Prologue

June 17th 2077.

Futurist New London: the city of nine million rainy days; a sprawling megalopolis of towering concrete, shrouded in murk, drenched in misery and soggy to its stagnant, rotting core. A dingy concrete jungle brimming with happy death men, fake plastic trees, scary monsters and super creeps. And what of New London's muted inhabitants? Worn and wasted by a generation's anarchy in the UK and pummelled by an omnipresent fascist government, there's was a land of confusion and of ills and bruises; haemorrhaging and funked by neglect and apathy and banal chatterers. This crumbling, contemporary New Britain was no longer united nor a kingdom: 'twas a dark era where double-speak malapropisms buried the truth and the sun had well and truly set upon Great Britain.

Above the windswept, damp architecture of Post Civil War New London, the silhouetted form of the Futurist Airship Cadaver eased through the mist, its trio of super-charged, hyper turbines glowing blue in the gloom. The distinctive, low-pitch drone of the engines passed overhead as the Cadaver's pulse torches cut a horrible swath, completing sweeping arcs for miscreants tempted to disturb the status quo.

In the distance, Bigger Ben towered over the masses; a symbol of crushed hope and empowered nastiness. The citadel was the seat of Futurist Parliament, the nexus of evil; the home of New Heathrow – the air port that only the connected could use to come and go as they wished. The Cadaver respectfully circled aft drifting across the residences of thirty million New Londoners, most of which were trampled underfoot and living in the background whilst the upper-crust, happy-clappers, slept soundly, comfortable their contributions afforded them privilege within the regime.

On the Cadaver's bridge, a young Futurist communications officer, Aldo Bull, stood bolt upright and hailed his commander. The progeny of one such privileged family - Aldo's father was a Minister – his assignment to the Cadaver was a plum post for a lad of his tender age and inexperience.

"Admiral," his streaky voice called, "Agent of Change Alice Mould requests permission to land."

The Admiral spun on his heels and marched over to the comms officer.

"Pardon me?" he fidgeted.

"Well...she requested permission to land...and now...she has landed," Aldo Bull replied. Instantly, the entire bridge felt ill.

"This means only one thing," the Admiral mused rolling his shoulders in a vain exercise to relax himself. "Pray," he warned, before storming down the bridge to the lifts. What chance did his officers and crew have when their commanding officer could be so obviously spooked? Pausing to purse his lips, the Admiral watched the lift lights achingly flick on one by one, highlighting the Agent's imminent arrival upon his bridge.

Sergeant Ray Quaiffe sat at the Cadaver's radar control desk, perspired, fretting, contemplating the meaning of this unannounced arrival of the Agent of Change. The radio tech beside Quaiffe leaned over and in a hushed tone advised him there was a whiff of rats in the ranks and that the Admiral was suspected of...

The lift doors opened and Alice Mould stepped on to the deck, her stiletto heels clicking on the polished flooring. The Admiral hastily saluted and snapped his own heels together, fighting valiantly a wave of nerves and a bout of nausea.

Alice Mould's leather jacket swayed at her calves and she eyed the Admiral coolly. Flanked by two underlings, also dressed head-to-toe in black, with hands clasped behind their backs in servitude, they were ready to pounce at the flick of her eyelid. Smelling the Admiral's fear, Alice tried very hard not to sneer.

"Where's your Political Officer?" Alice snapped.

"Michael Weyman?" the Admiral choked. "He's leading the off-duty men in their pledges. Why?"

"Admiral, you have been napping. You have an impostor on board the Cadaver."

A collective gasp left the lungs of the eavesdropping crew who hastily pretended not to have overheard her declaration.

"An imposter?" the Admiral bumbled, adding incredulously. "On the Cadaver?"

Alice Mould brought her lips close to the Admiral's ear. She spoke quietly, advising him there were two imposters on board his ship and the Admiral raised his eyebrow and turned to look across the bridge; all the while, he nodded contritely. The Agent of Change strode purposefully towards the radio console, her every step punctuated by her clicking stilettoed heels. As the bridge crew tried to disguise their curious gazes, she halted behind the radio tech. At her cuff, a long, sharp, glinting blade extended and the tech officer never saw it coming. As warm blood stained the shiny metal, the underlings pulled his dead body from the seat, black-bagged it and dragged him back to the lifts and this time, the crew did not avert their eyes from their duties.

Pointing to Quaiffe's vacated seat next to Mould's victim, the Admiral stammered.

"Th-th-that's not Quaiffe."

Alice shot him a filthy look.

"Admiral, he obviously did not know the man beside him," Alice replied as she stepped over and skewered the trembling radio tech who sat on the other side of Quaiffe. "This one...I didn't like the cut of his jib."

The Cadaver was plunged in to red alert; the crew dashed to panic stations as klaxons bleated at every posting. Airmen scuttled about and Quaiffe knew he had little time before the lockdown would be complete and it wouldn't take the Agents of Change long to sniff him out. He popped two pills in to the palm of his hand; the BrainFreeze tab would turn him in to a blithering idiot sixty seconds after swallowing.

Worst-case scenario he told him self and tentatively tucked the pills back in his pocket.

Descending metal grille steps two-by-two, Quaiffe used his hidden Loyalist comms unit to punch out a Mayday message to his colleagues, knowing even if they received it there was no realistic chance they could rescue him now.

Signing off as 'Lola', he brushed past an airship engineer and pushed through a security door in to the bowels of the engine room. Mechanics in coveralls looked at him oddly as beads of perspiration dripped down Quaiffe's brow.

"There's a traitor on the loose," Quaiffe barked. "Know your man, know your enemy!" The mechanics heeded the warning as Quaiffe feigned an identity check on a couple of grease monkeys, before pushing onwards in to the sublevels.

Quaiffe's cohort Corporal Mick 'Angie' Weyman, the Cadaver's embedded Political Officer, stood waiting with their parachutes.

"Angie, we're cutting it fine," Quaiffe puffed, tugging and releasing the constrictive top button of his standard issue, Futurist navy tunic.

"Keep calm and carry on," Angie grinned.

"This ship's crawling with goons and we've got Buckley's chance and you want me to keep calm!?"

"Stay fretless!" Angie soothed.

"You defragged the main drive?"

Angie nodded, tossing Quaiffe an oxygen-synthesising mask. Angie was far calmer, and peril was his drug of choice, relishing the thrill of escape.

"Angie, may I ask what the parachutes are for?" Quaiffe queried, suddenly realising.

"We can't get to the Aerofex Zip-Sticks now," Angie replied, throwing his parachute over his shoulders and clasping the buckles; he looked up and smiled cockily. "So you might as well jump! Or be shot...your choice."

Quaiffe shuddered: the last thing he wanted to become was godfodder. Pushing through the noisy engine room, Angie led the way to a rear-door. Pressurised gasses angrily hissed through the opening stunting their escape. They heaved the door closed behind them and balanced precariously on the tradesman's gangway. The Cadaver's stabilisers were top-notch and as they sprinted to the rear of the balloon, and with Angie's enthusiasm, Quaiffe had a real sense that they could get out of this jam.

Easing out into the lower tailfin, the hyper-engine exhausts were only an Airship's thickness away and Quaiffe wrinkled his nose. Hitching on his parachute, he was not that fond of bailing out – at any height – and he took a number of deep breathes to calm himself. This hardly remedied his nerves as Angie unlocked and kicked out the safety hatch, watching it skim away across the dark evening sky. Tightening his parachute straps, Angie fastened the safety harness buckle across his chest, making small talk.

"You look scared. You know I bet Rocket a fiver that..."

BANG!

Mid-wisecrack, wide-eyed, Angie slumped forward, falling to his knees. Another calculated gunshot fired, just as Quaiffe ducked and the bullet pierced the Airship's inner skin. Angie began to gurgle as bloody froth foamed around his lips. Quaiffe looked up and half way along the gangway, Alice Mould was controlling her response.

A hail of shots blasted about them, and with head ducked, Quaiffe knew it was too late for his mate. Putting his hands up, he stood slowly and Alice Mould rushed him, gun pointed.

"That looks like a Civil War era revolver," Quaiffe noted, the outside winds howling and swirling behind him at the open hatch. "And I think I counted six shots. So lady, I reckon you're stuffed."

Alice returned the revolver to the holster inside her long trench coat.

"Perceptive," Alice replied through gritted teeth, clenching her fists and allowing both her hidden, retractable sword blades to leisurely extend at her wrists. She looked at Quaiffe with contempt.

"Lola...that is what they call you isn't it? Lola?"

Quaiffe didn't like the way she said 'Lola', rolling the L's like she was licking a lollipop. Nor did he like her knowing his call-sign, which meant she probably knew more about Loyalists than they thought. Alice straightened her tunic and studied him intently before rolling his call-sign around her lips once more.

"Lola. L-O-L-A," she attested.

"That's my name, don't wear it out!"

"Lola, you are under arrest..."

"She's coming home," Quaiffe smiled; his reply cryptic but pointed. "Your days are numbered."

"Who?" Alice yawned then without batting an eyelid lunged with her blades but Quaiffe was too nimble, rolling aside as Alice regained her poise and calculated her next move.

"Ich bin ein Englander," Quaiffe declared, hurling a flash bomb at her feet. The sparkler dazed her and Quaiffe tumbled through the hatch out in to the emptiness. Gliding through the night, he looked over his shoulder as wind gushed through his hair and he allowed a brief smug smile to cross his face. Alice Mould knelt down, blinking her eyes and poked her head out the open hatch then re-clenched her fist, peeved at the audacity of the man's escape.

As Quaiffe fell, the glowing Futurist banners looked like bloodied scratches down the sides of every New London façade. Quaiffe yanked the rip-cord, unfurling silky fabric; the parachute spread out with a flourish to form the Loyalist flag - the red, white and blue of the Union Jack. He jolted, then swung around and as his parachute puffed with air, his descent was slowed. Quaiffe spiralled around in the eddies and could hear the whoosh of adrenaline in his ears and the unearthly symphony of the wind farms.

Suddenly, down below on Emancipation Square, the Pleasuredome light towers illuminated. Quaiffe's silhouette floated in and out of the swashing spotlight beams until they triangulated. A giant Visi fixed to Bigger Ben went live and he watched himself watching the Visiscreen in a surreal moment of life imitating art imitating life.

The Airship Cadaver targeted its own spotlights on him, and Quaiffe pulled hard to spiral past the communications spire and around one of the hexagonal corners of Bigger Ben hoping to secure some cover in the airships docked at New Heathrow. A gust drifted him out into open space and all the spotlights searched for their target. Quaiffe tugged his direction cords again, struggling to move out of the beams with time clearly running out.

Over-compensating, he hoped to circle around into Bigger Ben's capricious shadow. Trying not to allow the cords to twist, he tugged his left hand and eyeballed a Guard on an intercepting Aerofex Zip-Stick, who circled around him. A number of Gunners' beams caught Quaiffe in their crosshairs and the Aerofex Zip-Stick backtracked out of range.

Quaiffe's eyes bulged in terror as shots tore through his parachute silk and his flesh. As he receded from consciousness, with all hopes of escape dashed, Quaiffe began to fall from the sky. Stricken like a modern-day Icarus, he plummeted towards his doom.

Back on the Cadaver, the Stormtrooper in Stilettos was confident. In moments, the traitor would have to be washed off Emancipation Square and life would go on as if nothing had ever happened. The incident wouldn't even make the state's Visi news. Still, Lola's claim was disconcerting to say the least, more so as she suspected the Futurist regime's complacency was allowing Loyalist cockroaches to breed and scurry in the periphery unhindered.

Alice's Agents of Change secured Angie and lay him at her feet like a dying dog.

"We searched him over for booby traps, but only found this," an Agent said as he handed his superior a tattered paperback book.

"Shall we assign him for rehab?" the Admiral asked, realising it was a redundant question as the Loyalist lay dying.

"No need to waste resources," Alice replied contemptuously. She flipped through the dog-eared, yellowing pages and passed her eyes over the scratched, embossed logo of silver lions on the battered cover. The contents were heretical, however, lately she was fatigued from discovering so many copies of the tome in the clutched hands of these delusional, dying imbeciles.

"It's myth," she told Angie.

"Ich bin ein Englander," Angie challenged.

She glared down at the soldier at her feet. His eyes were shallow; his stolen Futurist naval uniform ripped from the entry wounds. A dribble of frothy spit stained his lips and bubbled on his shallow exhalations. Alice knelt down and thrice tapped the prisoner gently on his forehead with the illicit volume.

"TraitCrime is a HateCrime," she reminded, using the Futurist mindblurb. "Books are banned, you filthy little collaborator. Do you really think any of you are doing your puerile cause any good?"

The soldier murmured something softly; a hiss before dying and Alice leaned over and placed her ear against his cold lips as he repeated his dying words.

"God...save... God...save...the...Queen," he said softly, gurgling. Alice rose from her kneeling position and looked down at the man without a skerrick of pity or empathy. She raised her boot and eased the sole gently on to Angie's throat.

"I fear not," Alice said dryly. "Not tonight, not ever."

With a sharp, sadistic twist of her ankle, her stilettoed boot sole crushed the life out of the man. Grinding back and forth, Alice Mould eventually stepped over Angie and walked casually back along the gangway.

"Prepare my transport," she called back over her shoulder as the Admiral relayed her order to the dock. He stood aside as the Agents of Change dragged the soldier's carcass behind them.

The Admiral, chilled to the bone with her cold brutality, followed behind as the Agent of Change swaggered back towards the interior. The continuous whine of the klaxons ceased as the gangway swarmed with naval Guards.

Alice sashayed to the lifts as a warm breeze from internal exhaust flapped at the bottom of her black leather trench coat. She tucked the tatty book safely in to her pocket and on her own, took the lift to the dock. The Admiral sighed, relieved.

The Airship Cadaver deactivated its targeting spotlight; the gunner reloaded the cannon whilst the Admiral returned to his quarters for a stiff drink and the rest of New Britain slumbered in total ignorance of the events having just taken place.