Hive Monkey Read Online Free PDF Page B

condition. He’d been bored and lazy, and suffering through the slow motion car crash that had been his first marriage. No wonder he’d taken to writing escapism. Now, though, he was older, and could draw on the bitterness of two years of grief, disillusionment and drug addiction; and he had the rest of his life to gather more new experiences.
    Exhaustion weighed on his bones like a heavy quilt, and yet, lying there, he felt the first tickle of optimism. Maybe this disruption was what he’d needed all along? Instead of moping around the flat, blitzing his grief with chemicals, he should have been out in the world, getting a change of scenery and dirtying his hands with some honest toil. Sweat would help him now more than speed ever could. Here on the Tereshkova , he’d labour as a kitchen hand during the days and write in the evenings, with no distractions, drugs or deadlines. He felt a moment’s shame that it had taken a car bomb to shake him out of his rut, but now it had, he knew he’d been given a chance to make a new start, a clean start. All he had to do was seize it.
    He scratched his nose. Hadn’t Kerouac sailed out as a ship’s cook during the Second World War? Maybe you couldn’t write convincingly about life unless you were out there living it, shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else—up to your elbows in the world, scraping your knuckles against its rough edges.
    Lying there in the darkness, he curled his fingers into tight fists. For the first time in months, he felt alive. He didn’t know who had tried to kill him, or why, but that didn’t matter right now. What mattered more than anything else was that he suddenly had a reason to go on; he could see a path in front of him, and knew how to walk it. After years of doubt and misery, he could finally see how to become the writer he wanted to be.
    His eyes were raw and dry. Closing them, he surrendered to his accumulated fatigue and, wrapped in an itchy blanket, on an airship bound for foreign parts, fell asleep dreaming of the places he’d see and the books he’d write.
     
     
    H E WAS WOKEN by the squeak of the cabin door’s hinges. The room was still dark, and he had no idea how much time had passed. The door had been opened a crack. A dim light pushed its way in from the corridor, and he rubbed his eyes. William tensed. With his mouth dry and heart hammering, he lay as still as he could. Through half-closed eyelids, he saw a shadow slip into the room. Hardly daring to breathe, he wished for a weapon. He heard the rustle of cloth, the soft tread of a shoe against the metal deck.
    “William?” The voice was male, and American. “Are you there?” The figure crouched beside the bunk, and shone a torch at him. It wore robes, like a monk’s habit. A cowl shadowed its face. Gulping down breaths, William shrank back into the corner, shielding the glare with a hand held in front of his eyes.
    “Who are you, what do you want?”
    The figure didn’t answer. Instead, it reached up and lowered the hood, revealing its face, and William gaped as he found himself staring into features that were almost an exact reflection of his own.
    “I know this is an awful shock,” his double said, “but please try to relax.” He spoke through a clenched jaw. Sweat shone on his brow and upper lip. “My name’s Bill,” he said. The words sounded forced. “I know you’ll have a lot of questions, and I promise I’ll try to answer them. But right now, you need to loosen your fists and listen.” He let the robe fall open, revealing a black shirt and tie. The shirt had a hole in it. The material was sodden around it, and stuck to his skin. He coughed wetly.
    “Is that blood?” The realisation seemed to jolt William out of his paralysis. He opened his mouth to cry for help, but Bill pulled a gun from the folds of his sleeves.
    “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
    William looked into the black, unblinking eye of the barrel.
    “Who are you?”
    For long