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’ 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.”
HE 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 Berretta 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.”
IN 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: one of 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.
“Anybody alive out there?”
No reply came; at least, none that he could hear. His ears felt as if spikes had been driven into them.
He had to move fast. Firstly, he knew K8 would have heard his shots, and he didn’t want her blundering up here, not until he was sure it was safe. Secondly, half the city had probably heard them too, and he had no doubt the police would be on their way.
Standing, he edged around the doorframe, guns held out in front of him, ready to empty the rest of his bullets into anything that moved.
His shots had scythed through the flat at shin height, splintering wood, cloth and bone. Now, a thick-set man lay curled around a bloody leg wound, trying to stem the flow of blood from where a clean, white shard of bone stuck out from the back of his calf.
Ack-Ack Macaque pointed both revolvers at the man’s head.
“Drop the gun, sweetheart,” he said. The man glared up at him from under a heavy brow, and he did a double take. When K8 had told him that the guy was ugly, she hadn’t been kidding. The man—if indeed he was a man—had a large, bulbous nose, with cavernous, hairy nostrils; his stubble-covered lower jaw seemed too large for his face, and his shovel-like teeth too numerous for his mouth. With one over-sized hand still clamped over the wound in his leg, he tried to raise his gun; but Ack-Ack Macaque sprang forward and stamped on the weapon, forcing the tip of the silencer into the floor. “I said, drop it, dickhead.” He slammed the butt of one of his Colts into the man’s temple. The man’s head snapped sideways, hit the wall with a smack, and he slumped to the floor unconscious.
For a few moments, the only sound Ack-Ack Macaque could hear in the flat was the sound of his own panting breath. He holstered the gun in his left hand, but kept the right one drawn, in case of trouble. Then he bent over to take a look at his fallen opponent. The guy wasn’t particularly tall, but he had powerful, muscular arms, broad shoulders, and a barrel-shaped chest. He wore a shabby overcoat and a cheap brown suit. The ridge on his forehead was far more pronounced than it had first appeared; and his unusually large jaw and protruding chin made his face look as if it had been somehow pulled forward.
“Ugly sonofabitch, aren’t you?” Keeping the Colt aimed at the guy’s face, he slipped a hand inside the raincoat, looking for a wallet, or anything that might identify who—or what—he might be. As he rummaged, he heard the front door slam, and the sound of shoes on the stairs. His SincPhone rang, but he didn’t answer it. Instead, he stood up and faced the open door, gun at the ready.
A couple of seconds later, Cole stood swaying at the threshold. His eyes were wide, and he was out of breath. His coat had a blackened hole in it.
“Monkey?” The word was a croak from dry lips.
Ack-Ack Macaque raised his revolver.
“Don’t move, fucknuts.”
But Cole didn’t seem to hear him. Without another word, the writer lurched forward, and collapsed into his arms.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ANDROGYNOUS SEVERITY
VICTORIA VALOIS RETURNED to the Tereshkova by helicopter. Almost three years had passed since her helicopter crash in the South Atlantic, and yet she still thought about it every time she climbed into one, remembering the helplessness and terror that had possessed her as the ailing craft hit the slate grey sea and started to sink. The raised scar on her temple served as a constant reminder that she’d been lucky not to die in the accident—that she’d only survived thanks to the gelware that had been used to replace the damaged areas of her brain.
Now, when the helicopter from Bristol touched down safely on the pad fixed to the Tereshkova’s upper surface, she felt her clenched fingers and toes relax. Today had been a long day, and she was ready for a hot shower and a good night’s sleep; but she knew she’d get neither for a while yet—not with her professional curiosity aroused and prowling, hungry for answers.
Moving slowly, she made her way down through the hatch that led into the body of the skyliner. A flight of metal stairs took her down past one of the main gasbags, to a draughty walkway that ran the length of the Tereshkova’s central hull—almost a full kilometre in length. If she felt the need, she could walk all the way to bow or stern, past storage areas housing passenger luggage, freight, and essential supplies; additional gas bags; and a thousand other nooks and crannies containing who knew what. For thirty years, the Tereshkova had been the Commodore’s private fiefdom, filled with souvenirs and trophies from a life hard lived and dearly sold; it had been his home and his attic, and now it was hers, and she didn’t have the heart to start rooting through its alcoves, chucking out his stuff.
A series of companionways took her down through another four levels, until she reached the one that led down to the main gondola. She could hear piano music swirling up from the passenger lounge, where a cocktail pianist tinkled on an electronic keyboard, and smell the remnants of the evening’s dinner from the kitchen. Her head was bare, and the top two buttons of her tunic undone. As she clomped down the grille metal steps, she saw someone waiting for her at the bottom. At first, she could only see their shoes; then their baggy cargo pants. The build and stance looked familiar but, for a second, she couldn’t place it. Then she spotted the tattoos on the figure’s arms, and her heart bucked in her chest like a startled horse.
“Paul?” She took the last couple of steps in a daze, and there he was, waiting for her with a stupid grin plastered across his face.
“Do you like it?” She couldn’t let go of the metal banister. Paul was dead; he’d been murdered, and his brain had been removed; she’d seen the body, been at the funeral; and now all that was left of him was the electronic copy of his mind that lived in the Tereshkova’s computer. And yet here he was, standing before her, as apparently solid and alive as she was.
“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
He held up a hand.
“Don’t freak out, Vic.”
“I’m not freaking out, I’m just—” She stopped, and narrowed her eyes. Then, very slowly, she pressed her hand into his chest. Her fingers passed through the
material of his garish Hawaiian shirt without resistance, and pushed in up to the wrist. “You’re a hologram?” Her heart sank. For a moment she’d allowed herself to hope that, however unlikely it might seem, he’d found a way to reincarnate himself. Now she knew what she was looking at, it became obvious he was a projection: a little pixilation here, a little blurriness there.
“Yeah, pretty good, don’t you think?” She pulled her hand back, feeling her breathing slow, and her pulse return to normal.
“How do you do it?”
He gave a modest shrug. “I had the idea while you were away, and got one of the mechanics to cobble it together for me.” He pointed at his feet. “There’s a little remote controlled car down here on the floor, with a tiny projector mounted on it. I control it using the skyliner’s WiFi, and I use cameras on the front to see where it’s going.”
“Wow. That’s pretty good. I have to admit, you had me there for a second.” She bent down and reached into the image of his trainers. Her hands closed around something hard, and she pulled it out. His image flickered and died, and she found herself holding a toy car. It was around twenty centimetres in length, with fat rubber tires and several projection lenses protruding from its roof. A tiny camera sat on its bonnet.
“Sorry if I startled you.” Paul’s voice came from a speaker bolted to the side of the car. Victoria turned the vehicle over, looking at the wiring.
“So, what’s the range on this thing?”
“It can go anywhere on this deck.”
“Only this deck?” Victoria bent at the knees, and placed the little car back on the floor. When she straightened up, Paul’s image reappeared, looking almost as deceptively solid as before.
“I haven’t found a way to make it climb stairs yet.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s just a prototype. Perhaps I’ll build the next version into a little remote-controlled helicopter or something. Maybe one of those floating cameras, like the one the monkey smashed. Or maybe one of those quad copter drones, they look pretty cool.”
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