“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
“NEVER 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.”
MOVING 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…
As he moved, Ack-Ack Macaque sucked in as much fresh air as he could, trying to clear the fumes lingering in his head.
Apynja had used him. The realisation burned fiery and sore, its flame fed by anger and embarrassment. When she’d found him, he’d been exhausted and hungry, and lost on a strange world. She’d drugged him, riled him up, and then turned him loose against Célestine’s compound, on what she must have known would be a suicidal attack. Yes, he’d been angry about the needless deaths of so many people on her world; yes, he’d been upset and tired, and wanting to hit back; but she’d amplified and exploited that anger, and used him as a weapon. She’d aimed him at the target, and then pressed all the right buttons.
What had she been expecting? There was no way he could have prevailed against so many cyborgs. He’d been running from them for days—taking the fight to them had been insane. He might be reckless but he wasn’t usually that stupid. Usually, he knew when to attack and when to retreat, but Apynja had found a way to circumvent his common sense. He felt used. He would have died had Victoria not shown up when she did. Despite all Apynja’s talk about individual freedoms and the taking down of tyrants, the saggy old ape had manipulated him into doing something stupid for her own ends, and—now he was starting to think clearly again—he hated her for it. She was just one more self-serving bastard in a long line of self-serving bastards, and he was tired of being treated like a puppet.
Motioning Victoria to stay hidden, he risked a peep over the wall. They were out of the Leviathan’s immediate path but not out of range of its weapons, and he had no doubt that, if they were seen, they’d be blown to pieces. Grinding relentlessly forward, the tank’s front tracks rolled across the wreck of the helicopter, flattening it into the ground like a dead bird caught beneath an elephant’s foot. Ack-Ack Macaque ducked down.
“If only I had a rocket launcher…”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Victoria said. “They have shields. They’re almost impenetrable.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No, sorry.”
“Damn it!” He looked at Victoria and saw she was red-faced and out of breath. Her eyes were raw and puffy, as if she’d been crying. She still wore the shabby, threadbare clothes she’d used as a disguise, and her hands and knees were filthy with mud.
“Stay low,” he growled.
At the end of the wall, a stream cut between the fields. With a curse and a snarl of distaste, he crawled down into the reeds at its edge, feeling his hands and legs squishing into the frigid, cloudy muck at their base. His nose wrinkled with the rank cabbage-like smell of rotting vegetation, and his skin cringed at the icy water’s cadaverous touch.
“Ah, fuck it.” At least now he was below the level of the surrounding fields, and hopefully hidden from sight. He started crawling, sloshing downstream, towards a small stone bridge that marked where a lane crossed the stream. He heard Victoria suck air through her teeth as she slid herself into the water behind him; then, a clattering crash as the Leviathan smashed its way through the field’s boundary wall. The beast was going to pass them about two-dozen metres to their left. They were running para
llel to its course now. All they had to do was get into the shade of the bridge without being seen. Beneath its mossy stones, they’d have the breathing space to hunker down and plan their next move.
His lips drew back in an involuntary smile. Here he was again, running from enemy war machines in the fields of France. It was just like being back in the game, and he revelled for a moment in the situation’s familiarity, remembering better days. He’d been unstoppable back then: the best pilot on the Allied side, victor of a thousand dogfights and a hundred ground skirmishes. He’d once gone hand-to-hand against an entire platoon of Nazi ninjas, and emerged with nothing more serious than a few scratches and some singed fur.
No chance of that now.
The cold water swirled around his arms and legs, aching his bones, and he could feel it sapping his strength—but at least the shock of it had cleared his head. His body might be exhausted but he felt mentally fresher and more on-the-ball than he had in days.
He dipped his head, looking back through his legs.
“How are you doing, boss?”
Victoria’s coat was sodden and floating out on either side of her. Her shoulders shook with the cold and her lips had turned a deep purple colour.
“Just keep moving,” she hissed through her clenched jaw. Ack-Ack Macaque’s grin widened.
“Aye, aye.”
He began to shuffle forward, but then stiffened as he heard the boom of a cannon off to his left. Half a second later, a shell exploded on the right-hand bank of the stream, a few metres the other side of the bridge.
“Shit!” He ducked his head as lumps of soil and clumps of grass rained down around him. The gun fired again and the centre of the bridge blew apart. Stones flew in all directions. Heedless of the water, Ack-Ack Macaque threw himself flat. When he emerged a couple of seconds later, gasping and spitting out weeds, he saw that the small structure had been completely destroyed. If he and Victoria had been sitting under it, they’d have been killed by the blast and buried by the debris.
He leapt to his feet and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her back in the direction from which they’d come.
“New plan,” he hollered. “Run like fuck!”
SHELLS CRASHED AROUND them as they splashed through the water. The banks of the stream afforded some protection, but not much. Victoria’s legs were shaky with cold and fear, and her face stung from the earth and gravel flung up by the explosions. At one point, she and Ack-Ack Macaque were blown completely off their feet, and lay panting in the mud and ooze, ears ringing.
Closing her eyes, she accessed the gelware in her skull. A mental menu allowed her to dial down her sensitivity to pain and fatigue and increase the amount of adrenaline coursing through her arteries.
“Get up.” The monkey tugged her sleeve and she stood, coat dripping into the water around her.
“I’m okay.” Where a moment ago there had been soreness and discomfort, now she felt only stiffness.
“Ready to run?”
“Pourquoi pas?”
“Come on, then.” He pushed her forward. Another shell whined overhead and thumped into the ploughed earth of the field on the other side of the stream. Even through her numbed toes, Victoria felt the ground shudder with the force of its impact. She risked a peep at the Leviathan. The enormous, slab-sided vehicle hadn’t altered course, and continued to draw away from them, towards the outskirts of Paris. The shells it fired came from two of the smaller turrets towards its rear.
“They’re using us for practice,” she said indignantly.
Ack-Ack Macaque shoved her onwards.
“Would you prefer they turned around and used their really big guns?”
“No, but—”
“Keep moving,” he said. “We need to get across this field.” They were back to the point where they’d originally entered the stream. “We’ll use the wall as cover again, only this time we’ll go on the other side.”
“But—”
“They’ve almost got our range. We have to change direction. If we get behind the wall, they won’t know which bit of it we’re behind. They won’t know where to aim.”
“Unless they have thermal imaging.”
“In which case, we’re fucked whatever we do, so let’s act like they don’t.” He scrambled up the bank and Victoria followed. A shell hit the ground a few metres behind her but she ignored it and kept crawling. The November soil was hard and friable beneath her hands. The wall lay to her left, the portal to her right. The monkey scurried after her, far more comfortable on all fours than she was.
“Don’t stop,” he huffed. “The only way we’re getting out of this is if they don’t know where we are.”
Two shells hit simultaneously, but they were back towards the stream, further away than before.
Is it working?
She could see Paul’s ghost floating in the air before her. He’d taken off his glasses and had his hands on his hips.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but who’s shooting at us?”
“Lady Alyssa.”
“I thought she was dead.”
Victoria didn’t answer; she couldn’t spare the breath to explain, and she wasn’t sure she could talk to him without her voice cracking. For three years, she’d been dreading this moment: the point at which his simulated personality began to de-cohere and fade, and he became progressively more confused. As a teenager, she’d had an aunt with Alzheimer’s and had no desire to repeat the experience of watching another human being unravel piece-by-piece—especially one she loved as fiercely as she loved Paul. She reached the section of wall pulverised by the Leviathan’s tracks and stopped crawling. The noise of the tank’s engines was quieter now, and the shells it fired were going wide, its rear gunners still concentrating on the section of wall closest to the water.
“Why aren’t they firing this way?” she asked.
Ack-Ack Macaque dropped back onto his haunches.
“They don’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“Because of that.” Across the field, beyond the crushed remains of the helicopter, the portal shimmered again, and the snout of another huge battle tank appeared.
“Merde.”
“You said it.”
Whichever side of the wall they chose, they’d be visible to one Leviathan or the other. They were trapped and exposed, with nowhere to hide, and no weapons capable of inflicting damage on the enemy.
She grabbed the leather shoulder of Ack-Ack Macaque’s flight jacket.
“What do we do?”
The monkey smacked his lips and drew the large black pistol from his belt.
“I’ll distract them, you run for it.”
She gave him a look.
“You’re kidding?”
He shook his head, and unstrapped the chainsaw. “I’ll charge the bastard. You run for it. See if you can get across the field and lose yourself behind the far wall. It’s your only chance.”
The second Leviathan was only halfway through the portal but its turrets were already zeroing in on their position. Victoria swallowed.
“I can’t leave you.”
“You don’t have a choice, sweetheart.” Ack-Ack Macaque jumped to his feet, brandishing a weapon in each hand, and let out a howl. Then he started to run. Victoria winced. She could see guns of all shapes and sizes turning on him.
“Wait!” But it was too late. She couldn’t do anything to stop what was about to happen. She couldn’t even bring herself to run. Her body wouldn’t respond. She crouched there, unable to move, as her best friend ran at the biggest tank she’d ever seen, waving his chainsaw above his head.
He wouldn’t get close, she knew. He’d die and, moments later, she’d follow him. She tried to close her eyes but couldn’t wrestle her gaze from the horror unfolding before her.
She braced herself for the inevitable hail of bullets…
THE AIR CRACKLED and the sun went out.
By the time she realised it was the Sun Wukong blocking out the
sky, the dreadnought had unloaded a clutch of missiles at the tank, engulfing it in a series of gigantic fireballs. The concussions knocked her back on her derrière, and she sat for a few seconds, mouth open at the ferocity of the attack. Ack-Ack Macaque recovered faster than she did. While her attention remained fixed on the Leviathan—still rolling and apparently unharmed as it emerged from the conflagration—he ran back and yanked her upright.
“Cavalry’s here,” he said.
Looking up, Victoria saw a helicopter spiralling down from the airship, weaving and ducking to avoid the lines of tracer cutting the sky around it.
Oh God, she thought. Not another helicopter. Not again.
Hand-in-hand, they started running, stumbling and skidding on the loose, uneven surface of the ploughed field. Above, the dreadnought fired another clutch of rockets.
“The shield,” she said. “The missiles can’t get through.”
Ack-Ack Macaque said nothing. He just kept pulling her onwards. His palm felt as soft and warm as a leather glove, but the tendons beneath were as hard and tight as wire.
Several of the Leviathan’s larger cannons swung upwards, aiming at the Sun Wukong. As Victoria watched, they fired a volley. She tried to cover her ears. The noise was deafening, and she could feel it in her gut. The tank rocked on its tracks, and angry explosions tore the airship’s underside. At the same time, a pair of missiles dropped from the main gondola and punched through the Leviathan’s roof. Their combined detonation lit the tank up from within. Flames burst from every hatch and turret, and the upper superstructure blew apart like a tin can filled with firecrackers.
Even as the wreck burned, the air behind it rippled and the bow of a third Leviathan appeared. Legs and feet now almost completely numb, Victoria staggered unsteadily towards the spot where the helicopter was in the process of touching down in a whirl of dust and twigs. To her left, beyond the wall, the first Leviathan also engaged the airship, and they traded shots. She wondered how much punishment the Sun Wukong’s armour could withstand.
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