Paul looked down at himself. He ran his hands over his shirt.
“But I... I’m dead.”
Victoria ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Maybe I can’t save you. But I can find out who did this. I can do that, at least.”
“But, what about me?”
Victoria felt the tears rise again. She sniffed them back.
“I’ll keep your file in storage, so I can reboot you if I have any questions. Until then, I guess this is goodbye.” She opened a mental menu, ready to terminate the simulation.
“No!”
She paused, irritated by the interruption. She didn’t want this to be any harder than it was already.
“What?”
“Please don’t switch me off.” He sounded like a little boy. “I know I’m just a recording. I know that. But I’m all that’s left. If you switch me off, I’ll be gone. Just gone.”
Victoria rubbed her face with both hands. “So, what am I supposed to do with you? Leave you running in my head?”
Paul gave a cautious thumbs-up.
“Please?”
Victoria heard the downstairs front door slam. She said, “But how long will you last?” Back-ups lacked a missing ingredient, everybody knew that. They could only persist for so long before their thoughts became muddled and their awareness died.
Paul stuck out his chin.
“Long enough. Come on, Vicky. You’re not the only one in need of answers.”
He had that pleading look.
“Okay.” Her voice was gruff. “I’ll think about it.”
Something crashed on the stairs.
Paul cocked his head. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
Victoria walked to the front door and looked out, into the stairwell. Detective Constable Malhotra lay sprawled at the foot of the stairs. His throat had been cut. A man stood over him. Tall and skeletally thin, he had a long black coat and a gleaming bald pate. Bloody fingers gripped a matt black knife. Slickness glistened on the blade. He looked up at her with eyes as dead as a snake’s.
“Ah, Victoria,” he said. His features were twisted in a permanent thin-lipped smile. He stepped over Malhotra and put a foot on the first step. “I’ve been waiting for you...” He reached out long fingers and curled them around the banister rail.
“Run,” Paul said in her head. “Get out of here.”
She took a step back. She couldn’t run: he blocked her only exit; she had nowhere to go. Instead, her hand flew to the pocket of her coat and came up holding the retractable staff.
“Stay back.” She gave a flick of her wrist and the staff sprang out to its full length. The man’s smile didn’t falter.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Victoria. I knew you’d come.” He came up the stairs towards her, scraping the tip of his black knife against the wall. The scratching noise set her nerves on edge. She stepped back into the flat and took up a defensive stance in the hallway. There was no point locking the door when she knew he would be able to open it with a kick. Her only hope was to fight. Her perception of time slowed as the adrenalin in her blood triggered the fight-or-flight protocols in her gelware. She felt her muscles tense as targets and escape routes were evaluated. Felt her fingers tighten on the carbon fibre staff.
And still he came, smiling all the way.
“Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer. He didn’t even pause in the doorway. With a flap of his black coat, he sprang at her. Warning icons flashed in her mind. She swung. He feinted to the side. The tip missed his head and hit the wall, jarring her. She pulled back for another swing, but he moved too fast. A bony arm flicked out like the head of a striking viper. A hand closed around her neck. She felt herself slammed backwards, into the unyielding hardwood of the kitchen door. The air huffed out of her. The staff clattered to the floor.
She couldn’t breathe.
She kicked her feet but his arms were too long: she couldn’t get her knee up to his groin. Darkness hustled the edges of her vision. Paul’s image grew faint. She thrashed but the fingers wrapped her throat like steel cables.
No, not like this!
Without releasing his grip, the smiling man turned her sideways, pressing her cheek against the smooth paintwork of the kitchen door. Her lungs burned. Her throat muscles scrabbled desperately for breath that wouldn’t come.
Please...
Sensing her pain, the gelware came online, interpreting her suffocation as evidence of major physical trauma. Adrenalin poured into her system, but it was already too late.
As she tipped forwards into a spreading black pool of unconsciousness, the last thing she felt was the blade of his knife carving into the flesh at the back of her neck.
CHAPTER FIVE
CLIMBING TREES AND KILLING NAZIS
A COUPLE OF hours after the ninja attack at the aerodrome, Ack-Ack Macaque took to the skies again, this time at the controls of a twin-engine de Havilland troop carrier, with Mindy Morris, the new Scottish recruit, perched in the co-pilot’s chair. Both wore combat fatigues and camouflage paint. Behind them, fifteen paratroopers sat strapped into webbing in the plane’s main cabin.
Night fell as they crossed the Channel. He kept the plane low, to avoid enemy radar, and skimmed across the Normandy coast at treetop height. Their objective lay ahead, in the wooded grounds of the picturesque Chateau du Molay, where intelligence reports indicated that the German army were building launch facilities for their V2 rockets.
As they approached the Chateau’s estate, Ack-Ack Macaque unfastened his straps and pulled his aviator goggles down over his eyes.
“We’re nearly over the target,” he said to Mindy. “Haul ass as soon as we’re clear. They’ll scramble everything they have to intercept you, so get low and stay fast.”
Morris flipped a salute. He returned it with a hairy hand, then moved through the connecting door, into the rear compartment.
The paratroopers sat in two ranks, facing each other down the length of the plane. As one, their heads snapped in his direction. He pulled a cigar from the pocket of his flying jacket and lit up.
“Okay, dumbasses, listen here.” He had to shout over the noise of the de Havilland’s engines. “We’re a minute from the target. Get yourselves unstrapped and line up at the hatch. I go first. The rest of you follow at two second intervals.”
He scampered along the gangway to the hatch. The troops had submachine guns strapped across their chests. He had his revolvers, and a shoulder bag filled with grenades. He hooked the static line from his parachute to the rail above. When he jumped, it would pull open his ’chute as he left the plane.
“Get ready,” he said.
The lights went out, and he popped the hatch.
“Geronimo!”
The air roared around him, snatching at his clothes. His cigar burned like an angry red star. He felt the snap and jolt of the ’chute opening. Then trees rushed up at him out of the darkness. He crashed through their upper branches, arms thrown up to shield his face. For a few seconds, his world became a storm of splintering twigs. Then his harness snagged on something, jerking him so hard his teeth snapped together, biting through the end of his cigar.
When his vision cleared, he found himself swinging above a darkened forest floor. The soles of his boots dangled twenty feet above the shadowed moss and leaves. He had no idea where the rest of his squad had come down. Leaves rustled in the midnight breeze. He kicked his boots off and let them fall away. He cut his way out of his harness and slithered up the canvas straps into the branches above, bayonet clamped in his teeth. If he knew anything—aside from aerial combat—it was climbing trees.
Climbing trees and killing Nazis.
German ninjas were good. They could move through a forest almost soundlessly, cross a field of wet grass without bending a single blade. But however hard they tried, they couldn’t hide their smell. Even if they bathed for a week, he’d still pick up the tang of their soap. Hanging from a branch by his feet and
tail, Ack-Ack Macaque lay in wait, a chrome-plated revolver in each hand.
Darkness above, darkness below. Nothing but the sound of his own rasping breath. No smells but those of dark soil and fallen leaves.
He stayed motionless for several minutes, until he was quite sure he was alone. Then he holstered the revolvers and pulled himself up into the forest canopy.
MOVING THROUGH THE branches, it took him only a few minutes to reach the edge of the woods. Beyond, the Chateau stood unlit in the moonlight, its windows shuttered and curtains drawn. Guards patrolled in the gravel drive in front of the building, where half a dozen black-painted V2 rockets rested on parked mobile launch trailers, and a tripod fighting machine towered over everything else.
The fighting machines were the latest in a long line of diabolical Nazi inventions. They stood twenty metres in height, balanced on three sturdy legs, and bestrode the countryside like giant insects, belching clouds of diesel smoke and dispensing fire and death from the artillery mounted on their thick, armoured bodies.
Ack-Ack Macaque checked the luminous hands of his wristwatch. If his squad had survived the jump, they’d be lurking in the trees nearby, awaiting his signal. Their mission was simple: destroy as much equipment as possible, and recover codebooks and operating instructions for the rockets.
Ack-Ack Macaque dropped from branch to branch, until his bare feet hit the mossy ground beneath the tree. He pulled his revolvers from their holsters and let out a screech.
In answer, the tree line lit up with small arms fire. The German guards scattered. Some shot back. He heard the pap pap pap of their bullets punching through the undergrowth.
“Okay,” he muttered, “let’s get this over with.”
On all fours, he scurried in the direction of the Chateau, running directly beneath the towering tripod. Shots whined past him like angry bees. The grass felt cool beneath his palms.
At the front door, he dropped into a shoulder roll and came up with a grenade in either hand. He tossed both at the nearest V2 trailer and, while they were still in the air, whipped out his revolvers and plugged the four guards nearest to him.
A throwing star hissed past his face. He turned. Black-clad ninjas ran at him. Five or six of them, with blood-red swastikas sewn on their chests. Teeth bared, he started shooting, knowing they’d be on him before he got them all.
But then the ground bucked. A flash. A roaring blast. White heat hit him, and slammed him against the wall of the chateau.
ACK-ACK MACAQUE LAY in the rubble for what seemed like a very long time. His ears rang. Everything smelled of brick dust and plaster, and scorched monkey hair. From where he lay, he could see that part of the chateau’s façade had collapsed, spilling stone and broken glass onto the gravel driveway. A fire raged on one of the upper floors.
He got to his feet, miraculously unhurt, and brushed dust from his singed fur. Ten metres away, a smoking crater marked the spot where the V2 had detonated on its trailer. The other trailers had been damaged in the blast. Two had tipped over. One was on fire. The tripod fighting machine lay on its side, its body smashed amongst the trees, one insectile leg sticking upward at an awkward angle.
Ack-Ack Macaque looked around for the ninjas who’d been about to attack him. They lay twisted and dead in the wreckage of the chateau’s front wall, their limbs as bent and broken as twigs, their internal organs pulverised by the blast wave from the exploding rocket.
“This isn’t right,” he said. He patted his chest and stomach. Not a scratch on him. No internal pain. He caught sight of something silver: his guns. He picked them up and looked around. Over the noise in his ears, he heard the sounds of fighting in the trees. The battle had moved into the forest.
“Not right at all.” He frowned at the bomb crater. The blast had been enough to demolish the solid stone frontage of the old chateau, but somehow he’d emerged unscathed.
“There’s no way in hell I could have survived that.” The ninjas had been squashed like bugs. How had he escaped? It didn’t seem fair. Why was he always the last one standing? His mind filled with images of burning planes. Over the past few months, he’d seen so many young pilots crash to their deaths; yet here he was again, with hardly a scratch on him.
Fatigue rinsed away the last of his strength. Everything seemed pointless and hollow, and all he wanted was to rest.
He had two bullets left in each revolver. Legs unsteady and ears still ringing from the explosion, he began to walk in the direction of the gunfire. As he did so, he saw a group of German guards emerge from the trees.
“Hey!” he hollered. “Over here!”
They turned towards him and opened fire. He didn’t even try to dodge. He was too tired. He kept walking as their shots peppered the ground around his feet, kicking up mud and gravel. He heard bullets whine past, inches from his face; he felt the wind of their passing, yet nothing hit him. The Germans emptied their weapons, and then lowered them. They didn’t seem to know what to do. Some of them started to reload.
Ack-Ack Macaque’s fists were clenched around the butts of his Colts. His lips were drawn back to show his fangs.
“Is that it?” he demanded. His tail thrashed back and forth. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
The Germans began to back away. Ack-Ack Macaque screeched at them. His heart rattled in his chest. All the exhaustion and fear bubbled up inside him, like water boiling in a pan. He hadn’t slept in such a long, long time.
“Come on! Why won’t you kill me too? Look at me, I’m standing right here!” He was almost upon them now, yet none of them raised a weapon. Even the ones who’d reloaded seemed nonplussed and unsure what to do. He hissed at them. He beat his chest with his forearms, challenging them. Two of them turned and fled. The rest stood there wide-eyed, guns drooping.
He wanted to fling his own shit at them. Rub it in their gormless faces.
“Why’s it always me?” He sprang at the nearest, and they crashed back together, into the grass. The man struggled, but Ack-Ack Macaque shook him by the lapels of his tunic.
“Why won’t you kill me?” he screeched, canines centimetres from the man’s face. “Why can’t I die?”
TECHSNARK
BLOGGING WITH ATTITUDE
Everybody Loves The Monkey
Posted: 24/11/2059 – 5:00pm GMT
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With dozens of major new titles released every month, the game world thrives on novelty. How then, given that it’s been a full twelve months since the launch of Céleste’s flagship product Ack-Ack Macaque, can the title still be the number one most popular game on the immersive entertainment market? I mean, that’s not how it works, right?
Wrong.
The reasons for Ack-Ack Macaque’s phenomenal success are fourfold:
First off, they’ve managed to keep interest high by strictly limiting the number of players allowed in-game at any one time. New players can’t join until old ones are killed off or quit. With only 10,000 places up for grabs, and an estimated world gaming population of around 30 million, this lends the game a certain exclusivity.
Secondly, the whole one-life deal means players see the game as the ultimate test of their abilities. In the world of Ack-Ack Macaque, just like in real life, there are no second chances, and the challenge is to survive as long as possible. Players who don’t take the game seriously get wasted early, and they don’t get to come back. Once you’re out of the game, you’re out for good. Those who’ve put a lot of time and effort into developing their characters have a vested interest in keeping them alive.
Thirdly, the whole social media side of the game makes it more than just a shoot-em-up. In between missions, players get to hang out together. They can talk to their friends, trade planes and equipment, and form alliances. There’s even an online dating agency operating entirely within the game’s virtual world.
And lastly, there’s the immersive experience itself, which is still light years ahead of its nearest rivals. The world of Ack-Ack Macaque has
been so faithfully rendered that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish it from reality. It’s like being transported to another planet. The sun feels warm on your face and the food tastes the way food should. When you touch the other players, they feel solid and human. A punch feels like a punch, a kiss feels like a kiss. And a bullet to the chest feels like a bullet to the chest.
Put these things together, and it’s not hard to see why the game’s become such a monster. For a few hundred bucks, you can buy yourself a whole new life.
And let’s not forget the appeal of the iconic monkey himself. I really have to take my hat off to Céleste for creating such a believable character. Truly a masterpiece of artificial intelligence and CGI animation, he neither acts nor talks like a computer. In fact, you could almost believe he was a real monkey.
A year after he first appeared on our gaming screens, you can now see his face everywhere, from lunch boxes, screensavers and t-shirts to plush toys and action figures. His trademark screech became last year’s highest-selling ringtone, and millions of viewers continue to re-watch his most famous exploits on YouTube. Last Halloween, half the kids in my neighbourhood were dressed as him.
And therein lies the appeal of this game. Simply put, everybody loves the monkey. Long may he continue to fly.
Ack-Ack Macaque is available on SincPad, TuringBox, and Playcube 180. A PC version is also in development.
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CHAPTER SIX
ARMED AND HUMOURLESS
Ack-Ack Macaque Page 5