In the city of Founders, rare were the places where Erol felt truly at ease. Day and night, in winter like in summer, Renaissance was overcrowded, noisy, and nauseating.
The archaeologist had extensively roamed the roads of the faubourgs in the past. He knew every filthy cul-de-sac ripe, every narrow passage that beggars and junkies called their home, all the legal markets patrolled by the police, and the lairs controlled by the underworld gangs.
The Gouffre, this chasm, provided a mirror to the rest of the city. The facility was seated within a thousand-year-old fallout shelter. Inside, the first survivors of the apocalypse had erected a sand arena and wooden stands that sometimes hosted up to three thousand visitors at the end of the week. The front seats were close to the half-circle stage, separated from the fights by a pit of corpses. The crowd granted him anonymity and he liked it that way. This oasis of violence was nothing but a seedy slum, but it was also one of those rare stray holes that served drinks well into the night. The walls were black. The floor was black. Only the yellow and pink LED lights, powered by photovoltaic cells and a generator that was at least as old as the city itself, provided a hint of illumination.
That night again, the spectacle went on despite the stands being almost empty. The penultimate match pitted a crew of barbarians from the eastern routes against some guards of the city who were looking for a thrill. In any case, that’s what was displayed in the giant panel hanging in the emptiness above the arena. Advertisements sometimes interrupted more important messages, like the number of survivors, the upcoming duel, and an overview of drink prices.
The yellow characters on the black background suddenly took the shape of a pretty woman in military clothing. She smiled and then blinked as Cyrillic characters covered the panel before disappearing like a cloud of dust.
Apparently, some dude had just killed another. A bunch of hooligans in the first row howled. A head rolled limply in the sand.
He was far from the lyrical torpor of Bacchus’s Lair which had ultimately bored the grave robber. The glitter and the spiced wines were his brother’s world. He was here, in the shadows and in the fury. Located at the very top, the bar offered the best view of the arena. But he had to order something in order to sit there. It was hotter up in the bar, but the smell of sweat managed to mask that of the blood that permeated the walls.
The thin crowd screamed again. Someone else had just died. Maybe. Erol exhaled, attempting in vain to chase away the dark ideas that arose in him, when a waitress approached his table.
She wore a black miniskirt so short that it left nothing to the imagination and bordered on the indecent. Her top was made of transparent plastic, revealing her dark bra and a magnificent phoenix tattoo on her shoulder.
She asked him if he wanted anything else. He wanted to answer, but contented himself with a smile and shook his head to let her know that he simply wanted to be alone. She walked away before disappearing into the semi-darkness.
The amount of mushroom alcohol in his glass had not diminished. He had paid for this glass for the location alone. To have a chair where to sit and a little space to reflect at the top of the benches.
He was not alone in this corner. Two men were savoring their beers, reclined against one of the columns of the bunker.
“I won’t be the one to risk my skin in there,” said one of them.
The man who had spoken was small and bald, with a flat face. The second wore a uniform donned by the reserve units of the guard. He answered, but his words were lost in the sound of an advertisement for an implant.
Throughout his life, Erol had come face to face with danger on many occasions. First, as a scavenger for one of the most powerful street gangs, he had navigated the run-down storehouses of the fishy Pêcherie, the stocks of the fearsome militia of Freia, and the very winding tunnels upon which the city stood.
On his own, he had brought back a number of treasures: cerebral add-ons in working order, rare metals, works of art sometimes, weapons often. He was ready to bet with just anyone that a third of the implants in this crowd were the fruit of his own work. That must certainly have been the case. A long time ago.
When Marian had finally pulled him out of the hell that were the streets of Renaissance, his talents had been put to a severe test. The guarded warehouses and the nauseating catacombs had given way to unchartered underground compounds and forgotten scientific bunkers. But there too, his prowess had shone. He had gotten over the old scholar’s antics because he paid well.
Below, in the arena, the fight was coming to an end. New visitors flooded in while others left the premises, drunk. The last event of the evening was fast approaching. Erol wasn’t paying attention to any of it. Nevertheless, the excitement of the growing crowd was palpable. A blast of hot air hit his face. A sense of nausea began to pervade him.
Shivering, he brought his moist hand to his forehead. Octave was seated in front of him. The boy’s eyes were glued to the display panel. Two years before, the teenager’s arrival had changed the game. Erol had sworn up and down to Marian that his survival and his results were the fruit of him working alone. The old academic had, rightly or wrongly, bludgeoned him with comments about how this would end up driving him mad.
In any case, Octave’s mentorship had been an order from the Foundation and it was non-negotiable. After all, his father played at the big boys’ table.
Octave was still young, but he was promising. Erol had taken a while to acknowledge this. Their adventure through the Dammastock had finally made him his wingman, his acolyte. After two years of toil, the grave robber had finally accepted the obstinate presence of his student.
Everything had been torn apart so brutally.
The display table lit up and the crowd screamed. The match was done. One of the guards threw the head of the last slave to the hooligans in the first rows who were euphoric. But no one moved away.
Octave’s ghost turned towards Erol. The boy was not really used to the violent confrontations of the Gouffre. And it wasn’t for lack of experience: Erol had brought him there many times. He was laughing this time around. Erol thought he could hear him, his voice resonating along the empty spaces of the stands, under the black stone vault.
The vault suddenly transformed. The compound surrounded him once again, it devoured him. Then he found himself outside, in a garden. He was back at the University. Octave was lying on the ground. A cold wind blew on his face. The grimy ventilator of the Gouffre had been turned on so it could refresh the air in preparation for the final fight.
Behind him, tables rattled on the painted wooden floor and a group of three raiders sat down not far from him. They all had long and dirty hair.
But Erol was interested exclusively in their tattoos. They were followers of a gang that many considered a cult, an armed branch of the White Army in the city. According to the snippets of conversation that he was able to overhear, the atmosphere in the city was electric. In many neighborhoods, riots had erupted like Freia had feared.
He observed them for an instant without meeting their eyes. Apparently, they were not interested in the gloomy figure slumped in his chair in a dark corner.
Octave’s ghost had disappeared. And yet, Erol would have liked to hear him talk one last time about his notes on the transfer of consciousness onto computers or some other nonsense on which he was an authority.
When Sileo appeared out of nowhere, he jumped.
“I am sorry to see that my establishment does not fulfill your expectations in terms of entertainment.”
A curse later, Erol glared at his brother before extending his hand in his direction and patting the pink skin of his cheek.
“What are you doing? Are you already drunk?” Sileo inquired, pushing away the sticky fingers that smeared his face.
“I was simply verifying that you are not a ghost … or a spirit, made up by the broken hard disk that serves as my brain,” Erol answered him, wetting his lips with the mushroom liquor.
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“We are being poetic this evening,” his brother quipped.
“It’s transcendence apparently. It was in fashion some ten centuries ago. You do not know about it?” He finished his glass in a single swing, then grimaced. The consistency of the liquor was that of old honey left out for too long. It must be older than him. “How did you know I was here?” he asked his brother while signaling a barmaid for a second glass.
“You are here every Tuesday,” answered Sileo. “How are you feeling?”
Erol shrugged his shoulders. “I have been worse.”
“That is the problem. This sort of thing, it starts accumulating. And when it comes to the surface, the consequences are often very ugly.”
Erol shook his head. He understood his brother’s worry. Octave’s death had shaken him. He just needed a bit of time before getting back on the saddle.
“Suzanne is awake?”
“She is resting.”
“Still? You’d think she would have had her fill with rest already!” Erol joked.
“It is precisely this sort of behavior that made her leave! You were lucky that Freia’s men got ahold of her before the mob … still, they are easier to buy.”
A speaker warmed up the room. The microphone must be working again. During this time, a small man riding a donkey cleaned the projectors around the perimeter of the arena. The fanatics of the first rows headed for the toilettes.
The speakers located above Erol’s head spit out a cloud of dust when they screamed the name of the next fighters. Under the light of some time-worn projectors, a group of chained individuals was making their entrance. There were eight men and one woman.
She had white skin and red hair. Her almond-shaped green eyes emanated fear. Blinded by the lights, her gaze roamed through the crowd and then her executioners before she dropped her head in prayer. She was beautiful.
“Like all Britons of the West colonies,” Erol murmured, his eyes glued to the scene.
The group of prisoners was followed by the Butchers—the name given to the merry torturers of the place. The slot dedicated to fights was over. Now it was time for the executions.
“Any information on Marian?” Erol asked, his gaze still fixed on the arena.
“Nothing. I am starting to believe that he had contacts at large with whom he is hiding for the moment. The High-Lands are rather vast. The Inquisition is not any closer to finding him and, despite everything, the flying spies of Freia are not either.”
Sileo noticed his brother’s interest in the sad spectacle that was unfolding before their eyes. The Butchers now surrounded their victims, making their steel flail whistle.
“And the Judge?” continued Erol.
“Returned to Carascinthia. Anyway, do you want some information to make your skin crawl—Porca vacca, Erol! How can you come here and participate in such displays of violence?” Sileo remarked as one of the prisoners was hit at the back of his head by one of his jailors.
“I don’t know. You were saying?” replied Erol nonchalantly.
The young woman was moving backwards and away from the group, but one of the butchers pounced on her and kicked her with his foot. She collapsed to the floor. Erol reached for his empty scabbard, except he had left it with the blacksmith near the cabaret. Nevertheless, this gesture did not escape his companion.
Sileo resumed after a frown: “Sainte Maev, the chief superior of the Inquisition, has apparently left her Ark. Freia has put Francie under surveillance and things are heating up. Everything leads me to believe that the corpus of Judges is not really in agreement with her policy on technology.”
“If these freaks keep eating each other, the world will become a better place,” Erol commented, motioning the waitress again.
A girl of about sixteen arrived with two relatively clean glasses. Her index finger split into two and whisky began to flow from a slit.
The young woman had a second implant. Erol saw it appear furtively in the crease between her breasts and her armpit. It was a small silver valve used by junkies to gobble down gas or heroin closer to the heart. She too was covered in fluorescent tattoos bearing the symbol of the circled triangle.
“Hypocrites!” spit Erol when the waitress rushed to another table.
“Public opinion is now predominantly on their side. The wealthy neighborhoods live in a bubble. I do not want to be there when it bursts.”
“Freia seems to have a grip on the situation with all her hounds at every corner of the street.”
Sileo shared his sarcasm. “Look at these brutes,” he said, indicating with a tilt of his head the group of three raiders. “They think of themselves at home. A few dozen blocks from the great Dome. The Judge’s incursion gave them courage. Maev would be an idiot not to take advantage of this once the schism is over.”
The Butchers now chased after the handful of prisoners that ran around the arena. Their feet obstructed by their chains, they stumbled before being cut into pieces under the screams of the crowd.
After a few minutes, there was no one left but the young woman with alabaster skin. They started to remove all her clothes and her dignity along with them.
Erol raised his eyes to the sky, hitting his head against the back of his seat. His gloved hand tapped the scabbard of his sword. He could hear her begging for her life.
“What is your plan? You are not the type to mope around and drink,” asked Sileo who was also incapable of remaining aloof in front of that scene.
“I have heard that in the south, Shandalaar is rather beautiful this time of year.”
“Ring-City? The holograms of the cherry trees in blossom will be a big difference from the caves,” Sileo scoffed. He had never shared this dream.
“You would not keep me from leaving?”
“Why bother? It’s not like crossing the border is not suicide. They flay alive any clandestine or smugglers who dares to cross it. Did you know that?”
Erol was aware. He had seen it with his own eyes.
“But after that, the Consumption Temples, the jade palaces, the pretty girls with brown skin…” Sileo too stared at the poor prisoner. She was now on her knees, her soft round face bleeding. Erol was seething. “You will send me a post picture.”
“It’s called a postcard,” replied the grave robber.
“You’re nitpicking my words.”
“Octave used to do that.”
Erol fell silent. The boy’s ghost had reappeared. This time, he was by the woman’s side in the arena. Mutilated and humiliated.
A sense of quiet settled in the atmosphere as the whole room held its breath. Sileo suddenly broke the silence:
“Erol. You do not provoke catastrophes. You are not responsible for what happened to Octave.”
Erol lifted his eyes to the sky. He had been expecting his brother’s sermon and was surprised that it had not come earlier. He let him go on.
“But all of this, it’s you. When something happens, you will be there, right in the middle of it, because you are always there where the action is. There is nothing you can do about that. You are cursed.” He smiled. “You are cursed by your good soul. You cannot help intervening and fighting for what you think is right. You did not bring that woman out of that damn mountain because she would be your jackpot. You saved her because it was the only right thing to do.”
The Butchers lifted their arms in the air, they were firing up the crowd, rolling their muscles covered in blood and entrails. The woman with red hair was lying on the ground in a pool of dark liquid.
“That woman … below … you cannot protect her,” Sileo resumed as he got up from the table.
With a gesture of his palm, he pointed at the odious spectacle that was wrapping up.
“Stop, I am going to cry,” muttered Erol, finishing his bottle.
A sense of nausea overcame him as soon as he put the bottle down. He swallowed it down, but a spasm turned his stomach.
The projectors turned off with a click and the arena sunk into darkness before the yellow and green LEDs on the ceiling were brought to life. The holograms had disappeared. The young woman and the Butchers had vanished. Octave had left too.
Sileo headed for the stairs that would allow him to leave the stands. The speaker announced that the last season’s replays would be closed. Little by little, the Gouffre emptied out into the hubbub of the city.
Sileo brought his hand to his ear, a sign that he was having a long-distance conversation, before turning around to face Erol right away.
“The Foundation has found a lead on Marian. I will print the report and bring it to your chamber.”
Once his brother was out of range, Erol released a big sigh. His immediate neighbors scrutinized him. The three gorillas gave him a mean look. The waitress with the phoenix tattoo returned to clear out his table.
“In any case, I don’t speak Shandaloo,” he said, paying his bill with his digital thumbprint.