TimeRiders 05 - Gates of Rome (27 page)

‘You wouldn’t stand a chance,’ said Macro.

‘Caligula does listen to me. He doesn’t listen to the
praefectus
, but I know he trusts my advice. Perhaps if I can persuade Caligula to send some of his Stone Men into battle and get your
Bob
within the palace itself … it’s possible he could overcome any of them left behind.’

‘And us as well?’ said Liam. ‘Could you get us inside too?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Bob …?’ Maddy said in English. She patted the mound of one knee. ‘You up for it?’

He replied in English, Cato, Crassus and Macro looking on in silence as they talked.

‘The description we have of these Stone Men suggests they are third-generation military recon units. Designed to have normal physiques and pass more easily as human beings. As a full muscle-chassis combat unit, I am approximately fifty-five per cent stronger. This gives me a tactical advantage.’

‘And you did sort out that other unit that came through the portal,’ said Sal. ‘And that was another big one, just like you.’

‘But it was missing feet and a hand,’ replied Bob. ‘This also gave me an advantage.’

‘But do you think you can take them down?’ said Maddy. ‘More than one?’

‘Individually, yes. More than one at a time, this would be difficult.’

She sucked air through her teeth. ‘We’re rolling our dice on a pretty steep bet. We’re helping these guys with their coup and there’s no guarantee we get anything out of this. There may be nothing in the palace. No tech, no displacement unit, nothing.’

‘In which case that leaves us stuck here,’ said Sal.

‘Right,’ said Liam.

Maddy nodded. ‘Right.’

‘And without Bob … if those Stone Men kill him,’ added Sal.

They looked at each other. A decision unresolved hung in the space between them.

‘Actually, if computer-Bob doesn’t activate that six-month window, his head chip’s going to end up as helmet-spaghetti anyway,’ said Maddy. ‘He’ll be a dribbling vegetable.’

The three Roman men were looking at them expectantly.

‘Even if we end up successfully killing Caligula,’ said Maddy, ‘we might also not find anything in the palace that can get us back home.’

‘Well, the way I see it is this: if we are goin’ to be stuck here for good … I’d not want to live here with this Caligula fella still in charge.’

‘There is that.’ Maddy nodded slowly. ‘If this is it for us, if this time we really can’t put things right and we’re stuck here for good … I think I’d rather Caligula wasn’t around.’ She turned to Bob. ‘How does that fit with your mission priorities?’

His deep voice rumbled. ‘This is an already contaminated timeline. If we cannot correct it, the mission has failed whatever course of action you choose to take.’

‘Bit of a downer there, Bob,’ said Maddy, ‘but you’re quite right.’ She consciously switched back to listening to the translator burbling quietly in her ear.

‘OK, count us in.’

Caligula felt a tremble of excitement course through his body. This place, this large chamber was once a temple to Neptune. Now it was a temple to … himself; more than that, an act of homage to his approaching destiny. Its large marble and tiled walls echoed his light footsteps as he walked among the artefacts inside. With those large heavy doors closed, the daylight outside was entirely gone, the only illumination the flickering flame of the golden oil lamp he held in his hand.

Objects that the Visitors left behind. He crouched down and picked through the strange-looking things.

‘Incredible.’ His voice echoed round the chamber. Such curious possessions they had brought with them. He never tired of looking at them.

There was a shuffling coming from the wooden cage in the middle of the chamber.

‘But you see … that is something I find so fascinating. These devices of yours …’ He picked up an empty hydro-cell. The smooth metal glinted in the gloom; a residue of liquid sloshed around inside its casing. ‘I always believed gods needed
nothing
. That a mere wish, a desire, was all that was required for a thing to happen. And yet you and your friends brought with you all these odd contraptions. Objects you needed.’

A mewling whimper came from the cage.

He tilted the hydrogen fuel cell, listening to the liquid inside. ‘Objects that stopped working for you eventually.’ He smiled. ‘Not particularly godlike.’ He tossed it on to the pile of other items – empty ammo cartridges, guns, backpacks, first-aid packs, flashlights – and wandered over towards the cage.

He remembered how utterly bewitched he’d been when they’d first arrived. Such a stunning, remarkable arrival. Such noise, such spectacle. That day in the arena … like every other Roman citizen looking on, he was certain he’d been gazing upon heavenly beings. His heart had thrummed in his chest with the thrill of it and, of course, there had been an almost paralyzing terror at the idea of it.
Gods, or at the very least, emissaries of the gods … here … in Rome. Right before us!

Caligula recalled that childlike wonder …

… approaching those enormous chariots and seeing up close the remarkably human-like passengers emerging from them. Some of them as fair-skinned as those barbarous savages in the northern parts of Germania. Some of them as dark as Egyptians. All of them wearing such delightfully strange garments. He’d been trembling like a leaf, fearful as a small child before an enraged parent.

The voice had boomed out across the floor of the arena and bounced off the stalls all around them. A thunderclap voice announcing in heavily accented Latin that they had come from above to enlighten them, to show them new ways. To offer them the gift of enlightenment, wisdom.

And finally, emboldened by the knowledge that several thousand of his subjects were watching, that a Roman emperor ought to be the one to lead the way, he had slowly reached out with a trembling finger and dared to touch one of them. Caligula had done that half expecting that at the first slightest touch of this creature from Heaven he would burn instantly to cinders as the power of Elysium itself flooded into him.

Caligula pulled the viewing slot of the cage to one side and
peered at the darkness within. It stank of human faeces and stale urine. An appalling stench worse than any of those awful plebeian marketplaces or perilously tall, topsy-turvy apartment blocks. By the light of his oil lamp he could see the wretch inside, like a caged wild animal, restless and wide-eyed.

He realized now. Even back then, all those years ago, the moment his finger had touched warm skin damp with sweat, flesh just like his own … that the Visitors were just ordinary people. Not gods or messengers of the gods.

‘Hello,’ he uttered.

The man murmured and gurgled something behind his muzzle.

‘I apologize. It’s been some time since we talked,’ said Caligula with a gentle smile. ‘Quite rude of me.’ He produced a bronze key, waved it so his captive could see it.

‘Come here. I shall take your muzzle off … and you and I can talk.’

The man moved suddenly, like a wild animal, grabbing for the key. The viewing slot was wide enough for a hand of claw-like fingers to thrust out. Caligula took a step back.

‘Uh-uh. Turn round … there’s a good fellow.’

The man glared at him through the slot for a moment. Caligula could only see his eyes above the corroded bronze face mask and the gunk-encrusted hollow of the feeding tube, a dark, rigid oval frozen in a permanent corroded ‘o’.

‘Turn round,’ he said, waving his key again out of reach of the waggling claws.

The glaring eyes disappeared into the darkness and then a moment later, Caligula could see the back of his head, the bronze padlock securing the brace and one or two tufts of lank hair drooping over, and the sore-ridden skin rubbed completely bald by the rough metal band.

Caligula reached through the slot, inserted the key and twisted. With a dull click, the padlock sprang open and the brace fell away.

The head instantly spun round, those glaring eyes on him once more, but now he could see the man’s slim nose, and below that a thick nest of moustache and beard bristles clotted with dried mucus and rotten food. In the middle of it – like a pair of newborn, hairless rats in the bottom of a coarse nest – two lips mottled with scabs and abrasions old and new. They flexed and fidgeted, revealing bloody gums and the rotted black stumps of a few remaining teeth.

‘Hello, my old friend,’ said Caligula.

The man struggled to move his mouth, savouring the freedom for his tongue to actually wander around, his claw-fingers probing his crusted lips pitifully.

‘It is the month of Sextilis once again. So … it’s not so very long now, is it?’

The man was still flexing his mouth, relishing this fleeting moment of freedom from the mask.

Caligula suspected the crazed old fool was getting ready to cry out in that strange garbled language of his. He tried the same thing every time the muzzle came off. The same strangled word.

‘Save your breath. Your Stone Men won’t be able to hear you. The doors are closed and they are all on the other side of the palace. It’s just you and I in here.’

The pitiful wreck of a man tried anyway, sucking in a lungful of fetid air then screaming. ‘System … o-over-ride … en-enable … S-sponge –’ His voice was a frail and feeble gasp like a faltering breeze across marshland reeds.

‘Trust me,’ smiled Caligula. ‘They really can’t hear you.’

Nonetheless, he tried again. This time his croaking voice had
a shrill and desperate power behind it: the asylum scream of some unhinged wretch. And it was the same meaningless word over and over again. Gibberish to Caligula.

‘SpongeBubba!
SpongeBubba!! SPONGE … BUBBA!!!
’

‘So … Maddy, that thing about Caligula joining the gods? You remember? The information you got off your computer?’

Maddy nodded. She’d not forgotten. She looked ahead of them, at Sal and Bob. They were walking along a narrow avenue outside Crassus’s walled garden. Traders set up temporary stalls along the base of the pink-painted wall early every morning. Stalls that could trade for a few hours before the mid-morning call to prayer sounded across the rooftops of Rome and Caligula’s acolytes started patrolling the streets to be sure every citizen was obediently on their knees in homage to their emperor and god. The unlicensed traders and their illegal stalls were packed up and long gone before then.

Charcoal graffiti covered the flaking pink paint. Latin tags of one
collegium
or another, slogans, crude jokes and vulgar stick-man drawings. One clearly depicted the emperor: a stick man with an oak-leaf halo above his head and exaggerated booted feet. Maddy squinted at what it seemed to be waving around in its hand – without her glasses on, the entire street was in soft focus. It seemed to be a …

‘Oh, per-lease …’ She tutted in disgust.

‘Joining with the gods?’ prompted Liam. ‘That’s supposed to be soon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ There wasn’t a date. But the data they’d pulled up did say something about it being in the summer.

‘Should we not tell the others about that, though? I mean … it’s important.’

‘I … I’m not sure we should.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, look … think about it. If they learn from us that actually Caligula might not be around for much longer, they’ll abandon their plans. Right? I mean … why risk your life if you just need to be patient and wait a few more weeks, months?’

They watched Sal cajoling Bob into bartering with a trader. Maddy very much doubted any haggling was going to last particularly long with something as big and as intimidating as Bob on one side of the transaction.

‘Liam, this “ascending to the gods” thing. It could mean anything. It’s far too ambiguous for us to assume it means anything. It could mean he just got sick of a disease and died, and his priests decided to make up something that sounded suitably exciting and godlike.’

‘Aye. True.’

‘On the other hand,’ she added, ‘it could be a portal.’

He looked at her and grinned. ‘Well, I was thinking the very same thing, so I –’

‘It might be that there’s some time-travel tech somewhere in his palace that’s been in a dormant state and it starts to activate. Maybe something on a timer … a bit like one of our six-month windows, but much longer?’

She looked at him. ‘See … that’s why we’ve got to get in there. Before whatever happens to Caligula … happens. And Cato, and the others, they’re our only way in.’

‘We’re using them,’ said Liam. He didn’t look entirely happy
about that. She knew he’d warmed to those two, Cato and Macro.

‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘Yes,
technically
, we are sort of using them.’

‘Doesn’t seem right.’

‘Oh sheesh,’ she cursed under her breath. ‘Why do I always have to be the freakin’ bad guy? Huh?’ Truth was, Maddy had learned to think of an alternate timeline as something not entirely real, almost cartoon-like. A virtual world even. These were lives that were not meant to have been lived. In some cases, perhaps they were better lives than they should have been; more often – at least so far – they’d been horrible lives lived through horrible timelines. Yes … perhaps she should have told Cato that
something
in this timeline was due to happen to Caligula very soon. But if whatever happened, happened in the palace on the Palatine with them sitting around out here and, God help them, they missed it … then that really might be their one and only chance to get back home wasted.

‘We
have to
get in there, Liam … and we have to get in there
before
anything activates? Do you get it? This might just be our only way back home!’

He stroked the tuft of bristles perched on his chin thoughtfully. ‘Aye … well, I suppose.’

‘So, we don’t tell them. We need them to act on their plans. The sooner the better.’

‘So, then … our friend here is quite correct.’ Crassus acknowledged Maddy with a nod. ‘There is no need to delay a moment longer. With our conceit to lure away some of these Stone Men and with the help of yours, we have a chance for you to get to Caligula, Cato.