“Is that blood?” The realisation seemed to jolt William out of his paralysis. He opened his mouth to cry for help, but Bill pulled a gun from the folds of his sleeves.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
William looked into the black, unblinking eye of the barrel.
“Who are you?”
For long seconds, the gun remained unwavering.
Then, with another cough, the man turned his hand sideways, and offered William the pistol’s grip. “I told you,” he wheezed. “My name’s Bill.” He coughed again. “I’m here to save your life.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE GESTALT
WITH THE TERESHKOVA stationary above the airfield, and passengers already disembarking, Ack-Ack Macaque switched on the autopilot, to keep the vessel in place against the jostling coastal wind, and then knuckle-walked aft from the bridge.
“It’s fuck-this-shit o’clock,” he told the Russian navigator. Time to kick back with a couple of cold lagers, and maybe a rum daiquiri or two. Then later, catch a ride down to the airfield with one of the passenger ‘copters, and hit a few bars. In New York, K8 had found him a fedora and raincoat and, as long as he wore the collar turned up, and the hat pulled low enough to shade his face, he hoped he wouldn’t attract too much in the way of unwelcome attention.
Intent on his plans, he shuffled past Victoria’s office. As he did so, the door opened and she beckoned to him.
“I’ve got someone in here who’s extremely keen to meet you,” she said. She still wore the military tunic but, since he’d last seen her, she’d replaced her wig: a platinum blonde bob which covered the jacks implanted into her temple, and the extensive scarring at the back of her head. Ack-Ack Macaque could smell the Martini on her breath. He looked past her to the figure standing by her desk. It was the same man who’d been in the bar when he’d had had his skirmish with the reporter, Nick Dean.
“Who’s that?”
“Mister Reynolds is here as a representative of the Gestalt.”
Ack-Ack Macaque eyed the man up and down. “I should have guessed that.” Like all members of the cult, Reynolds wore an immaculately white three-piece suit, with matching white shoes and a white tie, and his face held the same distracted, beatific calm they all radiated. “The question is: what does he want?”
Victoria’s smile thinned. “Well, why don’t you come in and ask him?”
She stood aside, and turned to her visitor.
“Mister Reynolds, please allow me to introduce our pilot. You’ll have to excuse his manners, but he’s only barely housetrained.”
Ack-Ack Macaque glared at her. Reynolds bowed in greeting.
“Mister Macaque. May we say that this is indeed a pleasure?”
Ack-Ack Macaque scratched the chestnutcoloured hairs on his chest. “For you, maybe. But I’ve got places to be, and havoc to wreak.”
The man’s smile remained unwavering. “Of course, of course. We understand, and we are sorry for the intrusion.”
Ack-Ack Macaque shivered. He’d run into a few of these Gestalt types in the States, and it creeped him out when they referred to themselves in the plural.
Part religion, part social experiment, the Gestalt used wireless technology to link its members’ soulcatchers, networking them together in a web of shared thoughts and blurred identities.
“I met some of you weirdoes in New York.” AckAck Macaque dug into the pocket of his aviator jacket, searching for a cigar. “I didn’t know you’d spread to the UK already.”
The man’s dreamlike smile clicked up a notch.
“We can assure you, we get everywhere.” He held out a hand, and Ack-Ack Macaque made a face. He didn’t want to shake. He didn’t even want to be in the same room.
“So,” he said, “what do you want with me?” “We saw your unfortunate altercation earlier, and we thought maybe we could offer you our help?” “Help? What sort of help?”
“We have a proposal.”
“I’m not the marrying type.”
The man’s smile tightened. “Please, hear us out. We have been following your case with great interest. A humble monkey raised to sentience? What insights you must have, what unique perspectives.” Ack-Ack Macaque rolled his eye. He didn’t like where this was going. He pulled the cigar from his pocket, bit the end off, and spat it into Victoria’s wicker wastepaper basket.
“Look, don’t get any funny ideas. I’m not going to join your little club, okay?” The idea made him queasy. He’d had enough scientists and engineers crawling around in his skull. He didn’t need any more. “But you would be so welcome.” Reynolds rocked back and forth on his heels. “We have smoothed things over with Mister Dean, and reimbursed him for the cost of his camera.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“It is our pleasure. Our Leader is so very keen to make your acquaintance.”
“You guys have a leader?” Ack-Ack Macaque cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you guys were like some vast hive.”
“Every hive has a queen.” Reynolds licked the tip of his thumb, and used it to smooth his eyebrows. Two quick flicks. “Or, in our case, a king.”
“And who is this king?” In his peripheral vision, Ack-Ack Macaque sensed Victoria tensing, bursting with unvoiced questions. He tried to ignore her.
“To find that out,” Reynolds said smoothly, “you’ll first have to agree to meet him.”
“Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Sure as shit.”
“Please, Mister Macaque. Will you at least consider it? Your brain is mostly composed of gelware, so you wouldn’t need additional implantation; at least, not much. The process of integration could be achieved in minutes, and quite painlessly. And I think it would be of great benefit to you.”
“No, absolutely not.” Ack-Ack Macaque rolled the cigar between finger and thumb, listening to the tobacco leaves crackle. Reynolds took a step closer.
“Welcoming you into the Gestalt would immeasurably enrich our whole.” His breath stank of coffee and mints. Ack-Ack Macaque curled his lip, exposing an incisor.
“If you don’t get out of my face right now,” he growled, “I’ll enrich your hole, with the toe of my boot.”
Reynolds ignored the threat. He reached out his arms as if asking for a hug.
“You wouldn’t have to be alone.”
Alone.
The word rang in the air like the toll of a funeral bell. Cold fingers gripped Ack-Ack Macaque’s stomach, and squeezed. He felt his arms and legs shake. Then, without consciously willing it, he stepped forward and slapped Reynolds hard across the face. The man staggered back against the desk.
“Shut your mouth.”
He pulled back his long arm for another strike, but Victoria stepped in front of him. She had her fighting stick in her hand, but hadn’t yet flicked it out to its full length. He glared at her, his single eye wide and wild, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t submit. Instead, she met his gaze and held it. In another monkey, this would have been tantamount to a direct physical challenge, and Ack-Ack Macaque had to fight down an instinctual surge of aggression. If he got hold of her, he could snap her like a twig. But Victoria was his friend, and saviour: he owed her everything. He might be the alpha male on this tub, but she was definitely the alpha female, and he knew she wouldn’t tolerate any of his shit. She had no patience for insurrection or threats. The last person to raise a hand against her had been dropped from the Tereshkova’s cargo hatch, several thousand feet above Windsor Castle. He eyed the fighting stick in her hand, and let out a long, shuddering breath.
“Yes, boss.” He dropped his chin. His palm stung where it had struck Reynolds’ cheek.
“Thank you.” Victoria gave him a final glare, and then turned to Reynolds, who leant drunkenly against the desk, his fingers dabbing at a split and bloodied lip.
“I am so sorry, Mister Reynolds.” She took his elbow and helped him upright. “
But I believe you’ve been given your answer. Now, do you require medical attention?”
Reynolds shot Ack-Ack Macaque a sideways glance.
“We are sorry you feel that way, Mister Macaque.” His voice was quiet, the earlier self-assurance muted. “For what it’s worth, we were only trying to help you.”
Ack-Ack Macaque shrugged his leather-clad shoulders. He didn’t need any help. He tossed the cigar into his mouth, and caught it in his teeth.
Victoria hustled Reynolds towards the cabin door. Looking back, she pointed a bony finger at Ack-Ack Macaque.
“You, stay here.”
Ack-Ack Macaque harrumphed. He folded his arms and sat on the edge of the metal desk.
“I’m not going anywhere, boss.”
He watched her escort the white-suited man to the corridor. Reynolds had a hand to his bruised face. He was lucky not to have a broken jaw.
It would have served him right, Ack-Ack Macaque thought.
He fished around for his lighter. When he looked back up, Reynolds was watching him, ignoring whatever apologies Victoria was making.
“You will come to us and let us help you eventually, you know.” Not even the cut lip could disguise the certainty in the man’s voice. “After all, where else can you go? Where else can someone like you ever truly belong?”
WHEN VICTORIA CAME back, her cheeks were flushed and her lips almost white.
“Putain de merde,” she said. “What was that all about?”
Ack-Ack Macaque’s jacket creaked as he shrugged a shoulder.
“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot him.”
Victoria looked him up and down, nostrils flared. “If you had, you’d be in the brig right now, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Ack-Ack Macaque flicked his lighter into life. It was a Zippo with a brushed aluminium case, and he was rather fond of it, even though it stank of petrol fumes.
“I can’t help it,” he grumbled. “Those Gestalt bastards make my pelt crawl.” He thumbed the wheel to ignite the wick, and then used the flame to light the cigar. As he puffed it into life, he heard the air-conditioning fans whisper into action.
Victoria wrinkled her nose and flapped a hand in front of her face. “Mine too. But I can’t have you slapping passengers around, especially in my office. Are we clear?”
He tapped a pair of fingers to his forehead in salute. “Clear as crystal, boss.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t been on the espresso again, have you? Because we all know what happened last time.”
Ack-Ack Macaque waggled his head.
“No, boss.”
Victoria drew herself up. Then she let out a long, cleansing breath, and threw her blonde wig onto the desk.
“Right, now that’s out of the way, what are you planning to do with the rest of your evening?”
Ack-Ack Macaque was used to her mood shifts. He shrugged. Reynolds’s final words still rankled him, like a fleabite he couldn’t scratch.
“Drink imported lagers until I puke?”
Victoria smiled. She straightened the collar of her white military tunic, and slipped the retractable fighting stick into one of its pockets.
“That sounds like a damn fine plan, monkey-man. If you don’t mind a little company, the first round’s on me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
UNCOMFORTABLY PARANOID
THE MAN WHO called himself Bill slumped back against the cabin wall, and stretched his legs out before him. One of his hands pressed at the wound in his stomach, and he sucked air through his teeth in tight, rapid breaths.
“I haven’t got long. I have to. Warn you. About the virus.”
Transfixed, William slid forward on the bunk. The gun Bill had given him felt heavy, cold and solid in his grip.
“Who are you? Why do you look like me?”
Bill coughed. Where William’s hair was long and wild, his had been carefully cropped.
“I am you.” He had trouble speaking and breathing at the same time. “Sort of. I’m a different version... of you.”
William felt his face flush. “What, you’re like my twin brother or something?”
“No.” Bill’s head shook loosely on a neck that seemed loath to support it. “I really am... you. But I’m a version of you from a different... world. A parallel... world.”
“Bullshit.”
Bill winced in pain. “You write... science fiction,” he said between clenched teeth. “You know how... this works.”
William fought the urge to curl into a ball and pull the covers over his head.
“No way,” he said, voice unsteady. Parallel worlds were just a bit of fun, a thought experiment at best. Writing about them was one thing; he didn’t necessarily believe in them. Despite setting his books in one, he’d never on a gut level accepted the idea of them as being true. “How did you get here?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But—”
Bill raised an arm. “We don’t have time… for explanations. You’re in danger. I’m here to help.”
William leaned forward. “So, you know who’s been trying to kill me?”
“Yes.” Bill’s breathing was shallow. The sweat glistened on his brow. “We didn’t think... they’d find you. Not so quickly. We have to move you. Before they try—” His words dissolved into a convulsive fit of coughing. His shoulders shook and his back arched. By the time the fit subsided, his lips were dark, and shone red in the torchlight. Feeling panicky, William tried to stand.
“I’ll get help.”
Bill’s hand locked around his wrist like a cuff. “No, it’s too... late.” The words were a bubbling whisper. “They’re going to release the virus. You have... to stop them. Find Marie. She’ll help you...”
William pulled back. “Marie’s dead.” His mouth was so dry he could barely speak. “She died two years ago.”
Bill turned his head and spat a wad of red phlegm onto the deck.
“Not. That. Marie.” His body shook in a final spasm, and then fell back against the wall. His chin dropped to his chest, and a line of bloodied drool unwound slowly from his lips, onto his beard. William heard the last of the air wheeze from his blood-filled lungs, and knew for sure that the man was dead. Dumfounded, he sat and stared into Bill’s face, with the uncomfortably paranoid feeling of just having watched his own demise.
K8 HAD THE Tereshkova’s kitchen more or less to herself. The radio on the shelf played a concert from the BBC’s Paris studios, and the cook, a large Russian with a dropping moustache, snored in a chair by the open porthole, his feet up on an upturned bucket.
Much as she loved living on the Tereshkova, K8 treasured moments like these. In the rattling boxes of the skyliner’s gondolas, peace and quiet were scarce commodities.
K8 was a seventeen-year-old former hacker from Scotland, and one of Ack-Ack Macaque’s most trusted friends. A pair of headphones dangled around her neck as she mixed ingredients in a bowl: flour, eggs and sugar; a handful of white chocolate chips, and a chopped banana. The cookies she was making were for the monkey. They were his favourite, and she called them ‘macaque snacks’.
Not that he’d ever thank her, of course. Not out loud. He seemed embarrassed when people did nice things for him, and so the most she could expect would be a grunt. But she knew he liked them, and that was enough. Besides, she enjoyed having somebody to cook for. At school, the only subjects in which she’d shown any interest had been computer science and home economics; and, to her, cooking and hacking had always had their similarities. Both required concentration and the methodical combination of ingredients. If you followed the procedures, and threw in a dash of creativity, you could perform magic. The right components, put together in the right order, were capable of conjuring forth perfection.
And, she thought as she spooned the thick, sugary mixture into blobs on a baking tray, if you knew the rules you could find ways to break them. You could hack your taste buds with new combinations of flavours, such as whit
e chocolate and banana.
She made two rows of blobs, leaving plenty of space for them to spread out as they cooked, and then bent down to slide the tray into the oven. As she slammed the door, the chef muttered in his sleep.
She’d been Ack-Ack Macaque’s wing woman for a year now, having helped him escape the clutches of her former employer, Céleste Technologies. And she’d seen and done more in that time than she’d ever believed possible. Since the company plucked her from her mother’s two-bedroom tenement in Glasgow, her life had been a mad whirl of travel and adventure. But, however unfamiliar or dangerous things had become, she’d always felt safe because he’d always been there. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, of course, but when he was there, she didn’t have to.
He was her commanding officer, and her best friend; but, more than that, he was a shield against the world. In that respect, he reminded her of her ratty old teddy bear—the one she’d slept with every night of her childhood; the one she’d clung to during the arguments and recriminations of her parent’s divorce; the one who’d kept her company during the lonely evenings spent with her finger jammed in one ear and the pillow jammed in the other.
When she was near him, she felt safe the same way as she had when she squeezed that bear. Except, she couldn’t imagine Ack-Ack Macaque letting anybody hug him. The thought brought a smile to her face. Whatever else he might be, he certainly wasn’t cuddly.
She checked her watch. The cookies would take a few minutes to bake through. She’d wait for them, and then she’d hit the lounge while they cooled. She was only seventeen, but had an arrangement with the bar staff. As long as she didn’t ask them to serve her directly, and as long as she limited herself to a few glasses of wine in an evening, they turned a blind eye to her age. The Tereshkova’s rules said you had to be eighteen or over to drink in the bar—but as long as Ack-Ack Macaque ordered the drinks, the stewards were quite happy to pretend they didn’t know that one of the glasses he wanted was for her. She tapped her foot.
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