Monkey Wars (34 page)

“Then why didn't you collect some?” asked Gu-Nah.

“I sent word to ask for permission.”

“And?”

“The order came back:
We're building a bridge, not a boat. Leave them
.”

Gu-Nah nodded. “You followed orders, like a good soldier.”

Mico put a reassuring hand on Twitcher's shoulder. “And you tried to keep everyone focused on the mission: bridge not boat. Just like a good commander.” He spun round and looked at the group of adults. “No one did the wrong thing. The point is, you lost because you didn't have the freedom to win.”

Gu-Nah swung across the ground and made a dramatic leap onto the bridge, which bobbed under his weight. “And it's the same for the langur. When we attack Tyrell's empire, we need to do what the youngsters did with this bridge. Move fast, react quickly, strike while his army is waiting for orders. We'll make mistakes,” he grabbed the bridge and shook it. “Their first three attempts collapsed, but they fixed the problem fast because they didn't have to wait for orders. Winning a battle isn't always about making the right decision. No, sir. Sometimes it's about making the quickest decision.”

Mico looked along the line of monkeys, wondering whether they'd understood. He saw a mixture of confusion and doubt; then he caught Papina's eye. She was smiling; she had grasped exactly what he and Gu-Nah were saying. And if Papina was on board, sooner or later, the others would get it too.

Papina had every reason to smile—each new exercise changed the way she saw the world and, for the first time in many moons, she no longer felt like a victim.

The exercise she loved most of all was the one they started and ended each day with—the “zigzag.” All the monkeys would gather in a circle and link arms; then, on Gu-Nah's signal, every other monkey would lean inward while all the others leaned out. If every monkey kept calm and trusted, it worked beautifully: your weight was taken by your neighbor's and everyone just hung peacefully, defying gravity.

Papina always tried to make sure she was next to Mico for the zigzag. Looping her arms tightly through his, holding him, yet at the same time being held by him, that feeling of mutual reliance…it reminded her of the simple trust they had enjoyed when they were younger, stealing illicit meetings in the moonlight.

And after all the heartache, it felt good to trust again.

H
ister's disappearance ramped up Tyrell's paranoia. He was convinced that Mico had somehow plucked her from the heart of the cemetery just to taunt him.

It rammed home the urgency of capturing Mico; as long as the traitor lived, there was a fatal flaw in the lord ruler's strength.

Urgently he summoned Breri and Sweto to the map room at the top of the summer house tower and demanded to know what they were going to do about the problem.

“Perhaps he's fled the city altogether, my lord,” suggested Breri.

“Perhaps,” Tyrell said tetchily, but he wasn't convinced. The orange pip carelessly tossed away had a nasty habit of taking root where you least expected it.

“I'm doubling the monkeys at your disposal,” he said, glaring at Sweto. “You are to pursue every lead, report every sighting, search every street.”

“Don't worry, my lord. We'll find him.”

“That's what you said last time,” snapped Tyrell. “Now go!” He gave an impatient flick of his tail, which sent Breri and Sweto scampering away.

The lord ruler sat alone in the middle of the room cradling his head in his hands, trying to ease the pain that gnawed at his mind. There was only one thing that gave him peace these days: his great plan. As long as he was thinking about that, he felt safe.

He swung across the room and stood in front of the carved map of the city, gently trailing his fingers across the tangle of streets. The great plan would give him total control of all this; it would be a world where nothing moved without his knowledge, a world where Tyrell could finally know happiness.

The ruling cadre gathered expectantly in a room overlooking the long pool. Rumors had been circulating for days about what Tyrell was going to announce, but one thing was certain: this meeting was of the highest importance as only a handful of the most senior monkeys had been invited.

General Pogo was there, his long record of unquestioning loyalty made sure of that; the Barbaries were represented by Hummingbird and his deputy, the wily Oatsack, which meant that whatever Tyrell had in mind was going to involve some heavy-duty fighting. Breri was surprised and delighted to be summoned, and realized that he was now reaping the rewards of turning in his own parents. The last monkey was Sweto, whose influence seemed to be growing by the day.

While they waited, attractive young female langurs circulated, handing out unusual fruits.

Suddenly the females withdrew, the delegates fell silent and all eyes focused on the door, waiting for their leader to appear.

Tyrell paused outside, kindling the expectation. Then, with a brusque, businesslike flurry, he bowled into the room.

“Fellow monkeys,” he began, not bothering with small talk, “I had hoped this wouldn't be necessary. When news first reached my ears I refused to believe it. But I was wrong. I'm afraid we have to face the brutal truth: the traitor Mico is working with the humans. Together they intend to attack us, smash the langur empire, murder those of us they can catch, banish those they cannot.”

There was an audible gasp in the room.

Sweto and Breri were astonished that, despite all their work hunting Mico, they hadn't the slightest inkling of this plot. They gazed at Tyrell, wondering at his omniscience.

That was the beauty of a brilliant lie, thought Tyrell. It gave you power that was difficult to challenge, because there were no facts to dispute.

“I have to say,” he went on with a bitter smile, “Mico's plan is a good one.”

Again the monkeys were thrown off balance, expecting Tyrell to rail against his enemy, not praise him.

“The fact is, no other animal would dare attack us. The rhesus tried it and we wiped them from the face of the city. But humans…they are the only creatures left who are arrogant enough to turn on us.

“I don't have to tell you how dangerous humans are. We're surrounded by proof of their ingenuity—the huge buildings, the thundering trains, the animals they slaughter to satisfy their hunger. If all that energy was turned against us…”

Tyrell looked at each monkey in turn, seeing the fear as they imagined the carnage.

“So what can we do to protect ourselves?” Tyrell mused ominously. “We strike
first
.”

Astonishment in the room. Had they misheard their leader?

“In battle, the first strike defines the conflict.” Tyrell rose and started to pace around the monkeys.

“Close your eyes and imagine what this city would look like if it was cleansed of humans. No cars or buses to run over our young; no cacophony of noise day and night; no human filth to encourage the rats. Why should we be forced to live in the cracks and shadows when humans occupy the grandest buildings with the finest views?”

By now there was real indignation in Tyrell's voice. “The humans have ruled this city for long enough. We monkeys are more agile, we have sharper teeth, we can climb higher, run faster, and…we have tails!
We
should be the rulers of this city. This is our destiny, and you…” His gaze passed over the monkeys. “You are the generation chosen to fulfill it.”

A feeling of soaring ambition galvanized the room as the thought of ruling the entire city took hold, tempting the monkeys to reach far beyond their grasp.

Breri was hypnotized by the power of the vision; this was why he had sworn undying loyalty to Tyrell, to be a part of greatness. Bursting with pride, Breri raised his fists and brought them thumping down on the floor. Once, twice, and immediately Sweto joined in, thundering his unquestioning support.

Not wanting to be outdone by langur loyalty, Oatsack declared, “This is our destiny!” and joined in with the thump of approval.

Only Hummingbird hesitated.

When he imagined the city without humans, he saw barren markets and the empty ruins of shops; he saw a world where the fountains would run dry, where there would be no one to drive away the snakes. Surely a city without humans was no place for monkeys.

But when he saw the others thumping their support, Hummingbird knew he had to go along with it. For now.

He hadn't wavered for long, but it was enough to alert General Pogo, because in truth, Pogo too was gravely worried. He hadn't been so foolish as to give any outward sign of doubt; in fact, he had applauded more enthusiast
ically than the others.

After the meeting, though, as the monkeys all went their separate ways, the general allowed himself to think freely. And then he understood exactly what made him feel so uneasy: wasn't the foundation of all langur power the fact that they
protected
humans from the violence of monkeys? Which surely meant that what Tyrell was now proposing was the quickest way to self-destruction.

For the first time, Pogo realized that the lord ruler had moved beyond visionary leadership into madness. But who was going to tell him?

I
n the days after the massacre, one thought had come to dominate Fig's life: how was she going to end it?

Since the murder of her infants Fig had neither hope nor purpose. Her heart beat, her blood flowed, her nerves tingled, but deep in her spirit, where it really mattered, there was no pulse.

So while the other monkeys were hard at work, Fig sat quietly brooding on top of the water tower, trying to will her life away.

She watched the monkeys set out every morning full of nervous excitement and return each evening exhausted and challenged. At first it just deepened her despair to see others so engaged with life. And yet, the more Fig watched, the more she saw a bond grow between the survivors. In the youngsters' excited banter, she could hear the thrill of minds being opened.

Day by day, as Fig saw hope nudge out fear, she felt something quicken in her own heart. But it wasn't hope.

Papina was sitting alone by a puddle under the water tower when she felt the gentle touch on her back. She turned round and saw Fig crouched quietly.

“What's wrong?”

Fig shook her head. “I just came to groom you.”

Papina couldn't hide her astonishme
nt—all those moons of silence broken by such a mundane comment.

Fig started to back away. “I'm sorry—”

“No!” Papina reached out and grabbed her arm. “Please…that would be nice.” She smiled, turned her back and rippled her shoulders, inviting grooming fingers to get to work. “Dig away.”

Fig shuffled closer, reached out her hands…and hesitated. She had been locked inside her own grief for so long she felt like a prisoner staggering out into the light, unsure of her footing.

“There's a flea in there that's been giving me trouble all day,” Papina said, trying to make it easier. “Feels like a juicy one.”

Fig gave a wan smile. “How funny.” And her fingers started to comb through Papina's fur.

For a while neither said anything. There was no need to rush; grooming was all about sharing a space. Then, just as Fig started on Papina's scalp, she said quietly, “I want to do my bit…in the fight.”

Papina wanted to shout with joy, but wisely she decided to play it cool. “Well, we need all the help we can get. What were you thinking? Medical duties?”

Fig stopped grooming. She stepped in front of Papina, looking at her with burning eyes.

“There's a black rage inside me. I have to do something with it or it'll destroy me. I need revenge.”

Papina could hardly believe this was Fig speaking—g
entle, compassionate Fig, who never wanted to offend anyone.

“I'm sorry it's taken so long,” whispered Fig, as if any hint of weakness now had to be treated like a shameful secret.

“There's nothing to apologize for,” replied Papina. “Nothing.” And she opened her arms and hugged her.

Mico was nearly asleep when Papina dropped silently into the gloom of the water tower and lay next to him. She stroked the back of his head, observing the grooves her fingers carved in his fur. Mico felt a tingle of pleasure run down his spine.

“Everything all right?” he whispered.

“How did you know we wouldn't tear you to pieces?”

“What?”

“When you walked back into our lives? How did you know we wouldn't turn on you?”

Mico shrugged. “If that's really what the world had come to, then I'd be better off out of it.”

Papina put her arms around Mico's torso. “Fig's come back to us.”

Mico turned to face her, his eyes wide with surprise. “She wants to fight?”

Papina smiled. “We're
all
warriors now.”

Fig's return lifted the whole troop, and inspired Gu-Nah and Mico to move their training to a whole new level.

As infants, all monkeys were taught to stay well away from the tangle of power lines that ran across the city's rooftops, where deadly electricity fizzed and crackled.

“And that is precisely the point,” said Mico to the troop. “Because no one else goes there, we must.”

“I thought the idea was to kill Tyrell, not ourselves,” said Twitcher testily; having seen Fig turn back to life, he didn't want to lose her through recklessness.

“There's wires…and there's wires,” said Gu-Nah cryptically. “While you've been enjoying your beauty sleep, we've been getting up early to find out the facts.”

“You see, there are two types of wires up there,” continued Mico. “One is deadly; the other harmless. They're all tangled up, but if we can learn to spot the difference, we'll be able to use the wires to get right into the heart of Tyrell's empire. All langur stay away from the overhead lines, even the elites. And if they ever followed us up there, they'd soon touch the wrong wires—”

“And BOOM!” added Gu-Nah with dark relish.

“You'll have to relearn what it means to swing all over again,” said Mico. “You're going to need accuracy, vision and balance beyond anything you ever thought possible. You're going to need the guts to swing fast, high above the streets, with your fingers brushing past death time and again. Succeed at that, and you'll achieve what no monkey has ever achieved: control of the air.”

Rafa put her hand up tentatively. “If no one's done it before, how did
you
learn?”

Gu-Nah smiled. “We haven't. Not yet.”

They rose at dawn each day to start their research, memorizing the different wire networks above the city. As the morning wore on and the langur patrols ramped up, the rhesus retreated to the safety of the steelworks, where Gu-Nah had built a special training course on the ground around the water tower, laying out a network of branches and interweaving them with some colored piping he'd found on a dump. The idea was to run across the carpet of branches while touching only the piping.

At first it seemed impossible; no monkey was that agile. But as the days passed they started to get the hang of it.

The trick was decisivene
ss—see the options, make your choice, then leap. As you got faster you had to speed up your thinking, until eventually you could surrender to the momentum, completely trusting your instincts, forgetting that one wrong footfall meant death.

Once the monkeys had mastered the ground exercise, Gu-Nah moved it up into the trees. They would trek out to a small, neglected park where he had marked the trees with the dye from crushed flowers, indicating which branches were “safe” and which “deadly.”

Here the rhesus spent day after day practicing high-speed swinging. The painful drop was the price of thinking too slowly.

As Mico and Gu-Nah watched the monkeys become sharper and bolder, they thought of another use for these new skills: tram surfing.

A network of trams rattled right through the langur empire. Fed via pantographs that skimmed along a power grid, the sparking electricity kept monkeys well away. But if they had the guts to negotiate the power lines and the skill to judge how to leap onto a moving tram, this would be a brilliant way to move around the city.

Practice.
As always, that was Gu-Nah's prescription. It was just a question of putting in the hard work.

They started by leaping off road bridges onto trucks that passed underneath. From trucks they moved to smaller targets to improve their accuracy, like cars.

Gradually, and with many bruises, they started to master this new art. Training was not all about derring-do, though. The rhesus were peaceful monkeys by nature, and Mico worried that when the fighting actually started, when things got ugly and messy and painful, his troops would lose their resolve. To harden their determination, he created the “outsider ordeal.”

The whole group was set a simple task: prepare a feast to mark the new moon. But secretly, they were also instructed to shun one designated monkey. After much thought, Mico decided the victim would be Cadby.

Initially Cadby was puzzled why everyone ignored him; then, when he realized this must be some kind of exercise, he laughed it off.

The laughter didn't last long.

Before they were even halfway through, he had turned moody and resentful; then he started lashing out, assaulting other monkeys to try and get some attention, but still they didn't engage, they just turned their backs. It was as if Cadby didn't exist, as if he had vanished.

Frustrated and rejected, Cadby felt rage boiling up inside him; wanting to destroy what he couldn't be part of, he started stockpiling weapons—rusty barbed wire, broken glass, iron bars—as if he was planning a murderous rampage.

Mico looked on, alarmed. Even though all the monkeys could see how distressed Cadby was, none of them broke the rules, none of them protested that the exercise was too cruel. It was as if a sinister force had moved among them, binding them together, and the more ruthlessly they shunned Cadby, the more they seemed to bond.

That was when Mico stopped the ordeal.

The moment he spoke to Cadby, the spell was broken. The young monkey snapped to his senses and looked at the weapons in dismay. Cadby had been shaken to his core—he had glimpsed a terrifying darkness.