I pour water out of my pistol barrel as I think this over, then stuff it back inside my pack. “So if the race committee has footage of what happened in a level thousands of years before we entered it, does that mean they already know how it ends?”
Viznir rummages around in his pack. “They might. I don’t know. The committee keeps all of that info highly classified.”
I detach the inflated life vest from my pack, and after scanning the cave, set it on the ground. “They must send someone to clean up all this stuff, right? We just left a bunch of vehicles from the future lying around ancient Egypt. Some archeologist isn’t going to dig that up in a pharaoh’s tomb now, are they?”
Viznir shrugs. “I don’t know. They never taught us how that works.”
“Won’t that screw up history if they don’t?”
“Nobody’s history that we know.” He aims his spectrometer at the rocks. “We’re still way out on the fringe. I’m getting a reading that the spectrometer recognizes, but it’s nowhere near the central streams. This is probably a timestream the committee got a permit to use for the race. Nobody cares if it gets screwed up. Could be that no time travelers have ever been here before.”
I shoulder my pack and squish my way toward the cave mouth. “I guess we’d better see where we are then.” I step up to the cave wall, where two metal boxes still hang among the row of hooks, and wave my bracelet at the one with my name, catching the box as it detaches.
I carefully navigate the wet rocks at the cave mouth and emerge into midday sun. Outside, the river plunges downhill. A footpath has been worn along the edge of the bank and twists its way into the woods. The path has been recently trod by a couple dozen feet and at least one set of paws. Some of the tracks are still muddy. Downriver, the view opens up to green fields and hills, and a patch of smoke hangs over a distant city.
“It’s beautiful here.” I pull my eyes away from the view long enough to open my objective box. Inside, my instructions have been rolled into a scroll. Viznir steps up next to me with his tablet as I unroll it. The drawings are in multicolored inks, interspersed with numerals and writing.
I hand it to Viznir to scan. “Do you read Latin?”
Viznir inspects the scroll with curiosity. “Actually, I do.”
As he scans the scroll, I take time to ponder our surroundings. Just to the other side of the river, a stone wall juts into the falls at an angle and divides the flow, sending a large portion along its other side where a two-story tower has been erected. The water passes into the base of the tower. On the far side of the structure, a thick wall protrudes into the woods, disappearing downhill at an angle away from the river.
Viznir puts the scroll back in my hands and begins zooming into images on his tablet. “We’re after a ring. Looks like some type of family seal on it. Probably the type used to authenticate correspondence. It’s Roman, ancient Roman from the looks of it. We’ll need to figure out how to narrow that timeframe. The empire lasted for centuries in most timestreams.” He looks up from the tablet and gestures downhill. “We need to get moving. It’s a long walk to the bridge.”
I’ve been studying the map on the scroll and look back across the river to the stone tower and the wall headed into the woods. Viznir has already started down the path when I call to him. “Hey, hold on a minute.”
He pauses, but looks irritated. “We’re already behind as it is.”
I ignore his dirty looks, remembering what Charlie said about a few minutes spent on orientation being able to save hours later. “Look at that stone wall over there. You know what that is?”
Viznir shakes his head.
“That’s the start of an aqueduct. And it’s on the map.” I hold up the scroll. “Look, this is the road down the hill, right? There’s the bridge, and the road that leads into the city. It’s all on the other side of the river. But look how far out of the way the river bends before we get to the bridge. Then we have to walk all the way back west again to get to the city. This line goes directly there.”
“That’s not a road.” Viznir frowns.
“No. That’s the aqueduct. But it’s plenty wide enough to walk on top of. It has to be downhill the whole way in order to work. If we take that, instead of the road, we’ll save at least an hour of walking.”
“But the aqueduct is on the other side of the river. We aren’t. We can’t cross that.” He points to the falls coming out of the cave. “We’ll get washed away.”
“It wasn’t that bad inside. The lake was pretty calm till the opening. If we can make it out that side, we’ll already be on the correct side of the river. We won’t need that bridge.”
Viznir points to the tracks on the path. “Everyone else clearly went this way.”
“I know.” I smile. “Everyone else did.”
He pauses to consider what that might mean for us. “We might be able to overtake a few positions . . .”
“We’re already last. Can’t hurt, right?”
Finally he takes a few steps back up the path. “Okay. We can try it.”
I climb carefully along the rocks and back into the cave. At its narrowest, the cave mouth is only about ten yards wide, but there is no convenient landing on the far side, only a thin jagged edge of a foothold before the water plummets over the falls. When I’m back inside near the objective hooks, I open my pack and find the coil of rope Charlie had me pack. I uncoil the length of it and tie one end around my waist. I toss the middle section to Viznir. “Here. Hold that. If I start to go over the falls, I’m counting on you to drag me back.”
Without my pack, I have a much easier time swimming, though shoes and jeans are still far from ideal. I kick hard to stay away from the pull of the current going over the falls and make the other side without incident. Once I’ve climbed the narrow ledge at the opening of the cave, I tie the two loose ends of rope together and drape the loop over my shoulder. Viznir does the same on his side of the opening, and using this homemade pulley system, we relay both packs across.
As Viznir wades into the water, I realize that I’m in a much worse position to try to help him stay away from the pull of the falls than he was for me. The slack in the rope from him swimming toward me is nothing but a hindrance to him so I scramble to reel it in as fast as I can. Viznir swims hard, but as he nears my side he struggles to keep out of the current. It doesn’t work.
Son of a bitch.
He lets out a gurgling cry as the water rushes around him and forces him over the edge. He has a hand stretched toward me but I don’t risk losing my footing to reach for it. I heave on the rope instead, throwing my weight back against the rock wall and digging in my heels. His flailing body tumbles over the falls but swings out of the current and slams rather roughly against the sloping wall to the side of the downpour. I grip the rope as tight as I can. I can no longer see him but I can hear him cursing on the other side of the ledge. After a moment I feel the rope go slack.
“Hey! You all right?” I get to my hands and knees and peer over the edge.
Viznir is clinging to a rock ledge and giving me an icy glare. “Just pull me up.”
I pull overhand on the rope until Viznir is able to gain the ledge I’m standing on. “Sorry, dude.”
“You were supposed to keep me from going over.”
“I did. You’re not at the bottom of the falls.” I smile.
“Barely.”
“Maybe you should have swum harder.”
Viznir picks up his pack and stalks into the woods. I heft my pack over my shoulder before following him. I find him on the stone stairs of the tower appraising the length of aqueduct. He climbs to the second level and watches the water flowing into the opening. When I join him, he’s staring along the length of wall into the woods. “If you really want to improve your time to the bottom of the hill, you should just climb in there.”
I stare at the aqueduct and consider the rushing water swirling around in the reservoir. “Is there a way back out?”
“I was
kidding.”
“Oh.”
Viznir clomps up to the top of the aqueduct and begins trudging down it, leaving wet footprints with every step. I follow, marveling at the beauty of the woods around us. “It’s pretty nice here, huh? The air is super clean.”
“Enjoy it. It won’t smell that way in a city full of sweaty Romans and their commodes.”
“Ah, I hadn’t thought about that. At least we smell better now. I needed a good rinsing off.”
The walk along the top of the aqueduct is easy with the exception of a few trees that have grown too close and oblige us to climb through their boughs to continue. About every fifty yards, we pass metal plates in the stonework. I eye each one until finally the curiosity makes me stop and lift one up. The plate moves easily and reveals an access shaft into the aqueduct’s piping. The water is flowing smoothly through the ceramic lined pipe and splashes a little at the opening.
“What are you doing?” Viznir glowers back at me in irritation again.
“Just seeing how this thing works. It’s pretty impressive.” I slide the plate back over the hole and continue on. “I’m amazed they did all this with their technology. Obviously they didn’t have pumps and such to keep this flowing. They must have to access these maintenance hatches when they do repairs or clean out clogs. I wonder what they used for levels to get the angles right. They must have invented some kind of bubble level.”
Viznir stays quiet and walks on, apparently uninterested in the workings of ancient engineering. I trot to catch up, then slow again as we pass over a gulley between two hills. The aqueduct stays its course, but the ground drops away beneath it. I shy away from the edges and keep my eyes on the next hill, a hundred or so yards ahead of us.
Just don’t look down, Ben.
I try to lose myself in the sounds of the woods and the clomping of our feet. Keep walking. Don’t look down. Keep walking. Don’t look down. After a few minutes, the rhythmic stomping of our steps seems to take on a new depth of sound. I’m watching Viznir’s feet ahead of me, wondering what has changed, when he suddenly stops. I stop too, but the stomping continues. I look up to find Viznir staring into the woods to the right. Below us, on the slope of the hill, a dirt road cuts at an angle to the aqueduct and meets a footbridge that spans a narrow stream in the gulley. The tromping is coming from the cadenced steps of a group of soldiers with spears emerging from the woods. The leader of the group is on horseback. A few more riders flank the soldiers as well. One of the men to the right of the column has paused in the brush, his horse stamping its front hoof in eagerness to continue. The rider looks up and spots us atop the aqueduct. He shouts something in Latin and urges his horse forward. The leader of the column twists in his saddle and follows the man’s eye line to us.
“Are they going to be mad we’re up here?” I step closer to Viznir.
He puts his hand to his pistol. “I don’t think they’re pleased.”
The leader of the column of soldiers rapidly splits his men. He sends the first group scrambling up the hill to cut us off. One of the horsemen leaps his horse over the stream and is followed by a dozen foot soldiers who file across the bridge and begin scaling the hill behind us. To my dismay, the men in the next group the leader gestures to are all carrying bows and quivers of arrows. They disperse at his command and take positions in the trees.
One of the horsemen yells something and gestures for us to get down. Viznir pulls his tablet from his pack and begins scanning rapidly through it. I step up next to him to see what he’s doing. “What’s our plan here, man? You have something in here about this?”
“I need to remember how to express this.” He looks up from his tablet and shouts toward the soldier. “Venimus in pace!”
The commander doesn’t seem to notice. He merely assigns more soldiers from the column up the hill. The column has not ended. To the contrary, more keep arriving every moment. A half dozen more on horseback have arrived also and have taken up positions near the commander.
The first horseman yells at us again, “Tu transgrediendi! Festina descendi!”
“What was that one?” I ask.
Viznir looks at me and frowns. “We’re in trouble. We don’t have time for this.” He slides his tablet into his pack and draws his pistol. “Get your gun ready. We may have to shoot our way out.”
“These guys have bows and arrows and swords. It doesn’t seem like a fair fight.”
“You might think differently when they start shooting.” He levels his pistol at the far end of the aqueduct and walks forward. Soldiers have taken up positions in the woods at both sides now and some are beginning to scale the sides of the aqueduct. Behind us, the same strategy is unfolding on the hill we came from. As I follow Viznir forward, my foot strikes one of the metal maintenance covers and the hollow sound reverberates faintly. I look past Viznir and note that there are no more covers between us and the soldiers.
“Hey, Viznir.”
He turns.
“I may have our way out of this mess.” I tap the toe of my shoe against the cover. “Actually it was your idea.”
Viznir shakes his head. “We’d drown.”
“Not if we can make it to the next maintenance hatch faster than they can.”
“No way.” He faces forward again. “We shoot our way through.”
“I didn’t come two thousand years to commit mass murder. How many people are you going to have to kill to get through?”
“They might run once we take out a couple of them. ”
I point to the archers in the trees. “These guys conquered most of Europe, Viznir. I don’t think they’re trained to run.” I squat to slide the maintenance cover away, hoping the soldiers won’t catch on until it’s too late. My still soggy rope is coiled on the side of my pack. I cut a piece and use it to attach the pack to my ankle. Looking past Viznir’s legs I can see the first soldier has made it to the top of the aqueduct and is advancing toward us with his spear lowered and shield up. Viznir still has his gun aimed that direction, but his resolve appears to be wavering.
“Hurry up then. These guys are going to see you soon and start shooting.”
I secure my pack’s waterproof flaps before dropping it down the hole. The water splashes and churns as it tugs on it. The pressure threatens to pull me in forcefully but I resist and ease myself in slowly. “Just when we were starting to dry off, huh?” I smile at Viznir and drop the rest of the way. As I do, the soldier shouts. My pack vanishes into the ceramic piping and I squeeze myself after it, laying flat on my back and keeping my arms above my head. As the water surges over my shoulders, I hold the edge of the shaft and take a last deep breath. Viznir’s feet land to either side of my head with a splash. “Go! Go! They’re shooting!” I let the water pressure push me forward.
The angle of the aqueduct is not very steep, so once the initial thrust of the water propels me forward, I don’t continue very fast. The discomfort in my lungs increases as each snag and spot of friction slows me down. Am I going to get stuck in here? The pressure of the river stays sufficient however and keeps me bumping along through the darkness. I keep one of my hands along the top of the pipe, feeling for the next maintenance opening. I realize after a few moments that my hand is no longer wet. The volume of the water in the pipe, while high, is not completely filling it.
Well I don’t mind if I do. I stretch my face up into the air pocket and take a gulp, scraping my nose just slightly, but happy to ease the pressure in my lungs. While I’m enjoying my new supply of oxygen, a thin ring of sunlight passes overhead. Shit! I reach for the edge of the maintenance shaft and my fingertips just brush the corner before I’m pushed past it. I try to brace myself against the walls to arrest my momentum like a stubborn kid in a playground slide, but the water pressure builds too quickly and I can’t hold on. I relax and let it carry me onward. I steal a couple more gulps of air from the surface but stay vigilant this time, and when the next shaft comes, I’m ready. I thrust both arms upward and grasp at th
e stony interior of the hole, pulling my torso clear of the water and scrambling to find purchase with my feet. The pack around my ankle is working against me but I manage to jam my heel into a joint just as Viznir collides with me.
“Ow!” I struggle to maintain my grip on the wall. Luckily Viznir’s feet only grazed my back, but he’s now wedged beneath me. His face emerges from the water in the half-light below me, sputtering and cursing.
“What are you doing?” He finally spits out the words.
“Trying to get out. You want out, or do you want to keep going? There’s air in here. It’s not that bad!”
He pushes off from me in an effort to get his head higher. The water level is rising in the shaft from our sudden obstruction of the pipe.
“Whatever you’re doing, just do it faster!” he garbles at me.
“Okay, I’m going to take this a bit farther and get us away from those soldiers. Breathe from the surface!”
He nods just before the water climbs over his face again. I release my grip on the wall and let the pressure pull me back into the pipe. For a while I can hear Viznir’s feet clumping through the pipe near my head, but as we travel on, we gain some separation. I let the water move us along smoothly, taking periodic breaths and watching for exits. We pass a half dozen more before I feel myself slowing down. It seems to be taking longer than normal to reach the next maintenance hatch. Then, all of a sudden, my motion stops completely. The water is flowing fluidly past me, but the pressure is no longer strong enough to force my weight forward. I lift my head and find I’m in an even larger air pocket. I twist my head because I can hear noises behind me.
“Viznir?”
“Yeah!” His voice echoes in the confined space.
“You stuck?”
“Yeah!”
“Me too. I’m gonna keep working my way down.”
“Fine.”
I kick at my pack and get it to slide ahead of me as I wriggle my way onward. A dozen yards farther, I reach the maintenance shaft. The reduced water pressure makes it easier to climb up this time. I push the cover away from the hole and squint as the bright sunlight greets me. I wrangle my pack out of the water and untie it, shoving it out of the hole, then climb out after it. When I’m up, I lean over to help Viznir. Once he’s flopped his upper half out of the hole, I stand to look around.
In Times Like These Boxed Set Page 66
