Maladapted

by Richard Kurti

  She paused for a moment and stilled her breath, allowing her hearing to find clues in the air…

  Crows circling overhead.

  Wind across the ridge.

  In the far distance an engine revving. Had Crop-Hair managed to raise the alarm? Was help coming?

  The clink of rocks below, steady and relentless. The 2 remaining assassins were coming for her.

  Tess clambered on, desperately trying to think of a survival plan, when just for a moment her footsteps made a strange echo. She clicked her fingers. It sounded as if there was a hollow close by.

  Quickly she ran her hands across the rocks until she found a gap just wide enough for her body. She stuck her head through and whistled softly. It was some kind of small cave.

  This was good. This could work.

  Tess slipped into the hollow and slumped against the rock on the far side. From this position she could hear the assassins approaching, she would see their shadows crossing the entrance. All she had to do was set the Koch to burst fire and aim at the light.

  Easy.

  Unless she killed herself with the ricochets.

  And provided both assassins were close together.

  And that they didn’t toss a grenade in here first.

  Still, no plan was perfect.

  As Tess waited for the end, her fingers explored the ancient rocks. A trickle of damp had become home to some moss, and the floor was pitted with small indentations where water dripping for thousands of years had worn the granite away.

  Higher up the wall her fingers found some regular patterns carved into the rock. She squinted in the darkness, peering really close, and could just make out a line of ancient symbols.

  Who had left their mark here? A Neolithic worshipper? Someone hiding from predators? What would it be like to talk to that ancient race now, to try to explain how everything had changed, and yet in some ways nothing had changed? Despite all the high-tech in the world, people were still hunted down, still forced to run for their lives.

  An angry burst of bullets in the gulley outside shattered her train of thought.

  She braced herself, finger on trigger.

  When strangely, return fire rattled around the rocks.

  2 different weapons. A firefight.

  That didn’t make sense. Why would the assassins be firing at each other?

  Tess strained her ears, trying to piece together what was happening from the jumble of violent sounds.

  She heard shouting, some kind of warning, then another burst of shots and a woman screamed in pain. She was hit. Badly.

  More footsteps, moving really fast and close, scurrying across the rocks above her, fast as a lizard, but much heavier.

  Tess gripped her rifle, aiming it at the cave entrance, focussing everything on the blurry patch of light. As soon as a shadow appeared she would shoot. That was the only way to stay alive.

  No time to find out who was out there.

  No time to ask questions.

  Just shoot and survive.

  Gunfire ignited again. Closer this time. Another weapon fired back.

  Tess concentrated on the echoes. Both gunmen were moving, but one was much faster than the other.

  Moving and firing.

  Really fast.

  Impossibly fast.

  Suddenly the shooting stopped. There was a strangled cry, then a terrified scream.

  Silence again.

  Footsteps approaching.

  But that couldn’t be right. 4 assassins. She’d killed 1. The tractor had impaled a second. She’d heard 2 die up here.

  So who was still out there?

  Tess held her breath, finger poised on the trigger.

  The footsteps crunched closer on the loose rock outside.

  She braced herself for the kill…

  And then someone spoke. “Tess.”

  A shadow moved across the entrance to the cave.

  “Tess…”

  She had to shoot, do it now or die—

  But she knew that voice, even though it wasn’t possible. “Cillian?”

  “It’s all right. They won’t harm you now.”

  Tess staggered to her feet and stretched out her arms, reaching towards the blurred shadow. She put her hands up to Cillian’s face and touched his skin.

  “You found me,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “You found me…”

  She felt his face move under her fingers as he smiled.

  “I did owe you,” he said.

  He put his arms around her and they held each other tightly.

  86

  P8 had contingencies: if attacked, they were to retreat to designated secure precincts far below street level.

  The fires had barely been extinguished and the rubble was still smouldering when P8 started ramping up standby systems, transferring all their work to the new labs.

  Everyone in the organization worked fast, as many of the running experiments were time-critical and if they weren’t back online quickly, years of research would be wasted.

  But Cole’s job was different. He had a Priority One assignment. Gabrielle had set out a detailed protocol to be followed in the event of her death, and that took precedence over everything else. She and Cole had even rehearsed the routine when Gabrielle was still alive, so he knew exactly what to do.

  Immediately after he’d found her body crumpled on the floor, Cole activated the Regeneration Notice. Minutes later fluids were being pumped through Gabrielle’s corpse, circulating oxygen, nutrients and plasma, trying to hold off death’s decay.

  Now as Cole followed the gurney down narrow corridors, he looked pensively at the bottles of vital fluids clamped to the stretcher and the technicians hurrying alongside, diligently checking monitoring screens. It was odd to see so many people making such a fuss over a corpse.

  The gurney stopped by a high-security entrance; Cole swiped his card across the reader, touched his thumb on the pads and the doors opened.

  Inside was a row of massive glass incubators bristling with oxygen feeds, IV drips and drug-lines. Each cradle was tended by 3 complex robotic arms, controlled by banks of computers in a dedicated SmartTech nursing station.

  Cole watched as the technicians gently loaded Gabrielle’s body into an incubator and started the lengthy process of plugging her up. He turned to the head nurse sitting behind an array of control panels. “What are her chances?”

  The nurse studied the screens. “The toxins caused multiple organ failure, there are early signs of necrosis, her heart was punctured causing a severe internal haemorrhage … it’s going to make Regeneration complicated.”

  “Not the answer I wanted.”

  “It’s the way things are, I’m afraid.”

  Cole gazed at Gabrielle’s cooling body. “We need her. You do understand that?”

  The nurse stopped tapping her keypad and glanced up from the screens. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d see Cole so moved. “If it can be done, we’ll do it,” she said, trying to sound confident.

  “Gabrielle’s ideas built everything. All this…” There was a sense of wonder in Cole’s voice. “If she’s not with us for the next phase … there is no justice in the world. No justice.”

  “Death has always been a challenge,” the nurse admitted. “But we’re pushing back a little harder every time.” She pointed to another incubator on the opposite side of the room. “We nearly succeeded there. But he was just too far gone.”

  Cole crossed the room and looked at the body in the incubator. It was split wide open so that robotic arms could carry out intricate micro-surgery, while nanobots nurtured the new organs being grown in situ from stem cells. Despite the traumatic procedures, the man’s vital signs looked surprisingly stable. His face was even starting to lose the ghastly pallor of death.

  Cole had only met Cillian’s father on a few occasions, but it was enough to know that Paul would approve of how they’d tried to bring him back to life. What better way to defy the terrorists who had bo
mbed the Metro than to cheat death?

  “He looks pretty good to me,” Cole observed.

  “Don’t be fooled. He’ll never open his eyes again. He’s brain-dead. The best we can do is keep his body ticking over.”

  “Well, I’m afraid …” Cole turned and slowly paced towards the Nurse, “… that won’t be good enough for Gabrielle. She believed that with enough money and resolve, anything was possible.” Cold determination tinged every word he spoke. “Now prove it.”

  Anxiously the nurse glanced back to her screens. “We’ll try.”

  87

  In the darkness, all Tess could feel was the biting wind on her face. For a few hours it was a relief to keep her eyes closed and block out the rest of the world.

  They had made their way down from the ridge with Tess clinging to Cillian’s back. At the plantation encampment he’d bathed and bandaged her eyes, delicately removing as many stone splinters as he could. It would have to do until they could get to safety and a hospital.

  Now they were on the Benedetta Overdrive, speeding towards the coast and the promise of freedom on the Continent.

  They rode deep into the night, not stopping until they arrived at a rocky headland overlooking a massive port blazing with lights. This was where the towering cruise ships docked to disgorge their passengers onto high-speed shuttles for Foundation City. It made the port useless for Cillian and Tess as it would be teeming with security systems that were almost certainly monitored by someone in P8’s network of informants.

  So they rode on, following the narrow roads that wound around coastal inlets, until eventually they came to a rundown harbour, the sort of place where fishing trawlers had been docking for centuries.

  Quotas had wiped out the local fleets years ago, but it was impossible to stop small boats from slipping in and out of these obscure coves. The locals who ran them were already plugged into the black market to sell their catches, so Cillian hoped it wouldn’t be too hard to find someone willing to trade the weapons they’d stolen. 4 rifles in return for safe passage across the sea – it was a bargain for someone.

  A few hours later, Cillian and Tess were sitting on a quayside wall, listening to the soft lap of the dark water, waiting for a small boat to finish refuelling.

  “Do you think we’ll ever come back?”

  Tess breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh, sharp air. “I don’t see how we can.”

  “It doesn’t feel right, though, running away.”

  “You’re sure you want to go through with this?”

  “We’re out of options, aren’t we?”

  But Tess could hear the reticence in his voice.

  “What about the terror attacks? What happens now Blackwood’s dead?”

  Tess thought for a moment. “There’ll be a power struggle inside Revelation. The Suprema will be jockeying for position. I guess it depends who wins.”

  “So it could get even worse?”

  “I hope not. For everyone’s sake.”

  “And Generation Zero? Will they still be targets?”

  “They’ll always be targets.” She moved her hand along the wall so that it brushed against Cillian’s. “That’s why we have to get away. Find somewhere to hide.”

  Cillian put his hand over hers and held it tightly. He stared out across the ocean. At night it looked so sinister, black and huge and unforgiving, as if warning everyone that they ventured out on it at their peril. And yet the warmth Cillian and Tess drew from each other’s hands made even that brooding ocean seem a little less daunting.

  “I’m glad it’s you, Tess.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “Me too.”

  “As long as we’re together, we’ll find a way. Somehow.”

  “Right! Let’s get going,” the fisherman called out, as he untied the mooring ropes.

  Cillian turned round to take one final look at the country he was leaving. He could still see the faint glow of Foundation City’s billion lights in the night sky. Despite everything, he felt a sharp stab of remorse as he remembered the violence of that final encounter with Gabrielle.

  He didn’t have a choice. He had to remember that.

  She’d tried to kill him and he’d defended himself.

  But…

  There was something else that disturbed his mind. Something wasn’t quite right … something didn’t fit the pattern…

  He replayed the scene again, stepping through it slowly, focussing intently on each detail, each moment … from different angles—

  And his heart lurched.

  I see it.

  A disturbing image locked in his mind. There, behind Gabrielle’s body, he could see a word carved in small letters on a limb of the polished titanium statue.

  A single word: Huxley.

  A name.

  Not a serial number.

  Not the Latin for a new species.

  Not H+.

  A name.

  A person’s name.

  Cillian clicked through his memories until he was looking directly into the creature’s face … staring into those eyes…

  And now he realized that this was no bland prototype; its expression was too troubled, too complex. It had the face of one who had already experienced hope and pain.

  H+ wasn’t just a statue…

  She walked the Earth.

  Living.

  Breathing.

  The new human.

  Nausea overwhelmed Cillian as he finally understood.

  “What is it?” Tess knew something was very wrong. “Cillian?”

  But his mind was numb with shock.

  Tess slipped the bandage from her eyes and managed to focus on his face. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s too late,” he whispered. “They’ve created her. It’s too late.”

  Tess could feel fear radiating from his body like a primal force. “Let’s just get to safety. Then we can figure out what to do,” she urged.

  “It’s no use.” Cillian shook his head. “Nowhere is safe now. We’re history. Wherever we run, it won’t be far enough.”

  Immediately, instinctively, Tess’s training kicked in, pushing her to survive no matter what. “Listen to me.” She reached out and held his face. “First we run. Then we get strong. Then we decide who to fight. Understand?”

  Cillian thought how cold her fingers felt on his face.

  “Do you understand?”

  He looked at Tess searchingly. There was not a flicker of doubt in her scarred eyes.

  There couldn’t be.

  Because doubt was weakness.

  And they both knew that weakness would not survive.

  Not in the future that was now coming.

  A future where being human would not be enough.

  Acknowledgements

  One of the great joys of writing is rewriting.

  Going back to a manuscript, digging deeper, exploring new paths and discovering fresh vistas is a really fascinating journey.

  Like any expedition, it’s best done in good company, and I have been extremely fortunate to work with Walker Books. Denise Johnstone-Burt and Daisy Jellicoe have been a brilliant editorial team, combining encouragement, wisdom, criticism and patience in just the right proportions.

  Huge thanks also to Hilary Delamere, Julia Kreitman and everyone at The Agency for all their support, advice and bold thinking over many years.

  Living with a writer can’t be easy, but I’m extremely grateful to Karen and Hugo for finding a way to do it, and for all their love and support along the way.

  “How long does it take to write a novel?”

  Thanks to the software logs, I can now give an accurate answer…

  Excluding all the reading and research (of which there was a lot!) Maladapted took 35,624 minutes to actually write. Which is 594 hours.

  Looked at another way, that’s 37 seconds for each and every word.

  Not that I’m obsessed with numbers.

  To find out more, visit www.
richardkurti.com

  Or take a look at Twitter @Richard_Kurti

  And if you want to see what a writer gets up to, visit RichardKurtiWriter on Instagram

  Also by Richard Kurti

  Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Award

  Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal

  “Strikingly original.” Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider series

  “Ratchets up the suspense and dread with unrelenting urgency, compelling readers to keep the pages turning.” Kirkus Reviews

  “Readers who might be drawn to Watership Down but prefer a faster pace will relish the antics of the monkey tribes of Kolkata.” Guardian

  “Kurti … creat[es] an animal world of utter credibility, easily as subtle, complex and devious as our own.” Irish Times

  “A powerful allegory in the style of Watership Down or Animal Farm… Effective and unnerving.” Publishers Weekly

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  Other books by Richard Kurti

  Monkey Wars

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published 2016 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  Text © 2016 Richard Kurti

  Cover illustration © 2016 Levente Szabó

  The right of Richard Kurti to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.