Macaque Attack (35 page)

She felt the butterflies flapping in her chest. How would it feel, she wondered, to fail? To see the world reduced to ash and darkness and know it was partially her fault? Against such horror, the hope of making it to Mars and finding a way to resurrect Paul seemed a selfish and petty yearning, but right then, it was all she had to cling onto. For three terrifying, wonderful, dangerous years, he had been her whole world and she could never be whole again without him.

She sniffed. Sometimes, she wished the gelware had replaced more of her brain. It would be a relief at times like this to retreat into the emotionless clarity of machine thought, untroubled by fear or sentiment. And yet, wasn’t that precisely what Célestine and the Founder had been trying to do, in their own peculiar ways? Each had wanted to ‘improve’ humanity by freeing it of its emotions and its dependence on frail flesh and greasy animal neurons—not realising that, as they did so, they were sacrificing the very individualism and eccentricity that made humankind so unique.

Am I turning into a monster?
Looking at her faint, translucent reflection in the glass, she touched her fingertips to the ridge of scar tissue on the side of her head, and felt the various input jacks inlaid into the puckered skin.

No.

She still felt uncertainty, loss and pain. However much she might want to escape their weight, she knew deep down that her feelings were the only proof she had that she was alive, and more than simply a reanimated corpse with a computerised brain—that she was, on some deep and fundamental level, still human.

She wiped her eyes on the gold brocade at her sleeves, and allowed the gelware to pump a mild sedative into her blood. She couldn’t afford to fall apart today. She had work to do. She turned from the window to find Merovech standing in the corridor outside the room, his knuckle raised, about to knock on the open door.

“Are you all right?”

She waved away his concern.

“You don’t have to knock,” she told him. “You’re a king.”

The young man looked self-conscious. “Actually, that’s what I’m here to talk about.”

“Being a king?”

“Not being one.” He came over to join her in the light from the window. His tie was loose, his collar open, and his suit rumpled as if he’d slept in it—which, she realised, he probably had.

“I’m going to abdicate,” he said frankly, hands in pockets. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I promised Julie I would, and I think the time’s finally come.”

Victoria opened her mouth to speak, then realised she didn’t have anything constructive to say. Somewhere at the back of her mind, a small part of her cursed. Before her accident, when she was still a journalist able to read and parse written text, she would have done almost anything for a story like this. Getting advance notification of an abdication direct from the monarch, having exclusive access to him before the event, would have made her career; and, for a moment, she allowed herself to imagine how it would have felt to break news of that magnitude.

“Why are you telling me?”

Merovech tapped his shoe against the metal deck. “Because I want to come with you.”

“Are you serious?”

He looked up at her. “Of course I’m serious. I’ve given this a lot of thought. I know exactly how I’m going to do it.” He turned his head to the sea, and the huge union flag painted on the roof of the airport terminal. “I’ve got a speech ready.” He tapped his head. “It’s all in here. I’ve been rehearsing it all night.”

Victoria felt curiosity drown her other feelings. She couldn’t help it. “What are you going to say?”

Merovech wrinkled his nose. “That I’m stepping down for personal reasons, and appointing a committee to oversee the functions of the monarch until such time as a referendum can be carried out, and the citizens of the Commonwealth decide for themselves how they want to be ruled.”

Victoria felt her eyebrows rise. “Wow.”

Merovech smiled guiltily. “Well, what have we been fighting for, if it hasn’t been freedom from dictators and autocrats?”

“And you really want to come with us, on the
Ameline
?”

His face grew serious again. “I think it’s best. If I stayed, I’d only be a distraction.” He raised his eyes to the sky. “And don’t forget, that’s my mother up there on Mars, which makes it my fight as much as yours.”

BREAKING NEWS

From
The London and Paris Times
, online edition:

ABDICATION!

PARIS 20/11/2062 – The world’s media were caught off-guard this morning when, in a shock statement, His Majesty King Merovech I stepped down as ruler of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, France, Ireland and Norway, and Head of the United European Commonwealth.

Declaring his intention to step down with immediate effect, the King is believed to be accompanying the dreadnought Sun Wukong as it prepares to leave Earth.

Citing “personal reasons”, the King expressed his gratitude to his citizens, and said he hoped they would forgive him.

So far, there has been no official statement from either the Palace or the Prime Minister, but Downing Street sources have indicated that His Majesty’s last act as regent was to appoint an interim committee to oversee the functions of the monarchy. The committee’s primary task will be to prepare a referendum in which the people of the Commonwealth will vote for a new head of state. Whether this new head will be a king, queen or president remains open for discussion, and it is rumoured that His Majesty hopes his former subjects will opt for a republic.

In the meantime, little is known of the King’s plans, although credible sources in Gibraltar say he is planning to lead the fight against the Martian aggressors, who are led by the reincarnated ‘soul’ of his mother, the Duchess of Brittany.

In an ironic postscript to the announcement, polling organisations report that the King’s approval rating in the wake of his resignation has soared to an all-time high of nearly 97 percent.

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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

SHOTGUN

K
ATHERINE
A
BDULOV LED
them into the
Ameline
’s passenger lounge and showed them where to sit.

“Stay buckled up until we’re clear of the atmosphere,” she warned. “The inertial dampers aren’t what they used to be, so you might get thrown around a bit if things get bumpy.” She watched K8, Merovech and the monkey strap themselves into chairs, then caught Victoria’s eye and nodded upwards, towards the bridge.

“Do you want to ride shotgun?”

Victoria looked at her friends. Merovech seemed preoccupied, looking down at his thumbs. His thoughts were quite obviously elsewhere, and who could blame him? She knew he took his duty seriously. He was probably tearing himself up inside right now, wondering if he’d made the right call, done the right thing. Beside him, Ack-Ack Macaque kept taking his Colts from their holsters and spinning their barrels. If he was nervous, he was hiding it well. He looked restless and eager to fight, as if he couldn’t wait to get going.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get this kite in the air.”

Across the room, K8 seemed the most reassuringly normal of the three. Clad in jeans, trainers and a hooded top, she looked like an average teenager, and her wide-eyed apprehension filled Victoria with an unexpected rush of protectiveness.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

The girl smiled bravely. “Oh, aye. Never better.”

O
NCE UP ON
the bridge, Victoria settled into the co-pilot’s couch. This time, all the displays and overheads were alight, showing data on ship systems and atmospheric conditions. She tried to make sense of it but couldn’t. The diagrams were unfamiliar and the letters and numerals, thanks to her head injury, were nothing but squiggles.

“How are we doing?” she asked.

In the pilot’s chair, Kat smiled. Her dark eyes seemed to shine.

“The ship says we’re ready to go.”

“It can talk?”

“Yeah.” Kat tapped the side of her head. “I hear it in here, through my implant.”

“But, it’s intelligent?”

Kat made a face. “I wouldn’t go that far... Hey!”

“What?”

Kat seemed to be listening to something Victoria couldn’t hear. After a couple of seconds, her eyes re-focused.

“The ship thinks it can tap into your gelware, if you’d like to be able to interact with it.”

Victoria looked dubiously at the bulkheads and instruments surrounding her.

“Should I?”

“Your choice.”

“Okay, then.” As soon as the words left her lips, she felt a tingle at the back of her skull, and then sensed an odd, silent hiss, like a carrier wave.

> HELLO

She jumped. In her head, the voice felt loud and unmistakably synthetic.

“Uh,
bonjour?
”

> AH, YOU’RE FRENCH. I’VE ALWAYS LIKED THE FRENCH. MY NAME IS THE
AMELINE
.
JE M’APPELLE L’AMELINE
. WELCOME ABOARD.

“Thank you.”

>
MON PLAISIR.
NOW, MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE. WHEELS UP IN FIVE.

“Five minutes?”

> SECONDS.

The cabin lurched. A rumble came from below, deep but rising in pitch. Instinctively, Victoria gripped the armrests, and her heart raced as her mind flashed back to the helicopter crash. Through the link, she could feel the edges of the ship’s excitement. It was like an eager dog scenting an open field. The sky above was its playground and it wanted to leap up and run forever.

> HERE WE GO.

Victoria felt the seat shove against her. The thrust was less violent than she’d feared but still insistent. Through the forward view, she watched the top of the
Sun Wukong
fall away as if snatched downward by a kraken’s claws. The
Ameline
went up like an elevator, rising swiftly until the land shrank away to a green and brown blur and the horizon took on a distinct and visible curve. Then the old ship tipped on her tail and pointed her nose at the stars.

“A short jump and we’ll be there,” Kat said.

Victoria didn’t reply. She had no words. Ahead, the stars lay strewn across the sky like scattered pearls, so close she felt she could reach out and let them run like sand through her fingers.

Oh, mon dieu,
she thought.
This is really happening. I’m in space!

Through her gelware, she could feel the ship straining at its leash. Titanic energies gathered in its jump engines, building and building until the whole hull seemed to shake with unbearable energy and impatience. Her body itched with a fire that felt almost sexual. She opened her mouth to ask whether they were going to wait to see if the
Sun Wukong
had successfully taken off but, before she could, she heard Kat issue a mental command. The ship whooped. All the gauges spiked at once. All the lights went red. There was a flash of intense, dazzling white light and an instant of shocking cold—

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

SPACE MONKEY

V
ICTORIA SAGGED FORWARDS
against her straps, gasping.

“Is it always like that?”

Beside her in the cockpit, Kat smiled. “You get used to it.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

Ahead, the screens pictured a grey rock, rounded and scarred like an old potato. Reflected sunlight lit one side of it. Its craters were little wells of impenetrable shadow.

“There it is,” Kat said.

Victoria leaned forward, staring. “That’s it? That’s the ‘missile’?” She narrowed her eyes. “It looks tiny, like a pebble.”

“Don’t let the visuals fool you.” Kat was busily tapping away at controls and readouts. “Everything looks sharper in a vacuum. There’s no dust or haze to indicate distance, so it all looks closer than it is.”

“How big is it?”

“About the size of the Isle of Man.”

“
Putain.
”

“And I know it doesn’t look as if it’s moving, but trust me, it’s coming on like God’s own freight train.” She tapped a communication panel. “Hey, Ed, how are you doing?”

Ed Rico’s voice burbled from the speaker. He sounded like a bad ventriloquist choking on a glass of water.

“Ready when you are, Captain. Only—”

“Only what?” Kat asked.

“Only, maybe we should let the monkey take the shot?”

“Any particular reason?”

Rico gurgled. “It’s his world we’re saving. Also, I’d like to see how he handles it.”