Death Ex Machina

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In my time as an investigator I had received many difficult assignments, problems that were usually dangerous, often deadly, and sometimes downright impossible.

But no one before had ever asked me to arrest a ghost.

“You can’t be serious, Pericles,” I said.

“Of course I’m not,” he replied. He sounded exasperated. “But unfortunately for both of us, the actors are completely serious.”

“What actors?” I asked.

“The ghost is in the Theater of Dionysos,” Pericles said. “The actors refuse to enter the theater until the ghost is gone.”

“Oh,” I said, and then, after I’d thought about it, “Oh dear.”

The timing couldn’t be worse, because the Great Dionysia was about to begin. The Dionysia was the largest and most important arts festival in the world. Thousands of people were flocking into Athens. They came from every corner of civilization: from the city states of Greece, from Egypt and Crete and Phoenicea and Sicily, from Ionia and Phrygia. All these people came to hear the choral performances and to see the plays: the comedies and the tragedies.

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