“So – if I might ask, sir – what now?”
“Now, Nimrod? Now we relax, kick back, blend in, enjoy the show.”
A shudder of revulsion passed through his manservant’s body.
“It’s all part of the act, Nimrod, that’s all. We’re doing this for Barty.”
Nimrod sighed, resigned now to the fact that they were going to have to wile away some time in this bordello. “Very well, sir. If we must.”
Ulysses’ attention drifted from his companion’s unease to the arrival on stage of a new performer, greeted by a chorus of whoops and cheers, as the boa-draped nymph slipped away backstage.
She was older than the nubile girl who had preceded her but she wore her age and experience about her like a mantle. She was decked out in thigh-length patent leather boots, stockings, a suspender belt and French knickers. A scarlet taffeta whalebone corset was sorely failing to keep her swollen bosoms contained and looked in danger of giving way under the force of her Amazonian assets at any moment. She wore a feathered plume atop her carefully coiffured dyed-red hair and received the spectators’ cheers and applause with arms outstretched and a saucy smile on her rouged lips.
The audience’s appreciation of her not inconsiderable charms was marked by a series of shrill wolf whistles and cries of “Emmanuelle!”
The house band struck up a new tune, one ripe with fruity brass notes and trombone slides as the stripper set about wowing the crowd all over again.
Ulysses knocked back the rest of his brandy, swirling the glass to release the last of its alcoholic aromatic fragrance.
“Much as I’m sure I would relish Emmanuelle disrobing,” Ulysses said, “time’s a-wasting. We need to track down Selene.”
“We, sir?”
Ulysses chuckled. “Good point. You stay down here, watch the exits. I’ll look for Selene.”
Nimrod gladly vacated his seat, retreating into the shadows beyond the bar. Ulysses left it a few moments longer, waiting until Emmanuelle’s heaving bosom had at last been freed of her corset – although a pair of resolute tassels defied the men’s expectation. Then, the brandy and the enthusiastic display of naked flesh warming the cockles of his heart, he too rose and made his excuses as he crossed the room accompanied by a chorus of tuts, grunts and outright cries of “Out of the way!” and “Move!”
As he left the tables and reached the foot of the stairs he was met by a woman – who was barely more than a girl – in lavender chiffon skirts and a lilac bodice. Catching his eye, she threw him a practised – and yet still utterly captivating – smile.
“Well, good evening, sir. Or is it tomorrow morning now?” she purred.
Placing a hand on his shoulder she descended the last step and draped her other slender arm around his waist.
“And what can I do for you?”
Ulysses deftly ducked a hand inside his jacket and pulled out a bundle of notes. The girl’s eyes lit up like the sign above the club.
“You can tell me where I’d find Selene,” he whispered into her ear, placing one of the notes into her open palm.
The girl quickly stuffed it inside her bodice and out of sight, between her heaving breasts. Her ready smile became a look of blunt disappointment.
“Up the stairs, second door on the left,” she said, already walking away towards the bar, hips rolling, ready to reel in another, more willing gentleman companion for the night – or for the next hour at least.
Following the wide sweep of the stairs to the balcony, Ulysses passed a brunette dressed in a French maid’s outfit – but which looked like the most impractical thing to wear if the girl was actually intending on doing any cleaning – and a blonde made-up to look like a very strict school ma’am. The men who had already sought company upstairs discretely turned the other way as Ulysses passed by.
He stopped outside the second door on the left which was upholstered in pink chintz, the traditional Valentine’s image of a love heart picked out in appliqué at its centre.
He paused, listening – but hearing nothing – before knocking three times.
“Entre,” came an accented feminine voice. “It’s open.”
Ulysses’ first impression of the small bedchamber was that it had been set-dressed to look like something out of the Palace of Versailles, before the French had revolted, but even tackier than the real thing.
At the heart of the boudoir, a girl – of no more than twenty-one, if Ulysses was any judge – was knelt on the bed. Her skin was like porcelain. Her platinum blonde hair was piled up on top of her head, making her look like some sort of French courtesan or Wild West frontier town whore, her dress hanging off her slight frame, her less than ample bosom squashed almost flat by a whalebone corset.
“Good evening, monsieur,” she said sweetly.
“Good evening,” Ulysses replied, suddenly feeling uncharacteristically uneasy. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing the lovely Selene?”
“You do, monsieur. And how might I help you this fine evening?” she asked, stepping off the bed and making her way across the room towards him as he closed the door, turning the key in the well-oiled lock without drawing undue attention to the fact.
She stopped in front of him, her slender fingers caressing his cravat and lingering on the diamond pin.
“No, you misunderstand me, mademoiselle.” Ulysses blushed. “I do not wish to sleep with you.”
“You do not?” the girl said, pulling away from him aghast, utter disbelief writ large across her delicate, captivating features.
“No, I only want to ask you some questions.”
“Questions?” The girl dropped her pert posterior onto the bed.
“I have money. I am happy to pay you for your time.”
Selene looked at him, a childish pout on her lips. “Go on, then.”
“Am I right in thinking that you knew one Bartholomew Quicksilver?”
The girl gave a gasp, her face contorting into an expression of appalled horror. Quick as a flash, she shot a hand under the plumped pillow beside her and pulled out a small ladies’ pistol, its stock and barrel inlaid with glistening mother-of-pearl.
Holding the pistol in both hands, she pointed it at Ulysses’ face.
The dandy swallowed hard. “Sacre bleu!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An Inconvenient Truth
T MINUS 1 DAY, 10 HOURS, 13 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS
“SO I TAKE it you know him then,” Ulysses said, trying to remain calm.
“What’s it to you?” The girl was shaking, the gun in her hands trembling.
He had seen pistols like hers before – they usually only held one round, two at most. Trouble was, she was so close that if she were to pull the trigger, chances were that the shot would still kill him, or at least leave him in a vegetative coma and as good as dead.
Ulysses gave a weary sigh. “Look if he owes you money or has upset you in some way, I’m sure I can square things with you on his behalf, but whatever the truth of the matter I could really do with your help right now.”
“He warned me about people like you,” Selene hissed, keeping her pistol pointed at Ulysses’ forehead.
“People like me?”
He either needed to call her bluff and make a grab for the gun or, alternatively, a two-handed upper cut might knock it out of the way.
“People asking questions!” the girl spat.
“But I only asked if you knew him.”
“Where is he?” There was the rumour of tears to come in the corners of her eyes. “What have you done with him? Is he all right?”
“Then you haven’t heard,” Ulysses said.
“Heard what?”
“You might want to sit down first,” Ulysses suggested.
“What is it?” Selene shrieked, her platinum curls quivering. “Tell me!”
A sudden knock at the door made both of them start.
“Selene?” came a muffled voice. It was gruff and male. “You all right?”
Th
e shaking courtesan looked from Ulysses to the door and back again, her eyes wide, not knowing what she should do.
The door handle turned. And then the lock rattled.
“Selene?” the gruff voice came again, more anxious cadences apparent in its tone.
“Open that door and you’ll learn nothing more from me,” Ulysses hissed.
The girl hesitated, eyes darting backwards and forwards.
The someone on the other side of the door gave it a push.
“Selene! What’s going on?”
The girl gave Ulysses an imploring look, but kept the gun on him all the while. She took a deep breath, struggling to compose herself, and then called out, “It’s all right, Harry, I’m with a client.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, though? He’s not roughing you up is he?”
“Non. It is nothing like that. Just a bit of... role-play.”
“Oh, all right then. Sorry to disturb you, sir.”
The tension on the door handle released and Ulysses breathed a sigh of relief.
“Now,” hissed Selene, “tell me, what have you done with Barty?”
“I haven’t done anything with him,” Ulysses replied, muscles tensing, ready to leap into action in a moment. “You have to remember that. It wasn’t me.”
“Tell me!”
“I’m afraid Barty’s dead.”
For a moment Selene did nothing. She simply stood exactly where she was, gun trained on Ulysses, mouth agape in shock, eyes wide with disbelief and glistening with moisture.
“You killed him!” she hissed, and Ulysses heard the ratcheting sound that came of her tightening her finger on the trigger.
“I didn’t kill him! I wouldn’t do that.”
The girl’s hands began to shake again, more violently than before, and she sank down onto the bed, her whole body wracked by silent sobs.
“Mon dieu! What am I going to do without my precious Barty?”
In that instant Ulysses made his move. In one fluid motion he grabbed the pistol and angled the barrel towards the wall before the girl knew what was going on. She gave a startled cry of panic.
“Quiet!” Ulysses hissed, turning the mother-of-pearl pistol on her now.
She looked at him with that same open expression of dread. “Are you going to kill me too?”
“No, I’m not going to kill you,” he said, throwing the gun onto a white wicker chair in the corner of the room. “I haven’t killed anyone,” he said with a weary sigh. “Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’m not going to kill you. And I didn’t kill Barty either.” He was quiet for a moment. “Barty was my brother; an idiot, a gambler and a fool, but my brother nonetheless.”
“Then you must be Ulysses,” Selene said, a faraway look in her eyes now.
“He mentioned me then?”
“A few times.”
“And what was he to you?”
“He was my boyfriend,” was all she could manage before she was overcome again.
“Here,” Ulysses said, passing her a monogrammed handkerchief. He sat down on the bed beside her. “I loved him too, you know, despite everything.”
Selene said nothing but buried her face in the handkerchief, her shoulders shaking.
“I swear that I will make whoever’s responsible pay – in blood.”
“How did it happen?” Selene asked, looking up at him, her eyes red and puffy.
“He fell from his thirteenth floor apartment. Broke his neck. Died instantly, thank God.”
Selene gave an agonised wail of grief.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t –”
“No,” Selene interrupted him, “I want to know. I need to know.”
“The police are convinced it was suicide.”
“No, never!”
“Then you and I have something else in common. But if Barty didn’t end his own life, someone else must have ended it for him.”
“It must have been one of them,” Selene replied, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Ulysses’ heart suddenly leapt. She knew something. “Who?”
She looked at him, as if attempting to read his face. And then she was suddenly shooting anxious glances around the room, as if she had just remembered something discomforting yet important.
“No,” she said, leaning forward and whispering into his ear. “Not here.”
Ulysses followed her agitated gaze into the corners of the room. The room must be bugged – possibly for no more sinister a reason than for the protection of the girls working at the club. “Where then?”
“Do you know the arena down the street?”
“Not yet, but I’ll find it.”
“I’ll see you there in time for the Clash of Steel bout. Now go.”
He took her hands in his and gave them a gentle squeeze, along with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Then he turned, unlocked the door, and slipped out of her boudoir.
Keeping his eyes down and trying not to draw attention to himself, Ulysses descended the staircase and made his way towards the exit. As he passed the bar, Nimrod emerged from the neon-formed shadows there.
“We’re leaving,” Ulysses said under his breath as his manservant dropped into step beside him.
“Am I to take it that you found Miss Selene?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And did you pump her for information?”
Ulysses halted mid-stride. He turned to his manservant, a snarl forming on his face. “She was Barty’s girlfriend,” he growled, stabbing Nimrod in the chest with his index finger. “The girl’s in bits.”
Nimrod blushed and looked down at his immaculately polished shoes. “Sir, please accept my apology. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Apology accepted.” Ulysses quickly picked up the pace again. “Now let’s get out of here. The arena awaits.”
“THEY’RE ON THE move again,” Veronica Verse said, dropping the binoculars from in front of her face.
Beside her, in the driver’s seat of the automobile, Lars Chapter finished packing the rucksack open on his lap. “They weren’t in there long.”
“No. But then I find most men don’t take as long about these things as they claim they will.” The young woman turned and grinned, seeing her companion’s disgruntled expression. “Apart from you, of course, my cherry pie,” she said, patting his thigh.
“So, what now?”
“Now, my little apple crumble? We keep close on their tail and see where they’re going. Nice and simple, just like the boss wants.”
Lars started the car and pulled out from the kerb, following the two men as they strode purposefully along the pavement, the car’s tyres crunching on the mooncrete surface of the road, safe in the knowledge that in the boot of the car there was enough ammunition to take down a Titan-class droid.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gladiator
T MINUS 1 DAY, 9 HOURS, 41 MINUTES, 36 SECONDS
INSIDE THE ARENA all was noise – the blaring of klaxons, the brass trumpeting of horns, the excited roar of the crowd, the clatter of heavy machinery and the steam-piped musical fanfares being broadcast over loudspeakers.
Outside, the building looked like little more than a steel cube; a prison, draped with greasy chains and adorned with blunted cutting blades. Empty oil drums, shredded tyres and all manner of scrap metal detritus filled the alleyways surrounding the structure, where they merged with the workshops that catered to the kill-bot support crews.
The entrance was wide and gaudily-decorated, draped with circus tent canvas door flaps, between which those attending the gladiatorial bouts had to pass. Above it, atop the rusted teeth of mock crenulations, the carcass of a decommissioned Goliath-class droid hung suspended from a winch-crane. The dead robot had long ago had its guts ripped out and recycled, its pitted shell having nonetheless been given a fresh paint job that made it look like a mechanised harlequin in the swinging beams of rotating search-lights.
Ulysses and Nimrod joined the heaving tide of
humanity entering the arena.
Having paid a girl, dressed as a tin woman, at a ticket booth, Ulysses led the way through the broad arch, circumventing the bookies declaring the odds on the upcoming fight with much frenzied arm-waving. Their frantic tic-tac-toe made them look like they were suffering from St Vitus’ Dance, as if capering to the accursed disease’s tune.
From a holding bay area – surrounded by merchandising stands and hot food vendors – they followed the clamour of the crowd and the smells of hot metal and axle-grease to the arena floor.
Inside it was a riot of colour, from the rust-red of the wall panels, to the sodium orange glow of the arc-lamps, the fluorescent pinks and greens of neon signs to the garish outfits of those employed by the arena. Even the gun-metal grey of the sentry droids’ armour had been masked with copious amounts of bright blue paint and the addition of crazed black and white hazard markings.
The combat area itself was a square, measuring some thirty yards across on every side, a raised wall of steel plates keeping the audience and the combatants a safe distance apart. The gladiatorial pit so created was surrounded on three sides by tiered rows of seating. The fourth side of the square contained the portcullis gate by which the combatants entered the arena under their own steam, and through which many of them would be carried out later in pieces.
Above the heavy medieval portcullis a grille-enclosed balcony jutted out over the arena. From this elevated position the master of the games would see that all bouts were conducted fairly, all from behind a pane of wire-mesh-reinforced, bullet-proof glass.
While Ulysses and Nimrod were still looking for a seat, the last unfortunate to lose a fight was being winched out of the arena on the end of a large steel hook, internal pipework dangling like intestines from the hole that had been torn through the steel plate of its simulated midriff.
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