And now...
Now, he just wanted to be held. He wanted to rest his head on Amy’s shoulder and feel her arms around him. He wasn’t in love with her (at least, he told himself he wasn’t). He had no family, no close friends. She was the nearest he had to either, and he wanted her to stroke the back of his neck and whisper comforts to him as he wept into the fabric of her jacket.
It felt right. She felt right.
He coughed and looked at his feet.
“Amy, listen—” He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to say, but it didn’t matter. Before he could continue, K8 knocked smartly on the open cabin door.
“Hey, Your Majesty.” She looked curiously from Merovech to Amy. “Not interrupting anything, am I?”
Merovech gave a silent, exasperated curse.
“What do you want?”
The girl raised an eyebrow at his aggrieved tone. She jerked her thumb at the low metal ceiling.
“We’ve got a couple of visitors upstairs you
really
need to meet.”
A
CK-
A
CK
M
ACAQUE SHUFFLED
across the field. He was bone tired and his jacket hung in ribbons. A pistol dangled from one hand, the recovered chainsaw from the other. Around him lay the remains of the Leviathans. Some of the wrecks had been cut in two; others had been diced into fat metal cubes with drippy-looking melted edges. A couple of the tanks were on fire, and their smoke stained the autumn air, hanging thick and languid across the battlefield.
A damaged cyborg clawed its way across the turf. Its legs were missing and it was using one arm to pull itself forward while the other brandished a fat machine gun. Ack-Ack Macaque walked up behind it and pressed the chainsaw to the wrist of the hand holding the weapon. Sparks flew and there was a noise like someone feeding a set of steel railings into a wood chipper. He felt the vibration rattle his teeth. Then the hand fell to the earth and the chrome fingers writhed in the dirt like the tentacles of a beached sea creature.
“Where do you think you’re going, eh?” He reached down and flipped the cyborg onto its back. Part of its face had been torn away, exposing the wires and circuits beneath the stretched skin and dull armour.
“Please,” it whispered through its mangled mouth, “please, I don’t want to die.”
Ack-Ack Macaque’s lip curled. “You start a war, sunshine, you have to be prepared to lose it.”
“No.”
The monkey frowned. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t want any of this.” The thing was begging for its life. Ack-Ack Macaque pocketed his revolver and rubbed his eye patch.
“Were you on one of those tanks?” he asked.
“Yes...”
“Then you’re the enemy.” He took a firm grip on the chainsaw.
The cyborg wriggled back on its elbows, trying to squirm away from him. “I was only following orders.”
Ack-Ack Macaque snarled. “That’s the oldest bullshit in the book.” He raised the chainsaw over his head and the cyborg cowered.
“But it’s true! I didn’t want to be
this
.” It thumped the stump of its arm against its chest. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Ack-Ack Macaque showed his teeth. “Oh, really?”
“People were dying.” The metal figure stopped wriggling. “They offered me a chance to live.”
Ack-Ack Macaque lowered the saw and nudged the metal body with his boot. “You call this ‘living’, do you?”
“I had no choice.”
“Horse crap. You had a choice. When they turned you into a robot, you had a choice. When they told you to get into a tank and invade my world, you had a choice.” He bent low over the recumbent figure, growling his words. “If we hadn’t stopped you here and now, how many innocents would you have killed before you grew the balls to say ‘no’?”
The cyborg’s eyes had become misaligned. One looked up at him imploringly while the other lolled drunkenly in its socket. “The Duchess, she would have killed me.”
“The Duchess is dead.”
Something seemed to sag in the cyborg’s posture. “Then it’s over?”
Ack-Ack Macaque shook his head. Overhead, the dreadnoughts were dispersing like clouds after a storm, moving away in the directions of Paris, London and Berlin—large ports where they could refit, repair and resupply. Their engines thrummed, stirring the still morning sky like the broodings of a billion disgruntled bees. The only one not moving was the
Sun Wukong
.
“These things are never over,” he said. “There’s always some other ruthless bastard out there, with an army of gullible cowards.” He stepped forward and placed one booted foot on the cyborg’s chest. It struggled beneath him.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to put you out of your misery.”
Its stump flailed and its hand clawed at the soil, trying to heave its legless torso out from under his foot. “No, please! It wasn’t my fault! I just wanted to live.”
“Everybody wants to live.” Ack-Ack Macaque raised the chainsaw and levelled the point of the whirring blade at the cyborg’s throat. “But you chose the wrong side. You chose to stand with the killers.” He stabbed downwards, leaning his weight on the handle. With a metallic screech, the chainsaw bit through the cyborg’s neck. It buried itself in the earth below and juddered to a halt, motor stalled. Disgusted with the whole incident, he left it where it was—sticking up like a grave marker—and stood upright. His back ached. He brushed his leathery palms together and spat into the dirt.
“There’s always a choice.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
STOP THE ROCK
V
ICTORIA GATHERED THE
crew of the
Ameline
and the command crew of the
Sun Wukong
on the verandah at the airship’s bow. Several of the armoured glass panels had been cracked or broken during the fight and cold wafts of fresh November air curled through the greenhouse warmth of the potted jungle, agitating the parakeets and other birds that twittered and squawked among the leaves on the upper branches. A utilitarian trestle table had been set up on the verandah, overlooking the rail, and her guests were seated on either side, perched on folding chairs and stools borrowed from the galley. Katherine Abdulov sat at the far end with Ed Rico on her right, while K8, Merovech, and Ack-Ack Macaque occupied the remaining chairs.
The monkey’s solitary eye glowered around the table.
“Okay, does anybody want to tell me what the fuck’s going on? Who are these people, and why does this guy look like William Cole?”
Victoria stood up. “These are the people who helped us against the Leviathans.”
“Yeah, I saw. As a matter of fact, I was in one of those tanks when they cut the fucking thing in half.”
Victoria sighed. Her tears were gone, but they’d taken most of her strength with them.
“They stopped the invasion,” she said.
Ack-Ack Macaque huffed. “I could have handled it.”
“I’m sure you could. Nevertheless, try to be polite.”
Victoria turned her attention to the woman at the far end of the table. Katherine Abdulov sat with her hands in the pocket of her thick overcoat, and the ankle of her left boot resting on her right knee.
“You’re not out of the woods yet,” Katherine said.
“How so?” Victoria cocked an eyebrow. Célestine was dead; the assault had failed.
“The asteroid.”
“Ah, of course...”
“Do you have a plan to deal with it?”
Ack-Ack Macaque stirred, and raised a paw. “I do.”
“Care to share it?”
The monkey took out a cigar, bit off the end, and spat it over the bamboo rail, into the airship’s glass nose cone. “I figured we could fly up there and twat it.”
K8 smiled. Merovech shook his head. “We don’t have anything that can make the journey,” he said.
“Of course we do.” Ack-Ack Macaque struck a match and lit up. Smoke curled around his muzzle. “And you’re sitting in it.”
“An
airship
?”
“Why not?” The spent match sailed after the cigar tip. “We use the Duchess’ force field to keep in the air and keep out the radiation, and we bolt your ion drive to the back.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yeah, but it’s gonna work.” He moved his one-eyed gaze around the table, daring those present to disagree. Finally, his attention settled on Katherine. “What do you say, space lady?”
Katherine Abdulov rubbed her chin.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’ve got no idea. All I’ll say is that if you’re going to try riding in it, you’re a damn sight braver than I am.”
The monkey scoffed. “And I suppose you’ve got a better idea, sweetheart?”
Katherine and Ed exchanged looks.
“You could come with us.”
“On your ship?”
“Of course. You’ve seen what it can do. Ed can carve lumps off that rock. Chop it up into little pieces.”
“That’ll stop it?”
“No.” Katherine looked regretful. “But it’ll help. Make it a bunch of smaller targets, and easier to destroy.”
“And then what?”
“Then your kludged-up space Zeppelin can finish the job.” She uncrossed her legs and set both boots on the deck. “We can break it up into glowing rubble but we can’t stop it. Our weapon isn’t designed to take down big targets. It would take us too long to pick the rock apart with our narrow beam—but, if we dice it into little enough pieces, a couple of nukes from you should be enough to vaporise the remains.” She looked up at the cracked panes in the glass ceiling, high above. “That’s if you can get this heap put back together, armed and launched in time.”
As one, Victoria and Ack-Ack Macaque turned to Merovech. The young king’s manicured nails tapped the table’s Formica top.
“How long have we got?” he asked.
“A couple of weeks, a month at the most.” Katherine gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It depends how fast your ion engines are.”
“I’m not sure.” Merovech looked thoughtful. “Not very, I think.”
“Then the sooner you can launch, the better.”
Merovech stopped tapping his nails. He met Victoria’s eyes. “Set a course for Gibraltar.”
“Gibraltar?”
“The ESA has a test facility in the Straits. It’s an old, repurposed oil platform. That’s where the engines are.”
“Aye, sir.” Victoria glanced at K8. “Do you mind?”
“I’m on it.” The girl sprang to her feet and vanished into the jungle, hurrying in the direction of the bridge.
“What else do we need?” Victoria asked. Ack-Ack Macaque removed his cigar and tapped ash onto the deck.
“Nuclear weapons,” he said.
Merovech nodded. “Well, I may be able to help you there. We have a number of submarines in the North Atlantic. I’ll have one meet us there. What else?”
“Food and water, enough for the whole monkey army.”
“You’re going to take them all to the asteroid?” He raised his eyebrows. “Surely a skeleton crew would suffice?”
Ack-Ack Macaque shook his head with slow deliberation. “No, we’re going to need as many soldiers as we can carry,” he said.
“Soldiers?” Victoria scratched the ridge of scar tissue at her temple. “What do you need soldiers for?”
Ack-Ack Macaque sucked the end of his cigar. The tip burned brightly. He exhaled at the high ceiling and smiled.
“After we’ve dealt with the asteroid, I’m taking them to Mars.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Yah.” He smacked his lips together. “We’re going to go up there and kick some butt. Otherwise, what’s to stop the Robo-Duchess chucking another rock at us?” His face darkened. “And besides, we’ve got a score to settle.”
Victoria felt her heart quicken. The breath caught in her throat. There had been a copy of Paul’s ‘soul’ on the probe, along with the stolen personalities of all Cassius Berg’s victims. They had been taken to form the basis of a cybernetic slave army, toiling to build Célestine’s utopia among the cold Martian rocks. There was even a copy of Victoria that had been ripped from her skull during her first encounter with the murderous Smiling Man.
“I’m coming too,” she said. She’d seen firsthand the kind of twisted sexual depravities Doctor Nguyen had foisted on a different copy of her ‘soul’, and knew she couldn’t leave herself or Paul at his mercy.
Paul...
Could there really be a way to splice the remains of his crumbling psyche with the ‘fresh’ copy in the Martian probe? Even now, at this late stage, could some part of him still be salvaged?
She became aware that Ack-Ack Macaque was squinting curiously at her.
“Okay,” he rumbled, reading her face, “that’s settled. Merovech and K8 can fit this beast out. Vic and I will ride with Kat here to the asteroid. Once we’re there, we’ll do what we can to whittle it down to a more manageable size. Then we’ll meet up with the monkey army, nuke what’s left of the rock, and go on to Mars.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Victoria could hardly bring herself to believe any of it was possible. “What’s the contingency plan?”
Ack-Ack Macaque scowled around the red cherry of his cigar. “There isn’t a contingency.” He sat back in his chair with a growl. “If this doesn’t work, that’s it. Game over, folks. End of the fucking world.”
ISSUED BY HM GOVT.
PROTECT AND SURVIVE
This pdf tells you how to keep your home and family safe during an asteroid strike.
1. Taking shelter
In advance of an asteroid strike, warnings will be broadcast on all television and radio channels at the following times:
i. Twelve hours before impact.
ii. Six hours before impact.
iii. Three hours before impact.
>iv. One hour before impact.
Warnings will then continue at fifteen-minute intervals.
When you hear the warning, please make your way immediately to a place of shelter.
Your shelter should contain:
i. Enough food and water in sealed containers to last your family for 14 days.
ii. A portable radio and spare batteries.
iii. Warm clothing, and changes of clothing for the entire family.