Ack-Ack Macaque (24 page)

Ack-Ack Macaque took his feet off the table.

“Where are we going?”

“To the armoury.”

T
HE
C
OMMODORE LED
them aft, past the kitchens and staff quarters, to the armoury, located adjacent to the brig, as far from the passenger cabins and public areas as possible.

The door opened to a sixteen digit pass code typed into a keypad set into the bulkhead. The lock clunked, and the steel door swung aside.

Inside, the armoury was about the size of a cheap hotel bathroom. Weaponry lined the walls: police shotguns; long-range sniper rifles; handheld rail guns; a box of grenades. Even a pair of classic Kalashnikovs. The old man gestured like a conjuror.

“Is there anything here that will be of use to you?”

Looking around at the racks, Ack-Ack Macaque widened his one good eye. He rubbed his leathery hands together and his tongue lolled out in a toothy grin.

“How about, all of it?”

He pulled a chrome-plated revolver from one rack and a grenade launcher from another, and turned to Victoria with one in each hand.

“What do you think?”

Victoria looked him up and down, taking in not only the weapons but also his jacket, half-eaten cigar and leather skull cap. A few days ago, she’d have balked at the idea of a talking monkey—especially one with a gun in each hand. Now, when she looked at the macaque, she saw something of herself in it. Neither of them would be alive were it not for the invasive experiments of Doctor Nguyen. And now, together, they were going to get their revenge.

“You’ll do.”

L
ATER, BACK IN
her cabin, she stood in front of the mirror with her head bare. Her wig and hat lay on the bottom bunk, with the boxes and strewn clothes that made up the entirety of her earthly possessions. The mirror had a simple pine frame, and had been fixed to the wall by two screws. In its reflective surface, the face she saw squinting back at her was that of her younger self, as she’d looked a year ago, recovering from the surgery that had saved her life. Since then, she’d grown used to having hair again, and having lost it for a second time, her head seemed disproportionately small. The scar ridge stood out from her temple, the exposed metal jacks shining like rivets. Her fingers brushed them, one at a time.

What was she? Without the surgery, she would have died. But the surgery had removed over half her brain, so in some senses, perhaps she
had
died. She couldn’t survive now without the gelware, there wasn’t enough of her left. Over sixty per cent of her brain had been replaced. Was the remainder enough to claim continuity? Could she still say she was the person she’d once been, or had she become a reanimated ghost, a replicant zombie with delusions of humanity? Certainly, the things she’d done over the past two days would have petrified and repulsed her former self.

Had she really killed a man? In the emotionally-detached serenity of command mode, the action of closing the doors on Berg had seemed logical, perhaps even easy. And even now, she was still half sure it had been the right thing to do.

She glared at her reflection. He’d had it coming. What did she have to feel guilty about? The Smiling Man had tried to kill her twice, and he’d killed her stupid husband. She hadn’t asked for any of it. Berg had come barging into her life, just as she’d been starting to piece it back together, and wrecked it all over again. He’d deserved everything he’d gotten, and his employers, Céleste Industries and the Cult of the Undying, deserved a whole lot more. She touched the side of her head again. They’d turned her into this ugly cyborg creature. And not only her, but also Prince Merovech and Ack-Ack Macaque. In their laboratories, Nguyen and his team had built three deeply traumatised and dysfunctional creatures, convinced each of them that it was real, and then launched them, one-by-one, out into the world.

Her lips hardened into a thin line. Well, to hell with them all. Had they learned nothing from
Frankenstein
? She picked an automatic pistol from the pile of weaponry on the top bunk and checked the magazine. The firearm felt heavy and cold in her hand.

The creatures were coming home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SLAVE ARMY

K8
CAME TO
Merovech’s cabin. She had her arms crossed and a scowl on her freckled face.

“We’ve lost access to the Internet, so there’s not much I can do. Now that Ack-Ack Macaque’s been thrown out of the game, I feel like a spare part.”

From the bunk, Julie gave a tired smile. “Tell me about it. Merovech has gone to the library to work on his speech, and I am sitting here going crazy.”

“Aye, you and me both, then, is it?”

“It seems that way.”

K8 put her hands on her hips.

“Hey, I hear tell that you hacked your way into the Céleste servers, too. You must be kind of handy with a computer, eh?”

Julie laughed. She’d thought she had some skills but, compared to this freckled Scottish kid, she was really just an amateur.

“Still,” K8 continued, “there’s some pretty scary shit in those files, yeah?”

Julie swung her legs off the bunk. “I did not see much. As soon as I found the documents on Merovech, I hit print and went to find him.”

“Ah, you were lucky.” K8 scratched her short, carroty hair. “I had a good root around and I found all kinds of things. Plans for stuff straight out of your worst nightmares.”

“Like what?”

“Compulsory back-ups. Soul-catchers fitted to everyone, by force if necessary.”

Julie made a face.

“I would not want one.”

“You wouldn’t have any choice. If Célestine takes the throne, she’ll order laws to make it a criminal offence not to have a catcher implanted. It’s basic Undying philosophy: back everything up so nothing gets lost. They have plans for a storage facility in a bunker beneath their laboratories in Paris. If war breaks out with China, they want to have saved as many backed-up personalities as possible before the bombs start falling.”

Julie stood. She rubbed her arms as if cold.

“It all sounds ghastly.”

“That isn’t the worst of it.”

“No?”

“From what I read in those files, I think the Undying are trying to deliberately provoke the Chinese. I think they want a war.”

“
Putain-de-merde!
Why would anyone want to start a nuclear war?” Julie’s mind flashed to the horror stories her grandfather had told her. He’d grown up in the 1980s, as Soviet Russia squared off against the European Commonwealth, and his teenage memories were filled with the anxiety of seemingly inevitable apocalypse, when the best a young man could hope for was to be incinerated in the first few seconds of an exchange, rather than surviving to face a lingering death from sickness or starvation. She shivered. Surely the governments of the world had learned from the Cold War, and the insanity of Mutually Assured Destruction? “I thought they wanted Mars. So why would they kill everyone on Earth?”

K8 bit her lip.

“Well, what if they’re planning to do the same on Earth as they are on Mars?”

“Which is?”

“Download all the backed-up minds into android bodies, like Berg’s, and take over.”

“That is crazy!”

“Is it? Androids don’t worry about radiation or lack of food. With China and Europe flattened, there’d be no-one to stop them rebuilding and taking over. The Duchess would have the world at her feet, and a perfect slave army do to her bidding.” She stopped talking. Julie looked at her with her mouth hanging open.

“That is horrible.” Framed by her purple hair, her face seemed paler than usual.

“Are you okay?” K8 asked.

Julie swallowed.

“I really need a cigarette.” She puffed air from her cheeks. “Do you have any?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“I did not think so.” She pulled herself upright. “Okay. First things first. We must tell Merovech, and the others. We must get them all to read those files of yours. They all need to know the stakes for which we are playing.”

“Do they?” K8 shuffled her feet. “Because it seems to me they’re under enough pressure. Victoria and the monkey, they’re both pretty strung out right now. I don’t know if they could cope.”

“So what? We say nothing?”

K8 thought about it. “I suppose we could tell Merovech, if you wanted to. He should know, I guess. We could let him make the decision.”

“He is in the library.”

“So you said.”

Julie straightened her t-shirt and hitched up her jeans.

“Then let us go and see him.” She moved to step past K8, but as she reached for the cabin’s door, an alarm sounded. Both girls jumped.

“
Putain!
” Julie swore. “What now?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

INCANDESCENT JUNGLE FURY

T
HE THREE HELICOPTERS
came from the north-east in the late afternoon. Standing on the
Tereshkova
’s bridge, Victoria watched their progress on one of the wall-mounted display screens.

“Do you think they’ll try shooting at us?”

In his chair, the Commodore shook his silver head. The top buttons of his tunic were undone.

“No. If they really wanted to kill us, they would have sent jets. It would be faster. My guess is, this is a boarding party. They want the young prince intact, yes?”

“What can we do?”

“Very little. Our radio transmissions are being blocked, so we can’t tell anyone or call for help. We could alter course, but they are smaller and more manoeuvrable.”

“You have anti-piracy weapons.”

“Yes. But to use them would be a declaration of war. Better, I think, to let
them
make the first move.”

T
EN MINUTES LATER
, as the swollen orange sun dipped low in the afternoon sky, Victoria stood at the edge of the landing pad atop the
Tereshkova
’s central hull, her quarterstaff extended to its full length, and her pistol pushed into the pocket of her army coat. The wind chilled her naked scalp. Behind her stood a shifting mob of the airship’s stewards, flak jackets and helmets strapped over their white tunic uniforms, each of them self-consciously cradling a rail gun or pistol from the armoury. Beside her, the Commodore stood, the white tails of his dress uniform fluttering, the gnarled fingers of his right hand resting on the pommel of his cutlass.

Together, they watched the helicopters crest the edge of the gas bag, circling in like piranhas, their flanks painted with the eye-twisting black and white stripes of dazzle camouflage—geometric patterns designed to conceal their exact shape and size. Through their open sides, Victoria saw machine gun-toting, black-clad troops ready to deploy the moment the wheels hit the deck.

In the corner of her eye, Paul’s image twitched.

“I don’t like the look of this,” he said.

Victoria took a firmer grip on the staff.

“Shut up,” she told him.

He gave her an offended look.

“Don’t forget whose neural-ware I’m running on. If you get killed, that’s me dead too.”

“And there I was thinking you were concerned for my wellbeing.”

“I am! Of course I am. But we’re in this together now. If you get killed, we both die.”

The lead ’copter came in low, presenting its belly as it dropped. Victoria leaned into the downdraught.

“You’re already dead. Now, get out of my head and keep quiet. I need to concentrate.”

She raised the staff into a defensive position and ran through a mental litany of her opponents’ most vulnerable points: ankles, knees, throats and wrists. A quarterstaff wouldn’t be much use in a firefight, but at close quarters, it could be deadly. And in the meantime, she had the pistol. As the helicopter kissed the pad, she reached into her pocket and, heart beating in her chest, closed her fist around the gun’s cold butt. Whatever else she’d been, she’d never been a soldier. Even in the Falklands, she’d only ever reported from the sidelines of the fighting.

This close, the helicopter’s engines were deafening. Black figures spilled from its hatches, taking up positions on either side, wearing thick flak jackets, gas masks and combat helmets.

An officer stepped forward with a salute.

“Commodore, I am Captain Summers of His Majesty’s Special Air Service, and you are hereby required to hand over the Prince of Wales, His Royal Highness, Prince Merovech.” The gas mask’s eyes were convex blisters of glass. They turned in her direction. “And the fugitive and murder suspect, Victoria Valois. Failure to comply with either request will result in the use of deadly force.”

The Commodore’s medals jangled as he drew himself up. Beneath his bushy brows, his eyes glowered like coals.

“I have to inform
you
, Captain, that you are in breach of international law, specifically those treaties concerning the independence and autonomy of individual skyliners. Any attempt to use force against a passenger or member of my crew will be considered an act of piracy, and responded to accordingly.”

The other two helicopters circled at a safe distance, rotors chopping the sky, out of range of small arms fire, but close enough for the snipers on board to draw a bead on anyone who tried to draw a weapon.

The butterflies churning in Victoria’s stomach threatened to force their way up through her chest and throat, and out into the open air. Sensing her agitation, the gelware tried to push even more adrenalin into her bloodstream, and she had to concentrate hard in order to stop her arms from shaking. Against the metal of the staff, her palms were slick.

The Captain and the Commodore glared at each other: a heavily armoured, bug-eyed shock trooper trying to stare down an old fashioned man of honour carrying only a sword.

“I’m sorry, Commodore, but this really is your last chance. I have been authorised to take whatever steps are necessary to recover the Prince.”

“The Prince has requested asylum aboard this vessel and, as such, I am legally obligated, by the terms of the applicable treaties, to protect him.”