Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth L. Powell Page B

handle. “I am sorry. Frank can be a little highly-strung.”
    “Frank’s a pillock.”
    She smiled.
    “Would you like some coffee?”
    Merovech hauled himself stiffly to his feet, resigning himself to wakefulness.
    “Yes, please. That would be nice.”
    As he moved toward the door, Julie bent and retrieved the manila folder he’d left on the floor.
    “Have you read this yet?”
    “No.”
    She frowned, and pushed it into his hands.
    “Then I really think you should.”
    She dragged him into the kitchen and made him sit him at the table. Heat came from logs crackling in the fireplace. Utensils hung from nails in the blackened wooden mantel. Julie busied herself filling a pan with water while he slid the A4 sheets of paper from the folder.
    “What’s this all about?”
    She hooked the pan over the fire, and spooned instant coffee granules into a tin mug. The spoon clanked on the rim.
    “Just read it.”
    Merovech scanned the dense blocks of text. The air had the sweet, sticky tang of burning pine. His eyes watered with exhaustion.
    “Have you read it?”
    Sap popped in the fire. Julie laid the spoon on the counter. She leaned on her elbows, as if for support. Even rumpled and tired, she looked beautiful.
    “ Oui. ”
    “Then why don’t you give me the gist?”
    She picked at the corner of a fingernail. Beyond the half-open shutters of the window, a wet dawn had begun to break.
    “I cannot, I am sorry.” Her eyes glittered.
    Concerned, Merovech leaned forward.
    “What’s the matter? What is it?” He reached for her hand, but she stepped back.
    “This will not be easy to hear,” she said. “And I should not be the one to tell you.”
    “Tell me what?”
    “About your mother.”
    “My mother?” Merovech pushed himself up, out of the chair. Water bubbled in the pan over the fireplace. “ What about my mother?”
    Julie swallowed, looking petrified.
    “I did a search on the Céleste severs. I was looking for information on their AI projects. And I found you.”
    “Me?”
    She looked at the floor.
    “The files were encrypted, but easy to access from within the system.”
    “And what did they say?”
    She sniffed.
    “You are not what you think you are, Merovech. You are not even—” She turned away.
    “Not even what?”
    She stifled a sob.
    “I am sorry, I cannot do this.” She ran to the wall and flung aside a curtain, revealing a sagging wooden staircase. Merovech listened to her footsteps thump up it and onto the first floor landing. He heard a door slam.
    Alone, he looked around. Steam rose from the boiling pan of water. Rain spots dappled the window. He still held the papers in his hand. He dropped them onto the table as if they might bite him, and rubbed his forehead with thumb and index finger.
    He’d been in and out of the Céleste facility for years. Of course they had a file on him; that was no surprise. But why had it upset Julie so badly? For a moment, he entertained the idea of a fatal disease. Could his last batch of tests have turned up a tumour, or other anomaly, which the doctors had somehow neglected to mention?
    His eyes fell on the tin mug into which Julie had spooned the coffee granules. Longing for a drink, he crossed to the fireplace and tried to lift the pan of boiling water.
    “Ow! Damn!”
    The pan hit the floor with a metallic crash. Water burst over the flagstones. Merovech sucked his fingers and cursed his stupidity. Wrapped up in thought, it hadn’t occurred to him to use the cloth that hung beside the grate.
    After a moment, he pulled his fingers from his lips and blew on them. They were red and stinging, but not seriously hurt. Ruefully, he reached for the cloth. The pan had landed on its side, and a little water remained: perhaps enough for half a cup. He picked it up and poured it into the mug of granules that Julie had left. The fridge was empty of cream, so he gave the coffee a perfunctory stir, rattling the spoon against the mug’s tin sides, and was about