Macaque Attack (16 page)

“It’s Mars,” she said, pushing the phone into his hands. Her breath was warm against his cheek.

“Another message?” Merovech looked down at the handset she’d forced on him. The very last thing he wanted right now was to talk to his mother.

“No.” Amy shook her head, expression grim. She gripped his shoulder. “They’ve launched a missile.” She eyed the expectant crowd. “And if our estimates are correct, it’s the size of the Isle of Wight.”

BREAKING NEWS

From
B&FBC
NEWS ONLINE:

ASTRONOMERS DETECT ‘MISSILE’ FROM MARS

PARIS 18/11/ 2062 – Astronomers working for the European Space Agency have observed the launch of a gigantic projectile from the surface of Mars. The shock announcement came earlier today, during a service of remembrance to mark the second anniversary of the Gestalt attack of 2060. The projectile, which is believed to be some sort of weapon, is on a course to hit the Earth, and is due to arrive in less than six months.

At a hastily convened press conference in Paris, Dr. Sandrine Aurand, a spokesperson for the ESA, told reporters that the missile appears to be moving faster than expected, saying, “If our measurements are correct, the only way to explain the object’s apparent acceleration is to assume some form of antimatter propulsion.”

Antimatter is matter in which the charges of the particles are reversed. When it comes into contact with ordinary matter, the two annihilate each other with a release of energy much greater than that given off during a nuclear reaction. Antimatter is extremely rare, and it is not known where the newly revived crew of the Martian probe could have obtained enough to power a missile of such size.

According to observations, the object is most likely a captured asteroid or ‘minor planet’ measuring almost two kilometres in length, which makes it comparable in mass to the asteroid that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs.

“We’re running simulations at the moment,” Dr. Aurand warned, “but wherever this hits, the effects will be global.”

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

V
ICTORIA
V
ALOIS STOOD
in the cockpit door, her pistol pressed into the skin at the back of the pilot’s neck.

“So, how come you’re still human?” she asked. She had to raise her voice over the noise of the engines.

The Frenchman gave a tight shrug. He was trying to concentrate on his instrument panel.

“I’m good at what I do.”

“Okay, prove it.” Victoria pointed forward, through the windshield. “Get us as close to that roof as possible, and lower the ramp.”

“You want to get out?”

“No, we’re picking somebody up.”

The hull rattled, as if hit by a handful of ball bearings.

“They’re shooting at us!” Paul said.

Victoria ignored him.

No shit, Sherlock.

She kept the barrel of her gun jammed against the pilot’s spine, just below his helmet, where it met his shoulders. Her other hand gripped the doorframe and she had her feet braced against either side of the narrow gangway. She watched the horizon tilt and slide as the big helicopter wallowed around, lining its tubby backside up with the old warehouse. A small screen on the pilot’s console showed a grainy night-vision view of the roof, taken from a camera at the back of the copter. In its unreal green light, she could see Ack-Ack Macaque crouched by one of the air vents. The gun in his hands flashed, and Victoria flinched as a bullet clanged against the bulkhead behind her.

“Jeez, now
he’s
shooting at us,” Paul complained.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“You could call him. Assuming he’s still got his radio.”

“His radio?” If she could have spared a hand, she would have slapped her forehead. “Of course, he was wearing his link when he fell into the portal.”

Paul smiled infuriatingly.

“It’s a good job one of us pays attention.”

Pocketing her gun, Victoria reached forward and lifted the radio handset from its clip on the console between the seats. She thumbed through the frequencies, and then squeezed the button to transmit.

“Hey, monkey-man. It’s us. Stop firing, and shift your derrière.”

A
CK-
A
CK
M
ACAQUE THRUST
the Desert Eagle into his waistband, and pulled tight the strap holding the chainsaw. Then he ran. He crossed the rusting iron roof on all fours, scampering as hard and fast as he could, careless of the noise he made. Shots came from below but he ignored them. He couldn’t see who was firing or where the bullets were going; all he could see was the inviting maw of the helicopter’s open cargo ramp. He could feel the blood surging through him and felt like whooping. He had been alone, but now his troupe had found him. With a last, desperate bound, he was aboard, and half-running, half-stumbling up into the belly of the beast.

He found himself in a cargo bay filled with toppled candles. For a second, he thought he might be back in the woods with Apynja, hallucinating, still high on exhaustion, vodka and weed. Then reality kicked in and he forced himself forward, to where Victoria stood, covering the pilot with her weapon. She smiled.

“Damn good to see you, monkey-man.”

“Likewise. But I think I hit your fuel tank.” He’d certainly stitched a row of bullet holes across the helicopter’s flank and seen liquid vent from the base of the rear rotor. Without looking around, the pilot tapped a dial.

“He’s right, we’re losing fuel.”

Victoria swore under her breath. Reunions would have to wait. “Do we have enough to make it through the portal?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then take us through. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

Ack-Ack Macaque looked forward through the windshield and gaped at the ranks of lumbering machines arrayed before the metal structure. “Are you fucking nuts? You’ll be flying us into the middle of an invasion.”

“Yes, but at least we’ll be home. We can signal the
Sun Wukong
to follow us when it gets here.”

Ack-Ack Macaque focused his yellow eye on her. “Home?”

“That’s where the portal leads,” Victoria said. “Célestine’s planning to invade
our
timeline.”

Her words seemed to echo in his ears.
Home
. He hadn’t been back to the timeline of his birth in two years, and the thought of all this armour attacking it filled him with a sick kind of rage. The Gestalt assault had been bad enough; the thought of another onslaught so soon...

“What are we waiting for?” He straightened his collar and champed at the cigar still clamped in his teeth. “The
Sun
’s on its way. Tell it to drop all its missiles on these tossers.”

“We can’t wait for it.”

“We don’t have to.” Bullets clanged against the hull. “We’ve done all we can. Now get us through that portal before we fall out of the goddamn sky.”

T
RAILING SMOKE, THEY
passed through the portal and burst into sunlight. Ack-Ack Macaque blinked and put up a hand to shade his eye.

“Are they coming after us?” Victoria asked.

He ducked his head back into the cargo bay. The rear ramp had been left open. Behind them in the winter air, he saw nothing more than the faintest suggestion of a shimmer, like a desert heat haze.

“Nope, not yet at any rate.”

“Well, they can’t be far behind.” He watched her pick up the radio and begin flicking through the frequencies, calling for help. He left her to it, inching his way aft, searching for weapons. If a couple of hundred Leviathans were about to breach the portal, he wanted to face them with something more substantial than a pistol and a chainsaw.

“Come on,” he muttered irritably, scanning the bare walls and desk. “There’s got to be something.” He tried the desk’s drawers but they were mostly empty, and he didn’t think a stapler would be much use against an armoured battle tank.

“Balls.”

He slammed the top drawer. As he did so, the helicopter’s rear engine spluttered and the craft lurched. They wouldn’t be airborne much longer. Knotting his fingers in the cargo webbing fixed to the wall, he braced himself. Candles dropped and tumbled, rolling across the deck. Through the open rear doors, the green and brown French countryside dipped and spun. He heard Victoria shout something, and closed his eye.

With an almighty splintering crash, the chopper hit the upper branches of a tree and tipped sideways. There was an instant of sickening free-fall, and then the whole craft rattled as the rotors battered themselves to splinters against the stony soil of a winter field, and the cabin crunched down like an eggshell.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GET TO THE CHOPPER

“N
EVER AGAIN,
”
MUTTERED
Victoria Valois. Picking her way from the helicopter’s ruined cockpit, she swore that, as long as she lived, she would never set foot in another of these contraptions.

Ack-Ack Macaque stood waiting for her. He offered her a leathery hand to help her down.

“You okay, boss?”

She held onto his shoulder for support. She had a few new cuts and bruises, but nothing serious.

At least we didn’t land in the sea this time...
She blinked in the sunshine. Beyond the fields, she could hear traffic. To the north, a bulky two-hulled skyliner forged towards Paris.

“We’re home.”

“Seems like it.” Ack-Ack Macaque sniffed the air. “How’s the pilot?”

Victoria shook her head. “He didn’t make it.” The man had been crushed when the cockpit hit the dirt. The monkey shrugged. He didn’t care. What was one dead henchman in the face of an invading army?

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He shambled off across the ploughed field, in the direction of the road, and she trailed after him, still feeling a little unsteady on her feet. A watery winter sun warmed her face and, after spending so long in the gloom of Célestine’s world, she could feel herself drawing nourishment from its light and heat. In her eye, Paul fizzed and flickered into virtual existence. He looked around, taking in everything she could see and hear.

“We’re in one piece?”

“Just about.”

He frowned.

“Why are we running?”

Victoria slowed.

“Because of the tanks.”

Paul scratched his temple. “What tanks?”

Up ahead, the monkey had dropped to all fours. He had a pistol in his belt and the chainsaw over his shoulder. She watched him bound towards the dry stone wall at the edge of the field, and quickened her pace to keep up.

“You know, the big Leviathans.”

Paul shook his head. He stuck out his bottom lip.

“Where are we, anyway?”

“Home.”

“Really?”

Victoria didn’t answer. She was jogging now, and couldn’t spare the breath. She saw Ack-Ack Macaque reach the wall and clamber over it. Standing on the other side, he called to her.

“Come on!”

Floating above the hardened muddy ground, Paul’s image radiated surprise.

“Who’s
that
?”

Victoria felt a stab of pain. “What?”

“The monkey.” Paul straightened his glasses. “How come he can talk?”

Victoria felt like crying.

“I’ll explain later.”

“Why, what’s the hurry?”

A couple of steps from the wall, she stopped and turned. Roughly a kilometre away, an arch-shaped section of air roiled and bubbled like a pan of boiling water.

“That’s why,” she said, panting.

As she watched, a slab of khaki-coloured metal appeared in the air, in the centre of the disturbance. It quickly swelled into the snout of one of the Leviathans. Moving slowly, rumbling forward on great tracks, the huge machine pushed its way into the world as if emerging from an invisible tunnel. Its gun turrets bobbed and swivelled, seeking targets. Even at this distance, it seemed to tower over her, and she could feel the ground shake beneath her feet.

Paul’s mouth fell open.

“Ah.”

M
OVING AT A
crouch, staying as low as possible, Ack-Ack Macaque led Victoria along the edge of the field, keeping the wall between them and the advancing tank. They were moving at a right angle to the Leviathan’s progress, trying to avoid getting crushed by its rolling treads. The noise it made was terrific: the continuous rattle and clatter of the tread links; metallic whines and screeches from axles and wheels; the powerful bark and thrum of its engines...