Hive Monkey

by Gareth L. Powell

  “But—”

  “No buts.” She fixed Cole with her firmest stare. “The local flics don’t get a sniff of this.” She panned her gaze around the assembled faces. “Do I make myself clear?”

  One-by-one, they nodded their assent. They knew as well as she did that international treaties protected the autonomy of each skyliner, that each functioned as an independent city state, unaffected by the laws of whichever territory it happened to be flying over, and that the local police had no jurisdiction.

  She looked over at Ack-Ack Macaque.

  “What do you say, monkey man? Are you up for a challenge?”

  Ack-Ack Macaque fixed her with his one-eyed squint.

  “What do you have in mind, boss?”

  Victoria smiled. She could tell by the way his tail twitched, and by the way the fingertips of his right hand drummed against the handle of the revolver at his hip, that he’d been just as bored as she had during the Atlantic crossing.

  “First off, we need some facts.” She gave a nod towards the dead man on the bunk. “Like who this guy was, and how he got aboard. And how he got dead.”

  Ack-Ack Macaque leaned over the corpse and sniffed.

  “He smells fresh.” His pink nostrils twitched. “I mean, apart from the fact that he’s shat himself, but everybody does that when they die, don’t they?” He looked up at her. “What does the doc say?”

  Victoria had already spoken to the airship’s medical officer—a grey-haired old alcoholic by the name of Sergei.

  “Gunshot wound to the large intestine. Died from internal haemorrhaging. Otherwise, nothing unusual.”

  “Was he wearing a soul-catcher?”

  “Unfortunately not.” If the man had been wearing a catcher, they’d have been able to electronically revive and quiz the copy of his personality held within. That was how she’d saved her husband, Paul, after he ran afoul of a killer in London.

  “So, no help there, then?”

  “Not much.” She reached out to touch the hem of the dead man’s robe. As she moved, the medals on her chest tinkled together like distant wind chimes. “Mister Cole, do you have any idea why this man’s dressed as a monk?”

  The writer shook his head. He was calmer now than he had been when he’d burst into the lounge, but his eyes were still wide and bloodshot. It seemed to be their default setting, and gave him the look of a hermit dragged from a cave.

  On the other side of the bunk, Ack-Ack Macaque gave a grunt. “Maybe he’s a fucking monk?”

  Cole blinked at him. “Who would shoot a monk?”

  Victoria drew her hand back from the bed. “You didn’t go to Catholic school,” she said, “did you, Mister Cole?” He frowned, and opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a raised hand. “You said his name was Bill. Did he tell you anything else? Give you any idea where he was from?”

  Cole licked his lips. His eyes settled on her for a moment.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He massaged the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Hell, I’m not even sure I believe it myself.”

  Victoria narrowed her eyes.

  “You’re talking to a cyborg and a monkey. If you can believe that, you can believe anything.”

  The American put a hand to the small of his back and straightened his spine, visibly trying to pull himself together. Victoria could see the gooseflesh on his bare arms.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you know of parallel worlds?”

  “Quantum theory.” Having been married to a sci-fi fan, and been obliged to sit through seemingly endless movies and TV shows, she had a pretty good handle on the concept. “The idea that there’s a multiverse of endless alternate realities, each with a different history. Like in Star Trek, where everybody in the parallel world has a beard.”

  Cole gave her a reappraising look. “Yes, that’s it. Essentially, every choice we make spawns two or more alternate worlds. In one, we take the first choice, in the other, we take the second choice, and so on.”

  Victoria glanced down at the dead man’s face.

  “And so this guy’s supposed to be you from a different reality?” She didn’t believe it for a second. “Alternate worlds are just fiction, Mister Cole. They’re plots from bad movies about Nazis; they don’t really exist.”

  Cole held out his hands. “I know. Trust me, I write books about them and even I can’t believe in them. But that’s what he told me; that he was me from another reality.”

  “Maybe he was having you on?”

  Across the bunk, Ack-Ack Macaque gave a snort. “Who jokes with a bullet in their gut?” He waved a hand from the writer to the corpse, and back again. “Look at the two of them. They’re completely identical. What other explanation is there?”

  “Twin brothers?”

  “Surely he’d know?”

  “Plastic surgery?”

  The monkey rubbed the leather patch covering his empty eye socket. “Who’d go to all that trouble and expense, just to kill this dickhead?”

  Cole frowned.

  “No offence taken, I’m sure.”

  Ack-Ack Macaque flashed his yellow canines.

  “Shut the fuck up, asswipe.”

  Victoria still had the dead man’s gun in her hands. It was a small, compact pistol, made of thick plastic and devoid of markings or serial numbers. She passed it across to Ack-Ack Macaque.

  “Do you recognise the make?”

  He dangled it between finger and thumb.

  “Nope.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything, these days, does it?”

  “Guns are as easy to make as anything else.” He shrugged; if there was one thing he knew about, it was weaponry. “This could have come out of a 3D printer anywhere from Cape Town to Bucharest, and all points in between.”

  “Then it could have come from anywhere, as could our friend here.”

  Ack-Ack Macaque harrumphed. “So, we’ve no idea where to start?” He stuck out his bottom lip, and Victoria guessed he’d been hoping for some action, or at least the chance to kick an arse or two.

  “Not yet.” She ran a hand over her bare scalp. “But it’s getting late, and I don’t know about you, but I’d kill for a coffee.” She took back the gun, and slipped it into her pocket. “And besides, I think I’m going to have to have a word with my husband.”

  THE TERESHKOVA’S AUTOMATIC systems were perfectly capable of holding its bulk in position above the airfield; and so, with the old skyliner at rest, the crew had no need to man the bridge around the clock. At this time of night, Victoria had the room to herself. Through the curving windshield, she could see the bright city lights of Bristol and, far across the black waters of the Severn Estuary, the orange lights of Newport and Cardiff. With a tin mug of fresh black coffee cradled in her hands, and the Commodore’s jacket still draped over her shoulders, she perched on the edge of the Captain’s chair.

  “Are you there, Paul?” In front of her, one of the screens on her workstation blinked into life.

  “Hey, Vicky. What can I do for you?” The image on the display was of him as she remembered him: short, peroxide blond hair, rimless glasses, and a loud yellow and green Hawaiian shirt.

  “I assume you already know about the dead guy in William Cole’s cabin?”

  Paul’s fingers fiddled with the gold stud in his right ear. “Yeah, I heard about that.”

  “Have you been eavesdropping again?”

  “Maybe just a little.”

  Victoria raised the mug to her nose and inhaled steam. “I need you to review the security footage. Follow it backwards. Find out who the dead guy is, and where he came from.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Will it take long?”

  Paul grinned at her. By rights, he shouldn’t still be here. Most personality recordings fell apart after a few months. They just couldn’t sustain themselves. But somehow, letting Paul loose in the Tereshkova’s memory had kept him intact—even if it meant he was now c
onfined to the ship.

  “Just give me a moment...” He trailed off, and his image froze. Victoria sipped her steaming coffee. It was very good. After years of drinking cheap and nasty swill in newspaper offices, she now insisted that the Tereshkova’s quartermaster stocked only the very best.

  From her chair, she watched the nocturnal bustle of the airport, and hummed to herself a little tune she’d picked up from that morning’s radio.

  When Paul came back, a few minutes later, he gave her a suspicious look.

  “Why are you so happy?”

  Victoria gave a start.

  “Me?”

  “You’re practically singing.”

  “It’s nothing.” She tried to wave him away, but he raised an eyebrow.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”

  Victoria drummed her fingernails against the side of the tin mug. She let out a sigh. “It’s just good to have something to do,” she finally admitted.

  Paul smiled knowingly.

  “Running a skyliner’s not enough for you, eh? You still need that extra excitement, don’t you? The thrill of the chase?” He shook his head, pretending to despair of her. “Some things never change.”

  “And some things do.” She put the tin cup down on the chair’s padded arm. “Now, what have you got for me?”

  Paul ‘s smile widened, and he puffed his chest forward. “Well, I’ve reviewed the footage.”

  “Any luck?”

  His eyes twinkled behind his glasses.

  “Let me show you.” A second screen lit, displaying grainy footage from the security camera in the corridor outside Cole’s cabin. “Right, here’s our man.” A hooded figure appeared from the right side of the screen, moving awkwardly and hunched over to the right, as if trying to curl around a pain in his side.

  Victoria said, “You see where he’s holding himself? That’s where he was shot.” So, Cole’s story held up. The man had been shot before entering the cabin, just as he’d said. “Okay, let’s back it up.”

  The picture froze, and then began to rewind. Victoria watched the robed figure shuffle backwards along the corridor. Moving from one camera to another, the pictures retraced his steps to a tiny berth in one of the outermost gondolas.

  “According to records, the cabin was occupied by a man calling himself Bill Cole,” Paul said. “He came aboard shortly after William.” The picture jumped to show a shot taken by a camera up on the main helipad. It showed a middle-aged man stepping down from one of the passenger choppers. He wore an expensivelooking business suit, and clutched a leather briefcase. Mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes.

  “That’s him?”

  “Yeah. He must have the robe in his suitcase, but it’s definitely him.”

  Victoria leant close to the screen. “He seems to be moving okay.” In fact, he looked like a typical business traveller. “Which means, he hadn’t been shot when he came on board.”

  Paul frowned. “So, whoever shot him might still be here somewhere.”

  “Oui. And Cole could still be in danger. Where is he now?”

  The screen changed to a real-time view of the passenger lounge. Cole, now wrapped in a white bathrobe, sat at a corner table with Ack-Ack Macaque and K8. The monkey’s revolvers lay on the table, within easy reach.

  “He should be safe enough there,” Paul said. “Nobody’s going to tangle with the Ack-ster.”

  Victoria frowned.

  “Let’s hope not.” She ran a hand up her forehead and over the rough scar tissue at the back of her scalp, dreading to think what mayhem might be unleashed if someone engaged the monkey in such a confined space. “Right,” she said, “access the room records. Find all the information this ‘Bill Cole’ gave us when he came aboard.”

  Paul waved his hands like a conjuror, and the data appeared on the screen beside him: a copy of the man’s electronic boarding pass, and a scan of his passport.

  “Here it is. Bill Cole, aged forty-eight. British citizen. With an address in the city.”

  “This city?” She glanced forward, at the lights beyond the windshield.

  “Yeah.” Street maps appeared on the screen. “It’s not too far from here, in fact. A couple of miles, at the most.”

  “Can you load it into my head?” Victoria’s neural prosthesis held a satellite map overlay.

  “Sure.” Paul’s eyes narrowed as he watched her slip her arms into the sleeves of the jacket draped over her shoulders. “Why, what are you going to do? Talk to the police?”

  Now it was her turn to grin.

  “No, of course not.” She began fastening the shiny brass buttons on the front of the tunic. “I’m going down there to check it out myself.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RAY GUN

  HALF AN HOUR later, they were driving through the city streets in a rented black Mercedes. K8 had the wheel, Ack-Ack Macaque rode shotgun, and Victoria Valois and William Cole shared the back seat. As they negotiated their way through the early evening traffic, Victoria kept track of their progress using a map uploaded to her mind’s eye from the Tereshkova’s database. A small green dot marked their current position, a red one their destination.

  In the front passenger seat, Ack-Ack Macaque wore dark glasses, a wide-brimmed fedora, and a long coat with the collar turned-up. He’d even wound a scarf across the lower half of his face. This was his idea of going incognito—never mind the fact that nothing could disguise his lumbering walk, or the way his tail poked out of the vent in the back of the coat.

  Victoria watched the passing buildings. They were moving through the affluent suburb of Clifton, with its steep, tree-lined streets and three-storey Georgian town houses. She saw sturdy-looking churches; corner pubs with traditional signs and black railings; newsagents with handwritten headline boards; supermarkets with glittering holographic window displays; and beautiful old houses retrofitted as solicitors’ offices and estate agencies.

  Despite being too young to hold a British driving licence, K8 handled the big Mercedes like a pro. She claimed to have been able to drive from the age of eleven, having been taught by joyriding classmates on the estate where she grew up. Right now, she was chewing gum and listening to punishingly loud techno on her earphones. As she turned the big wheel this way and that, her spiky ginger head bobbed in time to the music.

  Victoria tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Just down here, on the left.”

  With a squeal of tires, they slithered to a halt in the middle of the road. Parked cars lined both sides of the street. Victoria nudged Cole, and they both climbed out. The air outside felt fresh in comparison to the heated comfort of the Mercedes, and Victoria was glad she had a fleece cap to keep her head warm. At the top of the street, between the buildings, she could see one of the towers of Brunel’s famous Suspension Bridge. Originally the fevered dream of an eighteenth century wine merchant, the bridge had been designed by the engineer in the stovepipe hat and completed after his death. It spanned the gorge almost three hundred feet above the muddy River Avon, and was a magnet for sightseers and suicides alike.

  Ack-Ack Macaque emerged from the front passenger door, and the Mercedes drove off to park.

  William Cole had dressed in a pair of black jeans, an old sweatshirt, and a worn-looking tweed jacket. His thinning, unruly grey hair still stuck up at odd angles, despite his frequent attempts to smooth it into place. “Which building is it?” he asked.

  “This one.” Victoria walked to the front door of one of the houses. An intercom had been screwed to the wall beside the door, with a separate buzzer for each of the six flats within. She dug in her pocket and pulled out the keys she’d found in the dead man’s luggage. One had obviously been cut for an external door, the other for an internal lock. She tried the first, and it turned. The door was heavy and made of black-painted wood, and she had to shove to get it open.

  Ack-Ack Macaque and William Cole followed her into an unlit hallway with a wide wooden staircase and black and white fl
oor tiles.

  “We want flat number three,” she said, looking at the numbers on the doors to either side of her. “My guess is that it’s on the next floor up.”

  They trooped up the stairs, and found the right door on the upper landing. Inside, the little flat smelled faintly stale. Threadbare curtains hung across the windows. By the light of the orange streetlamps, she could see that the main room was a sparsely furnished studio flat, with a futon at one end, and a small kitchen area at the other. Another door led off into a cramped and damp-smelling bathroom, comprising no more than a shower stall, toilet and sink.

  “This is it.” She reached out a hand and flicked the light switch. Beside her, Cole gasped. The walls were covered in photographs and handwritten notes; and most of the photographs seemed to be black and white surveillance photos of him. He stepped into the room, gawping around at the pictures, and Victoria followed. The glossy prints showed Cole shopping in his local supermarket, a basket in the crook of his arm; standing on the edge of a marina on a bright morning, holding a mobile phone to his ear; getting into a battered-looking blue Renault in an underground car park; browsing bookshop shelves; struggling back from the off-licence with carrier bags filled with bottles of whiskey and gin...

  “These go back months,” Cole said. “How long was he watching me?”

  In the doorway, Ack-Ack Macaque pulled the scarf from his face. He pocketed the dark glasses, and then fumbled around in his coat until he found the bag of banana and white chocolate cookies that K8 had baked, which he proceeded to eat.

  “It looks as if you’ve got a stalker,” he said, spraying crumbs. “I had one of those for a while last year. One of those gamer nerds who couldn’t let go.”

  This was news to Victoria. She raised an eyebrow.

  “You did? What happened to him?”

  The monkey grinned, exposing dirty yellow teeth.

  “Poor guy broke both his legs.”