Hive Monkey (31 page)

“No, you imbecile!”

But it was too late.

They crashed together in a flurry of raking claws and snapping teeth, each intent on ripping out the other’s throat. Ack-Ack Macaque was fast, and fought dirty, but he was carrying the injuries accumulated during the storming of the Gestalt headquarters, as well as the bumps and scrapes from his fall through the trees. The Leader was fresh and rested, and fought with such ferocity that Ack-Ack Macaque quickly found himself being pushed back. A manicured thumb tried to gouge his eye, and he bit it.

But then a blow caught the side of his head, and he staggered. His vision blurred for a second. Reaching out, his fingers grasped the Leader’s lapels, but the other monkey had something in his fist. The Leader’s arm pulled back and light flashed from a steel blade. Ack-Ack Macaque tried to block the blow, but only succeeded in deflecting it. Instead of puncturing his gut, the point of the knife caught him across the upper arm, slicing through leather, hair and skin.

“Aargh!”

Gripping the wound, he stumbled back. The Leader followed, a snarl of triumphant bloodlust on his leathery features, his hand drawn back for another thrust.

And then something hit the airship from above.

There was a cataclysmic crash and a great weight pressed on them. Something had hit the airship, and hit it hard. Ack-Ack Macaque felt his feet lift as the floor surged downwards, and, for an instant, everything went weightless. The Leader staggered and threw out a hand to steady himself against the veranda’s rail. The distraction was all Ack-Ack macaque needed. With a bloodcurdling howl, he ducked under the knife and flung himself at the other monkey. His shoulder hit the Leader in the stomach and, caught off-balance, the other monkey fell back against the rail.

“No!” he cried.

Ack-Ack Macaque wrapped his arms around the Leader’s waist.

“I’m taking you down, sweetheart.”

He heaved with every ounce of remaining strength. Dry bamboo snapped and splintered, and they both crashed through and fell, still struggling, into empty space.

BREAKING NEWS

From
B&FBC NEWS ONLINE
:

GLOBAL WAR!

Reports are coming in of massive aerial attacks against cities in Europe, the Americas, and the Far East. Details are uncertain, but it seems that in the past few minutes, major bombardments have hit London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Tokyo and Beijing. There are also unconfirmed reports of further strikes in Madrid, Rome, Ankara, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Athens.

So far, the bombings seem to be targeting government buildings and military installations, but explosions have hit some civilian areas. The source of these attacks is unknown, but it is feared thousands may already be dead.

Click here for amateur footage of the attacks

No official sources could be reached, but Commonwealth citizens are advised to seek shelter, and tune to the Emergency Broadcast System for updates.

In the meantime, all

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THREADS

V
ICTORIA
V
ALOIS MOANED
, and tried to move. She was still seated in the pilot’s chair, but the floor of the
Tereshkova
’s bridge had crumpled inwards, its metal walls concertinaed by the force of the collision, and she now found herself wedged between the seat and the curved metal ceiling, held in place by the remains of the instrument console.

And beyond the ceiling, she thought, the bomb. Had it survived intact? Obviously, it hadn’t gone off, but that didn’t mean the impact hadn’t triggered some sort of malfunction. For all she knew, a countdown could be under way right now. And here she was, with her cheek pressed up against it.

She twisted around in her seat. The chair had been wedged sideways into the narrow gap between floor and ceiling—an uneven space filled with smashed furniture and broken sections of bulkhead. If she could get free from behind the console, she could probably crawl to the front of the bridge, and squeeze out through the remains of the front window; but the console’s edge pressed uncomfortably into her abdomen, pinning her against the back of the chair, and she couldn’t escape.

“Paul? Paul, are you there?”

Nothing. All the instruments were dead, and all the lights were off.

She tried pushing at the console but its metal stand had been bent in such a way that she couldn’t move it.

“Captain?”

The voice came from somewhere aft, beyond a section of deck that had cantilevered up into the ceiling.

“I’m here.”

“Captain, it’s William. Are you okay?”

She squirmed her hips, trying to wriggle her way out, but to no avail. She tried twice, and then fell back with a curse, slapping the instrument panel that held her.

“I’m stuck,” she said.

Cole didn’t answer straight away, but she heard him banging around.

“I can’t get to you,” he said. “Not without equipment.”

“How many of you are back there?”

“Four stewards, myself and Lila.”

“Marie?”

He paused again. “I don’t know. We can’t get to the infirmary from in here.”

“Can you get out?”

“We can climb through the main hatch behind the passenger lounge.”

“Then go. Don’t wait for me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just get out. Take guns, and do whatever you can. I’ll join you later.”

“Okay.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Good luck, Captain.”

“And to you.”

She listened to him work his way back into the interior of the gondola. Overhead, the main body of the
Tereshkova
’s central hull gave a loud, metallic groan as the wind caught it, and heeled it over slightly to the left.

It wouldn’t take much, she thought, to completely dislodge the
Tereshkova
’s carcass from its precarious perch atop the Gestalt vessel. A decent gust of wind, or some gentle manoeuvring by the bigger craft, could be enough to tip it off, and send it falling, to dash itself to pieces on the roofs and spires of Westminster.

If she were going to get free, she’d have to do it herself.

Closing her eyes, she mouthed the series of passwords that allowed her access to the command mode of the gelware processors in her skull. These slimy artificial neurons handled the bulk of her brain’s processing, regulating the physical functions that kept her body alive and working, as well as supplementing the damaged areas responsible for reasoning and memory. Stepping into command mode was a way of tinkering with their settings, and thereby changing the way her body behaved. Strictly speaking, it was cheating. It was not something the surgeons and technicians who’d installed the neural prostheses had bargained on her being able to do; but she’d pestered and cajoled them, using every trick in her reporter’s tool kit, until they’d finally given her the access codes.

Now, as she shifted her focus, her mind was pulled up, out of the hormone-washed gunk of her biological cortex, and into the crisp, rarefied air of pure machine thought. In this heightened state, she saw everything with luminous summer clarity, unencumbered by fear or anxiety. Life-threatening situations, which would otherwise have left her biological cerebellum quaking, became abstract puzzles to be solved, and self-preservation a desired outcome rather than an overpowering physical imperative.

Coolly, she considered the console in front of her, assessing its weak points and comparing them to her body’s capabilities, balancing necessity against acceptable levels of organic damage. It would be no good, for instance, to escape her present predicament only to find that, because she’d dislocated both hips in the process, she was unable to walk.

There.

Feeling under the console, her fingers found the point where the stand—basically, a steel tube sprouting from the floor—had been welded to its underside. That was the weak spot. If she could apply enough force, she could break the join and kick the stand free, thereby removing the thing that kept the console braced against her.

Pressing back in her chair, she brought her foot up so that it rested against the stand, just below the weld. Then, in her mind’s eye, she summoned up the menus governing adrenaline production and pain tolerance, switched off the safeguards, and turned all the dials up to maximum.

Mentally exhausted, she dropped out of command mode and her awareness fell, like a released fish, back into the comforting shallows of her natural mind.

In response to the changes she’d made, her adrenal glands were dumping huge amounts of adrenaline into her bloodstream. She felt her heart quicken, and her breathing grow rapid, drawing oxygen to her muscles. It was the classic ‘fight-or-flight’ response, and she’d found a way to weaponise it. Butterflies fluttered in her chest, and she itched with a sudden, smothering feeling of claustrophobia. She had to get out, and get out now!

She heard the whine of an electric motor, and a toy car bumped and trundled through the gap where the forward window had once been.

“Paul?”

The car wobbled towards her on its thick, knobby tyres, and paused a few metres away. Her ex-husband’s image flickered into the gloom of the wrecked bridge, crouched in the confined space.

“Hello, Vicky.”

Gone was the Kamikaze headband. Now, he’d reverted to his default appearance: white lab coat over a garish green Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants, and ratty old trainers. His gold earring twinkled.

“Paul, you’re alive.”

He shook his head.

“No, I’m not. I’ve just downloaded myself into this car, but I’m still dead. And, unless you shift your butt, so will you be.” He eyed the ceiling dubiously. “This whole thing’s going to collapse.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try faster.”

Gritting her teeth, she pushed with her foot. Engorged with blood, the muscles in her calf and thigh, already hard from regular training sessions with her fighting stick, bulged like steel cable.

“Come on,” Paul urged.

She felt the sole of her boot flatten against the steel pole, and pressed harder. The chair creaked under her. The quadriceps at the front of her thigh felt ready to rip in half. The back edge of the console rasped against the ceiling. Something had to give; she just hoped it wouldn’t be her leg or ankle.

She closed her eyes and kicked with every ounce of strength.

“Argh!”

With a crack, the weld split. The post clanged back, and the console came free. Victoria tumbled out of the chair, onto the uneven remains of the deck. Her foot throbbed, but she didn’t have time to worry about that now. On hands and knees, she followed Paul’s car forward, across the smashed glass and plastic littering the remains of the bridge, to the window.

As she emerged into daylight, she saw the
Tereshkova
’s prow rising above her, and gave the wall of the smashed gondola a final pat.

“Goodbye, old girl.”

Following Paul, she rolled out from under the skyliner and got to her feet. Her right foot was sore, but the gelware kept the pain in check.

They were on the armoured upper surface of the Gestalt battleship. Further along the two-hundred-metre length of the
Tereshkova
’s pancaked gondola, she could see Cole and his daughter. They were heading in her direction. Behind them, four of the Commodore’s stewards had taken positions behind air ducts and missile turrets, and were keeping at bay a group of armed Gestalt. Pillars of black smoke rose from the city below. Fighter jets screamed overhead, raking the ironclad with cannon fire.

“Come on,” she called to Cole. “We need to get inside.”

The writer carried a Kalashnikov. The wind blew his hair up like the wing of an injured bird.

“No,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I have to go back. My wife—”

“Leave her.”

“But—”

Victoria put a hand to his cheek, turning his face to hers.

“She can’t walk, and we can’t carry her. And if we don’t get down inside this thing and kill that monkey, she’s as good as dead anyway.”

Cole looked down at her with red-rimmed, haunted eyes.

“No,” he said, his voice firmer and more decisive than she would ever have believed. “I lost her once, I can’t lose her again.” He stepped back. “I’m sorry Captain, but I have to do this. I can’t leave her. I won’t.” And with that, he turned and walked back towards the stern.

Victoria let him go. In his position, she would have done the same.

Had done the same.

She glanced at Paul. He glanced back.

“Hell to it,” she said.

Lila was still standing in front of her, an automatic pistol held to her chest. Victoria looked from her to her retreating father.

“Are you with us?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your mother—?”

The girl clenched her jaw. “She’ll understand.”

“Okay, then.” Victoria drew her fighting stick. They’d wasted enough time already. “In that case, you go ahead, and shoot anything that moves.”