Pax Britannia: Human Nature by Jonathan Green

be?"
    "Gang of thieving street urchins. Conniving little bleeders, if you ask me."
    "And where would I find them?"
    A momentary look of disbelief knotted the man's face and he opened his mouth as if he was about to make some sarcastic comment.
    Ulysses pre-empted any such inappropriateness by arching an eyebrow at the still quivering man.
    "Humour me," was all he needed to say to make his point.
    "Make your way to Whitechapel and if you don't find them first they'll be sure to find you, I 'ave no doubt." Rat gave Ulysses a bitter smile. "Failin' that, you could look in the Blind Beggar. That's all I know."
    Ulysses relaxed a little. "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
    Rat said nothing but just glowered at him in return.
    "Now then, Mr Rat," Ulysses said happily as, beaming, he reached inside his coat again. Rat tensed. But rather than a blade, this time Ulysses brought out his wallet. "The matter of your fee."
     
    "So, this is Whitechapel?" Ulysses declared, as the cab pulled away, a look of child-like wonder on his face.
    "Yes, sir."
    Ulysses paused, cane in hand, looking all around him and inhaled deeply, absorbing the aroma of the place as much as the sight of the slums. The teeming hordes making their way through the streets of Whitechapel - hawkers, pedlars, navvies, dockers, gong cleaners, street sweepers, whores and scruffy children by the score - milled around and past him, not giving him a second look.
    There were few droids present here; it wasn't the sort of place where (a) people could afford them, or (b) where it was safe to send them; within an hour they could be melted down for scrap, or disassembled and their parts cannibalised to make something else or sold on the black market. Neither was it the sort of place Ulysses wanted to risk his Rolls Royce Mark IV Silver Phantom, hence the need for the cab.
    Here, the desperate and the destitute laboured under the almost permanent shadow of the Smog as the factories of the industrialised East End belched their foul clouds of toxicants into the atmosphere. It was said that inhaling the lungfuls of dust present in the air here shortened people's lives considerably.
    "Incredible, isn't it? In all my years living in this teeming metropolis and hunting down villains within its winding streets, and I've never set foot in Whitechapel." He turned and looked at his manservant. "I suppose you've been here many times before, Nimrod. In the past, I mean."
    "Oh, I know it well, sir. You might say, far too well."
    Ulysses took a step forward. He looked up at the street sign nailed to the crumbling brick of a junction above him, letting the tide of struggling humanity wash past him.
    "Old Montague Street," he said. "And where's the Blind Beggar?"
    "Up this way." Nimrod pointed, indicating the crowded street ahead of them. The way was packed with all manner of people going about their daily business, minding their own, while other more prying eyes looked on.
    "Well, no point in hanging around here. If we're going to do this, we'd best get going."
    Beggars and others skulked in the many secreting shadows, small bright eyes watching their every move by the light of crackling electric street lamps and a chestnut seller's brazier.
    The night was cold, this close to winter - for all the talk that certain meteorologists and protest groups spoke of the new-fangled phenomenon of 'global warming' - and come the morning a crust of ice would cover the effluent streams running down the street. A bag of hot roast chestnuts wouldn't go amiss on a night such as this, Ulysses thought, pulling his scarf tight at his neck. While he was at it, he pulled the cashmere up over his mouth to filter out the worst of the ripe stench of raw sewage and lung-tarring smoke. The noxious stink seemed to characterise Whitechapel rather too well.
    This place had been the haunt of prostitutes, thieves and ne'er-do-wells for centuries. When Covent Garden had been cleared, the scum had ended up here, washed east like