Monkey Wars

by Richard Kurti

  After some cautious exploration they found a disused water tower and clambered inside—it was dark and damp, but it was out of sight. For the time being, it would have to be home.

  The survivors huddled together. Exhausted as she was, Papina only slept fitfully; she found it impossible to silence the urgent questions swirling around her mind.

  But as she tossed and turned, she realized that she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep—crouched in the darkness, Fig was rocking back and forth as if in a trance.

  It was frightening to see her like this; Fig had withdrawn to some remote place deep inside herself. Watching her muttering incoherently, Papina realized that the murder of Fig’s infants had smashed a hole in the center of her heart with the force of a monsoon flood, leaving her with nothing but twisted wreckage.

  Papina knew there was nothing anyone could do to ease that unimaginable pain; she just had to hope that as the days passed, time would heal the wounds.

  —

  The next morning they set to work.

  Determined to get the monkeys reengaged with the business of living, Papina divided the survivors into groups and set them tasks. Some carried out a reconnaissance of the steelworks, others tracked down food supplies, while she looked after drawing up a rota of lookouts.

  Tentatively, Papina approached Fig and asked her to organize a safe area where the youngsters could play.

  Fig ignored her. She just huddled silently in the shadows, untouched by anything around her.

  Even Twitcher didn’t know how to get through to her. All his confidence had been shattered by the massacre. He was now so hesitant and unsure it was hard to believe he’d once swaggered through the city with urbane charm.

  The survivors weren’t just outcasts; they were now lost from themselves.

  —

  Mico had to assume that a massive hunt was already in full heat, which meant his best hope was to stick to the maze of narrow backstreets where there were plenty of dark doorways and crumbling basements to scurry into for hiding.

  But these streets had their own problems—large, aggressive rats stalked the alleys, scavenging for food, and where there were rats, snakes were never far behind. So it was with ears bristling and eyes flashing nervously in all directions that Mico ran, not stopping to rest, relentlessly darting from shadow to shadow, putting distance between himself and the cemetery.

  At least he had a plan, and that focused his thinking.

  The city was criss-crossed with railway lines, but having always had the run of the streets, Mico had never learned his way around the tracks, so when he stumbled across the first set of steel lines he had no idea which way to follow them. He would have to do this the hard way.

  He ran along the railway track until he came to a signal gantry, then clambered up the tower and waited. It wasn’t long before he heard the heavy metal creak of a shunting engine groaning closer; Mico braced himself; then, as the engine trundled underneath, he leaped on top. But as soon as he landed, he started to slide off.

  His hand reached out for something to cling to and found a pipe, but it was searingly hot and immediately his palm started to blister.

  Forced to let go, he slid further along the roof, tumbled down onto the tender and finally slammed to a halt.

  Mico gripped his hand as the pain throbbed through it. He couldn’t even let the agony out with a howl for fear of alerting the engine driver; all he could do was lie there, willing the pain to subside.

  Eventually the engine arrived at a massive railway junction where tracks from all over the city converged, and as it passed under another signal gantry, Mico leaped off and found a perch next to a red light.

  His curious eyes took in the scene—trains of all shapes and sizes were being shunted relentlessly back and forth. It seemed so random, and yet the more he looked, the more he saw a pattern: the small shunting engines would pick up carriages and push them off into the darkness, then reemerge with a different load.

  It gave Mico an idea: he could ride each of these engines in turn until he found what he was looking for, knowing that if he had no luck in one direction he could always come back to this junction and try a different line.

  It was a long, fascinating process—the city he thought he knew so well looked totally different from the top of a moving train. The geography seemed quite alien, and areas that by road felt far apart suddenly connected in surprising ways. But train surfing was also dangerous. Several times Mico slipped or was jolted from his perch and nearly ended up under the thundering wheels. Then again, that was why monkeys kept away from trains, and right now other monkeys were the biggest danger Mico faced.

  Finally his perseverance was rewarded—he found himself trundling through some sidings that were surrounded by hulking brick warehouses, and on one of the roofs stood a huge disc with holes in it—a button. This was the clue he’d been looking for.

  As the train slowed to go over some points, Mico leaped from the roof onto a pile of coal, which crumbled under his feet in a black avalanche.

  Directly opposite the button warehouse was a large, half-derelict engine shed. He would start searching there and work his way methodically through all the buildings around the yard.

  As he drew closer, Mico saw that the shed was in a bad way—window frames were twisted at ugly angles, fragments of glass clung to the putty like decayed teeth; planks of wood, tired from the effort of hanging on, had dropped from the walls, and half the corrugated metal roof panels had been torn off by the monsoon storms.

  Mico stared at the shafts of moonlight punching down into the gloom like pillars in a great temple.

  And then he heard it—the gentle sigh of something falling through the air.

  He glanced up—something was bearing down on him. His muscles tensed as he tried to jerk backward, but it was too late; suddenly the thing was all over him, tangling his arms and legs.

  For a heart-stopping moment Mico thought he had been caught by a snake, but as his hands lashed out he felt something dry and fibrous.

  Rope. He was caught in a net.

  The weight of a body slammed down on his back and two monkey hands clamped around his throat. Mico rolled forward, clawing at the fingers, trying to prize them away, but they were impossibly strong. Suddenly two knees drove into his shoulders, forcing his face into the oily grime of the shed floor.

  Panic trembled through Mico’s body.

  Mico had to cry out, make a last desperate appeal, but he only had enough breath in his lungs for one word. One word to save his life.

  Summoning all his willpower, he managed to gasp into the darkness, “Spy!”

  The attacker paused, trying to work out what it meant. Was it an accusation? Or a warning?

  The hands grabbed his shoulders and spun him over. Mico blinked as he tried to make out the face in the darkness. It was a monkey, but covered in stripes of black oil and soot to camouflage his features.

  And then Mico saw a flash of white teeth as his assailant spoke.

  “Mico?”

  The voice; he knew that voice.

  “Gu-Nah?”

  Anger flashed in Gu-Nah’s eyes. “I knew they’d send an assassin.” He clamped his hands back round Mico’s throat. “I didn’t think it’d be you.”

  “Wait!”

  Gu-Nah’s thumbs pressed on Mico’s voice box. “One squeeze, and you’re dead!”

  “I’m on the run too!”

  Gu-Nah looked around suspiciously, his eyes searching the shadows, wondering if this was all a trap.

  “I swear!” gasped Mico. “Tyrell’s my enemy. He always was!”

  Gu-Nah studied Mico’s face, considered his words; then with one swift movement he pulled the net clear. Mico staggered to his feet and wiped the dirt from his mouth.

  The two monkeys looked at each other like strangers in the moonlight. Gu-Nah saw a monkey who had once been in the highest echelon of the langur troop now reduced to a frightened refugee. Quite a change.

&
nbsp; But not as big as the change Mico saw: only a couple of moons ago Gu-Nah had just been a tired old soldier. Not anymore. The Gu-Nah who stood before him had a wild, raw danger pumping through his veins.

  “What happened to you?” Mico asked apprehensively.

  Gu-Nah’s eyes danced in the darkness. “Freedom.”

  Lesser rulers would have gone to great lengths to keep Mico’s disappearance quiet, nervous that the defection of such a senior monkey would reflect badly on them. But Tyrell understood that by sharing his sense of betrayal, he could win the sympathy of the troop.

  Which is why, a few days later, a special group of langur monkeys emerged from the Great Vault with a mission to spread the news of Mico’s defection far and wide. Handpicked by Tyrell, these impressionable young monkeys formed the newly created Twopoint Brigade. They worked the rooftops and the lounging trees, persuading mothers who gossiped at the food stations, and youths who played in the banyan groves.

  Everywhere they went the message they pushed was the same: Mico is a traitor! He’s stolen all our secrets—how we defend ourselves, where we keep our food. As we speak he’s inciting other traitors to spy on us. A neighbor behaving strangely? A friend questioning military strategy? These could be warning signs. Better to report them to the Twopoints and be safe than keep quiet and help traitors.

  On the roof and branch the propaganda created a wave of gratitude that Tyrell’s strong leadership was protecting his monkeys.

  In Mico’s family, though, the reactions were very different.

  Trumble and Kima were devastated. Nearly losing their son to illness had been bad enough, but now to have him branded a traitor…

  They knew Mico with a deep, instinctive knowledge, like a familiar scent, and they refused to believe the accusations were true.

  Breri looked at his parents with a dispassionate eye, and judged that they were showing far too much concern for an enemy of the troop, so one evening he cornered his father in the small space under their home.

  “You shouldn’t feel sympathy for Mico.”

  Trumble looked up with grief in his eyes. “He’s my son—”

  “He’s a traitor.”

  “But he’s still my son!”

  Breri shrugged. “More’s the pity.”

  “What happened to you?” Trumble asked, unable to hide his dismay. “When did you become so cold?”

  “I worked hard to prove myself,” Breri snapped as the back of his neck prickled with anger. “I wasn’t plucked out of obscurity and handed everything on a palm leaf! I had to struggle every step of the way, and now Mico’s put all that in jeopardy. Now I’m the brother of a traitor!”

  For the first time Trumble saw the utter selfishness of his eldest son. There was no right or wrong for Breri; there was just the simple calculation: how would it be of benefit to Breri?

  As if unable to look at the ugliness of his own creation, Trumble turned away and muttered, “Get out of my sight.”

  —

  Anger lashed Breri’s heart as he thundered through the shady alleys of the cemetery. He wanted to hurt his father the way he was hurting, and he knew exactly how to do it.

  In a short while, Breri found himself standing outside the ominous Black Vault that the Twopoint Brigade had taken for its headquarters. He looked up at the official symbol carved above the door—they would teach Trumble about loyalty.

  But something made Breri hesitate.

  A fleeting memory danced into his mind: when he was a young monkey, he had fallen from the branches of a gum tree. Trumble had picked him up, put him on his back and ran all the way across the city to get him home, where Kima sat with him day and night. Whenever Breri opened his eyes, she was there. It was as if his mother never slept or ate, as if he was the only thing in the world that mattered to her.

  Breri shook himself, casting off the memory. Forget the past, he told himself. The past is dead and gone. There is only the future. He had to do the right thing, which meant putting the needs of the troop above all personal sentiment. That was the truly courageous thing. Troop first, family second.

  And having convinced himself, Breri stepped into the Twopoint Brigade’s headquarters.

  —

  Whereas before the Barbaries had turned up like thieves in the night, this time they swarmed into Trumble’s home in broad daylight, determined to make it a public spectacle.

  Kima closed her eyes and let herself be dragged into the dusty sunlight, but Trumble still clung to some notion of justice.

  “We’ve been through this!” he exclaimed. “Ask Hummingbird! I’ve taught him about the stones!”

  The Barbaries just kicked Trumble to the ground.

  “This isn’t about your silly stones, Trumble.” The voice was quiet, cold.

  Trumble craned his neck and saw a langur standing over him. “And it’s nothing to do with Hummingbird,” the langur added. “It’s Twopoint business now.”

  Trumble tried to make out the Twopoint commander’s face against the blue sky—there was something familiar about him.

  “You’re…you’re one of Breri’s friends. You played together as youngsters.”

  “And you’re the father of a traitor,” the commander said ominously.

  So that was why they’d come.

  The Twopoint commander nodded to the Barbaries, who bundled Trumble and Kima away, marching them slowly along the paths, giving the monkeys who peered out from the shadows plenty of time to see the shame of traitors.

  They kept marching, out of the cemetery, through the langur-controlled streets until they came to the gates of the Eastern Province. The prisoners were taken across the Great Lawn, down the narrow steps that led to a cellar under the summer house tower, where they were thrown into a dark, damp room.

  The door was slammed shut behind them. This time there was no interrogation.

  Trumble and Kima had been shut away from the sunlight to be forgotten.

  —

  Far above, Tyrell was standing at the window of his room; beside him was Breri. They had watched the arrest in silence, and only when he heard the heavy clang of the metal door did Tyrell turn to Breri and see the grave expression on his face.

  “Not having second thoughts?”

  Breri quickly pulled himself together. “No, my lord.”

  “You made a difficult choice. But you made the right one.”

  “Thank you, Lord Tyrell.”

  “Not every monkey would’ve had the courage to denounce his own parents.”

  Breri hesitated. There were so many conflicting emotions rampaging through his heart, when all he wanted was certainty.

  He looked at Tyrell and with heartfelt sincerity replied, “It wasn’t an easy decision, my lord.”

  Seeing the enormity of the step Breri had taken, Tyrell opened his arms and embraced him. “Think of me as your father now. We are a troop first and individuals second.”

  As the ruler’s arms held him tightly, Breri felt a huge sense of relief. All he had to do was follow Tyrell unquestioningly, do as the leader ordered, and everything would be all right.

  “There is nothing greater than loyalty,” Tyrell reassured him. “It is the fabric of the troop.”

  Gently he led Breri over to the massive, carved map of the city that dominated one wall of the room.

  “Do you think your brother’s out there somewhere? Or has he fled the city altogether?”

  Breri looked at the tangle of lines, struggling to understand the visual abstraction.

  “You’ve known him since he was born. Watched him grow up, played with him, fought with him. If Mico could go anywhere, where would he run for safety?”

  Tyrell plucked a selection of the juiciest fruits from his own personal supply and laid them down in front of Breri.

  “Sit. Eat. Think.”

  And Breri did exactly as he was told.

  Mico woke with a start as a furious whistle split his eardrums. He leaped to his feet in utter confusion. For a few moments
he was totally disorientated; his mind rushed to catch up with his body.

  Then someone behind him chuckled, “Welcome to my world.”

  Mico spun round and saw Gu-Nah tucking into a pile of freshly pilfered fruit.

  “The express trains all do that. You’ll get used to it,” Gu-Nah said and tossed an orange across the hide.

  Mico went to catch it, but he wasn’t awake enough and the orange dropped through a gap in the rafters. There was a soft splat as it exploded on the floor far below, reminding Mico exactly where he was.

  Gu-Nah sighed. “Concentrate.”

  He tossed another orange—this time Mico caught it and sank his teeth into the flesh. As he sucked hungrily on the juice, Mico studied Gu-Nah and saw that his wild fur wasn’t the result of neglect; it had been carefully cultivated.

  “Not keen on the crazy look?” said Gu-Nah.

  “It’s a bit…extreme.”

  “It has to be. A lone monkey is vulnerable. Rabid dogs, hungry rats—they all want to have a pop. But enemies back away from madness. It’s too unpredictable.”

  “So the crazier you look, the safer you are?”

  Without warning Gu-Nah lunged at Mico, baring his teeth. Startled, Mico tumbled backward, slipped off the rafter and plummeted.

  In an instant, Gu-Nah swung down and his iron grip clamped around Mico’s tail, hauling him painfully back to safety.

  “See? Unpredictable,” the old soldier chuckled darkly.

  Mico wasn’t amused. “You could at least have made the place a bit safer,” he said, looking at the chaotic jumble of rusting metal sheets wedged between the rafters.

  “The secret is all in the gaps. From below, it looks like junk.” Gu-Nah thrust his head between two planks. “But all the while you can keep an eye on the approaches.”

  Mico peered out between the roof sheets—the view certainly was impressive.

  “And the gaps let in telltale sounds,” Gu-Nah explained. “It’s a warning system….The slightest change in water dripping from a gutter, or the sound of falling coals—”

  “So that’s how you knew I was coming!”

  Gu-Nah gave a wry smile. “The trick to seeing the future is to study the present more closely than your enemy.”