The barest nod.
“They spew out star fire, son. That’s fourteen zillion degrees centigrade. What do you think will happen if I let them hover over your little citadel?”
Behind her, she heard the Ameline’s engines whine into life. The ship was monitoring her conversation via her neural implant, and this was its idea of theatrics. Suppressing a smile, Kat took another step forward, so that her stomach pressed up against the spikes on the wire gate. At the same time, she brought the shotgun to bear, pointing the barrel at the bridge of the kid’s nose.
“Open up,” she growled. The kid’s eyes went wide. He knew he was out of his depth. He looked at her, then over her shoulder at the rising wedge of the Ameline. She saw him swallow. Without taking his eyes from the looming ship, he reached for a button inside the door and the gate drew back. Kat stepped forward, shotgun now pointed at his midriff.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Faro.”
She raised a finger and waggled it, telling him to turn around.
“Never try to out-negotiate a trader, Faro.”
FARO LED HER down a set of pleated metal steps. His trainers dragged on each stair. She kept the shotgun trained on the small of his back.
“How old are you?” she asked. He didn’t answer. His vest and jeans hung off him, several sizes too large for his half-starved junkie frame.
“Down ’ere,” he muttered.
At the foot of the steps was an iron door. Beyond that, a poorly carpeted corridor that stank of incense. Faro flapped an arm at a pair of rough pine doors that formed the corridor’s far end.
“Vilca’s office.”
Kat gave him a prod with the shotgun barrel.
“Why don’t you knock for me?” She followed him to the doors. “Go on,” she said.
Faro tapped reluctant knuckles against the wood. From inside, a voice called: “What is it?” Faro glanced back at Kat, his eyes wide, unsure what to do. She nudged him in the kidney with the tip of the shotgun.
“Open the door,” she suggested.
Inside, the office was as rough and raw as the rest of the building, but the rugs on the floor were thicker and newer than elsewhere, and there were curtains at the windows. A heavy-set bald man sat behind a scuffed steel desk.
“I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. Who the devil are you?”
Kat took Faro by the shoulder and pushed him aside. She drew herself up.
“My name is Katherine Denktash Abdulov, master of the trading vessel Ameline and scion of the Strauli Abdulovs. Are you Earl Vilca?”
The fat man frowned.
“You’re a trader?”
Kat lowered the shotgun so that the barrel pointed at the floor.
“As I said, I represent the Abdulov trading family.”
The man eased back in his chair. He gave her an appraising look.
“And what can I do for you, Miss Abdulov?”
Kat took a pace towards the desk.
“That’s Captain Abdulov, and you have a friend of mine. I want him released.”
Vilca chuckled. He folded his hands over the bulge of his stomach. Gold rings glistened on his sausage-like fingers.
“Very good,” he said approvingly. “I do so like a woman who comes straight to the point.”
According to the profile the Ameline had been able to piece together from information retrieved from the local Grid, Earl Vilca was one of the most powerful men on Nuevo Cordoba. His operation dealt in drugs, prostitution and extortion. He had politicians and high-ranking police officers in his pocket, and a seemingly endless supply of teenage muscle. On a world of high-piled shanties and meagre mushroom harvests, he lived like a king. But when Kat looked down at him, all she saw was a white, bloated parasite: a puffed-up hoodlum in a cheaply-fabbed suit.
“I know who you are, and what you are,” she said. “And I’m not impressed. So if you’d be kind enough to release Napoleon Jones, I’ll be on my way.”
On the opposite side of the desk, Vilca pursed his lips. He drummed his fingers against his belt buckle.
“Jones, eh? Well, well, well.” He shook his head with a smile. “You’ve come bursting in here to rescue Napoleon Jones? He’s nothing but a two-bit hustler. What do you want with him?”
Kat gripped the shotgun.
“As I said, he’s a friend.”
Vilca narrowed his eyes. He ran his tongue across his bottom lip. Then he sat forward, hands resting on the desk.
“All right, Captain. I’ll make you a trade. Jones for some information.”
“What kind of information?”
The fat man waved his hand at the sky.
“I hear things. Rumours. Shipments have disappeared. Scheduled deliveries from Strauli have not arrived. Ships are overdue.”
Kat felt her pulse quicken. She knew where this was going and she didn’t have time to waste playing games.
“Strauli has fallen,” she said bluntly. “Inakpa, Djatt and probably several others.”
Vilca blinked at her.
“Fallen?”
“Gone, destroyed. No more.”
The man’s brows drew together. He plainly didn’t believe her.
“I am serious, Captain. I have been losing money—”
Kat stepped right up to the desk and glared down at him.
“They’re gone.”
“Gone?” Vilca’s cheeks flushed. His fingers brushed his lower lip. “But what could do such a thing?”
Kat used her implant to signal the Ameline.
“I’ve asked my ship to download all the information we have to the local Grid. See for yourself. It’s all tagged with the key word ‘Recollection’.”
Vilca gave her a long look. He was getting flustered.
“Go on,” she said. “Check it out. I’ll wait here.”
“No tricks?”
Kat nodded in the direction of Faro, still cowering in the corner of the room.
“Your boy here can keep an eye on me.”
Vilca looked up and to the right, accessing the cranial implant that connected him to the vast cloud of data that formed the planetary Grid. Kat stood watching him. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other. After a few seconds, she saw the colour drain from his cheeks. She knew what he was seeing. She’d seen it herself firsthand: the destruction of Djatt, the boiling red cloud that seemed to emerge from the fabric of space itself, closing like a fist around the planet.
His eyes snapped back into focus.
“Madre de Dios.”
“Quite.”
“What can we do?”
“Give me Jones.”
Vilca’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What’s to stop me killing you and using your ship to escape?”
Kat hefted the shotgun.
“You try to kill me and I’ll use my ship’s fusion exhaust to scour this canyon back to the bedrock.”
Vilca gave a snort. He seemed to have recovered his composure.
“You wouldn’t. You’re not the type.”
Kat leaned toward him.
“Check the data, Vilca. Look at the fall of Strauli Quay.”
“Strauli…?”
The man’s eyes flicked away for a second.
“You fired on the Quay?”
Kat set her jaw. “I had no choice.”
“But there were more than a million—”
She raised her shotgun, pointing the barrel at his chest.
“Do you still think I’m bluffing?”
Vilca swallowed. She could see a damp sheen on his bald pate. After a moment, he let his shoulders slump.
“All right,” he said. “You win. Faro, would you please fetch Mister Jones?”
Kat realised she’d stepped too close to Vilca’s desk. She hadn’t kept track of the boy. As she turned, she saw him raise his gun. Her finger yanked the trigger. The shotgun jumped in her hand. Faro jerked backward, chest shredded by three rapid-fire blasts. She turned back to Vilca, and caught the fat man in the act o
f reaching for the pistol in his desk drawer. She fired into the surface of the desk and he jerked his hand back, eyes wide.
“Okay, that’s enough!”
Kat’s pulse battered in her head. She didn’t know if she was angry with Vilca, Faro or herself.
“Get Jones up here, right now!”
Vilca knew he had been defeated. He sent an order via his implant. Moments later, a pair of wide-eyed teenagers brought Napoleon Jones to the door. They were half-carrying him. He couldn’t walk by himself. They looked down at Faro’s smoking corpse and turned questioning eyes on their boss. Vilca waved them away with a flap of his meaty paw.
“These people are leaving,” he said.
Kat looked at Jones. His arm and leg were bandaged. His coat was torn. The antique goggles still hung around his neck.
“Kat?”
“I’ve got a ship up top. We’re leaving.”
Jones shook his head, as if trying to clear it. He’d been beaten. His lips and eyes were swollen; his moustache caked with dried blood.
“What about Vilca?”
The man behind the desk looked up at him.
“You should not have come back, señor. People love a daredevil because they are always awaiting his death. If he lives too long, well,” he spread his hands, “they become resentful.”
Kat pulled on Napoleon’s sleeve.
“Leave him. He knows it’s all over.” She picked Faro’s pistol from the dead boy’s fingers.
“What’s over?”
“His little empire.” She glared at the fat man. “This whole planet.”
Vilca put his head in his hands.
“Go now,” he said.
Kat put an arm around Napoleon and he leaned his weight on her shoulder. They backed out of the room. When they reached the door at the far end of the corridor, the one that led to the roof, Vilca raised his head.
“Captain?” he said, his voice hoarse.
Kat paused.
“Yes?”
“What can we do? About The Recollection, I mean.”
She took a deep breath. She owed him nothing. Further down the canyon, the freighters were filling their holds with refugees. She’d done all she could.
She looked him in the eye.
“Pray it doesn’t take you alive.”
WITH GREAT EFFORT, Katherine helped Jones up the metal stairs. When they got to the surface, it was snowing. Blood red flakes fell from an otherwise clear and empty sky, whirling around on the warm air rising up from the canyon.
“Oh hell.” The outbreak had spread faster than she’d expected. Using her implant, she told the Ameline to warm the engines. If they hurried, they might still have a chance.
“Come on, Jones.” His arm lay draped across her shoulders. She gripped it and pushed upwards with her legs, taking as much of his weight as she could.
> TOO LATE.
Ahead, at the lip of the canyon, a scarlet slick covered the Ameline’s upper surfaces.
“No!”
One of the red flakes stuck against her right thigh. Another hit the back of her hand. She looked at Jones. He already had half a dozen in his hair, more against his shoulders and back.
“Damn it.” She let go of his arm and brushed at her trousers. For each flake she dislodged, another three attached themselves. Where they touched her skin, she felt a sting like the bite of a tiny insect. Her movements became more frantic, but to no avail.
No, it can’t end like this…
She thrashed impotently at the storm, trying desperately to brush herself clean. As the blizzard intensified, she lost sight of her ship, lost touch with Jones. All she could feel were a thousand needle-like stings all over her body; all she could think of were the millions of dead on Strauli Quay; and all she could see were bright red sparks—billions of them, shredding and consuming her limbs, roaring through her head and heart like a fire. Reducing her every cell to ash and embers.
Embers on the wind.
PART THREE
MONKEY VS MULTIVERSE
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
(Mark Twain, Letter to Mrs Foote, Dec. 2, 1887)
From the European Review of Physical Sciences, online edition:
EDITORIAL: OUR SCIENCE IS WRONG
Two years have passed since our world was invaded by a white-suited hive mind from another dimension, and yet we still have absolutely no idea how they did it.
We have examined the machinery aboard the captured Gestalt dreadnoughts, but have yet to come up with a convincing explanation. The problem is not that these fantastical engines are too complicated—on the contrary, they appear to be of an extremely simple construction—the problem is that they work at all.
By somehow moving an airship from one parallel timeline to another, these engines violate almost everything we know about physics. According to all our theories, they should not work; and yet they do. Travel between alternate worlds has become an undeniable reality—a reality that has thrown into disarray everything we thought we understood, and left us with a stark realisation: our science is wrong.
Fitting the Gestalt machinery into our view of reality will necessitate a radical overhaul of both quantum and classical physics. Under current ‘laws’, they should not be able to do what they do, and yet they do it anyway. Either these airships are a figment of our collective imagination, or the universe (multiverse?) is far stranger than we could ever have expected.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ILLEGAL DUPLICATE
PAUL WASN’T ANSWERING her calls, so Victoria found his projection drone and activated it manually. The tiny machine looked like a cross between a toy helicopter and a complex mechanical dragonfly—much like the surveillance drone they’d used in Nguyen’s lab. When she hit the power button, its little fans whirred and it wobbled into the air. The lenses spaced around the narrow constriction at its middle brightened, and a three dimensional image of Paul flickered into being on the bridge before her. He appeared to be wearing his usual Hawaiian shirt and white lab coat.
“Where am I?” He rubbed his eyes and looked around with a puzzled expression. Victoria moistened her lower lip.
“You’re on the Sun Wukong.”
“And who are you?”
“Your wife.”
Behind his glasses, his eyes were wide and fearful, like those of a frightened animal. “My wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
He seemed to mull this over. A hand came up to scratch the bristles on his chin.
“You’re… Vicky?”
“Oui, mon amour.”
He frowned again. “What happened to your hair?”
Victoria put a hand to her scalp. “I had an accident, years ago. You saved me.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Yes, you did.” She felt a lump in her throat; she couldn’t swallow properly. “Don’t you remember?”
Paul looked pained. He reached up to fiddle with the diamond stud in his ear.
“I’m not sure…”
“Do you remember the Tereshkova?” she prompted. “The battle over London?” She stepped close to him. She wanted to touch his face, ruffle his spiky hair.
“I remember a smiling man.”
Victoria felt her heart lurch. “You don’t need to worry about him,” she said hurriedly, blinking away the memory of Berg’s reptilian face and the screams he made as the monkeys tore him apart.
“But the rest…” Paul flapped his arms helplessly. “It comes and g
oes. I get flashes.”
Victoria put a hand to her mouth. She wanted so desperately to comfort him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m here. I’m going to look after you.”
Paul clenched his jaw. He glared over the top of his glasses.
“I’m not an idiot. I know what’s happening to me.”
“Then you also know that I love you, and I’m going to do whatever I can to help.”
His expression hardened. “There’s nothing that can be done.”
Victoria clenched her fists. “I’m not letting you go without a fight.”
“But what can you do?”
Victoria drummed her fingers against her chin. “Could we duplicate the original back-up, and integrate your stored memories?”
Paul shook his head. His earring flashed. “It wouldn’t work. We didn’t keep a pristine copy. The memories I’ve gathered since being activated have overwritten and updated the original recording.”
“So, all we have is you as you are now? No back-up to the back-up?”
Paul looked down at his body, and wiped his hands down the front of his lab coat. “That’s the way these things were designed. Nobody wants multiple copies of their dearly departed.”
Victoria bit her lip, thinking furiously. If they couldn’t get the original, then maybe they could get the next best thing…
“You know, there is another copy of you.”
“Where?”
“On Mars.”
Paul raised skeptical eyebrows. “Mars?”
“Yes.” Victoria walked over to the main windshield. Rural France lay below like a winter blanket, a patchwork of browns and yellows. “When you were killed, Berg cut out your brain, soul-catcher and all. He took your official back-up and we never recovered it.” She turned her back to the view and levelled a finger at him. “You, the you I’m talking to right now, you’re the illegal duplicate.”
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