building.
“How did I get here?’
Paul looked confused.
“The truck...?”
She shook her head and sighed. “I mean, how did I get here .” She looked around at the low, functional buildings, the miserable workers, and the dark, sullen sky. How had she made the progression from that apartment in Paris, from a promising career in journalism, to this post-apocalyptic wasteland? She thought of her other self, lying dead in that apartment, and almost envied her.
“Maybe I should have died in the crash,” she murmured, thinking back to her accident in the South Atlantic. Everything that had happened, all the weirdness, had come about as a direct result of that crash. From the moment, four years ago, when she stepped onto the chopper and strapped into the seat next to the then-teenage Prince of Wales, her course had been fixed, her life changed. She’d climbed aboard as an up-and-coming reporter, and then woken four weeks later as a technological freak—a woman kept alive by the artificial neurons that now did most of her thinking.
And here she was on a parallel timeline, in a possibly radioactive dystopia, searching for her best friend—a rude, violent, ungrateful monkey, who smelled like a wet dog and drank like a fish—with only the electronic projection of her dead husband for company.
Why couldn’t they have just let her drown?
She pulled her coat tight, and muttered curses under her breath. After a few minutes, the doors to the laboratory opened, and she followed the thin, shivering villagers to a production line, where industrial robots assembled artificial cyborg bodies in showers of welding sparks, and humans simply fetched and carried, swept and sorted. For an hour, she tried to blend in but had no idea what she was supposed to be doing and kept getting in the way. The sight of the arms and legs that lay, awaiting attachment, in hoppers beside the conveyor belts unnerved and sickened her. Their carbon fibre bones had already been partially covered in cultured skin, giving them the look of severed human limbs. It made her feel like a worker in a death camp. Especially as she knew that, somewhere nearby, real arms and legs were being carved off and discarded as brains and nervous systems were stripped from frail flesh-and-blood bodies and implanted into waiting cyborg shells.
When the two tall, expressionless guards came to arrest her, she felt almost relieved.
“Take me,” she said as bravely as she could, “to your leader.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WRATH AND MALICE
A CK- A CK M ACAQUE KEPT moving. His stomach grumbled and tiredness clawed at him. He’d been on the run for hours now and was, frankly, knackered. But, even though he’d made it to the forest, he didn’t dare stay still for more than a few minutes at a time—just long enough to catch his breath, drink some water from a stream, or take a shit. After all, who knew what kind of heat-seeking tech those metal bastards packed? For all he knew they’d be able to pick him out at a hundred yards, and he had no intention of sitting around waiting for them to find him. Better to keep low and stay nimble, scampering through the undergrowth on his hands and feet. His plan, such as it was, involved finding a police station or army base, or maybe even a country sports store—anywhere that might have a stock of guns and ammunition. He only had four bullets left in his Colts, and there was no way in hell he’d be able to force his way back into Célestine’s facility without some serious firepower.
And when I get inside, I’m going to shoot her ladyship in the kneecaps, he vowed to himself, and then keep shooting bits off her until she agrees to send me home.
He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and leant against a tree, chest heaving. All he’d wanted was to save the world—and it hadn’t even been his world. How had he ended up here, in this cold and windy hellhole? Still wheezing, he spat into the grass, regretting
“How did I get here?’
Paul looked confused.
“The truck...?”
She shook her head and sighed. “I mean, how did I get here .” She looked around at the low, functional buildings, the miserable workers, and the dark, sullen sky. How had she made the progression from that apartment in Paris, from a promising career in journalism, to this post-apocalyptic wasteland? She thought of her other self, lying dead in that apartment, and almost envied her.
“Maybe I should have died in the crash,” she murmured, thinking back to her accident in the South Atlantic. Everything that had happened, all the weirdness, had come about as a direct result of that crash. From the moment, four years ago, when she stepped onto the chopper and strapped into the seat next to the then-teenage Prince of Wales, her course had been fixed, her life changed. She’d climbed aboard as an up-and-coming reporter, and then woken four weeks later as a technological freak—a woman kept alive by the artificial neurons that now did most of her thinking.
And here she was on a parallel timeline, in a possibly radioactive dystopia, searching for her best friend—a rude, violent, ungrateful monkey, who smelled like a wet dog and drank like a fish—with only the electronic projection of her dead husband for company.
Why couldn’t they have just let her drown?
She pulled her coat tight, and muttered curses under her breath. After a few minutes, the doors to the laboratory opened, and she followed the thin, shivering villagers to a production line, where industrial robots assembled artificial cyborg bodies in showers of welding sparks, and humans simply fetched and carried, swept and sorted. For an hour, she tried to blend in but had no idea what she was supposed to be doing and kept getting in the way. The sight of the arms and legs that lay, awaiting attachment, in hoppers beside the conveyor belts unnerved and sickened her. Their carbon fibre bones had already been partially covered in cultured skin, giving them the look of severed human limbs. It made her feel like a worker in a death camp. Especially as she knew that, somewhere nearby, real arms and legs were being carved off and discarded as brains and nervous systems were stripped from frail flesh-and-blood bodies and implanted into waiting cyborg shells.
When the two tall, expressionless guards came to arrest her, she felt almost relieved.
“Take me,” she said as bravely as she could, “to your leader.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WRATH AND MALICE
A CK- A CK M ACAQUE KEPT moving. His stomach grumbled and tiredness clawed at him. He’d been on the run for hours now and was, frankly, knackered. But, even though he’d made it to the forest, he didn’t dare stay still for more than a few minutes at a time—just long enough to catch his breath, drink some water from a stream, or take a shit. After all, who knew what kind of heat-seeking tech those metal bastards packed? For all he knew they’d be able to pick him out at a hundred yards, and he had no intention of sitting around waiting for them to find him. Better to keep low and stay nimble, scampering through the undergrowth on his hands and feet. His plan, such as it was, involved finding a police station or army base, or maybe even a country sports store—anywhere that might have a stock of guns and ammunition. He only had four bullets left in his Colts, and there was no way in hell he’d be able to force his way back into Célestine’s facility without some serious firepower.
And when I get inside, I’m going to shoot her ladyship in the kneecaps, he vowed to himself, and then keep shooting bits off her until she agrees to send me home.
He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and leant against a tree, chest heaving. All he’d wanted was to save the world—and it hadn’t even been his world. How had he ended up here, in this cold and windy hellhole? Still wheezing, he spat into the grass, regretting
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