One Question...

An attempt at futuristic fantasy, perhaps unfitting for the nature of this blog, but simply because I hadn’t tried it before.
 
There was a small moth branded on the long curve of her neck. Even in the cavernous half-light its shimmering colour snared his attention. Its wings appeared to beat against her neck, fluttering lightly against her skin, just where a man’s mouth might like to caress. His opponent’s fist cracking against the right side of his face brought his focus back to the makeshift arena. Captain Alec Fisher coughed roughly, blood splattering with saliva across the beaten earth floor. He swept his tongue across his teeth to check for damage, whilst smearing the blood dribbling from his nose with the back of a hand. He smirked arrogantly at his opponent as if he had allowed the man a free punch, even though his cracked lip smarted at the movement and internally his irritation simmered.
 
She had, he was certain, used her augmented pheromones deliberately to divert his attention from the fight, though her ultimate objective remained unclear. There was amusement and challenge in her disconcerting bicoloured eyes as she circled the outside of the crowd like a predator. A stunner was strapped to her hip, which marked her out from the rest of the spectators who had been disarmed at the door. The moth-woman must work for the Spymaster. Resolutely he turned his mind and concentration back to defeating his opponent. He had a lot riding on the outcome of this fight.
 
The Spymaster held several fights like these every day in deserted warehouses and unused basements across the city. They were a means of whittling down the amount of supplicants brought to his door. The winner gained an audience and the opportunity to ask a single question. It was a rich prize. The Spymaster had in the past decade accrued an encyclopaedic knowledge of all that went on in the city and its environs. He was, undoubtedly, a criminal but there was nobody with enough power or influence to take him down. Alec, as an enforcer of the law, knew this firsthand. He had no ambition of entrapping the Spymaster; instead he was, like his opponent, simply fighting for the right to ask one question. He wanted the name of his suspect and he wanted it desperately enough to work outside the law to get it. Sometimes, he reasoned, you were forced to sup with the devil.
 
Military enhanced and trained before becoming an enforcer, Alec had immediately sized up his opponent and catalogued his weaknesses. They had been wrestling for some minutes, each getting in a few shots and keeping the burgeoning crowd entertained. Now, however, pissed off with the moth-woman’s tricks he stopped feigning difficulty. Knocking aside his opponent’s hand, Alec held onto his wrist and pivoted sharply, dislocating a weakened shoulder. Seizing advantage of the shriek of pain and instinctual grab for the injury he wrapped his arm about the man’s windpipe. It would have been easy enough to snap his neck, but he felt no real desire to kill his opponent. Alec had not anticipated that the man would knock them both backwards. As they tripped, legs entangling, he rolled with the momentum of the fall until he landed on top. Beneath him the man’s legs jerked and kicked as Alec reapplied the suffocating pressure to his throat. His eyes rolled back and he flopped into unconsciousness.
 
His body slick with sweat and muscles shaking from the adrenalin, Alec eased carefully back. He had barely regained his equanimity before a pair of shapely ankles appeared in his line of sight.

“Congratulations. The Spymaster will see you now.” It was the moth-woman, her speech direct and uncluttered. “Follow me.”

“I want my stuff back first.”

“After. The Spymaster does not like to be kept waiting.” The hint of annoyance underlying her command felt like a victory. Alec got to his feet lazily, using his size to unconsciously intimidate as he did during interrogations. He felt sure that he could have spanned her waist with the mere circle made by his two hands. She did not, however, appear fazed. Sexual awareness sparked as she slowly traced her gaze from the brazen masculinity of his bare chest to the trousers that rode low on his hips. His belt, amongst other items of clothing and possessions, had been confiscated. He had assumed it was to prevent the use of these objects as weapons during the fight, but now he wondered if there were ulterior motives.

The moth-woman had already turned away, weaving through the crowd, obviously expecting him to follow her with no further debate. Scowling he pursued, stupidly and painfully conscious of his bare, defenceless feet. The ebony of her hair took on a sheen of electric blue as the light around them began to subtly change. He had not had the opportunity to study her fully in the shadows of the basement, and as they reached ground level the strength of the daylight caused his eyes to crease, keeping her features indistinct. He would not be able to scan for her identity in the future. They left the building promptly and she strode business-like toward an unmarked transport shuttle with specially darkened windows.

“I hope you have your question ready, Captain.” His shoulders tensed at the use of his title, but he was not overly surprised that the Spymaster should know who he was. “Remember this is your only chance. One question, one answer.” She stopped before the passenger door, indicating that he was to go in alone. “Don’t waste it.”