“Any serious damage?”
“Nothing dreadful; mostly crockery and furniture falling over. A few bumps and bruises. Everything else is secured against turbulence. Except—” He bit his lower lip. “Oh dear, oh dear. Our furry friend’s going to be very upset.”
“Why, what is it?”
He glanced at the back of the monkey’s head, and then leant in close to whisper in her ear.
“It’s his Spitfire.”
“What about it?”
“It’s fallen off.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
IN THE CELLAR
THE DRUGS THEY’D given K8 hadn’t knocked her completely out, just rendered her queasy and muddled. A whole bottle of vodka would have had a similar effect. She had vague, blurred impressions of being bundled out onto the Tereshkova’s flight deck and stuffed into a helicopter. Her legs hadn’t been working properly, and so the men in white had to support her by the elbows. Then it was all blue sky, white clouds and green countryside until they landed in a garden somewhere, and they led her into the cellar of a big old house, and threw her down onto a bare and filthy mattress.
She lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying to stop the room from spinning. Then she felt small, tentative hands shaking her by the shoulder, and turned her head (making the walls of the room swoop and sway even more sickeningly) to find herself looking into the concerned eyes of a girl about her own age.
“What…?”
The girl shrank back. A bruise darkened her cheek.
Her eyes were wary.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
K8 tried to sit up; then put a hand to her head and groaned, waiting for the pain behind her eyes to recede.
“I’ve been drugged,” was all she could manage. The girl didn’t reply. Instead, she shambled over to a workbench by the door and came back clutching a metal canteen. She held it out and K8 took it, unstopped the lid, and sniffed.
“Water?” The girl gave a nod. She had brown hair tied back in a long plait, and wore a grey t-shirt, and a pair of combat trousers done out in the black, white and grey splodges of urban camouflage.
K8 took a sip from the canteen. The water inside was cool and tasted of aluminium. She rinsed it around the inside of her cheeks, and spat onto the floor.
“Who are you?” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Where are we?”
The girl hugged herself.
“My name’s Lila.”
K8 frowned, and rubbed her forehead.
“You’re Marie’s daughter, right?”
“You know my mother?”
“Yeah, sort of. I heard her mention your name. Just now, before those freaks grabbed me.” With great effort, K8 pushed herself up into a sitting position and placed her feet on the floor. The room dipped and shuddered, but then seemed to steady itself, and she decided she’d better remain upright for the foreseeable future—at least, until she felt better. Tipping the canteen to her lips again, she swallowed a mouthful of water, and tried to take stock of her surroundings.
The cellar was about the same size as the passenger lounge on the Tereshkova, and illuminated by a single strip of light in the centre of the ceiling. It had obviously been used as a storeroom for many decades. Sagging, cobwebby boxes sat stacked against the back wall. She saw the handle of a tennis racket protruding from one, and the moth-eaten arm of an old teddy bear sticking from the flap of another. Piles of decades-old newspapers sat clumped in string-tied bundles. Small screws and chips of wood littered the floor where they’d fallen. The air smelled of wood and mildew, and reminded her of the smell of the lock-up garage where her grandpa had kept his old car.
“Where are we?”
Lila took the canteen from her hands and refastened the stopper.
“I’m not sure.” She nervously brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I mean, I’m pretty certain we’re still in England. All those newspapers are English, for a start. I’m just not sure exactly where in England we are.”
K8 thought about trying to stand, and decided against it. She wasn’t convinced her legs were ready to bear her weight.
“Have you been here long?”
“A couple of days.”
“Any idea what they want with us?”
“They’re using me as a hostage, to get to my father. Why they’d want you, I have no idea.” Lila crossed her arms. “I don’t even know who you are.”
‘Oh, sorry.” K8 rubbed her eyes, trying to force herself to feel more awake. “I’m K8.”
“Kate?”
“Aye, close enough. I’m from the Tereshkova. I’ve been looking after your father.”
Lila tensed.
“My father?”
“William Cole, the writer.”
“Oh.” The girl squeezed her hands together. She turned her head away. “He’s not really my father. It’s complicated. The last time I saw my real father, he was on his way to the Tereshkova, to intercept Cole.”
K8 felt a chill. “If you’re talking about ‘Bill’, he did.”
“How is he?”
She swallowed. She wasn’t in any fit state to be breaking bad news to a stranger. “I’m afraid he was shot.”
Lila’s hand flew to her throat. “He’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Lila’s gaze dropped to the floor. Her chest rose and fell. K8 looked away. She didn’t know what to do or say. She’d never been in this situation before.
Eventually, Lila looked up, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“You said you’d seen my mother?”
“Your mother came aboard last night. She asked Captain Valois for help in finding you.”
“And now you’ve found me.”
“Yeah, and a fat lot of good it does either of us.” K8 put her head in her hands and glared down at her feet. Her stomach made sharp complaining noises.
Lila was silent for a minute or so. Then, quietly, she said, “The Gestalt must have grabbed you because you were helping my mum.”
From somewhere far beyond the cellar walls, they heard a car approach and pull to a stop. Doors opened and slammed, and silence returned.
“No,” K8 said. “I don’t think that was it. They weren’t waiting for me; they were waiting for my friend. I think they were after him.”
“And they grabbed you by mistake?” Lila looked sceptical.
“He’d already refused to join their cult. He even slapped one of them around a bit. I think they were waiting for him, but when I arrived, I guess they improvised.”
“And now you think they’re using you as bait, the same way they’re using me?”
“Who knows?” She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Do you think it will work?”
“Oh yes. He’ll come looking for me. You can bet your life on that.”
“And then you’ll both be caught.”
K8 smiled through the nausea. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Lila rubbed her hands and blew into them. “Do you really think he’ll try to rescue you?”
“If anyone can, he will.”
“And he’s working with my mother?”
“I think we’re all on the same side now.”
Lila turned away. Her face was pale and drawn, and K8 could see that she didn’t want to let herself hope too much, or put too much faith in a rescue that might never come. After two days in this cellar, and who knew what mistreatment at the hands of the Gestalt, she must have given up all hope at least once; and so it was little wonder if she seemed wary of rekindling it— especially now, in the wake of K8’s devastating news.
“Well,” she said, her tone flat, “your friend had better be something special, because you have no idea what he’s up against.” She walked over to the door and absently rattled the handle, as if checking it was still locked.
K8 hawked and spat, trying to get the bitter, coppery taste of indigestion out of her mouth.
She said, “I don’
t think a houseful of lunatics in white suits are going to put up much of a fight.”
Lila turned to face her, leaning her back against the door.
“You haven’t a clue, have you?” She shook her head pityingly. “You don’t know what you’re fighting.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Those people out there aren’t the local Gestalt. They intercepted me when I tried to contact Cole. They were waiting for me, and they knew who I was.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t exist on this timeline. The only way they could know who I was would be if they came here from somewhere else. These aren’t your local converts, these are the Gestalt’s advance guard, its elite troops.”
“And they followed you here?”
“No, they came here to kill Cole, and a number of others. They’re laying the groundwork for a fullscale incursion.”
K8 rubbed her forehead, trying to massage some life back into her slothful synapses.
“They’re preparing an invasion?”
“I told you, these are the advance guard. They even have their Leader with them.”
“The Gestalt has a leader?”
Lila shivered, and wrapped her arms tightly across her chest. “They took me to see him.”
“I thought the Gestalt were all supposed to be the same?”
“They are. But the Leader’s something else. He’s… different. Not hooked into the web like the rest of them.”
“And he’s here? I mean, right here in this house?”
“He was yesterday, when they took me to him.” She shuddered and looked at the black mould dappling the cellar’s back wall.
K8 clenched and unclenched her fingers and toes. She had pins and needles in her feet, but her legs were feeling less and less unsteady with every minute that passed. She wouldn’t be sprinting anywhere for a while, but felt confident that, if she had to, she’d soon be able to get up and walk—at least, as far as the door.
“But how are they going to invade the whole world?” She said. “The idea’s daft.”
Lila didn’t turn her head. “They’ll do it the same way they invaded my world. And we’ve been fighting them ever since.”
“But if we can warn people, if we can get the word out, we can be ready for them.”
“You don’t understand. They’re relentless. If you shoot one, another one takes his or her place. And they just keep coming. You can’t outthink them, because they all think as one. You can’t surprise them, because if you kill one of them, all the others immediately know about it—unless you can do it so quickly they don’t have time to register the attack, but even then, the others know something’s wrong.”
“So, what do you do?”
“You stay quiet. You hide. And when you strike, you do it quickly, and then you run.” She took a long, shuddering breath. “And we’ve been running for five years. Until—”
“Until what?”
Lila swallowed. “They developed this plague. It’s like a virus. It gets into your soul-catcher and changes it. Makes you one of them.”
K8 rubbed the back of her neck, where her own device had been implanted on her sixteenth birthday—a present from her employers at the time, Céleste Tech.
“What if you don’t have a soul-catcher?”
“It builds one.” Lila rubbed her eyes. “It converts flesh and bone into gelware, and burrows into your head.”
K8 swirled the water around in the canteen. Her thoughts felt heavy and tired.
“So, why didn’t it infect you?”
“We saw what was happening, and we left. We crept into one of their machines and used it to get away while they were still in the process of spreading the infection. We didn’t know where we’d end up, but anything seemed better than staying. But now, they’re going to use their plague against this world, too.”
“Unless we can stop them.”
A sigh. “We can’t stop them.”
“If we could get to the Leader somehow, and make him—”
“Forget it.” Lila waved a hand. “You’d never get past his bodyguards. And if you did, you still wouldn’t stand a chance. He’d never surrender.”
K8 said, “Tough, is he?”
Lila took a long, raggedy breath.
“You have no idea.”
From above, they heard footfalls echoing on stone steps, descending in their direction. Keys jangled, and Lila backed away from the door.
“They’re coming!”
K8 tried to push herself up, but her knees were still unsteady.
“Help me.”
“I can’t.” Lila shook her head and backed away further. “I think they’re coming for you this time. I think they’re coming to take you to him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
STINGER
THE TERESHKOVA THUNDERED across the city at full power, startling pedestrians and shaking windows in their frames. From his seat on the bridge, Ack-Ack Macaque saw the shadow thrown by its five hulls—a great rectangular eclipse darkening office blocks and church spires. He made a few final adjustments and then, satisfied the airship was headed in the right direction, unclipped himself from the pilot’s chair and turned to Victoria.
“Nobody touches that throttle,” he said. “We’ll get there faster if we accelerate all the way. When we get close, I’ll jump out, and I’ll take the woman with me. When we’re gone, I’ve set the autopilot to bring the ship around in a wide loop. By the time you get back to the target, you’ll be at rest, and it should all be over on the ground, one way or another.”
Victoria watched him carefully.
“You missed a part.”
“Which part?”
“The part where I’m the captain and you’re the
pilot, and I give the orders.” He glowered at her. He was still furious that they’d lost his plane—which now lay smashed and concertinaed in a supermarket car park—and this wasn’t the time for her to be playing hierarchy games.
“Would you do anything differently?” She stroked her chin with finger and thumb, considering.
“Well,” she said after a moment, “no.”
“Then please, get out of my way, Captain.”
Victoria narrowed her eyes, and there was a glimmer in them that told him her objections weren’t entirely serious, that she was just making a point.
“Make sure you get them both back, okay?”
“Yes, boss.”
“And that’s an order.”
“Yes, boss.” He threw a floppy, long-armed salute and scampered aft, to where Marie Cole awaited him. She looked bulky with the bulletproof jacket that Victoria had given her, and bug-eyed with the goggles she’d put on over her face; but nevertheless, she exuded a fierce, furious determination that matched his own, and he had no doubt she’d do okay when the fighting got dirty and personal.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Lead on, monkey.”
He led her up through the Tereshkova’s corridors and companionways to the helipad on top of the airship, and one of the sleeker passenger choppers. The pilot was already on board, warming the engine, and Ack-Ack Macaque hopped in beside him.
“Have you got the box stowed?”
“In the back, sir.”
“Then take us up, as soon as you’re ready.”
“Aye, sir.”
As the five-pronged shadow of the Tereshkova’s nose cleared the final suburb of Bristol, the helicopter rose from the flight deck. It hovered in the air for a moment, allowing the behemoth to move away ahead of it, and then dropped, coming down in a swooping curve that brought it down past the giant fins and rudders at the stern, and forward, under the speeding airship.
“Keep low,” Ack-Ack Macaque told the pilot, “and follow the river. Watch out for bridges.”
He scrambled into the back, where Marie sat strapped into her seat, coil gun resting across her knees. A large metal case sat on the deck by her feet, held in place by bungee cords. He crouched beside i
t, bracing himself against the seat in the cramped space, and began to unfasten it.
“What’s that?” Marie leant forward for a better look.
Ack-Ack Macaque gave her a grin.
“This is our way in.”
From the front, the pilot called, “Two minutes to target.”
They were winding along the course of the River Avon. Ahead, they could see hills and main roads, Georgian terraces and the tower of Bath Cathedral.
The London mainline lay to their left, and they drew level with an eastbound train.
“Keep pace with the train,” Ack-Ack Macaque ordered. The land was opening out into a wide river valley, down the middle of which the track ran, side-by-side with the river. Larkin House stood on a hill to the north, and he hoped that by staying low, concealed visually and audibly by the train, they might be able to approach without raising an alarm.
Looking out of the side window, he saw faces looking back at him from the train’s carriages, and gave them the finger.
When they drew level with their target, the pilot pulled up and over the train.
“Thirty seconds,” he reported.
Ack-Ack Macaque exchanged looks with Marie. Then he flipped the fastening on the box and opened it, revealing a long, fat tube with a gun sight and a pistol grip. It had been painted olive green, with bright red, black and yellow warning decals. It was one of the Commodore’s hidden treasures, but there was no time to sit and admire the thing. He pulled it from the case and slung its strap over his shoulder, kicked his boots off, stuck a cigar into his mouth, and shuffled to the side hatch.
“Sit tight,” he told Marie. He slid the door open and climbed through, onto the helicopter’s landing strut. Cold winds tore at him but he gripped the strut with his toes. Ahead, the hillside came at them like a rising green wave and he could see the pale sandstone frontage of Larkin House in the centre of a tidy arrangement of fir trees, gravel paths and ornamental hedges.
Crouching, he wrapped his tail around the strut, and let go with his hands. Gripping hard with his toes, he swung around until he hung upside down by his feet. The helicopter rocked at this, but stayed on course. Below, white-suited figures emerged from the house and pointed guns at him. He saw muzzle flashes but, if any of the bullets hit the chopper, he didn’t see or feel them. Instead, he concentrated on getting the tube—which now swung from his arm on the end of its strap—onto his shoulder, where he was forced to hold it in position with both hands.
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