Macaque Attack (34 page)

“Make the most of it,” he said, watching as K8 took photographs of the view with her SincPhone. She didn’t reply, just kept snapping. She knew as well as he did that they might never get another chance to come here, and that their forthcoming journey to Mars could very well end up being a one-way trip, even if they somehow defeated Célestine and her minions.

He was pleased to see that she’d finally changed out of her white suit, into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, both purchased on the ride here from the airport. The suit jacket and skirt had been abandoned in the back of the taxi and were now somewhere in the city below, off on adventures of their own.

Ack-Ack turned to look into the wind, at the vast dark bulk of the
Sun Wukong
. The airship rode at anchor above the airport, its impellers spinning sporadically to keep it in place. From here, he could see the damage it had suffered during its confrontation with the Leviathans. Its armour had been blackened by flame and smoke, and pockmarked by shells, which had, in a handful of places, penetrated through into the rooms and spaces within.

The
Ameline
sat atop the larger vessel like a frog on the back of a surfboard. Its three landing legs were splayed to provide maximal balance, and the sun glinted from its various sensor blisters and intake valves. In a few short hours, he would be riding it into space. He glanced up, at the seemingly impenetrable blue of the zenith.

“To shake the surly bonds of Earth,” he misquoted, “and punch the very face of God.”

K8 looked around. “What?”

“Nothing.” He patted his jacket pockets. He wanted another cigar but the last one had left his throat raw. On the other side of the viewing area, a couple of wild Barbary macaques perched on a railing, watching him with dull, suspicious eyes. They were used to the tourists that came up here during the year, but this was the first time they’d seen one of their own parading around in clothes and boots, taking in the sights like a human—and standing as tall as one.

He flipped them the finger.
Fucking yokels.
What did they know about anything? Here he was, about to launch himself into the void in order to save their hairy backsides, and all they had on their minds was food. They sat up here year after year, looking down on the town with its cars and motorbikes, luxury hotels and airport... and scratched themselves. They were curious, but their curiosity seemed limited to the contents of handbags and litterbins; none of them had ever ventured downslope to steal a car or attempt a little credit card fraud. Their worries were immediate and mostly revolved around eating and fucking, and they’d go on to spend their whole lives up here on this rock, sandwiched between Europe and Africa and knowing nothing of either.

He envied them that, he realised. They’d never have to fight a war or save a planet. If he’d been given the choice, he’d have stayed like them. He’d have been far happier to have been spared the upheavals of the past few years, and instead have spent his life as a simple, half-aware simian, passing his days in the rough and tumble ignorance of monkeydom.

They glared at him, and he glared back, showing his teeth.

“You want to swap places?” he asked them. “Be my fucking guest.”

L
ATER, HE AND
K8 rode the cable car back down to street level. They caught a cab to The Macaca Sylvanus, a small pub adjacent to the main airport terminal, and a place popular with visiting skyliner crews.

All eyes watched them as they walked from the door to a table by the window, where they had a view of the runway and the looming underside of the
Sun Wukong
.

“It’s hard to imagine,” K8 said when they were settled with drinks, “that all this might be gone in a few months.”

Ack-Ack Macaque swirled the rum in the bottom of his glass. The ice cubes cracked and clinked. “Only if we fail.”

“And how likely is that?”

He didn’t really want to think about it. “We’re trying to fire a two-kilometre-long airship into space using experimental engines and a force field we don’t really understand,” he said. He raised the glass to his lips and sniffed the contents. “Your guess is as good as mine. For all I know, the whole fucking thing’ll blow up on take off.”

“But you won’t be on it, will you? You’re going ahead with Abdulov.”

“Fuck yeah.” He’d flown all sorts of aircraft in his time, from his beloved Spitfires to lumbering transport planes. Now, he was itching to get inside the
Ameline
and see what she could do. If the size of the fusion exhausts at her stern was anything to go by, that crate could really
move
. He tipped a little of the drink into his mouth, savouring the sting of the alcohol on his tongue. “That’s the plan.”

“What about me?”

“You can come if you want.”

K8 visibly perked. “Really? I thought you’d want me on the
Sun
, looking after the machinery.”

“Nah.” Ack-Ack Macaque glanced around the room. Most of the patrons had gone back to their own conversations; those that hadn’t were trying not to stare. “If it works, it works; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I can’t see how you being on board will make a damn bit of difference.” He drained his glass and set it down. “Besides, you didn’t think I’d go off and leave you behind, did you?”

K8’s cheeks coloured.

“I did wonder. Things have been a little... weird between us.”

Ack-Ack Macaque gave a snort. “I did what I could. You wanted to be brought back to the hive, so I brought you back.”

She fiddled with the straw in her bottle of Pepsi. Without the white suit, she looked younger and somehow more alive.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I did. That’s true. For a time, getting back was all that seemed to matter—but I think I’m getting over that now.”

Ack-Ack Macaque put down his glass. As well as the change in her outward appearance, he’d noticed the change in her speech patterns. Every time she opened her mouth, she sounded less like a blissed-out automaton and more like her old self.

“Good.” He reached up and scratched his eye patch. “Because there aren’t going to be any Gestalt on Mars.”

“What about the Founder?”

Ack-Ack made a face. That was a subject he
really
didn’t want to discuss. He tried to shrug it off.

“It’s complicated,” he said, voice gruff.

“I know Victoria’s got her locked in the brig.”

Ack-Ack picked at the hairs on the back of his hand. “Abdulov thinks she’s some kind of alien.”

K8 took a sip of cola. “What do you think?”

“I think I knocked her up.” He signalled to the barman for another round.

“Awkward.”

“No shit.”

Outside, a supply helicopter rose from the tarmac. He followed it with his eye as it wheeled upwards, towards the vast airship. Another followed, and then another. Merovech had been as good as his word. Food, water and other consumables were being loaded onto the
Sun Wukong
, along with enough spacesuits to allow the monkey army to operate on the surface of the Red Planet.

The suits had been hastily churned out by the
Ameline
, and were little more than transparent inflatable human-shaped balloons with sleeves for arms and legs, and large fishbowl helmets. They were designed to protect the old trading ship’s passengers in case of accidental hull breach and cabin depressurisation. They were flimsy and vulnerable, but they’d do for now. As long as they kept out the vacuum long enough for him to defeat the last copy of the Duchess, he’d be satisfied. He could start thinking long-term survival later, with the fight over and both worlds safe.

“You know,” K8 said hesitantly, “I never blamed you for what you did to me.”

Ack-Ack Macaque scowled. “You didn’t have to.”

A fourth helicopter lumbered skywards. He watched it wobble into the air, the downdraught from its rotors kicking up a swirl of dust and sand. K8 reached over and grasped the cuff of his jacket. “And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either.”

“Easier said than done.” At the height of the final battle against the Gestalt, he’d given her to the hive. It had been a tactical decision and had played a big part in their final victory, yet the guilt had been immense. For the past two years, as they’d traipsed the multiverse freeing uplifted monkeys from laboratories on a hundred different parallels, he’d watched her suffer withdrawal from the rest of the hive, knowing all the time that he was the cause of her pain and discomfort, that it was all his fault.

“Forget it,” K8 said. The barman brought more drinks. Ack-Ack looked around at the people on the other tables. There were about a dozen of them, all told, in a room designed to hold around three times that number. Some were crewmen and women from visiting skyliners. You could tell them by their uniforms. The others were a mixture of fans—former gamers bedecked in vintage leather flying coats and decorative brass goggles—and wannabes here to find work. A small knot of tourists lingered by the counter, throwing the occasional glance his way, and more were arriving all the time, sidling into the room in ones and twos as news of his presence spread over the social networks.

K8 leant across the table and whispered, “And since when have you had a conscience, anyway?”

Ack-Ack Macaque didn’t want to meet her eye. He toyed with his glass instead.

“It’s a recent development,” he said.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

NOT BEING ONE

W
HEN
A
CK-
A
CK
M
ACAQUE
and K8 returned to the
Sun Wukong
an hour later, Victoria was waiting for them. She sniffed the air.

“Have you been drinking?”

Ack-Ack Macaque grinned. “Just an eye-opener, boss.”

“Good.” Victoria rubbed her hands together. A good night’s sleep had done wonders for her; she felt brisk and alive for the first time in days. “Because we need to talk.” She led them to the bridge. With the craft stationary, the control room remained deserted. Those crewmembers that weren’t ashore were busy aft, helping repair and refit the vessel for its upcoming voyage.

“About anything in particular?” Ack-Ack Macaque flopped into the pilot’s couch and put his feet up on the console.

“About your girlfriend.”

“What about her?”

Victoria swallowed down her irritation. “We need to decide what to do with her. We have her locked up, but should we turn her over to the authorities, or take her with us?”

The monkey took hold of his tail and started half-heartedly grooming it, his glove-like fingers picking through the scorched and frazzled hairs at the tip.

“I don’t think it matters,” he said. “Because if she’s what Abdulov claims, I think she can escape any time she wants.”

Victoria poked her tongue lightly into the side of her cheek and exhaled a long breath.

“We’ve had her locked up for two years.”

“Have we?” Ack-Ack Macaque didn’t look up. “Because I met her in the forest, right before I stormed Célestine’s compound. Who do you think gave me all those guns?”

“Are you sure it was her?”

“Of course I’m sure. Abdulov said she sometimes went by the name Apynja, and that’s who I met. Only she didn’t look like a monkey then, she looked like an orangutan.” He let the tail drop. “And when we’d finished talking...” He trailed off, and coughed. If Victoria hadn’t known him better, she would have sworn he was embarrassed. She stepped over and put her hand on the console, next to his feet.

“What happened when you finished talking?”

He coughed again, and his yellow eye glowered up at her. “She went all see-through and vanished, like a ghost. There, are you satisfied?” His stare dared her to disbelieve.

Victoria frowned. “So, all that stuff the Founder told us about who she was and where she came from—”

“All horseshit.”

“But if she can come and go as she pleases, why’s she stayed in our custody for the past two years?”

Ack-Ack Macaque took his boots from the control panel and put his hands on his knees.

“She’s a talking primate. Where better to hide than in an airship full of them?”

“So, we just let her go?”

He stood, and straightened his coat. “The way I see it, it doesn’t matter. If she wants to go, she’ll go. If she wants to stick around...”

“Abdulov wants to arrest her.”

“So what? A lot of people in London want to arrest her. You saw what a mess the Gestalt made.”

Victoria raised her chin. “Julie died in the Gestalt attack, or had you forgotten? Merovech will want her to answer for that.”

Ack-Ack Macaque made a peculiar growling noise deep in his throat. His breath smelled, as it so often did, of rum. “Well, Merovech can go whistle. Whatever else the Founder is, she’s carrying my babies.” He stomped towards the door. “I know she’s done some bad shit, but the babies come first. If Merovech or Abdulov or anybody else wants a reckoning, they’ll have to wait.”

“And what if they won’t wait?” she called after him.

He paused at the door.

“They’ll have to come through me first.”

A
FTER HE’D GONE
, Victoria went to stand at the main floor-to-ceiling window, looking out across the Strait in the direction of Tangiers. She wanted to talk to Paul, wanted to hear him make one of his smart-alecky quips to defuse the tension; only Paul was gone, and she had nobody. The inside of her head felt empty and echoing, like a cabin without a passenger—an emptiness mirrored by the dull, hollow ache in her heart.

Pleasure craft bobbed on the ocean; ferries cut back and forth. To the west, a civilian skyliner rode the prevailing wind, plying a coastal circuit that would take in Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Alexandria and Tunis. Victoria watched it pass, imagining the passengers lounging on its observation decks. At that moment, she would have given anything to be one of them, to have seen the whitewashed coastal towns and ancient ruins of the Mediterranean for herself, while she still had the chance.

Such a cruel irony, she thought, that she would have to leave the world in order to save it.