‘Not again,’ Sham muttered as he slammed the elevator doors closed, just in time to stop them catching on the rising floor.

‘What?’ Kryl spat.

‘You’ve led them here before?’ Riot asked.

‘Not here, and not to Kryl. And you were there too, last time!’

‘Yes,’ Riot replied, ‘But I don’t remember that, do I!’

‘Look. It’s an easy mistake to make. I didn’t think—’

‘Both of you be quiet!’ Kryl hissed, an expression of concentration on his face. ‘I think they’re…’ He trailed off, listening to the sounds of the building.

Riot and Sham waited in silence for a moment before the former finally broke it. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘They’re in the building,’ he said. ‘Bottom of the elevator.’

‘Hells.’

‘Fuck, OK,’ Sham said. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘The plan?’ Kryl repeated. ‘The plan was to keep this place safe! The plan was not to be followed here. But you simply had to ruin it, didn’t you, Mr Tilner?’

‘Riot too,’ was his only defence.

He received a scowl in response.

A thought crossed his mind, perhaps lent to him by Recollection. ‘The vials. The… the boono. You still have them?’

Kryl shook his head. ‘Already utilised them, this Loop. They’re already gone. Only way out is…’ He wrenched on the lever, bringing the elevator to a screeching halt, and yanked the door open. ‘Out,’ he barked, leading the way.

‘What’s the plan here?’ Riot asked. ‘Beyond not having led the Legion here in the first place.’

Kryl nodded down the corridor.

For a moment, Sham—and apparently Riot, judging by her blank expression—didn’t know what he was referring to. But Sham got there first. ‘The window?’

‘Yes.’

‘What story… How far up are we?’

‘Fifteen feet,’ Kryl said.

‘Well that’s not so—’

‘I believe.’

‘You believe?’ Riot repeated, just in time for the elevator to whir into life behind them, travelling down to the floor.

‘You want us to…’ Sham started, gesturing to the window.

‘Either that or have the Legion capture you. And believe me when I say… their ways are far from fun to remember.’

Sham looked from Kryl, to the window, to the gulping Riot.

‘Sounds like fun…’ Vigour murmured.

‘Sod it,’ Sham muttered, and then ran for their only exit. In the moments that followed, he heard Riot gasp behind him, just a second before he made contact with the glass. The panes shattered at his impact, and for a moment they were glistening all around him, shimmering through the air like a blustery snowstorm. He felt weightless for a moment, his organs rising within his body as he dropped, and Sham had just enough time to think, “You better be able to handle this, Vigour,” before he hit the ground, hard, beneath him.

Sham blinked the building above him into focus, and saw that Kryl, fortunately, had been correct about the floor. The drop had been a little under fifteen feet, to Sham’s eyes, though with Vigour it felt no worse than falling out of bed. Or, at least, falling out of bed when you were as sick as Sham was.

‘As sick as you had been,’ Vigour corrected him.

A blur emerged from the windows above Sham, raining down a tad more glass as Riot—as that’s who it was—caught more of the pane that Sham had left behind. Without thinking, and perhaps with Vigour driving his body for a moment, Sham jumped to catch Riot, arriving under her just in time to grab her with his forearms. She snapped her head to him in surprise, her eyes wide, her mouth… not grimacing, not smiling, but something in between.

‘Vigour?’ she asked.

Sham nodded.

‘And what about Kryl?’

A heavy body fell to the pavement with a heavy thud. Kryl groaned.

‘Sorry,’ Sham shrugged, meeting Kryl’s pained gaze. The snob glanced to Riot in his arms, and he did grimace.

‘Right, then,’ Kryl said as he struggled to his feet. ‘You said you had somewhere to hide out?’

Tripe wasn’t best pleased to see Sham and company turning up at his door, which Sham could tell because as his old friend opened up to them, he said, ‘I ain’t pleased to see you turning up at my door.’

‘Nice to see you too, mate,’ Sham replied, squeezing past him, Riot and Kryl following him in.

Tripe glanced outside the door, scouring the street for signs of trouble.

‘Nobody followed up,’ Sham said. ‘We checked.’

‘This time,’ Kryl grumbled.

Tripe eyes snapped to this stranger in his basement. ‘Posh?’ His head spun to Sham. ‘You brought a posh person here?’

Sham gestured his thumb towards Riot. ‘She’s posh too.’

Tripe shrugged. ‘She don’t look like trouble, though.’

‘Thank you?’ Riot answered.

‘They’re friends, Tripe,’ Sham said. ‘Or at least they aren’t going to cause you any trouble. They want to be found here just as much as you do.’

‘Let me guess, then,’ Tripe said as he showed them into the basement proper, plopping his arse down on the medical bed that sat in the centre of the room. ‘You in some kind of trouble?’

Sham forced a smile. ‘Always.’

‘Yeah, I’m asking what kind of trouble. Can’t imagine it’s with the law or these two’—he gestured to Kryl and Riot—‘would just buy your way out.’

‘I don’t know that that’s—’ Kryl started.

‘It’s with the law,’ Sham interrupted.

Tripe sighed, stood up from the medical bed and yanked open a cabinet door, pulling from it a clear glass bottle of dark brown liquid. ‘Guess I can get behind you if it’s that. Citizen’s Police?’

‘The—’ Riot started.

‘Yeah,’ Sham lied.

Riot flashed him a look which seemed to say “are you gonna let anyone else speak?”

Tripe nodded, pulled a few dusty glasses down from the cabinet, and began to pour. The smell of cheap whisky filled the room.

[HARDENED LIVER] RESTRAINT: SUCCESS

You can’t lie; a big part of you yearns for a sip of whisky. Even the sort of stuff Tripe can afford. But there’s a strength in you now—not caused by Vigour, but by growth of character.

‘None for me,’ Sham said.

Tripe raised an eyebrow, began pouring a fourth glass anyway.

‘None for me, I said.’

His old friend met his gaze, considered it for a moment, and then poured Sham’s helping into another glass, doubling up the amount. ‘Guess the years have changed you, yeah?’ He offered the two smaller glasses to Riot and Kryl, who both—without so much as a glance at each other—had the same reaction of sniffing the glass and then recoiling, nose turned up. Tripe pretended not to notice.

‘We need a favour,’ Sham said.

‘Yeah, yeah. I figured as much.’ Tripe downed the entirety of his drink—a whole two helpings—in one gulp. Or maybe he hadn’t gulped at all, and just let the liquid run down his throat. Either way, something about it made Sham queasy. ‘What is it?’

‘Sanctuary,’ Sham replied.

Tripe tilted his head. ‘For all of you? For how long?’

‘Until I find somewhere better,’ Kryl answered.

Sham’s old friend smiled at the snob’s unabashed rudeness. ‘Let me know how that goes, what with the police after you. This place might not have the sauna and the servants quarters and the fucking… money tree that you’re used to, but I ain’t ever had any trouble from the law down here.’

‘Ignore my brother,’ Riot said, her voice sounding slightly less abrasive in tone than Sham was used to. ‘He’s…’

‘Your brother?’ Tripe asked, then glanced from Riot to Sham, mirth in his eyes. ‘Oh, I thought… Well, I guess I do know what I think, then.’ His eyes communicated to his old friend more than these strangers would know.

‘You’ll have us?’ Sham asked.

Tripe tilted his head from side to side, as though considering. ‘Yeah. Yeah, sure. On one condition.’

Nobody said anything.

‘Aren’t you gonna ask what the condition is?’

‘Oh,’ Riot said, ‘I thought you were just going to tell us.’

‘Where’s your… where’s your sense of drama? Where’s your…’ Tripe muttered. ‘No matter. The condition? I need you to do something for me.’

Again nobody asked the obvious question, so Tripe continued.

‘I need you to go look into a body that’s turned up. Down around the back of Tender Street.’

Sham shrugged. ‘Alright. We can do that.’

‘I’m not going out until we know the…’ Kryl started, glancing at Sham. ‘I’m not going out until we know the police are gone.’

‘Fine,’ Sham said. ‘Me and Riot can do that. But what’s so special about this body? Bodies turn up round these parts all the time.’

Riot and brother shared an expression that suggested that this was news to them.

‘You been stuck at home too long, Sham,’ Tripe said.

‘I’ve been ill, it’s not like—’

‘People turning up round here, they’ve not just been the normal sorts for some time now. It’s not people like us any more. Not gang members, not criminals. It’s the normal folk turning up, now. Not even that, really. It’s the people most likely to get out of this fucking hellhole of a district. It’s our best and brightest, Sham. That’s who’s getting killed.’

‘You’re safe then,’ Kryl said, nodding to Sham.

Sham ignored him. ‘What d’you think? Usual class war shit? Citizen’s Police coming for their own?’

Tripe shook his head. ‘I… I dunno. I thought that, at first. But this has been going on months, maybe years for all I know. It’s gotta stop, though. And best way of stopping it is finding out who’s behind it.’

QUEST UNLOCKED: INVESTIGATE THE BODIES

Your own folk targeted. The best of them, slain. It must be stopped.

‘OK,’ Sham said.

‘OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m on it.’

A smile lit up in Tripe’s eyes. ‘There’s the man I used to know.’

Riot paced forward a step. ‘Why us, though? Sounds like you’ve been investigating this yourself for months already. What do you expect us to achieve?’

Tripe nodded to Sham. ‘He always was the best with people, back in our old… club. Figure he might see something I ain’t. And with you—with some money—on his side, he might see more still.’

Riot grimaced, and Sham knew from experience that this was in response to being reduced to the weight of her purse. She was more than that, really, and even Sham was beginning to see that now.

‘To be clear,’ Sham said. ‘We do this, and even if we don’t find anything, you’ll still let us stay?’

Tripe nodded. ‘We both know you ain’t gonna let people get away with this. If you don’t find anything, then that ain’t gonna be anything to do with you.’

Tripe had given them direction to Tender Street like Sham wasn’t a local, like he hadn’t been living in Harbour District all his life, with poverty affording him no route of escape. But Sham let it slide; it’d been a good few years since Tripe had seem him—or at least, remembered seeing him—and he couldn’t be blamed for not knowing what Sham had been up to.

‘And She had money, too, yeah? Tripe knew Her, didn’t know whether She’d yanked you away from your home,’ Vigour murmured.

‘Vigour…’ Recollection replied. ‘We don’t speak about these things if we want to live.’

‘What?’ Sham asked of the skills in his head, and this time Riot didn’t shoot him a strange expression—she understood well and truly what was going on, now. The living skills gave him no reply.

On their journey, Riot seemed more nervous than she had on previous excursions around the Harbour District. Perhaps it was that the Legion might be lurking in the shadows, perhaps it was his mention of just how many people turn up dead in this part of the city. Whatever the reason, she seemed to keep closer to Sham than normal.

When they arrived at Tender Street, the sun had well and truly set, leaving the roads illuminated only by swaying gas lanterns, and the light seeping out of the establishments around them. Tender Street was, of course, a road full of seedy bars and brothels, and Sham only realised once they arrived on it that Riot had not been prepared for this. He upped his pace, enjoying again the new level of fitness that Vigour had bestowed upon him, and Riot seemed happy to keep up.

The body was around the back of one of the smaller brothels on the street, and a man in the shadows, smoking a pipe, seemed to be keeping guard. ‘What you want?’ he barked. ‘Can’t come back here.’

‘Tripe sent us,’ Sham replied, and the man in the shadows replied with a nod.

They passed around the back of the building and found the body still there, though the colour of her skin suggested that the best part of a day had already passed since her death. Riot recoiled at the first whiff of the body’s initial decomposition, but Sham kept his nerve; he’d smelled such things before.

The dead woman was clothed in a silk dress, slightly worn in parts but still fancier than most women in this district would be able to own. Around her fingers she wore a near handful of rings, them posher too than most round here. Her face was warped into one of shock, suggesting a sudden death perhaps, but Sham could not see any sign of knife wound, or bullet wound. The source of her death, then, was unexplained.

‘Gods…’ Riot mumbled, her hand over her mouth.

‘What’s the matter, not seen a dead body before?’

Riot raised an eyebrow. ‘Well of course I haven’t!’

They studied the body for a few moments longer, their eyes piercing every nook and cranny of this dead woman’s flesh.

‘She’s a prostitute,’ Riot suddenly said.

‘Yeah, I thought that was a given.’

‘I thought your friend said that these bodies were the Harbour District’s most capable? The brightest?’

Sham furrowed his brow. ‘What makes you think she isn’t?’

‘Her…’

‘Her choice of career?’ Sham replied. ‘Riot…’

His friend’s cheeks blushed red; she’d realised the error of her judgement without Sham having to spell it out. That was about as good as he could hope for with someone of her class, he supposed.

‘I…’ Riot said, and then suddenly pushed her head closer to the body. ‘Wait a moment.’

‘What?’

‘I…’ she continued. ‘I think I remember this woman.’

Sham blinked. ‘You… know this woman?’

Riot nodded. ‘She was… brought into the Sunrise District a few months ago.’

‘Brought in? How “brought in?”’

‘She came with the circus. Was a—’

‘A circus?’ Sham replied. ‘A fucking circus? You’re telling me the rich and powerful pluck people out of poverty to be used as entertainment? Like fucking… circus animals?’

‘I didn’t say it was right,’ Riot said. ‘Just that it happened.’

‘You were there, though.’

Riot stopped in place. ‘Look, Sham. This is going to be difficult for you to understand, but there’s things in high society that you’re forced to do, whether you want them or not. We don’t work to keep our riches, that’s secondary. We work to keep our status. And to keep your status, you must be seen. Whether that’s at galas, or parties, or even the circus. We must be seen, else what power do we really yield?’

‘You’re saying—’

‘I’m saying that just because I was there, doesn’t mean that I wanted to be. Now do you want to hear what I know or not?’

Sham raised his hands in the air to signal his defeat, quietly wrestling with the raging wrath that burned inside him.

‘Good,’ Riot continued. ‘She performed in the circus, yes. I don’t recall precisely what act she formed—perhaps I had stepped out—but there is one thing I do remember. Afterwards, in the reception, this woman had drawn the eye of someone in power.’

‘Who?’ Sham asked. ‘The PM?’

‘Course it’s the Prime Minister,’ Vigour cried out. ‘Who else it gonna be?’

‘No,’ Riot replied. ‘His girlfriend.’

‘Huh. Didn’t even know he had one.’

Riot nodded glumly.

This confirmed it, then; the class war raged on, and those in power held all the… well, all the power. This was something that was never going to end. First under the monarchy, and then under democracy, and somehow worse under the latter. It was never, ever, going to end.

‘Haven’t you noticed,’ Sham finally said. ‘How whatever we’re looking into, whether it’s dead bodies, or corrupt new police forces, or a terrorist with her sights on the Tower…’

‘The Prime Minister always seems to be at the heart of it,’ Riot finished. ‘Yes. I was thinking the exact same thing.’

When they returned to Tripe, and reported what they’d learned, Tripe didn’t seem surprised. In fact, he only nodded, and siad, simply, ‘Only confirms what I already thought.’