The masked figure turned to Ravana and bowed theatrically. “The Flying Fox, once again at your service,” he confirmed. “Are you hurt?”
“Angry and sore,” Ravana told him, shooting a glare towards the cowering Maia.
“Butt out of this, bat boy,” Xuthus snarled, squaring up to the newcomer. He had quickly seen that dramatic entrance aside, The Flying Fox was no more than a scrawny youth in a padded birdsuit and a good ten centimetres shorter than himself. “This isn’t a holovid game. Someone could get seriously hurt.”
“Aha!” declared the birdman. “Do I detect the smell of fear? Or is it the hideous odour of the Eden Ravines’ very own greater-spotted voluminous tree-skunk!?”
With a dramatic flourish, The Flying Fox extended his left wrist towards Xuthus and with his other hand pressed a button on his oversized wristpad. A jet of choking green mist erupted from the wristpad, enveloping Xuthus in the most foul-smelling, vomit-inducing odour Ravana had ever had the misfortune to let near her nostrils. As the scent hit the crouching Maia and Lodus, they gave yelps of dismay and leapt away into the crowd. Xuthus grimaced, tears streaming from his eyes, yet incredibly held his ground for several moments more before running after his friends and out of sight. The masked birdman gave a nod and folded his arms in satisfaction, seemingly unconcerned that his audience now included a growing congregation of bemused shoppers.
“My work here is done,” he declared.
Ravana beamed and slipped her hands around The Flying Fox’s arm. “You are my hero!” she cried. “Thanks for scaring them off. It must make a change from rescuing cats.”
The Flying Fox bowed again and with poignant grace took Ravana’s hand, raised it to his masked face and bestowed a gentle kiss. Releasing her, he stepped back, unfolded his wings to maximum stretch and then with a sudden spurt of power from the suit’s jet pack was up and away through the leafy canopy. The gathered crowd soon lost interest and melted away, leaving Ravana, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra alone and somewhat nonplussed.
“Don’t look at me like that!” retorted Ravana, feeling the weight of the stares the other three were giving her. “I didn’t ask him to follow me here!”
Ostara peered around the corner of the corridor and watched as the Chinese woman ahead unlocked a door and entered a suite, clipboard in hand. Fenris’ mention of Dana during his conversation with Taranis left her intrigued. Eager to pursue her investigations, she had forsaken her bath to instead try to learn something about the Que Qiao agent, reassured both by the knowledge that Fenris was safely asleep in his room and by The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes on her wristpad. So far all her detective work had revealed was that the woman liked going in and out of every hotel room she could find.
“Checking surveillance equipment?” Ostara murmured, her mind working overtime. “Or looking for secret papers left behind by delegates?”
Moments later the woman reappeared in the corridor, still too far away for Ostara to get a good look at her, then walked to the next door and again disappeared inside. Ostara was momentarily startled by the arrival of a laundry-collection robot, then on a whim quickly dropped to her hands and knees and crawled in its wake, using the square bulk of the automaton as cover as it moved down the corridor. When she reached what she thought was the right room, she paused and put an ear to the closed door, still crouched upon the floor.
“Can I help you?” came a sudden loud voice.
Ostara looked up and saw the woman standing outside another door further along, then realised the robot had trundled away on its own mission to collect the hotel’s dirty linen. It took a while for Ostara’s brain to register that even though she was sure she had correctly identified Dana in the hotel foyer, it now appeared that the woman she had been trailing for the last half an hour was definitely not the Que Qiao agent.
“You’re not Dana,” murmured Ostara, sheepishly climbing to her feet.
“Customer experience inspectorate!” snapped the woman. “What are you doing?”
“I, err… dropped something,” Ostara stuttered, cringing inwardly at how lame that sounded. Without waiting for an answer, she hurried down the corridor as fast as she could and did not stop until the woman was far behind and out of sight. She really wished she had chosen to stay in her room and take a relaxing bath after all.
“Rats,” she murmured. “Sherlock Holmes makes it look so easy.”
Endymion quickly grew bored of the floating market and at his insistence they made their way back to the hotel, for earlier he had discovered that the basement games room had a number of virtual-reality titles yet to reach Newbrum. Ravana found Zotz waiting for her in the lobby, looking out of breath and strangely dishevelled as if he had just fought his way out of a wardrobe. He too was eager to sample the plethora of games offered by the hotel but had been too shy to enter a VR suite alone.
The games room boasted a wide selection of VR machines. Some were linked to keep-fit apparatus such as treadmills, exercise cycles or rowing machines, enabling the participant to run with virtual dinosaurs on Mesozoic Earth, cycle through Valles Marineris on a virtual Mars, or race the krakens across the virtual seas of Yuanshi. For those feeling not quite so energetic, submersion booths allowed players to enter any one of hundreds of fantasy worlds, which ranged from no-frills relaxation breaks to full role-playing adventures.
“Oh my gosh!” cried Philyra. “They have the Gods of Avalon game!”
Ravana smiled at the sight of Endymion staring at the row of booths in disgust. It did not surprise her that game makers had resorted to adapting tacky holovid shows for ideas. The irony was that Gods of Avalon was itself based upon a long-running teenage saga, which in turn had followed a film franchise inspired by a successful run of comic books; a series that had been adapted from a trilogy of novels loosely based upon the original Arthurian myths and legends of the British Isles. It seemed there really were no new stories to tell.
“They also have The War of the Ring,” Zotz suggested hopefully, pointing to a row of booths decorated with Tolkien-inspired imagery. “And Battlefield Earth.”
“Or even Superhero Showdown,” added Endymion, giving Zotz a sideways look.
“It all sounds rather violent,” Ravana murmured. There was a small VR suite on the Dandridge Cole, but it was an old design and the few games they had were rather sedate. “I’ve had enough conflict for one day.”
Philyra was already dragging Bellona towards the Gods of Avalon suite and excitedly explaining the game to her. Endymion gave a resigned shrug and trotted after them.
“What about it?” Zotz asked Ravana, as they followed. “It’s a fantasy game. Wizards and monsters, mysterious quests, that sort of thing.”
“Knights in shining armour,” added Bellona.
Endymion grinned. “Damsels in distress.”
The young man operating the suite gave them the merest glance as they approached. He was a tall, olive-skinned local who looked barely older than Endymion. His bleary expression suggested he had been down in the dim basement longer than was healthy.
“How much?” asked Endymion.
The man shrugged. “Are you staying at the Pampa Palace?”
Philyra nodded. “We arrived this morning.”
“Then it’s free,” he told them. “All inclusive. You off-worlders?”
“From Ascension, Barnard’s Star,” replied Endymion. “Why?”