Cream rested for several hours and gathered his thoughts. He had spread a fine powdered arsenic tincture over the entire room, including the mattress, to kill the lice. His enhanced body remained impervious to the poison, but it served to effectively kill all the vermin in the room.

He had heavily dusted the bed, and that is where he lay with hands behind his bed as he waited for the evening to gather in full.

Idly, he wondered what had happened to the robots.

Reflecting back on the plan, he also wondered if Dar Caul had been lying . . . or simply mistaken.

Or maybe something went wrong? Things were supposed to commence tonight, he thought. Not last night. Something must have set things off on the wrong foot.

The plan was for a series of enhanced robots to be loaded on the heavy ship and dropped off around Ethinium. They would herald the start of another Great Purge, not seen since the days of the Plague.

The giant airship would return and pick up more bots, dropping them off around the city. The mechanical men were practically indestructible, and could simply jump out to begin their reign of destruction.

By morning light, little of the city would remain standing. The robots had been told to start fires with gas lines and wreak as much havoc as possible.

That was the plan, anyway.

In reality, three robots arrived from the lower levels, surprising everyone in the hangar bay. They were quickly followed by Venture Society members. Or at least one.

Cream knew RVS by their clothes. The khakis served as uniforms, of a sort. Some stayed from that clothing. If they chose something else, it was always outlandish like black leather armor or some such.

But also, besides someone showing up in RVS khakis, there should be no outsiders in the vault. If anyone came running in they should be dressed in the dusters and gasmasks sewer troopers favored, certainly not a man wearing khakis.

The big ship with a paltry three robots cast off its moor lines and ascended. The captains of the two smaller ships followed.

To everyone’s surprise, the Venture Society man shot a harpoon up to the big ship and sailed along with it, like a fish on a trawl line.

Then darkness enveloped everybody until . . . a bunch of girls showed up and attacked the ship he was in. How did that happen? The whole scenario confused him.

He took care of one of the pests, but . . . well, he was here now on the ground and it was time for him to do his part in the Great Purge, spoiled plans or not. Maybe there were no robots destroying the city, but he could still enjoy himself.

He could strike fear in the hearts of Umbrians, which was the task Dar Caul assigned to him.

With those thoughts, Cream stood and made his way back outside.

He checked on the alley first and nodded in satisfaction. The men he had killed and arranged were all gone. He smiled, thinking about how the city might be gripped with the fear of a gang war breaking out. Everyone would start looking askance at young men on the street, if that turned out as planned.

This thought lightened his mood considerably, and he walked down the alley to check on his other victim, the prostitute whose room he had swiped.

To Cream’s chagrin, he found the body remained undisturbed. In fact, more trash had gathered around it, covering up her head. The only sign someone remained underneath was her foot sticking out.

He sighed. He had hoped her body would be found and that would cause much concern and consternation. As it was, nobody paid any attention to a vagrant covered in trash.

Hmmm. He would have to change his approach.

As he considered his next steps, a provocatively dressed woman and a biter slipped inside the alley’s entrance, not seeing him in the shadows.

“Now, be careful, love. No! No kissing.”

“I done paid ya. I gets it all.”

“Yes, but no kissing, love.”

Disgusted at the man’s pawing at the woman, Cream stepped forward. His black cloak seemed to materialize like solidified shadows.

The whore saw him first and screamed. The worker looked up and he jumped off her, stepping back toward the street while trying to pull up his pants at the same time.

“Who are you? Get back! Begone!”

He pulled out a four-barrel pepperbox and aimed it at Cream’s middle.

The physicker snorted. Pepperboxes were notoriously unreliable and inaccurate handguns, long ago made obsolete by superior Webley revolvers and Prussian semi-automatics. How this fellow got ahold of one was a mystery.

Perhaps they are more common in the slums.

“Put that away, cretin,” Cream said, taking another step and pulling out his razor blade.

“Get back! I’ll shoot! I mean it, I will!”

Cream smirked and reached back to slash the man in the face when the worker pulled the trigger on his crude gun. The barrel roared and Cream felt a hot slug of lead burrow into his belly.

His face changed, snarling in pain and outrage.

The worker’s mouth dropped and he lost his grip on the pants. He held the pepperbox with both hands and tried to shoot again, but the cheap firing mechanism jammed on him as the barrels rotated.

Cream made a final step closing the gap between them, and he swung with the blade hard and smooth, decapitating the man instantly.

The prostitute shrieked in horror and ran down the street as the biter’s body collapsed and the head rolled away.

A policeman’s whistle sounded, the officer running toward the sound of the screams and the gunshot.

Cream looked at the headless body and nodded while tapping his chin.

This should at least strike fear in the people, he thought. Beheadings usually do.

He walked away, blood still dripping from the blade at his side, lost in thought.