World Walker 1: The World Walker (3 page)

"Which direction was he heading in when he exited the facility?" said the voice. Chad hesitated, licking his lips nervously.

"Wake up, soldier and answer my question; and I need you to be precise. Which wall did he walk through?" Chad thought for a second, sweating more.

"At the foot of his bed, sir." Another brief pause.

"Then he's heading west. Get out there. Do a five-mile sweep. If any civilian has made contact, bring them in. Report every ten minutes. I'll be there within the hour."

***

In a wood-paneled home office in a gated Los Angeles suburb, a man in a dressing gown looked at his cell phone and frowned, thinking, before making another call. He spoke as soon as it was answered.

"It's Westlake," he said. "I want a five-man team and a chopper immediately."

He nodded at the answer and went to the closet to get dressed. He picked out a snub-nosed Glock to tuck into the holster under his armpit. As he laced his shoes, he could already hear the rhythmic throb of the approaching helicopter. He smiled grimly and went out to the helipad at the back of his lodge.

Chapter 3

As the tall glowing alien stretched out a hand with impossibly long fingers, Seb felt no fear at all. Part of him coolly noted that this was probably not a normal reaction. He put it down to the fact there was more of his own blood currently enriching the dry soil of the trail than still weakly pumping through his veins. He wondered why an extraterrestrial should want to make contact with a dying man. Well, it made as much sense as plucking Mid-West farm boys from their solitary late night hooch-consuming sessions, giving them a quick tour of the old spaceship before sticking high-tech probes up their anuses. What was it with aliens and anuses anyway?

Seb blinked and looked into the huge dark eyes of the creature. He was about to die, and didn't want his last thoughts to involve anuses. He tried to reach up to grasp the alien's hand.
What am I going to do? Introduce myself and offer him a shot of the Scotch?
He half-laughed, half-coughed and a mixture of dark, thick blood and spit flopped onto his chin and ran onto his shirt. His hand twitched slightly in response to his brain's command to move, then lay still. Too much blood loss. He felt his vision suddenly beginning to narrow and heard his pulse slow to a funereal pace. Ah, the famous tunnel. The glowing figure in front of him seemed to dim as did everything he could see and hear around him. It was as if reality had no more significance than a TV playing quietly in another room. Seb knew it was there, but it held no interest for him. The tunnel was real.
Will I get to see a light? Meet Mom and Dad? Do orphans get to meet the parents they've never met? Could be awkward. Still, might get to meet Jesus if the TV evangelists are on the money. Not much chance of that. Oblivion it is, then.
He sighed, feeling the last shred of life slipping away, and closed his eyes.

The alien grasped both his hands. The huge black eyes closed. The touch was icy. Dimly, Seb wondered how he could feel anything at all in fingers no longer connected to his bloodstream. Then, suddenly, the sensation changed to one of warmth, then heat, then a rush of pain as if red-hot lava was sliding up his arms. Not just on the surface - inside, as if the spilled blood was being replaced with boiling, spitting oil. He took in a huge, ragged breath, oxygen hitting his dulled senses in a rush of color, humming, blurring, his whole body vibrating with a massive surge of adrenaline.
 

The alien suddenly pulled Seb to his feet, the light emitting from his glowing gray body seeming to pulse in time with the beating of Seb's heart, which was accelerating every second, back from the brink of stopping altogether. Seb's breathing got faster and drops of sweat appeared on his forehead. He felt no fear, caught entirely in the moment, a man who had chosen to die feeling more alive than he ever had before.

All sense of time passing slowed, then stopped.

Seb had been to summer camp when he was twelve and had learned to dive from a board. The swallow dive was his favorite. There was always a moment in the dive where he'd reached the top of the arc, the moment between rising and falling, the best feeling, weightless, when anything seemed possible. It felt like that moment now - poised in time, just before the fall began. But Seb knew there was a choice here. He didn't have to fall. He could fly.
 

He just had to say yes.

But yes to what, exactly? Life...and something more. Something other. Something that would change him forever. Seb realized that were he to accept this invitation, he would be opening a door through which no human being had ever stepped. He would be alive, alone...and yet...he wouldn't be alone, quite. Somehow, he could feel others, tendrils of awareness brushing his consciousness.

He hesitated, his mind settling like a pond after the last ripple from a thrown pebble has washed gently against the reeds.
 

He felt the tug of time, of expectation, but also the lure of death, which he had faced and accepted. In the last months he had learned to truly let go; of possessions, of friends, of the future and the past. And death was just the last step of letting go. He had made his decision with no expectation of an alternative. And yet...

Time unfroze. The Bach prelude started again and Seb heard it as if for the first time, as if each note was unfolding in every moment.
 

Bach. How could he leave life when it had Bach? And The Beatles. And Frank Zappa. And Randy Newman. And Thrash Metal.
 

Seb smiled. He said yes.

***

The two soldiers were nearing the limit of their five-mile search when Chad saw a glow from the trees ahead. He spoke softly into the mic on his lapel. "600 feet northwest of my position. That glow. It's got to be him."

The voice in his ear sounded calm but he had known Carl long enough to hear the tension.

"Stay where you are."
 

As Carl came alongside him, Chad pointed ahead to where the trees thinned revealing a clearing near a path favored by joggers and dog-walkers. The two men parted without speaking, heading toward the target in a pincer movement, weapons drawn and ready. Chad reached the edge of the clearing, looking to his right, his night-vision goggles revealing Carl moving silently into position and nodding. He nodded back and turned toward the glow.
 

Billy Joe stood in the clearing, his back to Chad. The soldier narrowed his eyes, trying to see what was happening. He wondered how he was supposed to persuade the alien to play nice and come back to his comfortable cell.

"Can you see what he's doing?" he whispered.

"There's someone with him," said Carl. "He's - Jesus!" Chad gasped and both men ripped the goggles from their faces as the glow suddenly brightened.
 

"What the-," Chad pressed the call button on his phone. It was answered immediately.

"Report."

"Sir, we've found him. He's not alone. It's a civilian. They're...um...they're holding hands." The pause on the other end of the line was no more than half a second but Chad had visions of his career being flushed down the toilet.

"I have your position. We're ten minutes out." Another pause. The line went dead. Chad stopped holding his breath.
 

Seb felt a pain unlike any he could ever have imagined. It lasted no more than a fraction of a second, but it was as if his entire body had exploded, every atom separated from its neighbor then sucked back into place. There was a roaring in his ears, his eyes burned and his skin felt as if it was changing from millisecond to millisecond: now soft, now liquid, now a vapor, now impervious, diamond-like, now fluid again, rising and falling like a tide on the screaming muscles beneath.
 

The two watching soldiers yelped with pain and covered their eyes as the two figures suddenly flickered, then shone like the midday sun. The glare only lasted an instant, but when they looked back they could see nothing. It took nearly half a minute before their eyes adjusted and when they could see clearly, they doubted their own sight. Billy Joe was only glowing faintly now, but his whole body seemed less substantial. It wavered and rippled, as if being seen through water. He was no longer touching the civilian. His hand came up and made a slow cutting gesture in the air. Then he turned sideways and slid out of existence.
 

"Chad?" came Carl's voice in his ear.

"Yeah," said Chad, "I saw it too. What the hell do we do now?"

"We grab that guy. That's what we do." Both soldiers moved cautiously out of the cover of the trees, their weapons raised.

Seb watched the alien disappear. It was as if he had just walked right off the planet. Seb took a couple of deep breaths, tasting the air, the unique mixture of mountain oxygen and LA pollution. He took a small step forward and stumbled slightly. He remembered his wrists, his dead fingers. Looking down, he slowly raised his arms, searching for evidence of the deep cuts he had made only hours before. His skin looked unmarked. He raised his wrists closer to his face, dimly aware of someone shouting.

Chad saw the guy lift his arms. "Weapon!" he shouted. Carl dropped to one knee, bracing the assault rifle against his shoulder, narrowing his eyes, still trying to see clearly through the residual glare. Chad kept his rifle pointing at the man and called out to him.

"Drop your weapon!"

Seb looked at the unmarked skin on his wrists and smiled. The Bach prelude continued evolving in his brain. He heard shouts again but could only truly see and hear what was in front of him. He grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, his thumb exploring the area which should be an open wound.

"DROP YOUR WEAPON NOW!"

Seb was alive and feeling better than he had in years. He threw back his head and laughed.

The soldiers fired at the same moment and eight rounds were emptied into Seb's body, one reducing his heart to a mass of shredded tissue.
 

"Well, there's an irony," Seb had time to think before pitching face forward into the dirt.
 

Chapter 4

14 months previously

Berlin, Germany

Despite holding the comparatively junior post of Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Dietricha Strennbourg occupied an office in the Bundeskanzleramt second in size only to the Chancellor's. The German press had christened Dietricha 'Bou-Dietricha', a particularly ineffective pun that had, somehow, stuck. It was supposed to be a reworking of 'Boudicca', Britain's first-century Celtic warrior queen. Dietricha had spent three years studying at Oxford University, and, early on in her political career, a story had surfaced linking her with undergraduate Pagan organizations. The press found a photo of her in a druid-like cloak, holding a carved wooden staff. She had laughed off the speculation, said it was a fancy dress party, and, as no naked photos of her participating in nature rituals at Stonehenge had appeared, the story went away. The name stayed, however. And, secretly, Dietricha liked it. She even had a name plate on her desk, carved with rune-like letters, spelling Bou-Dietricha.

Her rapid rise from intelligent but unproven small-town lobbyist, to a central government position within a few short years had taken many political commentators by surprise. It was no surprise to those who knew her well. She was driven, ambitious, single-minded and ruthless. The environmental lobby had championed Dietricha's career early on. She was an outspoken advocate of green policies, refusing to give an inch on her principles, even when under pressure from big business. She spoke well, she looked good, and, best of all, she intimidated the opposition. It didn't hurt that she was six feet tall, but it was really the force of her will that took people aback when they met her. She didn't so much negotiate as demand, and her utter self-belief convinced many an opponent to concede more than they had planned. She was formidable, and the media loved her. All who worked with her professed great respect and admiration for Dietricha Strennbourg. No one had a bad word to say about her, on or off the record. Journalists marveled at this rare universal approbation for a politician. Not one of them guessed the real reason for it: fear.

In Dietricha's opinion, fear was an underused, undervalued concept in public office. In her opinion, politics was all about power and power was all about fear. Respect, love, they might get you a few rungs up the ladder, but keeping opponents terrified was a far more effective tool for advancement. Dietricha knew she would be Chancellor some day. Every other politician she'd had dealings with knew the same. The Chancellor herself certainly knew it, and had quickly agreed to move Dietricha's office from its traditional home in Bonn, to Berlin, the political heart of Germany. The only reason Dietricha was still content to remain - in the view of the public, at least - an underling, was the fact that her network was still growing. As she moved through the ranks, she met more and more influential people from all parts of Germany. She also met senior figures from other European countries and superpowers like America, Russia and China. She contrived reasons for private meetings with as many of these people as possible. Once she had spent some time alone with them, they were hers. All in all, the plan she had first begun to conceive during those pagan rites in the Oxfordshire countryside had fallen into place with barely a single hitch. Because the newspapers had been right about the paganism after all. Although she had thought of herself as more of a Druid at the time. Now that she was more self-aware and less self-deluding, she was perfectly happy to call herself by the most fitting epitaph, with no sense of shame at all. Quite the opposite. Bou-Dietricha was proud to be a witch.