Italy is the fount of Western culture, and being freshened by the very source of civilisation her people have cottoned on a lot earlier than most others that a damp, cold, soggy, sloppy bowl is no way to start the day. Instead, they breakfast on something sugary, charged, bright and sweet, to set you skipping down the road with a spring on your step and a sunny smile.

…and then, there's coffee.

While Agapita pushed her finger around the rim of her plate to scoop up the last flakes of pastry from her rich and succulent pain au chocolat, Avise was working one arm down the sleeve of his jacket, tipping up his coffee cup with his free hand. He shook it irritably when he found it to be empty – but Priscilla was immediately on hand with the urn.

"Oh, you're a saint." Avise breathed as he knocked back the entire cup in one long gulp, before setting the cup back down on the serving tray with a ceramic clatter of crockery.

"Aren't I just?" Priscilla said coolly, as she moved past the handler, accepting Agapita's plate back and smiling at the cyborg's thank-you.

"What brings room service up here, then?" Avise asked as he buttoned up his suit jacket and pawed his side to make sure that his Webley was not noticeable in its chest holster. "Are we aborting?"

"I never expected you of all people to shy away from a fight, Major Mancini!" Priscilla remarked, although a glint in her eye indicated that it was more gentle sarcasm than questioning surprise.

"Oh, I'm all for getting in the thick of it," Avise insisted, "I've just had some limpid commanders flop over me in my time." Avise's gaze twitched away momentarily and he looked at his reflection in the mirror above the room's dresser, a frown shadowing his face.

Priscilla noted the change in his demeanour with a blink of worry. "Well, never fear, Chief Lorenzo's nothing like that – as you should well know, Hero of Ablution Block B." Avise's head immediately snapped back to Priscilla, causing her to take a step back in instinctual alarm – but they both laughed.

"True, true…"Avise bent his head down to fasten his cufflinks, and as he did so, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. "…Agapita, are you putting on lipstick?"

Agapita was sitting on the edge of her bed, and she looked up from her compact with an expression of surprise. "It's lip gloss, sir." She held up the wand for inspection.

"Stick, gloss, balm, whatever. Why?"

Agapita glanced sideways, looking a little confused and uncertain. "Well, Jacopo did say that he wanted Gladiators to dress in smart street wear…" She lowered her hand to tug at the hem of her short dress self-consciously.

"I know, but we're going to be going to battle in hours and…" – was it really all that different from smearing his face in camo paint? – "…it looks lovely."

Agapita pressed her lips together in a tight smile – it was a subtle effect, the gloss not changing the texture but altering the tone just so slightly from flesh to give her complexion that extra rim-glint of shine – and nodded vigorously. "Thank you, sir."

"Just wait until we're in the car next time, time is tight." Avise said as he turned away, feeling obliged to give an instruction of some kind. He brought himself back to Priscilla, who'd been watching the exchange with a smile herself. "And on the topic of time…"

"Yes." Priscilla smoothly slid into gear. "We wanted to make sure that you were not under observation so there was no convenient opportunity to tell you this beforehand, but Section One did sweep this room prior to your checking in and recovered a bug." She fished a long length of cable with a small grey burr of a microphone out of her pocket, and dribbled it into Avise's hand. "They'll be wondering why they only got static all evening – it's probably best to confront them about it, pretend you found it yourself, otherwise they may get suspicious about you having other support. "

"Thanks." Avise pooled the bug into his own pocket. "Speaking of which, it's probably best that you clear off now – you came to deliver our breakfast tray, and porters in a place like this would be too disciplined to gas with the guests. Don't want to make the tail in the lobby suspicious."

"Well, aren't you the expert." Priscilla tipped her head back.

"He had plenty of time to learn, you kept him waiting long enough for me!" Agapita piped up from the beds, where she was testing the action on her pistol.

Priscilla arched her eyebrows at Agapita's interjection – Avise shrugged non-committally at the support agent. "True enough!" Priscilla said lightly. "Best of luck, okay?" She thought for a moment. "And God bless."

"Thanks." Avise replied, and as the hotel room door clicked shut he turned back to Agapita – to be interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone.

Dee-lah-dee-dah, dee-lah-dee-dah, dee-lah-dee-dee-dee.

Both handler and cyborg jumped as the Nokia theme jangled off of the walls. Avise glanced at the screen – it was Jacopo's number. So soon after Priscilla had left? Had they been made?

…dee-lah-dee-dee-dee.

With a flick of his head Avise directed Agapita to move into the bathroom – if any assassins were to come crashing in while Avise was distracted, she would be in a position to swing out the barrier and clothesline them. In the meantime Avise walked over to the far corner of the room, where he would not be seen in the room's window talking and helpfully standing still for any sniper in the neighbouring building.

…dee-dee-dee.

Beep.

"Ici chacal."

"Eh? What?" Jacopo sounded confused.

Huh. The agent didn't sound like someone who was lining up a target. Avise permitted himself to relax a little. "Ah, sorry, Jacopo, it's Felipo De Marchese here. Just a little joke of mine, seeing as we're doing all this secret stuff, y'know."

"…the Jackal had police run him down, before you get too lost in your fantasy. We'd prefer to avoid that, Mr. De Marchese." Jacopo grated testily.

"Okay, okay, don't get your knickers in a twist." Avise sighed at the boring square. "Is this about our ride?"

"Indeed." Jacopo's tone became neutral and businesslike, keen for the efficient operation of the Gladiator Games' machinery. "There's a silver Mercedes-Benz CLS coupé, registration VT-994-DG, in row twelve of the car park. Knock five times on the top of the boot for entry."

"Fancy. You could never enjoy that sort of transport on a Ministry of Defence Travel Warrant, let me tell you." Avise smiled.

"Please don't be too long." Jacopo sighed.

"We're just packing now, checking out in minutes." Avise reassured the agent. "Nothing to compromise your agent's commission!"

"Thanks for your concern." Jacopo beaded out his words slowly and dryly. "See you in 'minutes', then."

Boop.

Avise puffed out a sigh. "False alarm, Agapita. You can stand down."

Agapita emerged from the bathroom. Avise was expecting her to be a little jittery from the sudden flush of danger, pulling sharp, nervous twitchy grins which he could flatten out with fatherly encouragement. To his surprise, though, Agapita appeared perfectly level and composed, as if nothing of interest had happened at all. "Are they keeping us alert, sir?" She asked as she shut the bathroom door behind her. The conditioning at work.

"Very good of them to do so, saves me the bother of sending you to do ten laps of the block." Avise grunted. "Come on, game face on, girl, we need to get moving." He chivvied her back over to her suitcase on her bed.

Agapita picked up her pistol from where it rested on top of her clothes. She picked out a magazine from the case, and after weighing both weapon and ammunition in her hands for one considered moment of import, she slotted the magazine into the grip, pulled back the slide, and then sprang it forward to ready a round.

"Showtime."

Sicily is the ball, or scrunched-up rag, being kicked by the Italian boot – and, appropriately enough, it has seen its fair share of violence. It was the pivot about which Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans revolved in their dance of dreadful decades to determine in what language people would say "Our Sea"; where Archimedes turned his genius to the defence of the walls of Syracuse – featureless names lurching out of the mist of faded school and half-remembered history the way the black hulk of a tank will loom up through the fog of was the cauldron in which boiled the hot blood and distempered bile of Rome's slaves, blistering dissent long before Spartacus would inflict himself on history (or celluloid). The zeal of Islam would spread across the Mediterranean as pervasively and irresistibly as oil, and slick over Sicily to dry and harden into the iron harmony of the 'Religion Of Peace'; and the Normans would bring the bite of the Viking axe to scar the landscape. French were massacred to the stiletto whispering of Vesper prayers, and as if in penance for such sacrilege the pinched headlands of the Straits of Messina formed the needle which poisoned Europe with the Black Death. For centuries Sicily would be borrowed and betted and bargained as a chip of land on the European table – even when the island became the foundation of Garibaldi's edifice of Italian unification, the cornerstone was being laid by British mining interests while he span tales of his ragged Thousand Allied armies of the Second World War would twist their ankles in Sicily's stony ravines in a rude reminder that the road to Rome would be no Sunday stroll…

…and whenever there hasn't been any war on Sicily, the Mafia may always be trusted to apply the strain to that venerable tradition of tension. The potash mineral that veins Sicily's hills is the ruddy red of dried blood.

There is another, modern war being fought on the coast of Sicily, with the lines of its beaches and hills a new front of internecine strife – a war with destruction but no bloodshed – which robs it of at least the dignity of tragedy, and instead makes it pathetic and sad.

As the silver coupé climbed out of Ragusa, it threaded the tarmac stitching of road that weaved together the brilliant ultramarine blanket of the immaculate Mediterranean and the radiant golden skein of rich, ripening wheat – tarnished with ashen smears of abandoned concrete, speckles of shrapnel dimpling the cheek of Italia. An upmarket sporty vehicle like the Mercedes found it hard going through the streets of Agrigento, trundling up the narrow, steep streets of peeling stucco walls, sweltering bin-bags and flaccid, dangling, enervated electricity cables more like a plodding trek than an easy drive, but the density and dirtiness of the ancient and decrepit town was like a bath, a purge, to scrape off all the accumulated grime of the journey by rubbing against Agrigento's cracked walls and emerge above it, cleansed, into the Valley of the Temples: the heights above the crushed lower strata where grace and serenity still meditated in the shade of timeless, immortal ages.

The car drove straight past it into the next valley beyond.

The concave hills dropped steeply to flatten out into a broad band between the shore and the heights – but the band was not a ribbon to beautify the landscape, but a fetter to shackle it down. The entire breadth of the coastal plain was occupied with construction, square cubes and oblongs of concrete, dusted with sand, to make the entire scene appear like a rubbish heap of used cardboard boxes. But the buildings were as still and empty as opened boxes as well, folded out and useless – while Sicily's desperately poor rural population saw the construction as a flood of relief, providing cheap housing free of punitive rents, others inveighed against it as abusivismo, construction's concrete imperialism, possessing the countryside with illegal building that could not be removed after the fact of its raising, defacing the remarkable beauty of the landscape – the gravest offence to an Italian's refined aesthetics – and grinding up millennia of buried history underneath shovelling diggers. Developers cited supplying a demand; critics decried profiteering. Builders insisted on the need for employment; detractors sneered about corrupt government appalti contracts. Mayors and councillors proclaimed on promoting social harmony and supplying vital services to the citizens who elected them; journalists muttered about mafia laundering and brown envelopes. Cranes built up; bulldozers smashed down. And, this being Italy, each round of ripostes would be punctuated by protestors hurling bricks at the residents, the residents smashing placards through the protestors, and police thrusting riot shields and firing baton rounds to smash the noses and crack the ribs of both.

Eventually, a decree was passed down from Rome ordering the building to halt, for the cranes to come down. The protestors cheered – and faltered when no order for the bulldozers to advance followed.

So the estate remained, half-finished, a landscape of jagged walls and opened roofs, cratered with half-dug foundations, with stacks of bricks and breeze-blocks left to slump out and crumble as the wooden pallets underneath them rotted. Occasionally, a strip of tarpaulin or plastic sheeting could be seen fluttering from the corner of the empty shell of a building, like a ragged curtain of a bombed-out bedroom, their lonely snapping in the wind only emphasising the desolate silence of the rest of the expanse. As the car climbed past the unfinished estate to the top of the hills, it tracked past their windows like a shelled city in a television documentary. A deliberate ruin – a literal folly – to the mutual dissatisfaction, failure, and unfulfilment of everyone.

"Wind your window up."

"Why?"

"Because we're almost there, this can't roll in like some granddad ambling along the corsia della vergogna"

"The 'lane of shame'? I would have thought you'd want your boss-"

"Patron."

"-Patron to see you going slowly. A flash car like this, I doubt he'd want one of his agents roaring off in top gear and getting it smashed up."

"No wonder they threw you out of the Army if you can't take a simple instruction. Just do as I tell you!"

"But I'm finishing my cigarette."

"Then stub it out!"

The car turned past a pair of gateposts (with no gate), and after a few hundred yards driving along a road fringed on each side with small, wiry brush and scrub it emerged onto a wide, circular cul-de-sac with four large villas looking out towards the coast – originally envisaged as luxury homes but which now had their value completely crushed by the abandoned estate defacing the view – maybe whoever commissioned this particular development hadn't tipped well enough.

The location actually appeared quite busy – one of the villas was densely clustered with people, and a dozen other cars were parked in the cul-de-sac or pulled up onto driveways, and there were even a pair of black Hum-Vees (not civilian Hummers, Avise noted with surprise, actual military models) sitting between a Maserati GranTurismo on the one hand and a Lancia Delta on the other, like foxes nervously bunkering down between the sheep and knowing that they're obvious to the gaze of the shepherd. There was even a Eurocopter Super Puma II, looking as though it had plenty of doeskin leather upholstery inside, set down on a flattened patch of ground off to the side of the road.

"This is all a little… obvious, isn't it?" Agapita leaned across from her seat behind the driver to tap Jacopo on the shoulder as the car purred softly to a halt like a cat curling up for a nap.

"But of course, Miss. Columbina," Jacopo said, his mood improving now that they had arrived and that his crucial responsibility was now discharged, "this is the official meeting of the Agrigento province's redevelopment syndicate, after all."

"But that's not true." It was an obvious thing to say, but Agapita meant it that anyone would have seen through the obvious deception.

"It's what the police have been told, and these upstanding public citizens are natural law-abiding models for others to emulate, so who would think to question it? Hiding in plain sight!" Jacopo said knowledgeably, handing down a lesson to the young novice.

Agapita and Avise threw askance glances across each other. "…I can relate." She said, blandly.

The driver remained in the car. After retrieving their bags from the boot of the coupé the fratello followed Jacopo over to the occupied villa. As they approached, a suited man stepped in their way. "Excuse me, Miss. Columbina?"

Agapita nodded. "Yes, that's me."

"Thank you. Could you come with me, please? The Competitor's Lounge is in a different building." Although the man pronounced his words with a soft, received burr that spoke of fine elocution, he couldn't be said to be anything like a cultured and poised valet; he still had the broad shoulders and the tellingly loosely-cut jacket which betrayed an armed guard.

Agapita spun back to Avise – but this time, the handler remained stern. "Game face on." He said, simply and levelly. Agapita's expression settled: she nodded quickly, and moved away with the guard, pulling her rolling suitcase behind her. "Is all of your equipment in your suitcase there? Do you need a porter?" "No, I've no other luggage." "Very good, Miss…" The voices faded away with the trundling of wheels across the tarmac.

Avise watched them go, and even though the man was to Jacopo no more than a chit for a commission fee to be redeemed upon presentation to his patrons, an invisible hand exerted an ineffable force to hold the agent back from pushing the client forward. Jacopo scraped at the ground and scowled at his feet, trying to shake out the itch that was suddenly running between his shirt and his shoulders. Damnit, how do you be sympathetic? He couldn't say how it would feel, but he had that social expectation that sending your offspring to fight ought to make you feel something. Clumsily, jerkily, as though he was pausing every now and again to check the diagrams in an accompanying manual, Jacopo reached out an arm to touch it down gingerly on Avise's shoulder, as though the client's flesh was sore and tender and the agent didn't want to hurt him – or alternatively, as if Jacopo was worried that there were hooks in the fabric of Avise's jacket that would bite and tear into him if he pressed fully. "Do you need a minute before we go in?" Jacopo asked quietly.

"No…" Avise's words were at first wandering, vacant, but he seemed to settle and deepen his tone quickly. "No, no, it's alright. War can never be avoided, only postponed to the other's advantage. No time like the present. " Avise stepped forward, and Jacopo's hand slid back off of his shoulder as he walked.

"This is the Competitor's Lounge, a communal area where the Gladiators gather before the match." The guard explained as he led Agapita down an empty hall. "Conduct any last preparations you have in here. You will be called for when it is time to move to your start position."

The guard came to a large door, and opened it without announcement before waving Agapita through into the room beyond.

Ten heads swivelled like tank-turrets and ten pairs of eyes narrowed to red-dot laser sights to mark Agapita as she entered the room.

"Uh... hi."

Agapita waved.

"My name's Columbina."

The silent scrutiny continued. Agapita wondered if this was how a fighter pilot felt when his alarm rang "TARGET LOCK"... but, like a fighter pilot with the technological marvel of his craft, a conditioned cyborg had countermeasures that she could deploy. The sense of hostility and threat was actually beneficial to her, allowing her conditioning to lock into place and concentrate her thoughts, clarify her perspective: sloughing away girlish anxiety and replacing it with steely resolve.

The room was large and wide, stretching across what seemed like most of the rear half of the villa, and while the rest of the building was completely unfurnished, with bare walls and floors, this one by contrast was fully fitted. Agapita was standing on an upper section, with a glass dining table to her right and a bar to her left – although the shelves were completely empty, one man was behind it, drinking glasses of water from a working tap. Four short steps in front of her leading down to a broad lounge area across which were a dozen easy armchairs, which Agapita assumed signified the number of Gladiators who would be participating in the match. The rear wall was comprised entirely of tall plate glass looking out over the unfinished estate down towards the coast. Squinting a little, Agapita could espy a white motor cruiser moored at a pontoon leading from the shore – and, further out, a slowly-trawling fishing vessel where Elio and Marisa, one of the interdiction fratelli, were stationed.

There were ten other people here – seven men and three women, with a variety of colours and complexions that spoke of an international assembly – which meant at least that Agapita wasn't the last to arrive (Avise's enthusiasm for punctuality was obviously rubbing off on her). One was at the bar, two were staring out over the vista below them, three were relaxing – napping, clicking through an iPod list, reading a copy of Jane's Defence Weekly – while the rest were bombing up handgun magazines or assembling their weapons.

And all were silent.

No sense of camaraderie and sportsmanship here, then, or any sense of shared burden against the oppression of the patrons even, or even pride in the sheer achievement of winning, participating, or surviving. There didn't even seem to be any jealousy or resentment, or bravado or bluster, which would be the least things you'd expect when sitting next to be people who could be killing you within the hour. It was evident to Agapita that for these people, the money was all that mattered. That seemed a little sad.

Lifting up her suitcase so that its wheels would not bang on the steps and disrupt the quiet, Agapita walked over to an empty chair and took her place there without any further comment. She unzipped the case, and the first thing she did was to pull on her black shooting gloves, before removing half a dozen pre-loaded magazines and slipping them into pockets sewn into her denim jacket. She had already prepared her pistol back in the hotel this morning, but for the sake of something to do as much as conduct a final check, she unloaded and reloaded it again. Throughout this, Agapita could detect a constant twitching of the heads of the other gladiators, continuing to size her up and estimate her potential, every last gesture a source of intelligence for people determined to snatch the barest whispering sliver of an edge over their rivals. It seemed remiss of Agapita not to return the favour of such indirect respectful recognitions of power and potential, and with her cybernetic eyes she could identify the other gladiators' eclectic mixture of personal handguns out of the corner of her eyes without even having to move her head.

The door to the lounge opened again, and a small, furtive-looking man scurried in – this time, the guard (the same one who had escorted Agapita) followed him.

"Ryba Sedlacek!" He called out. One of the women stood up and with no more than a second's clatter to fix a holster around her waist, walked over to the guard and went back out with him, leaving a satchel at the foot of her chair. Even though it was unattended luggage, no-one took any interest with it, Agapita thought with relief – the idea of someone rooting through her suitacase and laughing at her underwear while looking for valuables seemed to Agapita a lot more frightening than being shot at.

What else to do? Her conditioning kept her at readiness, erasing fear and anxiety and even boredom, but attentiveness still needed something to attend to. Almost without realising it, Agapita found herself mouthing words under her breath.

Our Father who art in Heaven...

Hallowed be thy name...

Agapita still wasn't sure about the whole God thing. If Avise set such stock in it it had to be true, of course, but nonetheless Agapita followed her handler's lead through the ritual rather than taking anything from it herself. She had just come to realise, though, that prayer could fill the empty spaces in life, and even make silence seem full.

"Oh, my." The elderly woman, every un-Metric inch an English marm right up to her blue rinse, raised her hands to her cheeks as she saw the Webley in Avise's outstretched hands. "It's just the sort of thing that my husband, God rest his soul, used in Borneo! Brings back memories." She finished with a wistful sigh.

Avise felt a twinge of envy in his stomach at the woman's words, imagining grand colonial adventures in far-flung exotic climes that no Italian had had the privilege of setting forth on… he consoled himself with the thought that however many destinations Britain's khaki-coloured travel agency reached in the past, the firm had most definitely shut up shop now.

Another man standing nearby twitched open his jacket, revealing the grip of a Desert Eagle. "Mine's bigger." He smirked.

Avise shrugged as he slid the Webley back into his jacket, nodding at the woman nattering amiably about the monsoon and how while she adored the bel paese of Italy, perhaps an occasional lick of rain wouldn't go amiss. The "Executive Box", as it had been described to him, was similar in outlay to the Competitor's Lounge in the adjoining villa, albeit significantly busier – there were between thrity and forty spectators, mostly Italian but with seven or eight obvious foreigners, along with a (stocked) bar and side-tables of finger food, as well as several large televisions set up across the lounge area and a veranda outside the windows. There was a hubbub of conversation, all of it sounding entirely natural and genial, with the various circles of dialogue all spread evenly across the room and not clenched into little factional clusters. Maybe this was why they let the patrons carry firearms – a little mutually-assured-massacre would soothe temperaments.

"De Marchese, is it?"

Avise turned to the sound of the voice, and a middle-aged man – a little portly, but not grossly overweight by any means – with a glass of red wine in one hand approached Avise.

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, chevalie." Avise bowed his head, adding his title as he noticed the ribbon above the breast pocket indicating the bearer's knighthood. The word tasted bad on Avise's tongue – it sounded like so much of an anachronism – but he conceded that such titles were awarded by the Republic for merit, which made them more acceptable.

"Why, I am Giorgio – the Master of Ceremonies." Giorgio sounded astonished that anyone could think otherwise. He switched his glass to his left hand and then offered his hand to Avise, which Avise took. Giorgio spoke as they shook. "Tell me, Mr. De Marchese, what's your ancestry?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Your genealogy."

"I, uh… I don't have one, as far as I'm aware. I think an aunt did family tree stuff casually." Avise shrugged his shoulders.

Giorgio frowned slightly, as though Avise wasn't getting into the spirit of things and spoiling the mood. "Come now, a "De" in your surname at least indicates someone of landed significance. How far can you trace back your family tree?" The sentence ended on an insistent note.

"No further than my granddad, I'm afraid." Avise said helplessly. "I'm not all that keen on nobility." He added flatly.

Umberto seemed dissatisfied at an interesting line of conversation being cut off, but after a second's consideration he saw a new avenue to open up a dialogue on. "I must say, I was quite impressed by your speaking to Mrs. Ethergill there – " Giorgio's Italian flow couldn't quite cope with the Saxon pronunciation, and it came out as Effergheel – "you show some impressive English."

"أستطيع أن أتكلم المساعي العربية وكذلك." Avise replied.

"Ah! A dash of exotic flair!" Giorgio declaimed enthusiastically. "Of…?"

"I can speak good Arabic as well." Avise explained, tactfully passing over how the Master Of Ceremonies did not evidently enjoy full control of everything. "You need decent knowledge of both languages to command effectively in Iraq." Avise's pride in his military achievements was coming out again, the expanding girth of his ego pushing out at his belt.

"I'd imagine so, yes." Giorgio nodded respectfully. "I'm pleased to see that soldiers became involved. You here lots of stories about soldiers never even looking over the walls of their bases."

"Sadly true in a few cases," Avise gritted his teeth, remembering the simpering Colonel Mottro, "but not mine."

Giorgio was quiet for a moment as he reviewed Avise's changed demeanour – a short second's pause, during which Avise noted that a number of nearby patrons were quietly and discreetly watching the chief of the operation converse with the newcomer.

Giorgio recovered quickly and moved off in another direction, the consummate host ever able to keep people occupied in gainful conversation. "I'm informed that you used to be a drug dealer, is that correct?"

Several people raised their eyebrows, Avise amongst them – it was a rather delicate matter to be nonchalant about. "Er, yes. That is correct, chevalie." Even though Avise wasn't altogether keen on the title he hoped that mentioning it would remind Giorgio of the importance of decorum. No such luck, however, as Giogrio split his face into a sharp grin.

"Excellent! Admirable!"

Avise blinked, baffled. "Really?"

"Oh yes." Giorgio nodded enthusiastically. "I applaud your entrepreneurial spirit, of seeing an opportunity and seizing it. You must understand," Giorgio gestured with his wine glass towards the wider world, "that one day, all drugs will be legal. Pot, crack, smack – they won't be slang, they'll be trademarks. Prohibition, in all of its well-meaning intransigence, will batter itself to bloody ruin against the brick wall of demand, and once it's smashed itself saner heads will prevail." Giorgio took a deep sip from his glass. "You're part of a new wave of business – it's merely an unfortunate accident of timing that put you a little ahead of the curve, that's all."

Avise reflected on this. "Are you involved yourself, chevalie?" He asked quietly.

"Me?" Giorgio laughed brashly. "God, no! I'd never touch the stuff. It's poison, it does nothing but screw you up." The Master of the Order of Merit for Labour took another drink from his wine, and coughed through the alcoholic burn as he began speaking again. "But – but – if someone wants to give me money to go and turn his brains into a frazzle, who am I – an equal member of this Republic – to question him, to infringe upon a citizen's intrinsic right to liberty?"

"Ask, and ye shall receive." Avise muttered.

"Haha! Quite so!" Giorgio laughed enthusiastically, although whether it was at the idea of a joke or him feeling flattered by a comparison Avise couldn't discern. "I'm glad you're here, Mr. De Marchese." There was that slightest strain on Giorgio's voice that was disappointed that the 'Mr.' wasn't something grander. "It isn't common to invite clients to come amongst the patrons, but you are very interesting. I know it was the right choice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid that I must go press the flesh." He pumped his right hand tiredly and gave Avise the wan smile of a shared burden before moving back into the crowd. Rather ingratiating chap, that Giorgio.

Avise turned around, quickly enough to catch others looking in on the conversation hurriedly avert their gazes. Even though it seemed that Giorgio had brought Avise into the inner circle precisely to be decorative (Section One's behavioural specialists, putting their heads together with Doctor Bianchi, had indeed come up with the goods), the rest of the gathering seemed content to look, but not touch. Avise wasn't approached again, and he spent half an hour grazing through finger food and lapping at orange juice. As he looked about him, studying the constituents of the gathering, he felt himself stirred by a warming of… awe. Real awe. These people were creators, directors, drivers, doers. Their wealth was a condensed crystal droplet of the wealth of Italy, and the prosperity of hundreds of thousands – millions, even – revolved on their determination and ingenuity. These people were the pivot about which society revolved – how could Avise not admire them? With a mournful sigh, he knew that it was a pity, a genuine pity, that he was here to demolish them.

Avise was interrupted from his reverie by the single ring of a large bell – although it definitely wasn't piped, he couldn't see from where. A sudden hush fell over the patrons, every one of them recognizing its import.

As if it was rehearsed choreography, people drew back towards the edges of the room, leaving an open circle of carpet at the focus of which stood, quite unassuming, Giorgio.

"I am Giorgio." He said, simply.

A pause.

"My friends and partners, welcome to what is perhaps the finest Colisuem boasted by the whole Gladiator Games. Now that you have had an opportunity to inspect the stables" – the televisions had been showing camera feeds of the Competitor's Lounge, which now lay empty as the last gladiator had been taken to his start position down on the abandoned estate – "I shall now take your bets."

There was a few second's silence, and then with sudden decision, a hand shot up.

"One on Hachimaki."

Giorgio nodded. "Very good." He said, writing the bet down in his notebook.

Avise gave a sharp intake of breath. Incredible… to be bathed in such splendid, stupendous affluence that amounts did not even have to be counted – millions were dispensed with casual numbers.

Another hand was raised. "One on Sedlacek."

"Two on Montio."

"Another one for Sedlacek, please."

Giorgio seemed to be intimately acquainted with everyone present, writing down the bets without even raising his head from the notebook – he seemed to be able to identify the speakers solely by voice.

"Three on Cessnare."

"One on Vitio."

"Four on De Marchese."

A chorus of gasps rippled across the room, and someone elbowed Avise in the back with what he assumed was matey encouragement. Avise turned his head back to hopeful faces and gave them weak smiles, which seemed to please them.

"Oh?" Giorgio asked.

"I'm confident on beginner's luck." The better explained.

"Naturally." Giorgio accepted the better's reasoning without question, it being the Master of Ceremonies' place to facilitate, not confound.

The betting continued. "Two on Hachimaki."

"Five on Rudelski."

"Fifteen on Al-Farid!" Mrs. Ethergill suddenly declared, blurting out a shrill siren.

More gasps. Even Giorgio raised his eyebrows. "Fifteen whole Euros? You wouldn't happen to know something that we do not, would you, Messuz Effergheel?"

For a moment Avise was taken with the crowd's astonishment, but then one detail caused Avise to crack and splinter off. "Wait a second." He called out.

A snake of irritation coiled around Giorgio's cheeks at being interrupted, but it slithered down behind his neck. "Yes, Mr. De Marchese?"

"You said fifteen Euros."

"That is correct, yes." Giorgio nodded slowly and patiently, explaining an elementary detail to a small child.

"Not…" Avise suddenly felt very stupid with everyone's eyes focused on him, "…fifteen… hundred thousand?"

Uncomprehending looks.

"I mean, uh… one and half million?"

Suddenly a babbling stream of giggles and murmured comments circled around the room, and Giorgio shook his head. "No, Mr. De Marchese, the esteemed lady means fifteen euros and zero cents. A little over nineteen U.S. dollars, or, in deference to madam's preferred exchange, twelve pounds sterling. No bet can be higher than twenty Euros, while we're on the subject."

Avise felt his cheeks colour, his hackles rising and his short temper fraying at the perception that he was being made the butt of a joke that everyone was in on except him. "Are you telling me, chevalie," he started hotly, not able to keep the angry, accusatory tone out of his voice, "that the stakes here, with where we are, all that's been prepared, and everyone around me, are no more than… than… pocket change?"

"But of course." Giorgio shrugged. In comparison to the handler's beating wings of indignation, Giorgio was at perfect ease. "This is an elevated pastime that you are witnessing, Mr. De Marchese, nothing so crude and vulgar as a gambling den. If I want that, I can board my cruiser and sail to Monaco. No, this is an intellectual exercise." Giorgio raised a finger to enunciate a point, and people's heads began bobbing and nodding, as the gathering reclined in satisfaction at their sophistication. "It is a battle not merely over swollen largesse, but of wits and perception. We pit our powers of observation and evaluation against each other – the money is merely an indicator of the level of confidence we hold in our selected Gladiators. The stakes are the very faculties which we rely upon to endure in this, sometimes hostile, world."

Avise looked about him in astonishment. "You mean… people are being killed… for kudos?"

Giorgio chuckled. "What, would you prefer that they were being murdered for money? How terribly mercenary and immoral."

Warm waves of gentle laughter lapped against Avise, and he stepped back with a dissatisfied grunt. Although, come to think of it, it made sense… not having large sums shifting about would avoid questions from the taxman, and it also seemed to be a reason why the Master of Ceremonies was happy to let the patrons play with noisy toys, Avise thought as he picked out the man who had shown him the Desert Eagle earlier – less incentive to, aha, spoil the bet.

Giorgio brought the session to a close after having gone round the room. "I believe that is everyone, then—"

"Ah, beg your pardon, chevalie, but after we spoke you never asked for my bet." Avise thrust his hand up. "I'd like to put ten on Torreil."

For the first time Giorgio looked genuinely lost, and other patrons were exchanging confused looks. "Not your daughter?" The question was naked.

Avise shrugged. "Nah. Torreil's fine." Inwardly, he felt a mischievous grin scamper about behind his face. He wondered how that would skew some predictions.

Agapita paced irritably around her start position – a painted square of fifteen feet to a side which a camera mounted on the ceiling admonished her not to leave until the match had begun. She was on the middle floor of a half-finished five-storey apartment block, which had jacked-up floors supported by central load-bearing pillars, but no actual walls, giving the place something of the air of a multi-storey car park. She was impatient to get going now, but her earpiece (given to her so that she would receive match updates) still droned with the Master of Ceremonies repeating the rules for the benefit of the patrons observing from the villa above them.

"…one hundred rounds of ammunition, but exhausting his supply does not permit a Gladiator to retire from the match. He must pick and conserve his shots, or collect weapons discarded by other, defeated Gladiators. This is a standard freestyle match, and so Gladiators may be killed as well as forced to surrender. A gladiator may surrender at any time he is in combat by dropping to his hands and knees and throwing his weapon behind him, at which point the victor may approach and collect a marker from him. Any gladiator firing on a victor in the process of this, or a defeated gladiator leaving the playing area, will be seen as dishonourable and sacrifice all of his markers. The last man – or indeed, woman – standing shall enjoy the laurels of the championship!"

The earpiece buzzed with static for a moment, which Agapita assumed was background applause. She wondered if she could somehow discern Avise's voice through the din.

"And now, I am pleased to introduce your loyal servants, and noble sportsmen!" Giorgio cried, his relish obvious even through the muffling of the radio. "First to the grid is Elio Turreil, returning back to the arena after a long absence, ready to school these young bucks that have appeared in the interim and teach them to respect their elders. He brings with him a Walther P99 – nothing showy, but as a man of his experience knows, efficiency trumps extravagance, and the hit is all that matters."

Agapita looked out and squinted, trying to see if she could see someone shifting about in response to his name being called. Giorgio announced the next Gladiator.

"Second in number, although certainly not in prowess, is Dylan Cromber. A former member of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police – and I ought to stress 'former'. Canadians have a reputation for gentleness and kindness – but this man here certainly has not earned it! He wields a Colt Anaconda with .44 magnum rounds – a beast of a hand-cannon that brooks no misinterpretations: the bear has scented your blood!"

Agapita couldn't help but feel a little curious as to how Giorgio would introduce her, and pouted a little when he declaimed and declared his way down the list without mentioning her – she took consolation in the thought that he was saving the best until last.

"I hope that everyone can extend their warmest of congratulations to Ryba Sedlacek, who returns to us after recently successfully passing her playoff round – patrons should admire, and gladiators should beware, her irrepressible determination! Coupled with that determination is an indefatigable pride, for she brings with her country's finest, the CZ-75, said by many to be the greatest handgun ever crafted. Yet a weapon is only ever as good as its wielder – fortunate, then, that Sedlacek is a veteran!

"And now we come to Columbina De Marchese." Agapita felt her throat tighten. "Least in ranking, least in age, least in experience... but least in prowess? That, my friends, is another matter entirely. A splendid and peerless paragon of selfless filial piety, the very barrel of her Tanfoglio TA-90 inscribed with the close, unbreakable bond she shares with her beloved father – but is such a weapon derivative of Sedlacek's Czech masterpiece, or a superceding evolution? We shall see – love may conquer all, but bullets certainly help!"

The Master of Ceremonies was veritably bounding into his role – Agapita could tell that he was speaking with all of the relish and bombast of a prizefighting announcer (how? She'd never even seen a boxing match before).

"Now…"

Let's get ready to ruuuuuummmbbblllleeee?

"…begin."

Huh.

With a shrug, Agapita wrapped her pistol in a two-handed grip and paced over to the edge of the floor to look out over the estate. After a second sweeping the nearby rooftops, none of which were higher than her level, she saw a man emerge a couple of buildings over, presumably searching for vantage himself. Agapita could identify him as Piotyr Rudelski – and Rudelski could see her right back.

There was the barest flicker of light from Rudelski's position, and then the snap of a report, sounding bizarrely like someone flicking their finger against a sheet of paper. Agapita skipped lightly over to the external staircase leading down to ground level, not showing her assailant any concern – at a range of 38.4 metres she knew she was well beyond the effective range of the Browning that Rudelski carried – without walls to the building that she was in, she wasn't struck by so much as an echo – and got the gladiator to waste a decent nine rounds before passing out of sight.

Some blocks away, Elio Torreil winced as he heard the faint fringe of the pistol reports brush against the borders of his hearing. Really, fights elsewhere ought to be encouraging – leaving fewer people for him to deal with – but he knew that for all of their talk, the patrons were here for a good show above anything else; simply surviving would not be sufficient. He hurried his pace down the middle of the gravel street – and immediately checked it when Al-Farid skidded on from a turning ahead of him. The two men did a take as they beheld each other, appalled at the encounter – and then they started firing.

It was a chance encounter, and surges of adrenalin and panic made their fire wild and frantic; not so much firing as blazing, and not so much pumping as spraying. The pair conducted a bizarre spastic shuffling dance, trying to dash into the cover of the ditches or walls beside the road, only to skip back into the centre as bullet kicked up plumes of dirt around their feet – it might almost have been seen as a tribal ceremony, or an animals' courtship ritual, as the pair unloaded their magazines at each other. With the last round in his chamber, however, Torreil pitched a hit into Farid's ankle – with a smack of meat Farid somersaulted through the air, with almost gymnastic extravagance, before crashing heavily into the dirt.

"I'm dooooooooone!" Faird wailed, his arms flailing, throwing his pistol away with such force that it bounced off of a wall.

Torreil tried to conceal his perspiring panting by twisting his mouth into a smile, as cheers of "First blood!" buzzed in his earpiece. He afforded himself a slow saunter over to the whimpering, cursing Farid to claim a marker from him. Not a bad start.

Agapita heard the announcement in her own earpiece, but didn't pay it any mind – if anything, she was tempted to pull the thing out and throw it away because it was interfering with her hearing, but she didn't want to risk being disqualified on a technicality. Even as she padded along the opened upper floors of a long terrace block, though, twenty separate dwellings now forming one long corridor, she could still hear the ragged, straggled, dispersed skirmishes of knots of gladiators scattered across the estate. A crackle like a campfire here; a suddenly-close bang there; the whirr of an observational camera refocusing here; a spatter of pops there; and then, footsteps, running up the stairs behind her—

Hachimaki and Agapita's pistol both jerked back sharply and simultaneously, as though they were both siblings who had just had their heads banged together by an irate father. As the dual report echoed off of the walls, Hachimaki seemed to... loosen. He swayed backwards with languid ease, his body rolling with the fluid wave of a water-bed, his head swinging around and lolling back loosely on a well-oiled ball-joint. He drifted back into a concrete bedroom, when his head slumped forward onto his chest and then suddenly tipped backward, shifted by some wonky internal centre of gravity, the gangly motion giving him the swinging momentum to fling him against the wall. Despite the deceptive sluggishness of the movement, Hachimaki's skull struck the wall with force and cracked apart like an eggshell against the edge of the bowl, and Agapita watched wordlessly as his body slithered down and tipped onto its – no longer his – side.

Agapita blinked. There was a ragged-edged border marking out an absent half of the gladiator's head – its contents slumped out in a single, smooth, viscous curve, pink brain mixing with red blood to give the gel a bright blended quality, as though some internal luminescence was shining through it.

"...?"

Agapita realised that her earpiece was addressing her.

"Well, Miss. Columbina. Sixteen years old and you have claimed your first victim. Tell me" – the voice was practically licking its lips with theatrical relish – "what does it feel like to be a killer?"

"It's..."

Synapse pathways were shut off to configure emotional response. Glanding of Compound V stabilised adrenal disorientation while a substitute charge of Syetterzine maintained the comfortable burn. Motor processes calmed her breathing. Didactic associations neutralised trauma memory. Dopamine surged.

"...great."

"It feels great!"

(Continued)