The Imperium Game

by K. D. Wentworth

  “Could I bring you something else, my lady?” Flina’s concerned face hovered at her shoulder.

  She glanced up into the maid’s dark features. “This is Saturnalia, Flina. I should be serving you today, not the other way around.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Gracchus lolled back on the low dining couch. His short military tunic rode up around his thighs, revealing massive, tanned legs that bulged with muscle. “I already have more than enough points to make Emperor. Don’t humiliate yourself with the servants just to score a few more meaningless authenticity points.” He scowled at Flina. “Leave us, wench.”

  Flina bowed her crown of black braids, then backed out and left them alone. Gracchus pushed off the couch and planted his legs before her like trees. “I don’t like that gown.”

  Startled, she glanced down at the white silk stola embroidered with ivy Flina had brought her that morning from Demea’s wardrobe.

  “It’s too plain. Change to something more colorful and have Flina arrange some jewels in your hair.” Leaning over, he fingered a lock. “I should think emeralds would go well with your particular shade of red. You have to look every inch the Empress today.”

  She jerked away from his touch and combed her hair back into place with her fingers.

  “You really should be more appreciative, you know.” His voice had an underlying edge to it. “It was very careless, getting yourself killed like that. I had no end of trouble nullifying your death—a death, I might add, which would not have occurred had you merely stayed in the Palace, where you belonged!”

  She stared past him, out the window into the dull blue early morning sky. “Gaius promised he could take me to the Interface.”

  “Interesting you should bring up that particular name.” He clasped his hands behind his back and struck a pose in front of the window. She thought he looked like one of those overly noble statues down at the Temple of Jupiter.

  “Did you know the Game computer contains almost no information on the background of Gaius Clodius Lucinius?” he asked without looking at her.

  “The computer?” The rising sun glinted off the metal strips of his highly polished armor and made her squint. “But—”

  “But what?” With a clink of metal, he turned around.

  The measure of this man’s power suddenly registered with her. Not only did he control the Praetorian Guard and possess more points than anyone else in the Game, but he had something else no one could possibly match—his own Interface with the Game computer.

  His bushy brows knotted as he focused on her, staring as though he’d never really seen her before. “You were saying?”

  “N—Nothing.” A shiver crawled up her spine. She made a show of fiddling with one of Demea’s many bracelets, a thick silver snake swallowing its own tail. “I’ll go change.” She slid off the couch and reached for her sandals.

  His powerful fingers seized her wrist. “Wives shouldn’t keep secrets from their husbands.”

  When she was barefoot, the top of her head barely reached his chin. She stiffened in his grasp, trying to think of anything but what she had seen in his villa.

  “Something on your mind, girl?”

  “I’m just—worried about Gaius.” Her voice sounded thin and reedy. “He was a good friend to me.”

  “Forget Gaius.” His grip tightened around her wrist until she cried out. “What were you going to say?”

  She struggled as his fingers bit down through skin and muscle until it seemed he would squeeze her hand off. “Let me go!”

  “Tell me!”

  “Wh—What?” She sagged to her knees. The room danced around her in shivery waves.

  “That day when I brought you back from the Slave Market and you stayed at my house, I found you in my office.” Without loosening his grip, he bent over her. “What were you doing in there?”

  “N—Nothing!” She forced the words out between numb lips. In another second she thought her wrist would shatter.

  A knock sounded at the door. “Go away!” His gaze never wavered from her face.

  “Captain Gracchus, we must speak with you immediately!”

  He stared down at her a second longer, his eyes sharp as a Legionary’s sword, then threw her onto the polished floor and stepped over her body. Two guards, resplendent in their scarlet Praetorian cloaks, snapped to attention when he jerked open the iron door. “What is it? I have a very busy day ahead of me.”

  Amaelia watched him, cradling her throbbing wrist to her chest.

  “It’s—It’s your points, sir!” one of the guards said hoarsely.

  “What about them?”

  “They’re all—gone.”

  Gracchus’s hand gripped the hilt of his sword. “Gone where?”

  “Just gone.” The two guards looked at each other, their faces pinched and wary under their crested helmets. “We went down to the Forum to check the daily totals before today’s proclamation, and you weren’t even listed among the top fifty players. General Catulus is the only person listed with enough points to become Emperor.”

  Amaelia scrambled to her feet and, supporting her aching wrist with her good hand, edged toward the discomfited guards.

  “Catulus!” Gracchus slammed his fist onto the table. Figs and bananas bounced across the pink marble floor. “That idiot isn’t fit to be Emperor of the latrines!”

  The guard on the right swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork. “No, sir.”

  Trying not to even breathe, Amaelia took another step toward the door. If she could just slip out while he was so angry, maybe—

  “Going somewhere, lady?” Gracchus seized her arm and sent her stumbling away from the door. “Perhaps, while I go check into this little problem, you should pray for my success, because—” His gray eyes took on the cool calculation of a viper. “—if I can’t be Emperor, I won’t need a wife.”

  She caught herself on one of the low dining couches and sank down, trembling. “It’s just—a mistake,” she said. “The computer must be down again. Everyone in the city knows it hasn’t been working right lately.”

  His hand played with the hilt of his sword. “Perhaps so, but the Saturnalia games will still go on as planned.” He drew his lips back from his fierce white teeth. “And as you might guess, the arena always has room for another body—even one as lovely as yours.”

  * * *

  The sound of voices out on the street woke Kerickson from a dream in which he stood before an altar of gray stone in a vast, shadowy temple, offering up a sacrifice of red wine in a golden chalice. As he’d stared up at a huge statue, formulating his prayer in his head, he’d suddenly realized that the statue wore the face of Giles Edward Wilson.

  Sitting up in a hard, narrow bed, he stared around the still-dark room, trying to think where he was and how exactly he’d gotten there. He remembered the hot, oily water of the River Styx, then washing up above in the chill embrace of the Tiber River Adventure . . . and losing Amaelia to Quintus Gracchus.

  That had been stupid, he told himself as he threw back the coarse wool blanket—really stupid. Once he’d rescued the poor girl from Hades, the very least he could have done was escorted her safely outside. Shaking his head, he groped his way across the cold, uncarpeted floor. Now she was stuck playing Gracchus’s wife again, while he was still no closer than before to finding Micio’s and Wilson’s murderer.

  His outstretched hands found the rough stucco of the unseen wall, then slid along until he found the recessed switch. Light flared on from wall fixtures styled to look like candles.

  He rubbed his eyes, then took stock of his assets. After leaving the Interface the night before, he had used the printout to find this currently unassigned room above a tanner’s shop not too far from the Palace. Even at the best of times, the Game averaged only between eighty to ninety percent enrollment; last night’s stats sh
owed that it had fallen to about seventy-five percent since the murders. He should be able to use places like this until he found the murderer and turned him over to the police.

  Or her. With a start, he realized he had no evidence that it wasn’t a female, perhaps even someone like Demea. He considered his ex-wife for a moment: although she had never seemed to know much about programming, she lived with him for several years after he’d started working for HabiTek. Who knew what tricks and tips she might have picked up in that length of time?

  He took a long, hot shower in the ’fresher, then changed the setting and tilted his chin up to let it shave him. The Public Baths were all right, but he’d take modern technology any day—and he’d lay a huge bet the Romans would have, too, if they’d had the choice.

  After he finished, he put his clothes through a ’fresher cycle, then dressed in the tattered garments, feeling not only like a different man, but an exceedingly hungry one. Food was a rather mundane topic when there was so much chaos all around him, but—despite the bizarre goings-on down at the Spear and Chicken, the inexplicable new divinity of his ex-wife, the scrambling of all the god programs, and the murders—a guy had to eat.

  He walked down through the smelly tanner’s shop just as though he really belonged there, and peered out into the bustling morning street. The normal assortment of plebian merchants hurried up and down the Market District, going about their business.

  He stepped into the flowing crowd. Where to start? The computer had provided some interesting information, but no real answers. Whoever had killed Micio and Wilson must have had a reason, something the two of them shared in common, but what? One had been a player, the other a programmer; the only real link between them was HabiTek. The motive behind the murders had to be connected somehow to the Game.

  The winter wind bit through his tunic. Shivering, he rubbed his hands over his goose-bumped arms and dodged a large white dove that fluttered to the street in his path.

  But the dove strutted after him, its head bobbing. “SO, WHERE IS SHE?”

  He looked more closely, noting the tell-tale sprig of myrtle clasped in its beak. “Venus?”

  The dove eyed him critically. “DON’T TELL ME THAT RAVISHING REDHEAD DUMPED YOU ALREADY?”

  “Uh, no, not exactly.” He realized people were staring, and squatted down, lowering his voice to a strained whisper. “Look, could we talk about this later—like maybe next year?”

  “HOW COULD YOU BLOW IT LIKE THAT?” The dove heaved a dramatic sigh. “THAT GIRL HAD THE HOTS FOR YOU.”

  “Oh, my gosh, it’s Venus!” a stumpy, slack-jawed woman exclaimed at his elbow. Blushing, she dropped to her knees, folded her hands, and bowed her head. “Hail, Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty, beguiler of both gods and men! I’ve been to your temple every day this winter and made sacrifice after sacrifice, but you never come to me like this.”

  “YEAH, YEAH. LONG TIME, NO SEE, KID.” The dove winked, then hopped onto the woman’s head as the people crowded in to get a look. “NOW ABOUT LADY AMAE—”

  “Not here!” Kerickson lurched to his feet and backed away, trying to lose himself in the squirming press of bodies.

  “MAYBE IT’S NOT TOO LATE!” the dove cried as he lost sight of it. “SEND HER SOME HOT-PINK ROSES, OFFER HER A BACK RUB, TAKE HER OUT TO A MUSHY TRI-D—”

  Kerickson scurried around the nearest corner and ran until red spots danced in front of his eyes. Then he leaned against a brick wall and concentrated on slowing his tortured breathing. When his panting stopped and he could think again, his stomach growled. He spotted a vendor’s stall across the street and headed that way to buy a meat pastry, then realized there was nothing sizzling on the grill. The bald-headed proprietor scowled as he packed up.

  “You’re sold out already?” Kerickson glanced up at the simulated sky, but the winter “sun” had barely cleared the horizon. “Business must be great.”

  The man clanged the top of his grill down and latched it closed. “Wouldn’t matter if it was phenomenal. You can’t sell what you can’t get.”

  “Can’t get?” The wind gusted and Kerickson stamped his feet, wishing for a cloak.

  “Something’s wrong with Supply.” Grunting, the merchant lifted the handles on his grill and trundled it down the cobbled street. “None of my orders come in anymore. This place is going all to hell! I’m going to cancel my new Game license and get my money back.”

  Kerickson stared at him, then wandered down the street, peering into the windows of grocers and butchers. They were glaringly empty. Perishable items seemed to be in very short supply—one more area in which things were not running as they should.

  Could all this disorder be connected to his problems? He went over the situation in his head. It all seemed to come back to Publius Barbus and the altered Game bracelets that stole points.

  He had to return to the Spear and Chicken.

  * * *

  For some reason, the computer could not follow Kerickson’s movements, but occasionally Demea caught a glimpse of him on the monitors. After viewing the random input for hours of real-time, she saw him again, dressed in little more than rags, being chased through the thick Saturnalia crowds by several angry slaves. Then the monitor lost him again. She dissolved her link to the surveillance feed from above and stalked through the empty, echoing rooms of Pluto’s vast palace, seething with anger and disappointment. So much power lay at her fingertips, yet she could do nothing about Arvid and Amaelia.

  When she had accepted Pluto’s invitation to become Queen of Hades, she had thought of it as an advance in rank, not a limitation. Now the reality of her situation set in: all the true playing was conducted above, and even worse, every time someone died and was sent below, Barbus’s thugs met the unfortunate player on this side of the River Styx and switched his or her bracelet. Within an hour or two the supposedly “dead” player was recycled above to play again, this time with all his points recorded into someone else’s account. No wonder Hades was empty and boring, No one stayed here anymore.

  And she didn’t want to, either.

  An intense, smoldering presence approached, unmistakable even through the palace walls and the tangled wilderness of the surrounding gardens.

  “I FEEL YOUR RESTLESSNESS, MY LOVE.”

  She turned around and there he was, vast, electrical, magnificent. “I MISS THE GAME.”

  “MY PARAMETERS DO NOT PERMIT ME ABOVE.” His black eyes bored into her. “BUT YOURS SHOULD BE DIFFERENT. CHECK YOUR OPTIONS.”

  For the first time, she accessed the memory banks originally set up for Proserpina. In the ancient myth, Proserpina had been the only child of Ceres, Goddess of the Earth itself. Then Pluto had stolen her, claiming her as his queen. She had been confined below for the six months of fall and winter, then returned above for spring and summer. That was why she couldn’t manifest above at the moment; it was the depths of winter.

  “SEE? YOU HAVE ONLY TO WAIT A FEW MONTHS AND YOU CAN GO ABOVE.” His hand, outlined in brilliant blue sparks, pointed the way.

  She turned aside and pressed her fingers to her temples. “I WILL GO INSANE IF I DON’T GET OUT OF THIS SHADOW-INFESTED PLACE RIGHT NOW!”

  He caressed her face with a tingling, electric pulse. “IN THE SPRING, MY HEART.”

  Her whole body was on fire. She whirled around, knowing that she would have no peace to enjoy her new divinity unless she dealt with Arvid and Amaelia. “I CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG!”

  “THEN PERHAPS WE CAN SPEED THE PASSAGE OF TIME.” His bottomless black eyes expanded until they were the size of galaxies. “THERE MAY BE A WAY.”

  * * *

  Even though it was a holiday, and business ought to be good, the Spear and Chicken was mobbed beyond Kerickson’s expectations: the crowd jammed the surrounding area for almost two blocks. He fought his way through to the opposite corner and huddled out of the wind in the doorway of a
crumbling apartment building. Just ahead, restless men and women milled about the entrance, complaining and angry, although he couldn’t quite piece together why. The peeling, two-story tavern’s faded sign swung in the chill morning breeze, flaunting a morbid rooster transfixed through the heart by a bloody spear. Disgusting sign, he thought, then grimaced as the breeze shifted; he could smell the garlic and onions from half a block away.

  Barbus appeared at the door, the winter sunlight glinting off his bald head. “It’s all right!” he cried, waving his arms for silence. “We’ll have you below shortly. We just have to make a few adjustments to the computer.”

  Adjustments to the computer? Kerickson edged closer, doing his share of elbowing and shoving to get a better position.

  “So in the meantime, we all stand out here and freeze our asses off!” a burly man yelled from behind Kerickson.

  “Well, there ain’t room inside for all of you.” Barbus crossed his arms. “But if you don’t like it, you can leave the dome and take your chances with the law.”

  A grumbling undercurrent ran through the crowd. Kerickson heard the rasp of knives being drawn.

  “Listen, people pay a fortune to live in this place. It won’t kill you to pretend like you’re players for a few hours. Mingle. Go take a long, hot soak at the Baths or catch a vid down in the amusement sector.” Barbus glanced from one face to another. “Eat a five-star meal at the Brothers Julian, shop at the Augustan Arcade, or better yet, attend the games in the Coliseum. I’ve got free tickets.” He held up double handfuls of blue rectangles. “By the time you’re finished, everything should be back to normal.”