Hive Monkey (10 page)

And it had set light to the fabric of his coat. With his hands beating at the flames, and his nostrils filled with the stink of bonfires, he turned and ran for all he was worth.

TECHSNARK

BLOGGING WITH ATTITUDE

Legion of the Bland?

Posted:
08/11/2060 – 16:00 GMT

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Wave of the future, or totalitarian techno terror? Whatever your opinion on the white-suited Californian cult, one thing’s for certain: the ‘Gestalt’ is here to stay.

Since its inception a mere two years ago, the cult’s grown at an unprecedented, and some would say alarming, rate. Their website boasts more than a million linked-up members across the world and, just yesterday, they petitioned the United Nations in New York, demanding to be recognised as a sovereign nation – a nation without geographical or ethnic boundaries.

Adherents to the faith use adapted soul-catcher technology to broadcast every thought and image in their heads to every other member of the cult. They can ‘hear’ what each other is thinking, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days per year; and they claim this makes them the ultimate democracy, with 100% participation in every decision. Human language is, they argue, too limited and imprecise a medium to truly and reliably communicate the complexities of our innermost nature; only by linking brains, they say, can we fully engage in meaningful discourse.

According to its literature, the Gestalt cult aims to create a ‘global consciousness’ and free humanity from the hatreds and conflicts that have dogged its history. And yet, despite all this techno-utopianism, the individual members (if they can still be described as ‘individual’ in any meaningful sense) exhibit a disappointing blandness – the complacent vacuity of born-again converts whose troublesome personalities have been sterilised in the name of conformity. Yes, they seem happy but, speaking personally, I don’t trust them. There’s something sinister about the way they move and talk in unison. I grew up believing in freedom and individualism, but the men and women of the Gestalt seem dedicated to wiping out every quirk and foible, turning us all into mindless drones. They might wear white, but don’t let that fool you. Beneath that smiling, angelic exterior, they’re no better than ants in a nest or bees in a hive.

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CHAPTER TEN

UGLY SONOFABITCH

T
HE
D
OWNS WERE
an expanse of green parkland that ran along the lip of the Avon Gorge, sandwiched between its cliffs on one side and the city on the other. They ran a couple of miles downstream from the Suspension Bridge, eventually blurring into the leafy avenues of Sneyd Park and Henleaze. Having left the house, Ack-Ack Macaque figured Cole would have come this way, trying to lose himself in the darkness beyond the streetlights; but, so far, all he’d found had been a pair of urban fox cubs rooting through a bin, a drunken reveller asleep on the grass, and a misted-up car full of dope-smoking teenagers listening to Parisian techno.

Freed from the encumbrance of his overcoat, which he’d stashed beneath a park bench, and wearing only a t-shirt and holsters, he moved like a wraith through the cold November night, scampering on all fours from one clump of trees to the next, his breath steaming like cigar smoke from his mouth. Most of the Downs had been given over to rough grassland, and he tried to stick to the overgrown areas, hoping that if anyone saw him, they might mistake him in the dark for a dog.

From certain vantages, he could see right down into the bowl of the city. Bristol nestled around the old harbour side, where tall ships had once tied up, carrying tobacco and slaves, bringing in the wealth that had paid for much of the city’s construction. Those docks had been a major global port; a hub of commerce and piracy; and the jumping off point for expeditions to far-flung lands of unexplored exotica. Now, all he could see down there were the glittering hologram signs that strutted and danced above the nightclubs and restaurants, and the advertising blimps drifting like goldfish between the church spires and high-rise hotels of the city centre—from which the surrounding districts spread, clinging to the sides of the ancient arterial roads like frost accumulating around the strands of a spider’s web.

Like a dog, he was trying to pick up the writer’s scent, but the smells of the city were too strong. They came drifting across with the omnipresent buzz of traffic and the occasional wailing siren. The ground around him smelled of moss and dog shit. The wind brought the oniony tang of fast food from the streets at the edge of the park, and animal scents from the nearby zoo; and, he had to admit, all those cigars hadn’t done his sense of smell any favours. Nevertheless, he kept searching until his SincPhone rang.

“What?”

“It’s me, boss.” K8 sounded annoyingly perky. “I’m parked across from the flat.”

“I’m not there anymore.”

“I know, Captain Valois told me. Have you found Cole?”

“What the fuck do you think?”

“No sign, huh?”

Ack-Ack Macaque looked at the orange streetlamps, and the lit windows of the shops and houses, wondering if he’d made the right call. He’d assumed Cole would have made for the cover of trees and darkness; but maybe that was his own instinct talking. What if the old guy had gone into the city instead, trying to lose himself in the crowd? “A city this size, he could vanish forever.”

“Do you think he might have jumped off the bridge?” K8’s tone held the ghoulish delight of a teenager. “I hear people do that sometimes.”

“Nah.” Ack-Ack Macaque let his free hand drop to the gun at his side. “He was frightened, not suicidal.” His leathery fingers drummed against the holster, and he scanned the horizon. “I just keep wondering: if I were an unstable, gun-toting psychopath, where would I go?”

K8 laughed. “You
are
an unstable, gun-toting psychopath.”

Ack-Ack Macaque harrumphed. He was about to end the call—his thumb was actually on the button—when she took a sharp intake of breath. He heard the Mercedes’z leather seat creak beneath her as she wriggled lower.

“What is it?” he asked, all humour gone. “What’s happening?”

“A car just pulled up.” Her voice had dropped to a breathless whisper. “A guy got out. Now he’s letting himself into the flat. The car’s leaving.”

Ack-Ack Macaque looked around at the empty park. “Is he a cop?”

“I don’t think so. That wasn’t a police car, and the guy at the door doesn’t look like a policeman. He’s big and ugly-looking, and I think he means business.”

Ack-Ack Macaque huffed. Tonight was supposed to have been a party night, and here he was, chasing a madman on a common when he could have been lying drunk under a table somewhere. “Okay, I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes. Keep your head down until then. Don’t let them see you.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice, Skip.” Even over the phone, her excitement was palpable.

He sighed. Teenagers...

“Just do it, fuckwit.”

H
E RETRIEVED HIS
coat and hat, and retraced his steps. When he reached the house, he saw the Mercedes parked at the opposite kerb, in the shadow of the Avon Gorge Hotel. He opened the passenger door and slid in beside her.

“Is he still up there?” He couldn’t see any lights behind the first floor windows.

“No-one’s come out yet.”

He dumped his hat and coat onto the back seat, and hunched down beside her, with his feet pressed against the dashboard. “If he’s sitting in there in the dark, I’d guess he’s planning to jump somebody.”

“The dead guy?”

Ack-Ack Macaque pulled out one of his Colts and checked the cylinder. “Chances are, he already knows he’s dead. I’m guessing he had something to do with it, and now he’s come back to stake out this place.” All six shells were where they should have been, so he snapped the cylinder back into place, and re-holstered the gun.

“But why?” K8 wriggled closer to him. “Who’s he waiting for?”

“Cole.”

Her eyes widened. “Cole?”

“Somebody tried to kill him, then his double turned up dead.” He pulled out his second revolver, and flicked it open. “The two events have to be connected.”

“But why would big-and-ugly in there expect Cole to come here?” A furrow appeared between K8’s eyebrows. She may have been exceptionally bright when it came to computers and electronic systems but, like most teenagers, adult motivations were still largely a mystery to her.

“He did though, didn’t he?” Ack-Ack Macaque glanced at the copper shells nestling in the second gun. All six were present and correct, which meant he had twelve shots altogether, should he need them.

“Yes.” K8’s frown deepened. “But that’s because we brought him with us.”

Ack-Ack Macaque returned the second gun to its holster and cracked his hairy knuckles.

“In which case, as far as the bloke in there’s concerned, we’re Cole’s allies.”

K8 wriggled lower in her seat. She had a flick knife in her sock, and a small Beretta in the glove box.

“Skipper, all that stuff Cole was saying about parallel universes?”

“Sounded like bullshit to me.”

“You don’t think it’s possible?”

“I haven’t a clue.” Ack-Ack Macaque scratched his belly beneath the t-shirt. “Just remember he writes science fiction. Those guys are all nuts. They’ve all got a screw loose somewhere.”

K8 jerked a thumb at the unlit window. “So, who do you think our friend is?”

Ack-Ack Macaque let his lips peel back over his yellow incisors. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“Does it involve violence, by any chance?”

“Hell, yeah.” He reached for the door. “You stay here, I’ll grab him, and we can beat it out of him.”

I
N THE OLD
days, back in the game, he wouldn’t have thought twice about kicking down the front door and going in with both guns blazing. It was his style, his
modus operandi
. But he wasn’t in the game anymore; oh no, those days were long gone, along with his invulnerability. He wasn’t bulletproof anymore. Like it or not, over the past months, he’d had to get used to operating in the real world. Out here, actions had consequences, and injuries were real. He’d had to learn that the hard way. He’d had to wise up and find a way to temper his natural recklessness.

So, now, despite being tempted to mount a screeching frontal assault on the flat, he instead made his way around to the back of the building, where the waste water pipes from all the sinks and toilets clung to the outside wall like a giant, multi-limbed stick insect. If the building were alive, these pipes would be its digestive system. He had to climb over some bins to reach them. The main pipe was about the width of his thigh, and moulded from some kind of hard black plastic. Hardly breaking stride, he wrapped his hands and feet around it, and began to climb.

Reaching the first floor took a few seconds. A tributary pipe branched off, disappearing into the wall beneath the frosted glass of a bathroom window. Hanging by one hand from the main pipe, he stretched for the windowsill. The height didn’t bother him; he was only about twenty feet up, and, in his time, he’d scaled much taller trees. Having made the sill, he saw that the window came in two parts: ones which opened outward like a door, and the other, smaller one above it, which hinged upwards like a flap. Right now, only the smaller one was open.

Clinging to the sill by his toes, he reached in and carefully unlatched the bigger window. Then he was inside, perched on the edge of a ceramic sink in a darkened bathroom no bigger than a large closet. His nostrils twitched at the damp reek of mouthwash, hair product and black mould. And there, behind it all, something else: a trace of something unfamiliar, something that hadn’t been in the flat earlier; something that smelled of wet hair and stale, almost oniony sweat. Whoever this guy was, he smelled more like an ape than a human.

Leaving the window open behind him, Ack-Ack Macaque dropped silently to the floor and reached for the door handle with his left hand. As he did so, he drew one of his pistols with his right. If he wanted to get the jump on the guy in the flat, he had to be stealthy.

Like a motherfucking ninja,
he thought to himself. But the door fittings were old. As he gently tugged the handle, the hinges squeaked. The living room light snapped on, and he found himself staring down the barrel of a fat silencer.

So much for stealth.

He leapt back and slammed the door, and dropped to the bathroom’s tiled floor. Muffled shots blew splinters from the door panels and spanged off the sink, spraying him with chips. He rolled onto his back and fired both Colts through the gap between his feet. Three times he squeezed the triggers. In the enclosed space, the noise was thunderous. When he’d finished, most of the lower half of the door was gone.

Groans came from the other room. Ack-Ack Macaque slid his ass across the tiles, and kicked the remains of the door from its hinges.