Breathing in chest-straining gasps, Kerickson looked up and saw Mercury’s pretty-boy face pouting down at him. Several scruffy-looking Subura merchants darted out of their ramshackle establishments, their stubble-covered jaws agape at the god’s silvery manifestation. A passing Legionary stopped to stare. “Is someone dead?”
“ANY SECOND NOW, UNLESS YOU’D CARE TO PUT THIS BASE-BORN LOUT OUT OF HIS MISERY YOURSELF.” Mercury floated serenely as he adjusted a pinfeather on the tiny white wing behind his left sandal heel. “FEEL FREE TO HAVE AT IT—HE’S ONLY GOT HALF A HIT POINT.”
Kerickson furtively stripped off his new Game bracelet and wedged it behind his back, between the statue’s shapely marble legs.
“LISTEN, BUCKO, THAT SORT OF SLICK NONSENSE WON’T SAVE YOU THIS TIME.” Mercury fluffed his perfect golden curls. “FACE UP TO IT LIKE A MAN; THOSE BOYS ARE GOING TO PUNCH YOUR TICKET FOR GOOD. WHY NOT JUST LIE DOWN IN THE STREET AND WAIT FOR THEM?”
“Why don’t you flit off somewhere and powder your nose?” Kerickson muttered as he heard running sandals clatter back in his direction. He ducked through the door of the nearest shop, evidently a laundry. A mound of grimy, wine-spattered tunics reached nearly to the ceiling. He burrowed beneath a cotton mountain that reeked of sweat, garlic, and onions as the sandals pelted by.
As soon as he was convinced they weren’t coming back, he clawed his way up to breathable air and slipped outside to get his bearings. The dome’s sun was dipping toward the western side of the city as players of all ranks streamed toward the races at the Circus. He headed into the middle-class residential area opposite the Subura, and after a few moments turned onto the Via Nova.
More than a few Legionaries were patrolling the streets, and he wondered what kind of bracelets they wore. How far did the Spear and Chicken’s influence spread, and exactly what was the nature of it, anyway? The people who played the Game not only paid a great deal of money, but put their outside lives on hold as well. How did Publius Barbus make them wear bracelets that siphoned off their points? Even if he used force, why didn’t they just throw the damn things away the first chance they got and then report him to the Game computer?
By the time he reached the small bakery that disguised the Management Gate, sweat plastered his tunic to his back and made the winter air seem even colder. Not only was the area thick with Legionaries, but he had seen several gangs of what he could only describe as armed thugs, openly carrying weapons of distinctly modern origin. What was going on?
He was standing in front of the locked shop door when he heard the scuff of hobnailed sandals on the street.
“Are you sure, Fabius?” a voice asked.
Kerickson ducked into the shadows behind an empty wine barrel, closing his eyes and trying to think himself not there. The sandals clattered by.
“I thought I saw him run down this street,” a second voice replied “Of course, it’s getting pretty dark. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks, but I don’t want to have to go back and tell the Emperor we couldn’t find him. You know what he’ll say.”
“He’s not Emperor yet.”
“Well, he will be by this time tomorrow. Once the Praetorians proclaim him, the Senate will have to give in.”
“Maybe.” The footsteps faded around the corner.
Kerickson brushed off his knees and examined the doorway. The monitor was embedded in the door frame above. “Give me class-two access,” he whispered up at it.
“Present Game bracelet for proper identification.”
“I’ve lost my bracelet.” He glanced over his shoulder. Did he hear more voices? “Give me emergency access.”
“Code?”
“Wilson, Giles Edward. Game status: Management.”
The monitor hesitated. “Your vocal print does not match that of Giles Edward Wilson.”
“I’ve—been injured,” Kerickson hissed at it. “I need medical attention. Give me access now!”
“Emergency drones have been activated. Please remain motionless until assistance has arrived”
Panic streaked up Kerickson’s spine. At best, he had three, maybe four minutes until the drones arrived and carted him off to Medical, where he would no doubt be exposed and thrown out of the Game. And even if no one there recognized him, he still would be a long way from getting the computer access he needed.
Well, surely there was more than one way into this blasted thing. Knowing that protection of the Management Gate relied more on hiding it than actual physical measures, he dropped to his knees and searched the street for something, anything made of metal. He could see only vague outlines in the deepening darkness, and kept skinning his hands on the rough-edged cobblestones. His grasping fingers found a woman’s hairpin just as a trio of obviously drunken men turned onto the street, laughing and talking. Swearing under his breath, he scuttled back into the shadows. How long did he have before the emergency drones arrived?
As soon as the men passed, he popped out the monitor’s plas cover and probed the mechanism with the hairpin.
“Destruction of Game property will result in a fine of all accumulated points, in addition to monetary damages.”
Somewhere in the background he heard the monotonous whine of the emergency drones. He held his breath and thrust the hairpin deeper.
“You are likely to incur further physical injury,” the monitor said. “Please desist until the emergency drones—”
It shorted out in a burst of sparks. Kerickson fell heavily backward onto the cobblestones, feeling as though he’d just been bitten all over by a giant snake. Favoring his singed hand, he wrenched at the locked door. The whine sounded much closer now, perhaps just one street over. He threw his shoulder against the wood, grunting and digging his bare feet against the cobblestones. The gleaming drones rounded the corner, and red and blue lights danced crazy shadows over the closed shops.
The door gave and he tumbled inside.
* * *
Rose-scented steam swirled from the pool’s surface up to the ceiling and circled back lazily throughout the tiled room. Anchored by one hand to the side of the pool, Amaelia floated in the hot water, so tired it seemed she would never find the energy to move again.
Against her wishes, Gracchus had summoned a physician to check her for injuries. Even though he had worn the typical Game clothing of a Greek physician-slave, the man had used modern diagnostic equipment to pronounce her sound except for bruises and exhaustion. He had prescribed a bath and a good night’s sleep. She frowned; she would never get a decent night’s sleep again until she was out of the Game.
The slave girl, Flina, knelt at the pool’s edge. “Shall I wash your back, lady?”
She looked up into the slave’s dark, enigmatic face, still unsettled to find herself in her stepmother’s place, wearing her clothes and attended by her servants. “No, thank you, Flina.”
Quintus Gracchus strolled into the Palace baths. “Perhaps the Empress would prefer her husband to perform that service.” He gazed down at her.
Hastily, she hid herself against the pool’s edge. “Go away!”
He stared at her as casually as if she were one of the trees out in the gardens. “Surely you’re not embarrassed. After all, we are man and wife.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned!” She waved at the maidservant who had retreated back to the wall. “Flina, bring me my robe!”
Gracchus knelt to dip one hand into the water and let it trickle through his fingers. “It’s time you made a choice, my dear—either you are my wife and will stand beside me tomorrow as I ascend to Emperor, or you’re just garbage to be swept away.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Reaching up, she took the green silk robe Flina handed to her and turned her back, thrusting her arms through the sleeves. “You don’t need me to become Emperor. It’s not hereditary.”
“No.” He stood up again as she wrestled with the w
et sash. “But friends and connections in high places often make a difference—a lesson you would be wise to learn yourself.”
Feeling like a drowned puppy, Amaelia walked up the steps out of the pool. “Having family in high places has never done me a bit of good.” She accepted a thick white towel from Flina and wrapped her dripping hair.
“It might save your friend’s life.”
“Gaius?” Her head swung around. “Why? What have you done with him?”
“Nothing, so far.” Gracchus’s lips parted, revealing even white teeth that stood out in his tan face. “But you must realize that he is a gladiator, and there are games to be fought tomorrow.”
“But they aren’t—” She paled, thinking of the violent mock-spectacles to which her father had dragged her over the years. “—real—”
“Not formerly.” He picked up another towel and dabbed at her dripping cheek. “But I suppose you’ve noticed that times do change, even here in the Imperium. I thought it might be amusing to stage real fights between players this year. And there are plenty of men and women eager to attend.”
She clutched the towel around her shoulders, then headed for the door. He stepped into her path with a clink of armor. “We’ll have the emergency drones standing by, of course.”
Shivering, she stared down at her bare feet.
“If you play the loving consort tomorrow, then I will be proclaimed Emperor and will arrange for you to leave the Game.” He put his hand under her chin and forced her eyes to meet his. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely audible over the hollow slapping of water against the sides of the pool.
“And is it so very much I’m asking, just a few more minutes of playing a role you’ve been working toward for years?” He released her. “After all, that is supposed to be what every woman enrolled in this game wants—to become Empress. Who knows, you might even decide to remain with me.”
Goose bumps covered her arms as she stood there, dripping, unable to find an emotion in that classically Roman face of his that she could understand.
He laughed, and the sound echoed crazily in the tiled room. “See that you live up to your side of this bargain tomorrow, or I won’t feel obliged to live up to mine. Now—” He smacked her wet behind with the flat of his hand. “Go and dry off before you catch your death of cold.”
* * *
Kerickson fell through the bakery door, then pushed it shut and held his breath. Outside, the red and blue lights on the drones whirled around and around, strobe-lighting the interior of the shop through the window.
After several minutes of cruising up and down the street, the two units gave up. As the lights faded around the corner, he crawled past barrels of Egyptian flour, hoping no one would investigate the false alarm. It was late, though, and likely the replacement programmers were off duty. The Interface should be deserted, unless they were coping with an emergency—which was, of course, entirely possible, the way things were going these days.
Voices murmured somewhere down the hall. He kept his head down as he inched past the Costuming Department; the outfitters might be working late. Saturnalia was the most popular time of the year for enrollment, and new players had to be properly dressed in order to enter the Game. As he crawled by, however, it was dark and quiet. The noise came from up ahead in the Interface itself.
“This is the biggest goddamned mess I’ve ever seen!”
Kerickson pressed his back to the wall.
“You and me both,” a different voice replied. “I give up for tonight. I can’t find any documentation on Mars, but I think it’s okay until tomorrow. Besides, I don’t know what I’d do if I could find it; I’m so tired, I can’t see straight.”
“Yeah, this Jeppers character is a real slave driver. He’s even pressuring me to move into the dome, but it’s not in my contract, and my wife absolutely refuses. She thinks these players are a bunch of nut cases.”
“I’m with her. Did you hear abou . . .”
Kerickson heard feet walking down the corridor in the opposite direction toward the outside lock as the two voices faded into murmurs. He waited a few more minutes, then stood up. Silence filled the complex, thick as wool.
Peering into the glass window of the Interface, he saw only the even blue glow of the screens and the two empty seats before the console—where he and Wilson had labored together for five years. He slipped in and shut the door behind him, then lowered the blinds for good measure.
He sat in the padded chair on the right, his old place, then punched in Wilson’s code. The central screen dissolved into the Temple of Jupiter. He flipped the manual override. “Record voice pattern for keyed-in code sequence: Wilson, Giles E. Game status: Management.”
“Recorded,” the computer said.
He sat back in the chair and rubbed his forehead. Now, at least, he would be able to use the Management Gate whenever he wanted, unless someone figured out what he had done.
Still, the fact remained that he needed sleep and plenty of it, as well as a decent meal. The last thing he could recall eating was that pomegranate down in Hades.
Deciding to test his newly acquired access, he punched in the call code for Neptune.
After a second the sea god’s mournful green face appeared. “OH, IT’S YOU. DECIDED TO WORSHIP ME AFTER ALL, HAVE YOU? WELL, IT’S ABOUT TIME.”
Kerickson wrinkled his forehead, then keyed the program into a standby mode and read through the parameters. His eyebrows headed for the ceiling. Almost nothing was set where it should be. At the moment, Neptune was cleared only for manifestation down in Hades and had lost all influence over water. Working from memory, Kerickson went through the list and reconstructed the settings as best he could. Finally, he sat back and checked the list again. Probably some of the parameters were a little off; for instance, he couldn’t remember whether Neptune had controlled the Tiber River before or not, but it seemed safer to leave that off for the moment.
Satisfied that his purloined access was working, he punched Neptune back into the system, then went through both Diana’s and Venus’s stats in the same way, releasing them from Hades and resetting them from memory. That done, he thought about the best way to find the information he needed. He suddenly remembered thinking something hadn’t looked right when he’d run diagnostics back at Gracchus’s villa. No doubt he should just run the same program again. “Run diagnostics series fourteen,” he ordered, and sat back as the central screen dissolved into Jupiter’s shield.
“Testing,” the computer said. “Primary stats in thirty seconds.” Statistics marched across the screen like tiny Legionaries.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes. What had caught his eye the last time he’d done this? He fished inside his tunic for the hard copy he’d run back at the villa, and found it still wedged in his underwear. In spite of the river, the characters were readable. Spreading the plas out on the console before him, he stared at the file allocation figures, trying to remember why he had copied them off in the first place.
“All Four-thousand-level buffers are out of service due to system maintenance,” the computer said. “File allocation tables in ten seconds.”
“All Four-thousand-level buffers?” Kerickson sat up. “At the same time?” He punched up system maintenance tables on a separate screen, but the times recorded there looked reasonable, not nearly what would be required to service an entire level of buffers.
He dropped the plas sheet on the floor, then punched up Buffer 4000. “Buffer out of service,” the computer told him. “Please select another.”
“Dump contents of Buffer 4000 on-screen,” he said, then watched. After a second, the screen filled with a bewildering array of numbers and names. He squinted, trying to make some sense out of what he saw. “Helena Antonia Longus,” one entry read. “EP: 3. HP: 2. AP: 14. CP: 3.” Experience points, hit points, and so o
n. These supposedly out-of-service buffers contained a record of the points stolen by the illegal bracelets.
“Print a hard copy.” He picked up the plas sheet from the floor and compared its figures with the current file allocation tables in the center screen. They seemed to be largely the same, including the financial sector, which was still up to a whopping seventy percent in usage. Yet the enrollment figures had actually dropped slightly since the murders. Where were all those extra transactions and accounts corning from?
The dim mutter of voices from down the hall broke his concentration. He glanced up. Was the cleaning crew corning in already? Whatever he was going to do, he’d better take care of it now. He had no guarantee of regaining access tomorrow; all it would take was one security guard on duty and he’d never get in.
A grim smile tugged at his lips. “Put all Four-thousand-level buffers back into service immediately.”
“That will require a class-three Management override.”
Class three? Kerickson grimaced. He and Wilson had only had class-two clearance. “Cancel that.” He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “Cut power to all Four-thousand-level buffers.”
“Done,” the computer replied.
“Now print me a list of unassigned living quarters on the playing field.” He waited tensely until the sheet of plas fed out of the slot, then punched off, hoping no one would bother to check users’ codes tomorrow. Of course, by then it wouldn’t matter. The interruption of power had erased the buffers’ contents and he would be long gone—along with all of Quintus Gracchus’s illegal points.
AMAELIA picked up a fresh green fig from the golden platter of fruit and played with the firm flesh for a moment. It was no use; she couldn’t eat with Quintus Gracchus’s chill gray eyes staring across the table at her. Besides, remembering her near-fatal encounter down in Hades, she felt uneasy in the Empress’s apartments amidst the fussy pink draperies and the narcissistic statues that all stared back with her stepmother’s face. It seemed altogether possible Demea might suddenly appear and blast her to cinders.
The Imperium Game Page 22
