Prologue

1

Considering the last week, Ajax found it reasonable to drink two glasses of undiluted wine and smoke three cigarettes for his breakfast. The long day ahead seemed less scary when the alcohol swam through his system, and his breathing relaxed with slow inhalation of his rolled-up smokes. It was needed.

The sun had barely risen. Clad in nothing but boxers, Ajax stood up and wandered through the flat, avoiding the obstacles: the abandoned bottles, the forever damp stains, and the mountain range of small rubbish piles. He tiptoed through to the bathroom and faced himself in the mirror. Ajax decided to shave. His face fitted the cheap, stinking flat – dark shadows under his eyes, rough hair all over, minor cuts and yellowy bruises mapping what was a rugged continent. He ruffled through his silvery hair and splashed cold water all over, before cutting through his shagged jaw line.

There was a crash and a curse. Pythias must be up.

Less skilled at avoiding the culminating minefield on their carpet, there were more muffled curses as Pythias made his way toward Ajax, who was studying himself in the cracked mirror still, his face breaking up in more than one way. Grunting followed the curses, and several stumbles later, Ajax saw Pythias rubbing his head behind him.

“You been hitting that damn bottle again? I can smell it.”

“It’s all over the flat, kiddo,” Ajax said. “You can always smell it.” It was true: from the mattresses to the curtains to the wooden surfaces, the ever present flavour of alcohol clung to the air.

“You know what I mean. This early, old man? That’s crazy, especially today,” Pythias said, shaking his head, his unruly hair bouncing with it. “I need you on your game.”

“Hell, today’s the reason I did it.” Ajax walked past the taller figure of Pythias and dropped down onto one of the broken chairs, its lost arm collapsed by its side. They said nothing else. There was no need. Simply the dark look in both their eyes was answer enough. “Smoke?” Ajax offered.

Pythias shrugged and took the cigarette and they lit up. The air turned grey and lingered that musty colour for a while. “We ain’t got much time. Market opens early, so we gotta be there early. No need to delay the inevitable.”

Ajax took a long drag. “You got all the gear ready?”

Pythias nodded. “Everything’s ready to roll.” A pause. An awkward one. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

Instead of answering the question, Ajax rolled his head sideways, keeping the cigarette in his mouth, and gazed out at the stretched-out city. Roads originating from a central hill rolled out like points of a star, from the pivotal areas to the periphery on the outskirts. At the centre of the metropolitan star, tucked beneath the rugged edges of the acropolis, the rainbow fluorescent colours of neon signs lit the morning dim. The market place, despite the lack of daylight, still glittered – it was where the city resided, whatever the time. Ajax didn’t want to see it. He closed his eyes. “I used to have a kid, you know. Weedy little thing. Glasses. Could never pronounce ‘th’. He always said it like an ‘f’. It was cute. I miss him. We always went to the park, me, him and June,” Ajax said, his head drifting to another place, with pictures of flowers and sunshine. He stopped mid-sentence and half-smiled at the memory. “I used to chase him through the grass and the woods. He never stopped running, that kid. Never. It was before we got into all this nonsense. Before all this.”

Pythias spoke softly. “I know.”

“I don’t even know if he’s alive anymore. Does that make me not ready for this? Zeus knows. I don’t think I’d ever be ready for this.” Ajax talked in a fragmented daze, his words slipping out rather than being spoken, his voice cracking. “How can any man?” He coughed. His whole chest visibly moved.

“We got no choice,” Pythias said. “We gotta do this. Once it’s over with, we can pay him the money and he’ll leave us alone. We can go anywhere but here. Get away. Start up our own little business, take orders from nobody but us.”

Ajax laughed, but it was not one of mirth. It was hollow and frightening. “You think this’ll be it? Hell, Pyth, I thought you were smarter than that.”

They put out the butts and threw them onto one of the higher peaks in the spine of trash mountains. Both of them dressed in black. The bags were already ready, and they strapped them on. Ajax checked the gun, flicking out the magazine once more and reloading it in again. There were only two bullets. If all went to plan, they would only need two bullets, Ajax figured. He sheathed his daggers inside his coat and in his boot.

When they exited the apartment building, the cool morning carried on the process of waking. It stung their skin and they walked quickly to throw off the cold. The street seemed full already. Ajax knew that in Opus, it always seemed that way. Even at night, there were beggars and night-dwellers covering the gaps that the darkness had revealed and the day had concealed – there was vigour and electricity charging the pavements and the roads. These weren’t just stalls or fountains. These were excited merchants chattering and water showering statues of Apollo and Aphrodite and Hermes.

As the pair hit the main road, which aimed straight for the Agora, the market, thought it wouldn’t matter for every road eventually led the way, Ajax kept his head up. Pythias was ignoring the world, keeping his head down, moving to the shadows that the rising sun hadn’t yet destroyed – underneath the closed shop roofs, alongside the bricked walls, behind the trees. But Ajax wanted to take it all in; from the boys grinning and running ahead of their parents, to the couples turning into small gatherings turning into talkative clusters turning into a constant throng of legs and arms and heads. Ajax and Pythias, where they had once been accompanied by homeless dogs and sleeping tramps, were now just blood cells riding the vein back to the heart.

Because there was nowhere else in Opus that could possibly be described as its beating heart than the Agora.

Even though by the time they could see the waiting doors swinging back and forth the sun had illuminated almost everywhere, there was still something bright, or maybe warming, about the old, recognisable neon signs that adorned the outer walls of the Agora. Pythias barely looked up and registered them, deep in his own thoughts, but Ajax would always marvel at the breadth of advertising and marketing that flickered day and night.

Inside, the air was dead.

The myriads of alleys and corridors filtered through to the courtyard, resplendent in sunshine. There were wooden benches, and though most of them were occupied (somehow shoppers were already tired) Ajax and Pythias shuffled onto one.

“There it is,” Pythias said, nodding toward the corner shop, snugly fitted between two larger stores. Jewellery glittered in the windows.

“Aye,” Ajax replied. “Don’t think I’ve ever been in a jeweller before. Could never afford it. What rings or other stuff I needed I got from the cheaper stalls.”

Pythias smiled for the first time all morning and winked. “Well, we don’t need to afford it,” he said, and got up, and took a deep breath. “We’re robbing it.”