She let him go and sat down heavily. “Is that all it is to you?” she asked plaintively. “A means to a quarter of a million quid so you can make your movie? Is that all we are to you?”
“No, no—” He shook his head—“no!”
“Get on with you! I shouldn’t have fucking come back here, you arsewipe—”
Imp took a deep breath: “Let me tell you about my family,” he said.
“What is this?” Game Boy complained, as Doc handed him another dress from the back of the closet.
“Mad props resource.” Doc rummaged. “Don’t think any of these’d fit Becca, though.”
Game Boy looked at the dress critically. Blue with polka dots, 1950s-style full skirt, but the waist—“You’re right, it’s tiny.” The Deliverator had muscles as well as attitude, and was over a hundred and eighty centimeters tall. The dress was the sort of thing his parents would have put him in when he was twelve: they’d have added bows and pigtails and Mary Janes and told him he was adorable. He shuddered, then carried it out of the bedroom and up the corridor towards the growing heap in the drawing room on the way to the stairs. When he came back he asked, “Why are we even bothering? Imp wants cyberpunk.”
“Imp wants cyberpunk now but just you wait for the next draft of the script,” Doc muttered, handing over a cocktail dress. “I think we’re done here.” They’d already emptied the drawers of unmentionables from the room further down the hall.
“What’s the point if none of it fits—”
Doc turned. “One, inspiration. Imp runs on ideas. Two, you don’t know, I don’t know, who Imp’s going to hire to act in it, right? Who knows, maybe he’s got a petite leading lady on speed dial with his silver tongue—” Game Boy winced and Doc pretended not to see it—“worst case, we can cart it down to a secondhand shop and sell it as vintage. C’mon now, let’s drop this lot on the landing, then go check out the Red Route, I’ve got a good feeling about it.”
The Red Route, so named because of the red ochre walls, was a corridor about a third of a kilometer away. Down two flights of stairs, it was illuminated by skylights and gas mantles that hissed softly when Doc held a lighter to them. It had several plain wooden doors leading to bedrooms that clearly hadn’t been explored for over a century.
“Look.” Doc opened the first door he came to: “An oil lamp!” The brass body of the lamp was dull with age and dust, but the glass chimney and shroud were intact. He picked it up from the dressing table and nearly dropped it. “Hey, it’s heavy.” He sniffed it suspiciously. “Smells like … fish?”
Game Boy gagged. “Oh ick, that’s got to be whale oil.” Rancid whale oil at that.
Doc put it down gingerly. “Um, all right then. What else have we got?”
“I don’t—” Game Boy’s forehead wrinkled. “Is this Victorian?”
“Looks that way, but I’m not sure.” Doc pulled out a drawer from the dark wooden cabinet. “Wing collars? When did they go out?”
“Check this out.” Game Boy was into the wardrobe side of the chest, where a dove gray morning suit hung in pride of place: obviously somebody’s long-forgotten Sunday best. “What do you think?” He held it up against his chest, looking past it at the fly-specked mirror: “Think it’s about my size?”
Doc pondered. Game Boy was slightly built for a twenty-first-century man, but the suit looked about right. “Try the jacket first,” he suggested, then left Game Boy and moved on to the next room. It looked like a lady’s boudoir out of the late nineteenth century, though he had no idea which year (or even decade) the dresses came from: it might even be early twentieth, for all he knew. Big hats, floor-sweeping skirts.
He was assembling an armload to cart back for analysis when Game Boy strolled in. “What do you think?” Gee Bee twirled. “Is this dapper or what?”
“Needs a top hat and cane. Doesn’t go with your Converse. How does it hang?”
Game Boy shot his cuffs back. “The sleeves are a little long. And the trousers need a belt, but I couldn’t find any loops.” The trousers in question came halfway up his chest and were falling down.
“That’s because they were worn with suspenders and a waistcoat.” Doc knew that much. “Okay, you should definitely keep it. You never know, Imp might want us to flash mob a wedding party or cosplay Downton Abbey.”
“Great!” Game Boy bounced out again to rummage for matching accessories. Doc nibbled the end of his pen, then jotted down some notes about where and what he’d found: metadata for the map of the dream palace they were exploring.
“What period do you think this is from?” Doc yelled down the hall.
“Late nineteenth century, probably 1880s, I think? Do the dresses have bustles?”
Doc scratched his head. “Dunno,” he admitted. “What’s a bustle?”
“It’s a fashion thing: let’s just say that from the 1870s to the 1890s, a well-dressed woman would never need to ask ‘does my arse look big in that.’” Game Boy came back in, clutching an armful of stuff. Top hat, shirt, waistcoat with a cravat spilling out of one pocket. “Why do I even know this stuff? Thanks, Mum, for trying to turn me into a lay-dee.” He rolled his eyes, then dumped his loot on the bed before turning to the wardrobe. “Grab that—no, wait, that one—it’s big enough it might fit a modern woman—and that, and that. Yeah, and that, and we’re done. Let’s head back; betcha twenty quid you can’t persuade Del to model it for you.”
“Think she’s back yet? From wherever
