She was telling the truth. Victoria could tell; she’d had enough practice interviewing politicians and other professional liars.
“What did you do?”
“We ran.” Kat punched one hand into the palm of the other. “We gathered together as many survivors as we possibly could and we made for the stars.” She stopped talking, eyes focused on the pictures in her head—a thousand light-year stare.
“So, why are you here, now?”
“It caught us.” The words came out tinged with loathing. Kat’s fists were clenched. “The Recollection’s whole purpose was to gather intelligent beings,” she said, “to harvest them and deliver their stored minds to the end of time, to a point it called ‘The Eschaton’—the ultimate end of all things.”
“But why?”
“Because its builders believed they’d be resurrected, brought back to life in the infinite quantum mind-spaces of the ubercomputer.”
Victoria frowned. “Je ne comprends pas.”
Kat tipped her head back against the chair’s rest and rubbed her eyes. “At the end of time, as the last stars guttered and died, they believed there would be a final flowering. That their descendants—or the descendants of whichever race survived until the end—would have the means and wherewithal to construct a huge computer of near infinite complexity, powered by the very dissolution of the universe itself. And having retreated within this computer, they’d then be able to play out the entire history of the cosmos, over and over again with endless permutations. As the final seconds of the real universe ticked towards their conclusion, the builders would be able to live out aeon after simulated aeon, cocooned within their virtual worlds.”
Victoria looked at the main view screen, which currently showed a crystal clear, light-enhanced image of the Sun Wukong’s deck and the darkening sky beyond. “And that’s where we are now, in this simulation?”
“Yes.” Fingers laced over her midriff, Kat closed her eyes. “When The Recollection came for us, we fought and we ran. But, as I said, it caught us.” She shivered again. “All of us.”
Victoria lay back and considered her reflection in the touchscreen panel above her head. Not everything Kat had said had made sense, and she had plenty of questions. They were part of her default response: if she didn’t understand something well enough to explain it in a newspaper article, she just kept chipping away at it until she had all the facts.
“If all that’s true,” she asked hesitantly, picking her words, “how come you remember it and I don’t?”
“Because it never happened to you.” Kat gave one of her one-shoulder shrugs. “You were long dead by the time The Recollection reached Earth.”
“Then what am I doing here?”
The young pilot glanced sideways at Victoria. “The ubercomputer’s vast and powerful. It recreated you from the DNA of the people it had. From them, it extrapolated every person who ever lived, anywhere, and brought them back to life.”
Victoria wanted to laugh or cover her ears. It sounded like the most muddleheaded New Age tomfoolery, and she really wanted a drink. This wasn’t, she felt, the kind of conversation one should have sober.
“I’m sorry, but all this, everything you’re telling me, it all sounds crazy.”
Kat sat upright. “It is crazy, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“And what about you?”
“I had a brush with the Recollection. It infected me with its spores but only at a low level. I had protection.” Her artificial hand went to her throat, as if touching a pendant that wasn’t there. “The changes it made to the structure of my brain enabled me to retain my memories. There are others like me, just a few of us who know the truth, who remember.”
“And you’re just flying around, spreading the word?”
“No.” A grim shake of the head. “We’re fighting a war.”
“Against the computer?”
“Against its builders.” Kat pressed a control, and a rotating three-dimensional display blinked into existence in the centre of the cockpit, showing a tactical representation of the surrounding airspace, from ground level to the upper stratosphere. Possible threats, such as ground vehicles and large buildings, were picked out in red. “I told you they retreated into their own simulations to escape the death of the universe. Well, some of them went native in a big way. Instead of being content to live out their lives in recreations of the past, they decided to change it to suit themselves, to carve out little empires and stamp their domination on the timelines.”
“Like Célestine?”
“Bingo.” Kat clicked her fingers. “She’s one of the builders. A long time ago, she cast versions of herself across all the timelines, and now she sits behind the scenes, working through them to achieve her ends.”
“Célestine built the multiverse?”
“Yes, in part. But there’s another out there, another of the architects of the simulations, and she’s more dangerous than Célestine could ever be.”
“Who is she?”
“A criminal, responsible for a million atrocities.” Kat’s fists clenched. “We’ve been tracking her for years but she’s recently gone quiet. Most of her alternate selves are dead.”
“And you think she’s here too?”
“I know it.”
Victoria swallowed. Her mind raced. Then she froze. Something cold squeezed her stomach and her mouth went dry.
“Is she me?”
“What?” Kat’s eyebrows shot up. “No!” She laughed. “No, you can relax, you’re fine. It’s not you.” The laugh dried like a puddle in the sun. “No, you already know her. She built the airship we’re riding on, using her knowledge of glitches in the programme to move it between the timelines.”
“The Founder?”
“The clue’s in the name, I guess.”
“But she’s a monkey.”
Another shrug. “It amuses her to take animal form. She might be a monkey on this world and an ape on the next. And she goes by many names—Founder, Architect, Apynja…”
“You’re here to get her?”
“Her and Célestine.” Katherine Abdulov drew herself straight and Victoria saw her lip curl. “We’re here to stop them before they do any more harm; to bring them to account for the billions who’ve died in their little games.”
“Virtual beings?” Victoria thought of the world she’d visited most recently, laid waste by Célestine’s drive to build a cyborg army. All those ghosts…
“Sentient beings nonetheless, and fully capable of suffering.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
A mischievous smile glimmered behind Kat’s dark eyes. “Because you and Ack-Ack Macaque have been fighting them and, if you don’t mind me saying, doing a damn good job.”
“And you want our help?”
“Not help so much, but maybe we should pool resources. What do you think?”
Victoria took a deep breath and let out a long, draining exhalation. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I know.” Kat chewed her bottom lip. “It was tough for me too, to start with. But please think about it. I could do with someone like you. There are very few who can move between the worlds, and you’ve been doing it for the past two years.” Her expression became wistful. “And besides, I’ve been looking for Ack-Ack for a long time now.”
“You have?”
“Yes.” Kat smiled. “You see, I know who he really is.”
ACK-ACK MACAQUE STOOD with K8, on the viewing platform at the top of the Rock. The Strait of Gibraltar lay before them like a sparkling azure carpet. At the foot of the Rock, the hotels and apartment complexes of the town clustered close to the shoreline. Waves broke against the beaches. A westerly breeze blew in off the Atlantic, bringing a chill to an otherwise unseasonably warm November day, and he turned up the collar of his coat. Fourteen miles away, across the water, the stony Rif Mountains of Morocco loomed brown and purple through the haze—the uppermost tip of a whole new continent that
stretched eight thousand vertiginous miles to Cape Town, and the spot where the waters of the South Atlantic ran into those of the Indian Ocean.
“Make the most of it,” he said, watching as K8 took photographs of the view with her SincPhone. She didn’t reply, just kept snapping. She knew as well as he did that they might never get another chance to come here, and that their forthcoming journey to Mars could very well end up being a one-way trip, even if they somehow defeated Célestine and her minions.
He was pleased to see that she’d finally changed out of her white suit, into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, both purchased on the ride here from the airport. The suit jacket and skirt had been abandoned in the back of the taxi and were now somewhere in the city below, off on adventures of their own.
Ack-Ack turned to look into the wind, at the vast dark bulk of the Sun Wukong. The airship rode at anchor above the airport, its impellers spinning sporadically to keep it in place. From here, he could see the damage it had suffered during its confrontation with the Leviathans. Its armour had been blackened by flame and smoke, and pockmarked by shells, which had, in a handful of places, penetrated through into the rooms and spaces within.
The Ameline sat atop the larger vessel like a frog on the back of a surfboard. Its three landing legs were splayed to provide maximal balance, and the sun glinted from its various sensor blisters and intake valves. In a few short hours, he would be riding it into space. He glanced up, at the seemingly impenetrable blue of the zenith.
“To shake the surly bonds of Earth,” he misquoted, “and punch the very face of God.”
K8 looked around. “What?”
“Nothing.” He patted his jacket pockets. He wanted another cigar but the last one had left his throat raw. On the other side of the viewing area, a couple of wild Barbary macaques perched on a railing, watching him with dull, suspicious eyes. They were used to the tourists that came up here during the year, but this was the first time they’d seen one of their own parading around in clothes and boots, taking in the sights like a human—and standing as tall as one.
He flipped them the finger. Fucking yokels. What did they know about anything? Here he was, about to launch himself into the void in order to save their hairy backsides, and all they had on their minds was food. They sat up here year after year, looking down on the town with its cars and motorbikes, luxury hotels and airport… and scratched themselves. They were curious, but their curiosity seemed limited to the contents of handbags and litterbins; none of them had ever ventured downslope to steal a car or attempt a little credit card fraud. Their worries were immediate and mostly revolved around eating and fucking, and they’d go on to spend their whole lives up here on this rock, sandwiched between Europe and Africa and knowing nothing of either.
He envied them that, he realised. They’d never have to fight a war or save a planet. If he’d been given the choice, he’d have stayed like them. He’d have been far happier to have been spared the upheavals of the past few years, and instead have spent his life as a simple, half-aware simian, passing his days in the rough and tumble ignorance of monkeydom.
They glared at him, and he glared back, showing his teeth.
“You want to swap places?” he asked them. “Be my fucking guest.”
LATER, HE AND K8 rode the cable car back down to street level. They caught a cab to The Macaca Sylvanus, a small pub adjacent to the main airport terminal, and a place popular with visiting skyliner crews.
All eyes watched them as they walked from the door to a table by the window, where they had a view of the runway and the looming underside of the Sun Wukong.
“It’s hard to imagine,” K8 said when they were settled with drinks, “that all this might be gone in a few months.”
Ack-Ack Macaque swirled the rum in the bottom of his glass. The ice cubes cracked and clinked. “Only if we fail.”
“And how likely is that?”
He didn’t really want to think about it. “We’re trying to fire a two-kilometre-long airship into space using experimental engines and a force field we don’t really understand,” he said. He raised the glass to his lips and sniffed the contents. “Your guess is as good as mine. For all I know, the whole fucking thing’ll blow up on take off.”
“But you won’t be on it, will you? You’re going ahead with Abdulov.”
“Fuck yeah.” He’d flown all sorts of aircraft in his time, from his beloved Spitfires to lumbering transport planes. Now, he was itching to get inside the Ameline and see what she could do. If the size of the fusion exhausts at her stern was anything to go by, that crate could really move. He tipped a little of the drink into his mouth, savouring the sting of the alcohol on his tongue. “That’s the plan.”
“What about me?”
“You can come if you want.”
K8 visibly perked. “Really? I thought you’d want me on the Sun, looking after the machinery.”
“Nah.” Ack-Ack Macaque glanced around the room. Most of the patrons had gone back to their own conversations; those that hadn’t were trying not to stare. “If it works, it works; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I can’t see how you being on board will make a damn bit of difference.” He drained his glass and set it down. “Besides, you didn’t think I’d go off and leave you behind, did you?”
K8’s cheeks coloured.
“I did wonder. Things have been a little… weird between us.”
Ack-Ack Macaque gave a snort. “I did what I could. You wanted to be brought back to the hive, so I brought you back.”
She fiddled with the straw in her bottle of Pepsi. Without the white suit, she looked younger and somehow more alive.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I did. That’s true. For a time, getting back was all that seemed to matter—but I think I’m getting over that now.”
Ack-Ack Macaque put down his glass. As well as the change in her outward appearance, he’d noticed the change in her speech patterns. Every time she opened her mouth, she sounded less like a blissed-out automaton and more like her old self.
“Good.” He reached up and scratched his eye patch. “Because there aren’t going to be any Gestalt on Mars.”
“What about the Founder?”
Ack-Ack made a face. That was a subject he really didn’t want to discuss. He tried to shrug it off.
“It’s complicated,” he said, voice gruff.
“I know Victoria’s got her locked in the brig.”
Ack-Ack picked at the hairs on the back of his hand. “Abdulov thinks she’s some kind of alien.”
K8 took a sip of cola. “What do you think?”
“I think I knocked her up.” He signalled to the barman for another round.
“Awkward.”
“No shit.”
Outside, a supply helicopter rose from the tarmac. He followed it with his eye as it wheeled upwards, towards the vast airship. Another followed, and then another. Merovech had been as good as his word. Food, water and other consumables were being loaded onto the Sun Wukong, along with enough spacesuits to allow the monkey army to operate on the surface of the Red Planet.
The suits had been hastily churned out by the Ameline, and were little more than transparent inflatable human-shaped balloons with sleeves for arms and legs, and large fishbowl helmets. They were designed to protect the old trading ship’s passengers in case of accidental hull breach and cabin depressurisation. They were flimsy and vulnerable, but they’d do for now. As long as they kept out the vacuum long enough for him to defeat the last copy of the Duchess, he’d be satisfied. He could start thinking long-term survival later, with the fight over and both worlds safe.
“You know,” K8 said hesitantly, “I never blamed you for what you did to me.”
Ack-Ack Macaque scowled. “You didn’t have to.”
A fourth helicopter lumbered skywards. He watched it wobble into the air, the downdraught from its rotors kicking up a swirl of dust and sand. K8 reached over and grasped the cuff of his jacket. “And you shouldn’t blame
yourself, either.”
“Easier said than done.” At the height of the final battle against the Gestalt, he’d given her to the hive. It had been a tactical decision and had played a big part in their final victory, yet the guilt had been immense. For the past two years, as they’d traipsed the multiverse freeing uplifted monkeys from laboratories on a hundred different parallels, he’d watched her suffer withdrawal from the rest of the hive, knowing all the time that he was the cause of her pain and discomfort, that it was all his fault.
“Forget it,” K8 said. The barman brought more drinks. Ack-Ack looked around at the people on the other tables. There were about a dozen of them, all told, in a room designed to hold around three times that number. Some were crewmen and women from visiting skyliners. You could tell them by their uniforms. The others were a mixture of fans—former gamers bedecked in vintage leather flying coats and decorative brass goggles—and wannabes here to find work. A small knot of tourists lingered by the counter, throwing the occasional glance his way, and more were arriving all the time, sidling into the room in ones and twos as news of his presence spread over the social networks.
K8 leant across the table and whispered, “And since when have you had a conscience, anyway?”
Ack-Ack Macaque didn’t want to meet her eye. He toyed with his glass instead.
“It’s a recent development,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
NOT BEING ONE
WHEN ACK-ACK MACAQUE and K8 returned to the Sun Wukong an hour later, Victoria was waiting for them. She sniffed the air.
“Have you been drinking?”
Ack-Ack Macaque grinned. “Just an eye-opener, boss.”
“Good.” Victoria rubbed her hands together. A good night’s sleep had done wonders for her; she felt brisk and alive for the first time in days. “Because we need to talk.” She led them to the bridge. With the craft stationary, the control room remained deserted. Those crewmembers that weren’t ashore were busy aft, helping repair and refit the vessel for its upcoming voyage.
Macaque Attack! Page 26