Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth L. Powell Page A

you this for nothing. Whoever he is, he’s got your soul.”

 
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    CAFFEINE
     
    P RINCE M EROVECH, HEIR to the British throne, sat hunched on bare floorboards in the downstairs back room of a farmhouse somewhere south of Louviers, out where the fields were endlessly flat and the roads ran straight for miles on end; where metal water towers bestrode the landscape like Martian war machines, and bare trees stood in lines against the horizon. He still wore the same jeans, trainers and faded red hoodie that he’d worn to meet Julie in the café, although now his trainers and the cuffs of his jeans were spattered with mud, and the hoodie held the lingering whiff of Frank’s cigarettes. His elbows were resting on his knees and he held the baseball cap in his hands, turning it absently, worrying the rim with his fingers. A manila folder lay on the floor beside him.
    The room was bare, it’s only concession to furniture being an old mattress, which the monkey lay on, curled in the folds of an unzipped sleeping bag. From where he sat by the door, Merovech watched the animal twitch and moan in its sleep.
    The farmhouse belonged to Julie’s uncle, but he was away, and not expected back until the day after next.
    The printed documents in the manila folder were the ones Julie had printed from the Céleste servers. Merovech hadn’t read them yet. He’d been awake for close to twenty-four hours, and now he had a headache, and all he wanted was to rest. He leaned his head back against the whitewashed plaster wall and closed his eyes. Through the closed door, he could hear Julie and Frank arguing in the kitchen. They were both speaking English, which he suspected was for his benefit. They wanted to be overheard.
    Frank said, “This is stupid. It’s just an animal. It needs a vet.”
    Julie spluttered indignantly.
    “So, now I am stupid, am I?”
    “Well, if you are so clever, can you tell me what the hell we are going to do with it? We do not even know what it eats. Or if it is dangerous.”
    “The poor thing has been drugged. It needs our help.”
    “Bullshit. This isn’t about the monkey. I know you, Julie. This is all about you getting cosy with le petit prince anglais .”
    Merovech heard wooden chair legs scrape on flagstones kitchen floor.
    “You leave him out of it.”
    Frank laughed. “You’re the one who invited him.”
    Julie’s hand slapped the tabletop.
    “We would never have got in and out of that place without him.”
    Frank laughed. “Yeah, and a fat lot of good it has done us. Look around you. We’re fugitives. Des fugitifs avec ce crétin de singe.”
    “You are so full of shit, Frank. All that merde you’ve been feeding me.”
    “I meant what I said.”
    “No, you did not! It was all talk. We finally find an artificial intelligence, and you want nothing to do with it.”
    “That thing is not an AI.”
    “Of course it is. Just because it is not built of chips and wire, that does not mean—”
    “ Je m’en fous. ”
    “Frank!”
    “Fuck off.”
    A glass smashed.
    “ Fif! ”
    “ Salope! ”
    Frank stormed out. Merovech heard the front door slam behind him.
    When I get out of here , he thought, I’m going to have him thrown into jail. The thought brought the barest flicker of a smile. He took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled slowly, trying to relax. He needed to sleep. He knew his security people would be going berserk but, right now, he was too tired to care. He lay down on the hard floor and pulled the hoodie up to cover his head. He would have a nap, then decide what to do about Julie and the monkey.
    He had just closed his eyes when he heard Julie’s footsteps clumping in his direction, and the back room door swung open on irritable hinges.
    “How’s our patient?”
    Merovech sighed. He looked up at her, then across at the monkey.
    “He’s resting.”
    “You heard the argument?”
    “I couldn’t really miss it.”
    Julie fiddled with the door