The next few seconds seemed to pass extraordinarily slowly to Walt. There was no scream, just a grunt from Westlake as he swung the weapon. Nothing else could be heard above the noise of the engine, but when he looked again, Walt saw Seb's body on its side, his head about four feet away. Blood was still pumping out of the neck.
"Don't just stand there," said Westlake. "Burn it up."
Walt walked forward as Westlake backed away. He pulled the trigger that released the gas and simultaneously ignited it. A jet of flame roared out of the nozzle.
They stayed long enough to make sure it wasn't a bluff of some kind. Then they kicked what was left into the bubbling cement, turned off the truck's engine and walked away. Westlake sent a message to Mason and they drove back into the city.
***
The priest drove for about five minutes without stopping, then took a right into a parking lot, swiftly climbing four levels before backing into a space. Meera sobbed in the back. The priest made a phone call.
"Good to go," he said. "This feels weird. Thank you for doing this. Goodbye." Then he closed his eyes for about ten seconds. When he opened them again, he turned and grinned at Meera.
"It worked," thought Seb.
"Of course," said Seb2.
"Can't quite believe they bought it," said Seb.
"Hey, a homunculus that smart could have spent a week with them without being caught. He was something else."
"He was me. You. Whatever."
"Not a person. A complex sub-program designed to emulate one. If an AI programmer could have met it, he'd have passed out."
"Yeah," said Seb. And Walt and Westlake just covered the evidence - or lack of it - with concrete."
"Enough patting on the back. Now life is going to get really interesting."
"Why?"
"Better ask her. Hope she'll be pleased to see you."
Meera watched the priest turn around and grin at her. Something about that grin. It just didn't seem to belong on that face. But it sure looked familiar. Then she forgot to breathe for ten seconds. The priest's face blurred, moved, the features softening like clay, the whole body shifting, the clothes changing color. The grin stayed put. But when it was on the new face, Seb's face, it suddenly belonged. She laughed, burst into tears, then leaned forward and punched him on the arm. He started laughing too. She climbed into the front seat, sat on his lap, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him like she had never kissed anyone before. When they finally broke apart, they looked at each other for a minute or two.
"Couple of things," said Seb. He put his hand flat on the faded walnut veneer dash. It changed to leather under his fingers, the interior of the vehicle remaking itself in seconds, the changes spreading out from his fingers and increasing in speed and scope as they encompassed every last inch of the car. She looked at the badge on the steering wheel. Apparently, they were now sitting in a BMW. Mee looked at him google-eyed
"What are you? What are we going to do?" she said. "Where are we going to go?"
"I'm a World Walker," said Seb. He held up his hands as she started to speak. "I don't know much more than you. As for the other questions, I really don't know. There's so much to tell you, Mee. But first, we need to get away. Far away." He smiled at her gently and put his hand on her face. "This might feel a little strange. Hold still."
Meera felt her skin tighten, then slacken strangely, the roots of her hair tingling. She looked in the rear-view mirror and gasped. Then she looked back at Seb and gasped again. Then she giggled until she thought she wouldn't be able to stop.
Mason had people stationed at every exit of the parking lot within a minute of the station wagon pulling in. Barrington was on the fourth floor, his cold, blank stare scanning everyone coming through the doors. After 20 minutes, a team swept the entire parking garage, reporting back that no station wagon had been found. Barrington's report insisted the priest and Patel must have got past one of the less vigilant members of Mason's team. No one could answer Mason's question as to how that was possible. The search continued for a week but no trace was found. Mason kept a low-key worldwide search active permanently. He hated loose ends.
Barrington, meanwhile, never once gave another thought to the octogenarian couple who had shuffled past him on their way into the mall. The old boy, with a Florida tan and bony wrists, had stopped and spoken to him.
"No school today, sonny?" he had said, and ruffled Barrington's hair. If he hadn't been so intent on finding the priest and the girl, Barrington might have considered stopping the old bastard's pacemaker, but he didn't have the time. He just briefly glared at the frail, watery-eyed nightmare in the blue shirt, with his elasticated tan pants pulled up to his ribs. He never saw the old guy turn around and look at him after he'd taken a few steps. He never saw him smile. And he never saw him kiss the old woman with him like a teenager and, his hand tightly holding hers, both of them smiling broadly, stroll out of sight.
THE END
Author's note
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If you're reading this, the likelihood is you just finished The World Walker. My first novel. So, before I go any further, let me thank you. Thank you. I would love to be able to write more books, and you are instrumental in making that a possibility. Don't let the responsibility weigh too heavily on you. If you really enjoyed it, I'd love you to leave a review on Amazon. And maybe click http://http://eepurl.com/bQ_zJ9 to sign up for news on more books and occasional blogs (not many, I'm lazy and I'm going to be spending my free time writing the next World Walker book. Yes, there will be another one.) I'm even on FaceBook and twitter, apparently. I'll send the prologue to everyone who signs up above. It tells the story of Simeon, the founder of the Order. In the end, it didn't get included because I wanted to get straight into the action. But if you enjoyed the book, I think you'll like it.
I used to enjoy Stephen King's author's notes as much as his books. More, sometimes. I liked the sincerity, the directness. As readers, we were reminded that the rich work of fiction in which we had just lost ourselves was not the work of some kind of super being, just a regular human being. Well, perhaps not completely regular, in Mr. King's case. Every time I read one of those notes, I felt that itch. The itch I hadn't yet scratched, making itself known again. But I never did anything about it. Mostly because, as Ray Bradbury put it, "writers write". Every interview with a writer suggested they wrote because they had no choice. If they couldn't get in front of their computers, typewriters or yellow legal pads with that brand of pencil every day, their lives would fall apart, their marriages would break up and they would end up living in a cardboard box, drinking lighter fluid and shouting at pigeons. Hand on heart, I couldn't make the same claim. I wrote, sure, but I always enjoyed the sensation of having written far more than actually writing.
It took me an age to realize many writers feel the same way. I don't know why this information took so long to sink in. After all, one of my favourite writers, one of the few I had read in my teens, twenties, thirties and forties is Douglas Adams, and he seemed to hate the act of writing. When he wrote the radio series, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, he was famously locked into a hotel room by the producer until he finished it. But, somehow, he managed to author some of the funniest, most thought-provoking books of all time. He also once said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
Don't get me wrong. I have written before. Scripts, sketches, lots and lots of songs. The occasional short story. I had small successes along the way, but nothing to get excited about. I had notebooks full of ideas for novels. But the longest thing I'd ever written was around 10,000 words long. I had no idea how writers sustained an idea for so long. And who'd want to spend all that time trying when the vast majority of first novels never get published? I didn't have that much confidence, but I admired those who did, the talented few who made it.
Then ebooks came along, a novelty at first. When Amazon launched the Kindle, it obviousl
y wasn't going to be a novelty for long. And so a new era began. Writers were publishing their own books. When that first Kindle came along, I was an early adopter. My job at that time involved an awful lot of flying, as I was playing piano and singing in Scandinavian bars most weekends. I used to buy dog-eared paperbacks from thrift stores, read four or five every weekend and leave them in airports, bars and restaurants for the next reader to discover. The Kindle did wonders for my back as I could now lift my carry-on baggage unaided. After re-reading every Sherlock Holmes story, some Dickens and every cheap classic I could find, I started filling it with thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, magic, religion, philosophy. When I hunted the Kindle store for new books, I sometimes came across writers I'd never heard of before. Their books cost me less than a good cup of coffee. I bought some. I'll be honest, many of them weren't so hot. I got a bit more discerning, read reviews, tried a sample. And I found some great stuff out there. Wool, by Hugh Howey, was one I remember. And The Martian by Andy Weir. Now both of them have big publishing deals and The Martian is a movie starring Matt Damon. Self-published books! Everything has changed.
The final convincer (although it took me another four years to start writing, but, hey, I'm a slow learner) was meeting someone who wrote ebooks. Ebooks that sold enough to make him a living. Pot boiler political thrillers, high-octane, violent. Eminently readable, and tens of thousands of readers had discovered this and were buying his books. Murray McDonald. He's even written a scifi novel - The God Complex. You'll find him on Amazon. Just having a friend who described himself as "a writer" without blushing was a new experience. Finally, I had first-hand, undeniable, evidence-based findings: it's possible to write books and make a living at it. For real.
I started writing. I still had those old notebooks, but I'd been inspired by an interview with science writer and presenter James Burke, during which he was encouraged to make predictions about the next forty years of technological progress. He foresaw the rise of nanotechnology leading to a society of abundance, without poverty or hunger. I wondered if our age-old hierarchies of the haves and the have-nots would be permitted to be up-ended quite that easily. Then I speculated what the world would look like if the technology already existed, but, for some reason, was only available to a few. Next, for some reason, Roswell, New Mexico, 1947 popped into my head. And, suddenly, it was hard to write my notes fast enough to keep up with the alternative world that was springing into being.
Seb and Mee aren't done yet. Mason haunts the World Walker without us ever finding out much about him, but I know much more than I'm letting on. He'll be back. As will Walt, who fascinates me. I know I'm doing that author thing now, talking about the characters as if they were real. They are real! Sonia Svetlana turned up halfway through the first draft without ever featuring in my notes. She was such a powerful character, I wrote her into the story much more fully. Scared the crap out of me, I don't mind admitting. And the Order has always been more than the sum of its parts. It's not going anywhere.
I'm writing this note in a cafe. I've overdone the caffeine today, so it's afternoon tea for me. How civilized. I finished the novel four days ago and sent it to a few friends and family members to check for errors and let me know if it made sense. One of them - Neal - read the whole thing in two days flat and loved it. Really loved it. His enthusiasm gave me a glimpse into the way authors feel when their work makes a real, tangible connect with someone else. What a rush! So if this book ends up sinking into obscurity, Neal was wrong. But if enough readers feel the way Neal does, I might end up being able to say, "I'm a writer" without caveats or embarrassment. So, one more time, before I start work on the next book, thank you, whoever you are, for reading this one.
Ian W.Sainsbury
Norwich
February 9, 2016
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