The Imperium Game

by K. D. Wentworth

  “I dunno.” A bearded man beside Kerickson scowled. “This may be a sweet deal, all right, but things have been real weird lately, and maybe it’s not worth the price anymore. You know, they took seventy percent of my last job! How about you?”

  “Uh, fifty,” Kerickson answered, then thrust his bare wrist into his pocket.

  “Hell!” The man spat into the dirty street and narrowed his eyes at the tavern. “Playing favorites, I knew it! I ought to cut his scrawny little chicken neck and take this scam over for me and my boys. I could run this deal a lot better.”

  “What’s your—line?” Kerickson asked.

  “Oh, theft, mostly, airhoppers and such.” The man smiled modestly. “And a bit of strong-arm, though that’s pretty risky these days, since the police department’s gone to robots.”

  “How long have you lived here?” Kerickson guided the man into a doorway as the crowd began to break up and drift away.

  “Almost three years. What about you?”

  “Uh, about five.” Even though it was cold, Kerickson felt sweat break out on his brow,

  “Wow, and I thought I’d been here a long time.” The man frowned. “Well, if they don’t get that door open into the Underworld soon, I’m out of here. A hideout is no damn good if you can’t get in.”

  “Do you know what’s wrong?”

  The other scratched his nose. “Oh, Pluto wants something done or changed. You know . . .” He leaned over Kerickson, exhaling stale beer breath. “He’s not supposed to bother us when we’re down there, but I see him sometimes, just standing there watching us with those nasty black eyes of his. It gives me the creeps. I mean, he don’t act like no regular computer program, if you get my drift.”

  “Yeah.” Kerickson thought maybe he did, finally.

  “And those drugheads.” The other man shook his head.

  “What drugheads?”

  “You mean you never seen them?” The man glanced back at the tavern. “They’ve got special bracelets, and they all used to be players. I thought everyone knew about them.”

  Kerickson’s stomach contracted.

  “The way I hear it, Barbus’s boys get to them as soon as they’re declared dead and dose them up with Burn. You know what they say about that stuff—one pop and you’re hooked for the duration. That way they’ll do anything Barbus says, and he says plenty.” He shuddered. “I think I’d rather be dead, myself.”

  “Right.” Ice crawled down Kerickson’s spine.

  “So, you wanna go to the vids?” The thief raised his eyebrows. “Or I hear tell there’s some very willing broads down on the Via Nova.”

  “Thanks, some other time.” He stepped out into the street, then shivered as the frigid wind caught him full blast. It was so obvious—the answer had been there all the time and he just hadn’t seen it. “I’ve got a city to save.”

  THE BITING wind died down as Kerickson searched for the nearest oak containing a computer link, but the cold he felt inside cut much more deeply than anything the dome’s weather machine could produce.

  He felt so stupid, so incredibly dense! Wilson had laid it out for him on the night he’d talked him into coming back to the dome. Look, we can’t talk about this on an open channel . . . HabiTek is up to its knobby corporate knees in this whole mess! But he had been so focused on the murders, he’d never gotten around to putting it all together. Obviously, someone had been listening in on that conversation—and that was why Wilson had been killed. He had known too much and was on the verge of telling it all.

  Of course that explained why Wilson had been killed, but what about Micio? Kerickson thought back to the computer’s stats and the revealed hyperactivity in the financial sectors. HabiTek was handling a lot of excess money lately, much more than the Game, with its steep overhead, had ever made before.

  And then there was the matter of Barbus’s setup at the Spear and Chicken and his access to the computer, not to mention Gracchus’s personal Interface, all of which would be impossible without cooperation from someone on staff. Just how high up did the collusion go?

  He felt as though an icicle had been dumped down his back; the problem was far more complicated than finding a single murderer. The dome was being used as a criminal hideout and shipping point for illegal drugs, both activities being the source of the excess money. And, as if murder weren’t bad enough, people for whom he had been responsible only a short time ago were being addicted, quite literally having their brains fried from the inside out on Burn, then used as slaves. He had to face it: there was too much going on here for one man to put to rights, and he had no way of telling whom he could trust in the HabiTek hierarchy. He had to call in the outside authorities.

  Close to the edge of the Subura, he found a leafless oak. Just as he reached for the recessed button on the streetside, though, a silver arrow twanged into the rough bark, narrowly missing his thumb. He flinched back, then looked closer. The shaft shimmered slightly; it was only a holographic image.

  “HOLD, MORTAL,” a cool voice commanded. Blue sparkles hovered in the air beside him, then condensed into a trim, athletic girl wearing a brief, off-the-shoulder white tunic.

  Kerickson gritted his teeth. “Look, Diana—”

  “YOU MAY DISPENSE WITH MY TITLES.” She drew another arrow from the silver-chased quiver on her back and fitted it into her shining bowstring.

  He clenched his fists as he fought to keep his voice down. “You know, I’m really busy right now. If you want to complain about something, you’ll just have to get in line with the rest of the dome!”

  Diana glanced over her creamy shoulder. “I SEE NO LINE.”

  “Yeah, right.” He braced his forehead against the scratchy bark. “Do you want something, or are you just here to drive me insane?”

  “I CAME TO BRING YOU THE GIFT OF COOL REASON.” The goddess sighted along the slim silver arrow at a passing litter and let fly. The simulated arrow thunked into the wood. “GOTCHA!”

  “Don’t do that!” Kerickson stared nervously after the departing litter, but fortunately neither the bearers nor the occupant seemed to notice.

  “DO WHAT?” Diana reached for the next arrow.

  He hunched down against the tree trunk. “Look, just go away. I can’t afford to be noticed right now. Whatever you want, I’ll take care of it later, I promise.”

  “SINCE YOU RELEASED ME FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE DARK KINGDOM, I WANT NOTHING FOR MYSELF.” She slipped the arrow into the curve of her bowstring and turned back to the street. “I AM HERE TO GIVE YOU THE ADVANTAGE OF MY WISE COUNSEL IN YOUR NOBLE QUEST.”

  “Put that thing away!” The bow twanged and he pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes, afraid to look.

  A few feet away, a woman’s scream pierced the crisp morning air.

  “SHALL I SUMMON MY DIVINE HOUNDS?”

  “No!” Kerickson forced himself to open his eyes. Across the street, a terrified elderly matron was staring down at a holographic arrow that appeared to transfix her middle. Whatever had possessed him to reset Diana’s parameters when he was in such a hurry? He shuddered. “Why don’t you go back to your temple? I—I promise I’ll commune with you there later—in prayer. I won’t make one important decision without you. I swear.”

  “WHAT TIME?” She reached for another arrow.

  “Uh . . .” A cold drop of sweat rolled down his neck as a pair of Praetorian Guards marched down the street, their armor gleaming in the morning sun. “Moonrise—I’ll come to you at moonrise!”

  “VERY APPROPRIATE.” She shouldered the bow and began to fade. “UNTIL THEN.”

  As soon as he was sure she was really gone, he sagged against the tree and hit the recessed button. The bark-covered plate slid upward to reveal the screen. “Warning!” the usual voice intoned. “Use of this device will result in a loss of two authenticity points.”

  Leaning clo
se, he kept his voice low. “Voice identification: Wilson, Giles E.”

  The Temple of Jupiter appeared on the screen. “Imperium Directory.”

  “Give me an outside line.” He heard voices behind him and glanced worriedly over his shoulder, but the crowd of laughing, jostling Saturnalia merrymakers were paying no attention to him. Instead, they stared up into the sky with surprise on their wine-slackened faces.

  “None currently available,” the directory said.

  A nasty prickle started in the pit of his stomach. “Route it through an Interface line.”

  “No outside calls can be put through from the playing field until further notice.”

  He wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. “Use a class-two override.”

  “A class-two override is no longer sufficient for this operation.”

  Suppressing a curse, he punched the directory off. The cover slid back into place. Whoever was controlling all of this from Management had apparently anticipated his move. Well, he would just have to exit through a players’ gate and call the police from outside.

  He caught a glimpse of several Legionaries stopping a donkey laden with boxes, so he ducked into a wine shop and hid behind a rack of dusty bottles. The shopkeeper, a bored, roundfaced girl barely out of her teens, leaned her elbows on the counter. “Warm for this time of year, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” he said, and then realized with a start it was true. The temperature had climbed at least ten degrees in the past few minutes. It seemed nothing worked right in this place anymore, not even the stupid weather control.

  He pretended to examine an expensive bottle of red wine until the soldiers had passed, then ventured back out into the noticeably warmer air. Across the street, several day-trippers in bedraggled German barbarian costumes lounged on the steps of the Quirinal Arms.

  Squinting up into the bright sunshine, he tried to think. He should be closest to Players’ Gate 3, located on the Campus Martium, a huge exercise field. Once outside, he would summon Lieutenant Arjack and his fellow police, and the first thing he would have them do was retrieve Amaelia from the clutches of Quintus Gracchus.

  In his mind he saw her again, the light playing over her copper-colored hair and those long, long legs. He flushed, remembering the pressure of her hand in his as they had fled the black guards down in Hades.

  He followed the Via Ostiensis down to the broad expanse of the Campus Martium. Because of Saturnalia, he’d expected it to be deserted today, but over on the far side several men, stripped down to their undertunics, were hurling javelins at a wooden target. He shook his head; evidently, in spite of everything, the Game still went on. Some people just didn’t know when to quit.

  Players’ Gate 3 had been disguised as a crumbling grounds keeper’s shack. He knew it by sight, although he had never used it. As he hiked across the rolling field, the javelin throwers stopped and watched him with far more interest than the situation warranted. Wiping at a trickle of sweat on his forehead, he pretended not to notice.

  Hefting their javelins, two of them trotted toward him in long, flowing strides. He grimaced and crunched faster through the dead grass.

  They angled to intercept him.

  Sweat rolled down his forehead into his eyes. He muttered a curse under his breath for whoever had tampered with the weather settings; it was at least eighty degrees and still climbing.

  The two so-called athletes looked as though they meant business, and the javelin points gleamed in the sun. He had a sudden intuition that no one was using this gate anymore, and turned back toward the Via Ostiensis, where he could lose himself in the holiday crowd. Something hissed through the air, then sliced into the sod a few inches from his left heel. He twisted to look over his shoulder and saw a quivering, half-buried javelin shaft.

  The two men were running now, their tanned, muscular legs moving in perfect, even strides that ate up the ground far faster than anyone should be able to run. His stomach contracted. They were robot surrogates, no doubt the very models he had personally ordered to supplement the City Guard. He clenched his teeth and ran in earnest, swerving back and forth across the field to prevent them from skewering him with the remaining javelin.

  The Via Ostiensis grew nearer, but he could hear their pounding feet closing in on him. Sweat soaked his body as he tried to run faster—and stumbled. The second javelin whizzed into the ground just shy of his nose. He sprawled there, his eyes nearly crossed as he tried to focus on the shaft.

  “Halt in the name of the people and the Senate of Rome!” A hand jerked him up by the tunic.

  He blinked at a classically handsome Roman face with its full lips, arching nose, and wide cheekbones, remembering that particular model from the surrogate catalog well, especially the part about its high responsibility quotient. He wet his lips. “Voice identification. Wilson, Giles E. Class-two override.”

  The robot didn’t flinch. “This is a restricted area. You’ll have to come with us.”

  Kerickson swallowed hard. “This is a code four-A override. Let me go!”

  “The captain is waiting,” his captor said, as though Kerickson had only been reciting a nursery rhyme. It strode firmly toward the street, dragging Kerickson along by the collar like a puppy that hadn’t quite learned to heel.

  Something crashed high over their heads, then rumbled like thunder. Kerickson dug his heels into the ground and shaded his eyes, looking up into the cloudless sky. A jagged streak of lightning flashed to his right. The world exploded. He slammed into the ground, his head ringing as though someone had used it for a drum. A few feet away the robot was a stinking slag heap of melted plas and durallinium.

  The remaining robot blinked calmly at the mess as it assessed the situation, then hauled Kerickson back on his feet.

  “STOP!” a resounding female voice cried, so loud that Kerickson clamped his hands to his ears. “THIS MISERABLE EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN IS MINE AND MINE ALONE TO TOY WITH!”

  Kerickson blinked as a face the size of a city block formed in the blue sky and smiled down at him with a mouth full of white teeth as tall as a house. He had woken up to that face every day for five years before its owner had left him, first to play Demea in the Game—and now, through some bizarre set of circumstances that he didn’t comprehend, Proserpina. Suddenly the significance of the warming weather came to him—someone had gotten into Climate Control and reset the weather to summer, thereby loosing the Queen of Hell.

  * * *

  Amaelia paced up and down before the suite’s embossed bronze doors, peeking out every few minutes, but the two guards stood there as solidly as if they had grown up through the floor. She nibbled on one knuckle, trying to formulate a plan—any plan—that would get her out of this mess. So far, nothing short of murder had come to mind—and although the idea shocked her, she hadn’t ruled out that option yet.

  The door swung inward with a mighty creak and the red-crested helmet of a Praetorian Guard thrust through. “Amaelia, daughter of Micio Metullus, you are to come with me.”

  Her heart thumping, she bolted toward the adjacent dressing room, meaning to lock him out, but in two strides his hand clamped over her shoulder. “Your lord husband awaits you.”

  Well, she told herself, padding along at his side in her bare feet, at least he wasn’t sending her to the arena—at least not yet.

  Quintus Gracchus was waiting for her in the office of the Praetorian Guard. He looked up as she entered, his face stern and forbidding. “Oh, there you are.” He scowled. “I ordered you to change.”

  “Sorry.” She tried to pull out of the guard’s grip, but failed. “I didn’t know what proper Romans are wearing these days to spill their guts in the arena.”

  “Well, there’s no time to bother with it now.” He picked up his crested helmet and set it on his head. “We’re due at the Senate House so that I can be declared Emperor.”

&n
bsp; “Then you got your points back?”

  “Points?” his voice boomed as he led her through the Palace gardens. “Did the great Augustus need points to take control of the Empire, or the divine Julius?” Drawing his sword, he swung it in the air over his head. “Might is all that really matters. I’ll take the solid strength of a man’s sword arm over points any day!”

  “Oh,” She stared at his moving back. Obviously, he’d gone over the edge. She’d heard of that happening to players from time to time.

  Legionaries fell in behind them, their armor jingling as they marched in precise rows. An uneasy, perspiring crowd had gathered at the foot of the steps. They peeled off their woolen cloaks and fanned their flushed faces, muttering about the unseasonable weather.

  A trickle of perspiration ran down her neck and lost itself in the fabric of her gown. It was quite warm—in fact, positively hot. She glanced up at the sun’s yellow disk and thought it seemed much more directly overhead than it should be at this time of year.

  A sword hilt prodded the middle of her back. “Hurry up! Quintus Gracchus is due to address the Senate in three minutes.”

  Blotting her forehead on the back of a sleeve, she hitched up her skirt and followed Gracchus up the marble steps of the Senate House. At the top, a row of senators waited in their traditional purple-bordered togas, their heads held high, each face grim and disapproving.

  As Gracchus topped the steps, the first senator, a wizened, balding man with the bearing of an eagle, stepped into his path. “Game rules forbid us hearing your claim today, Gracchus. Your name no longer appears on the Totals Board, so we have proclaimed Oppius Junius Catulus as Emperor.”

  Gracchus stared down at him with heavy-lidded eyes, every inch the seasoned soldier. “From now on, old man, I make the rules!” He shoved the senator aside as though he weighed nothing. A startled mutter went up from the remaining senators and they retreated under the portico.

  Amaelia had stopped in astonishment, but the guard hustled her up the remaining steps. Gracchus took her wrist when she reached the top and jerked her to his side.