CHAPTER FIVE
UNCOMFORTABLY PARANOID
THE MAN WHO called himself Bill slumped back against the cabin wall, and stretched his legs out before him. One of his hands pressed at the wound in his stomach, and he sucked air through his teeth in tight, rapid breaths.
“I haven’t got long. I have to. Warn you. About the virus.”
Transfixed, William slid forward on the bunk. The gun Bill had given him felt heavy, cold and solid in his grip.
“Who are you? Why do you look like me?”
Bill coughed. Where William’s hair was long and wild, his had been carefully cropped.
“I am you.” He had trouble speaking and breathing at the same time. “Sort of. I’m a different version... of you.”
William felt his face flush. “What, you’re like my twin brother or something?”
“No.” Bill’s head shook loosely on a neck that seemed loath to support it. “I really am... you. But I’m a version of you from a different... world. A parallel... world.”
“Bullshit.”
Bill winced in pain. “You write... science fiction,” he said between clenched teeth. “You know how... this works.”
William fought the urge to curl into a ball and pull the covers over his head.
“No way,” he said, voice unsteady. Parallel worlds were just a bit of fun, a thought experiment at best. Writing about them was one thing; he didn’t necessarily believe in them. Despite setting his books in one, he’d never on a gut level accepted the idea of them as being true. “How did you get here?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But—”
Bill raised an arm. “We don’t have time… for explanations. You’re in danger. I’m here to help.”
William leaned forward. “So, you know who’s been trying to kill me?”
“Yes.” Bill’s breathing was shallow. The sweat glistened on his brow. “We didn’t think... they’d find you. Not so quickly. We have to move you. Before they try—” His words dissolved into a convulsive fit of coughing. His shoulders shook and his back arched. By the time the fit subsided, his lips were dark, and shone red in the torchlight. Feeling panicky, William tried to stand.
“I’ll get help.”
Bill’s hand locked around his wrist like a cuff. “No, it’s too... late.” The words were a bubbling whisper. “They’re going to release the virus. You have... to stop them. Find Marie. She’ll help you...”
William pulled back. “Marie’s dead.” His mouth was so dry he could barely speak. “She died two years ago.”
Bill turned his head and spat a wad of red phlegm onto the deck.
“Not. That. Marie.” His body shook in a final spasm, and then fell back against the wall. His chin dropped to his chest, and a line of bloodied drool unwound slowly from his lips, onto his beard. William heard the last of the air wheeze from his blood-filled lungs, and knew for sure that the man was dead. Dumfounded, he sat and stared into Bill’s face, with the uncomfortably paranoid feeling of just having watched his own demise.
K8 HAD THE Tereshkova’s kitchen more or less to herself. The radio on the shelf played a concert from the BBC’s Paris studios, and the cook, a large Russian with a dropping moustache, snored in a chair by the open porthole, his feet up on an upturned bucket.
Much as she loved living on the Tereshkova, K8 treasured moments like these. In the rattling boxes of the skyliner’s gondolas, peace and quiet were scarce commodities.
K8 was a seventeen-year-old former hacker from Scotland, and one of Ack-Ack Macaque’s most trusted friends. A pair of headphones dangled around her neck as she mixed ingredients in a bowl: flour, eggs and sugar; a handful of white chocolate chips, and a chopped banana. The cookies she was making were for the monkey. They were his favourite, and she called them ‘macaque snacks’.
Not that he’d ever thank her, of course. Not out loud. He seemed embarrassed when people did nice things for him, and so the most she could expect would be a grunt. But she knew he liked them, and that was enough. Besides, she enjoyed having somebody to cook for. At school, the only subjects in which she’d shown any interest had been computer science and home economics; and, to her, cooking and hacking had always had their similarities. Both required concentration and the methodical combination of ingredients. If you followed the procedures, and threw in a dash of creativity, you could perform magic. The right components, put together in the right order, were capable of conjuring forth perfection.
And, she thought as she spooned the thick, sugary mixture into blobs on a baking tray, if you knew the rules you could find ways to break them. You could hack your taste buds with new combinations of flavours, such as white chocolate and banana.
She made two rows of blobs, leaving plenty of space for them to spread out as they cooked, and then bent down to slide the tray into the oven. As she slammed the door, the chef muttered in his sleep.
She’d been Ack-Ack Macaque’s wing woman for a year now, having helped him escape the clutches of her former employer, Céleste Technologies. And she’d seen and done more in that time than she’d ever believed possible. Since the company plucked her from her mother’s two-bedroom tenement in Glasgow, her life had been a mad whirl of travel and adventure. But, however unfamiliar or dangerous things had become, she’d always felt safe because he’d always been there. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, of course, but when he was there, she didn’t have to.
He was her commanding officer, and her best friend; but, more than that, he was a shield against the world. In that respect, he reminded her of her ratty old teddy bear—the one she’d slept with every night of her childhood; the one she’d clung to during the arguments and recriminations of her parent’s divorce; the one who’d kept her company during the lonely evenings spent with her finger jammed in one ear and the pillow jammed in the other.
When she was near him, she felt safe the same way as she had when she squeezed that bear. Except, she couldn’t imagine Ack-Ack Macaque letting anybody hug him. The thought brought a smile to her face. Whatever else he might be, he certainly wasn’t cuddly.
She checked her watch. The cookies would take a few minutes to bake through. She’d wait for them, and then she’d hit the lounge while they cooled. She was only seventeen, but had an arrangement with the bar staff. As long as she didn’t ask them to serve her directly, and as long as she limited herself to a few glasses of wine in an evening, they turned a blind eye to her age. The Tereshkova’s rules said you had to be eighteen or over to drink in the bar—but as long as Ack-Ack Macaque ordered the drinks, the stewards were quite happy to pretend they didn’t know that one of the glasses he wanted was for her. She tapped her foot.
Yes, it would be good to kick back and have some laughs. It was Friday night, after all.
WILLIAM COLE WONDERED what his next move should be.
Here he was, in a cabin with a dead body—a body with a face that clearly resembled his own. How could he explain what had happened? Who in their right mind would believe such a story? He was only here on Captain Valois’s sufferance. What would she say if he came to her with this? His mind raced. Was there any way he could dispose of the body? Or should he leave it here, and try to disappear himself?
His earlier tiredness had gone, washed away by adrenalin.
He shuffled forward on the bed and, placing the gun on the covers beside him, reached out a hand to touch Bill’s still-warm cheek. Even close-up, the resemblance was striking. The hair might be shorter and the beard tidier and more neatly trimmed, but this was definitely the face William saw every morning in the mirror above his bathroom sink.
He took a deep breath and tried to stop his hands from trembling. Apart from the ugly guy in the car this morning, he’d never seen anybody actually die before—and to see ‘himself’ do it filled him with nauseous revulsion. He hadn’t even been there when Marie went. When she’d finally slipped away, he’d been outside, in the hospital corridor, taking a call from his agent. By the time the nurse found him and brought him back into the room, it had been too late.
Find Marie, the man had said. But what did that mean? How could he find her? He’d scattered her ashes on their favourite beach, in accordance with what he thought her dying wishes might have been. She was one now with the sand, the wind and waves. How could she possibly help him?
And yet…
If Bill had been William’s double, did that mean— dare he hope—that there could be another Marie out there? Was his wife’s doppelganger walking around somewhere? If so, he had no idea how to find her.
He took another long, deep breath, trying to calm himself. He couldn’t stop opening and closing his hands. They fluttered like startled birds. Before he did anything else, he had to decide where he was going to go when he left this room. The gun lay on the blanket next to him. He picked it up and turned it over and over. He could smell the sooty oil used to lubricate its mechanism. He had a weapon now. The thought made him feel better. He had no idea how ‘Bill’ had smuggled the pistol on board, but that didn’t matter right now. The important thing was that he wasn’t defenceless any more.
But where was he going to go?
He tried to analyse the situation as calmly and rationally as he could, as if working out the plot for one of his novels. On balance, the Tereshkova still seemed like his best bet. It was a self-contained state, with limited access; but if he wanted to stay here, he’d have to find a way to explain the body.
So be it, he thought, pulse racing. He had a weapon. What he needed now were allies.
BREAKING NEWS
From The South West Messenger, online edition:
Police Try to Trace Missing Writer
Police in Somerset are trying to trace the whereabouts of reclusive science fiction author, William Cole. Cole, whose works include the ‘Lincoln Mendelblatt’ novels, disappeared from his home this morning, following an explosion in the street outside his apartment block. Eyewitnesses say that shots were fired before the explosion, possibly at Mister Cole, and police are very concerned for his safety.
Cole, aged 44, is known to have past convictions for the possession and use of controlled narcotics, and a history of depression, and police are appealing to members of the public to get in touch if they can shed any light on his whereabouts.
Cole, who is often compared to Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft, first came to public attention when a damning review of his debut novel, Better Angels, went viral on the Internet. Since then, two sequels have followed—Die Robot (2058) and The Collective (2060).
Speaking at a hastily convened press conference in London, Cole’s agent, Max Morrison, said, “I spoke to Will this morning, just prior to the attack. He was in good spirits, and working hard on his next book, the fourth in the Mendelblatt series.”
Online, fans have speculated that the author’s disappearance could be a media stunt, designed to promote his forthcoming novel, A Thousand City Whispers. However, when asked if he had a message for William Cole, Morrison simply said, “We’re all worried about you, buddy. If you’re listening to this, I want you to get your act together and call me, okay? We’ve got important things to do, and time’s getting tight.”
Police are urging anyone with information concerning the author’s whereabouts to come forward as soon as possible.
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