograph to the screen and back again.

  The movie continued, but Walt wasn’t watching anymore. His mind whirled as he considered the implications of what he had seen. The floppy-haired actor who played one of the ju-jitsu attackers—if he was still alive—must be in his nineties by now, but the man in the photo from the bank was young and extremely fit. And, without a shadow of doubt, it was the same face. The face of a minor character in a 1943 movie.

  Walt swirled the bourbon around the glass. The greenest Manna user could alter his or her appearance easily enough, but they couldn’t hide their Manna use from others with the same ability. He thought about one of the last times he had seen Seb, when he’d realized he was in the presence of someone far more powerful than anyone he had ever encountered. Mason’s servants—what other word was there for them?—had wiped out the Order in Las Vegas, killing Seb’s friend Bob Weller and kidnapping Meera. Seb had met Walt near the scene of the slaughter the next day. Seb had appeared from nowhere. Walt always knew when Manna was nearby, but he’d been taken by surprise when Seb had walked around the corner. And when Seb had got mad and the whole desert floor seemed to shake, he had felt no Manna use at all. Nothing. Which was impossible. He neglected to mention that detail in his report to Mason, worried that his abilities were fading. And when other Users had met Seb and seemingly been able to pick up his Manna signature, he was glad he had said nothing. And when Seb had died, Walt had detected his Manna signature clearly, so he had dismissed his earlier experience as a failure of his own Sensitive ability.

  But here was someone who must be Using, changing his appearance and taking on five armed men single-handed before disappearing without a trace. And not a single Manna user had even known he was there. Impossible.

  Walt took one more look at the photograph. No doubt about it at all. It was the face from a movie made halfway through the previous century.

  Walt considered the evidence. The Manna Seb had absorbed at Roswell had been the holy grail for all Users since 1947. Every significant Manna user on the planet had, at some point in the last seven decades, tried to soak up that Manna. It was the Manna community’s equivalent of the sword in the stone. Walt had tried to access that incredible store of Manna twice. The sensation of incredible power just out of reach had been so frustrating he had wept. But the Roswell Manna had been waiting. Finally, Seb Varden had come along. The only one able to absorb it. And when he had, he’d absorbed all of it. Weeks later, it had died with him. As if it had never been.

  Not for the first time, Walt remembered how bravely, how calmly Seb had gone to his death. Undoubtedly the most powerful human in history, sacrificing himself so that Meera could escape. And escape she did, despite Mason’s plans. It was the first time Mason had failed, to Walt’s knowledge. And over a year later, he still hadn’t found her, despite the global reach of his organization.

  Seb Varden? Walt watched the photograph gently and slowly tear itself into tiny pieces until they settled into a tiny cloud of dust which, as he stood up, sank unnoticed into the carpet. Are you still out there?

  Chapter 15

  Upstate New York

  Thirty-four years previously

  It was a harder hike to the abandoned mine than Mike Breckland had anticipated, mostly because of the heavy rainfall overnight, which had turned the path his wife had followed into a mudslide. Mike found he could make better progress by getting off what was left of the path, but this meant pushing through branches and bushes. Within ten minutes, he had a good sweat going. He was grateful for the leather gloves Eliza had bought him last birthday.

  After twenty-five minutes he stopped, drank some water and looked for marks on the trees ahead. He could make out an X cut into the bark of a tree about fifteen yards ahead. He smiled. He’d married a bright, resourceful woman.

  Approaching the mine, he marveled that Eliza had found it at all. From above, the rock walls were so overgrown with lichen and fungi that, coupled with overhanging tree branches, the entrance was all but invisible. He came around in a slow circle, his footsteps slower and more cautious now. If there were any illegal activity going on up here—as unlikely as it seemed—there was no point alerting anyone that he was coming.

  When he spotted the gate from about ten yards out, Mike came to a complete stop, waiting and listening for nearly a minute. When he heard nothing, he walked up to the gate and listened again. Just the natural sounds of any forest after rain; the stretching of wood as it dries, the calls of birds enjoying the feast now accessible from the softened earth. Mike examined the freshly oiled hinges and the new padlock on the gate. He smiled. His wife didn’t miss much—there were a good few fellow officers he could name who wouldn’t have noticed the details she had reported.

  One last listen changed nothing, so Mike took the bolt cutters out of his backpack, positioned the jaws on the mid-point of the shackle and with one practiced movement, cut through the metal. He replaced the cutters, took out his flashlight and pushed the gate open. The narrow route between the rock walls hardly looked inviting as it descended into blackness.

  The forest sounds faded as he walked, replaced by drips of water, following channels cut by rain through the rock over millennia. About thirty yards in, the path took a turn to the left. He looked behind him. The glow of daylight was just visible from the entrance. He’d replaced the batteries in the flashlight before leaving the station. He shook off a brief stab of fear, an echo of an ancient superstition warning humans to stay clear of the unknown. Especially in the dark.

  A few steps more and he stopped. The path was blocked. The rocks looked like they’d been there for a hundred years. In fact, that probably wasn’t a bad guess, mused Mike, as small collapses often blocked corridors near the entrances of old mines and this one looked like it had been out of use long before his father was a boy.

  He squatted down and thought. Mike Breckland had a logical mind, and although he was sometimes accused of being slow to make a decision, he was never suspected of cutting corners. Although he was keen to get back into the sunlight and fresh air above, there was a puzzle here. Why would someone oil the hinges to get into a mine that was blocked? And why would they buy a padlock to keep anyone else from doing the same? He swallowed some water, chewed gum and worried away at the mystery.

  After a few minutes had passed, he could only come up with one possibility: there must be a way through the blockage. He stepped closer and slowly played the powerful beam of the flashlight over the old rocks in front of him. A fine layer of dus
t covered most, but not all, of them. On one side, some of the dust had been scuffed away, as if someone had climbed them. Mike followed the path with his flashlight until he got to the top. Then he stepped closer, hoisted himself carefully onto the first foothold he could find and examined the rocks closer to the top. On this side of the pile, they were smaller than many of those around them.

  Mike reached out a gloved hand and took hold of the rock nearest the ceiling. He pulled slowly and it came away easily. Looking at the rock’s neighbors, he could see they would be fairly easy to remove. He was about to do so, when—unexpectedly, terrifyingly—there was a soft groan from the darkness beyond. Mike slipped down the rubble, landed hard on his side, rolled, unholstered his gun and pointed it alongside the flashlight. He was glad no one else was there to witness the way his hand was shaking.

  “What the hell?” he whispered, then raised his voice. “Police officers. Who’s there?”

  His voice echoed into nothingness and absolute silence descended once more, all the more unnerving after the single sound he had heard. Or had he heard it? Could he have spooked himself so badly he was imagining things? Hardly. Mike was many things, but wildly imaginative was not one of them.

  “Answer me,” he called, and waited. The groan, when it came again, was softer, barely more than a ragged exhalation. It sounded like someone in pain.

  Mike holstered his weapon. He could manage the flashlight or the gun while climbing, but not both. There was no way he was going over that pile of rocks in the dark.

  He pulled the rocks away quickly now. Whoever or whatever was beyond knew he was coming, and didn’t sound in any kind of condition to prove a threat.

  When he had cleared all of the loose rocks away, there still wasn’t space to crawl through and Mike had no intention of getting wedged underground. He looked at the gap. A child could have gotten through, maybe. He remembered Eliza’s concern about the boy. He was beginning to think she had been right to be worried, just maybe not in the way she had thought.