The Imperium Game

by K. D. Wentworth

  “Hear me, citizens of Rome!” He turned to the shocked senators pouring out of the building. “Having married into the Imperial family, and with the support of the Praetorian Guard, I claim the role of Emperor as my right!”

  “You can’t be Emperor!” A pudgy, middle-aged man pushed his way through the angry senators, his toga arranged in flawless folds. “Oppius Catulus holds the most points now.”

  Releasing Amaelia, Gracchus stalked over to the senator. “Forget points.” He took a handful of the purple-bordered toga. “Forget Catulus, and above all—” He picked the man up and threw him into the crowd of gaping senators as though he were only a bundle of rags. “—forget the Game!”

  The senators collapsed like a row of dominoes. Amaelia edged backward, then felt the coldness of armor.

  “Forget the silliness that has preoccupied this city for far too long.” Gracchus gestured at the bottom of the steps where row upon row of armored, red-cloaked Praetorian Guards stood at readiness, their gleaming swords unsheathed and shields raised. “We are all Romans here, and from now on, we will bloody well act like it! I control this city, and I say we are men, not children, and there will be no more talk of this ridiculous, pathetic game!”

  The pile of fallen senators stirred weakly, their faces bloody and bruised. Gracchus smiled down at the beaten men, then drew his sword and raised it high into the air with both hands. “For Rome!” His face glowed with power and satisfaction. “For the Empire!”

  “For the Emperor!” The Praetorians’ voices were deafening as they beat their swords against their shields. “For Quintus Gnaeus Gracchus!”

  * * *

  “TAKE ANOTHER STEP, DOGFACE, AND YOU’RE GOING TO BE A CHUNK OF VERY DEAD MEAT!” Demea’s face contorted into a mask of rage.

  The robot continued to drag Kerickson back toward the Subura, and he quit fighting it. Wherever it wanted him to go was no doubt safer than an audience with the Queen of Hell.

  He tugged on its arm. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “You are to be commended for your cooperative attitude, citizen,” the robot said. “But there is no need for undue haste.”

  Another lightning bolt sizzled from the sky into the ground, several yards away. The impact knocked both of them head over heels. Kerickson gasped for breath, feeling like he’d just been over a ski jump stomach first. Beside him the robot twitched, then stopped moving, probably short-circuited.

  He rubbed his ringing head. “Look, Alline—just what is it you want from me?”

  “THAT’S ‘PROSERPINA, QUEEN OF THE DARK KINGDOM’ TO YOU, BUSTER!” Lightning flashed again in the cloudless sky. His hair was standing on end, his clothes crawling with static electricity.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He pushed himself back onto his feet and wavered there. “Why don’t you just spit it out?”

  “YOU AND THAT LITTLE TART, AMAELIA, THOUGHT YOU COULD WALTZ OUT OF HADES ANY TIME YOU WANTED.” The overwhelming face in the sky dissolved into misty tatters, then reappeared a few feet away atop a more reasonably-sized body, no more than twice his height. Her black eyes pierced him. “THEN YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO COME BACK UP HERE AND NOT WEAR A BRACELET, WHEN YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I’VE ALWAYS ENJOYED WATCHING YOU BE MISERABLE.”

  “Right . . .” He glanced toward the gate and calculated his chances of making a quick dash for it. Maybe now that both the guards were out of commission, he could exit after all. “Look, I’d love to stay and chat, but—”

  “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SICK I AM OF HEARING THAT SORT OF GARBAGE FROM YOU?” Flinging her hand upward, she adorned herself with a shower of glittering stars. “WAITING DAY AFTER DAY IN THAT GRUBBY LITTLE HABITEK APARTMENT WHILE YOU WORKED IN THE INTERFACE AND THE GAME WENT ON IN ALL ITS GLORY.” She pointed a black-nailed finger at his chest. “WELL, I’M NOT WAITING ANYMORE!”

  He bit his lip as a crackling yellow ball of energy formed in her hand.

  “DEMEA WAITS FOR NO ONE EVER AGAIN!”

  “Don’t you mean Proserpina?” He sidled toward the disguised gate at the far end of the field.

  “SILENCE, FOOL!” The ball of yellow fire danced in her palm. “YOU MIGHT AS WELL FACE IT—YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE IS IN MY HANDS. I CAN SNUFF YOU OUT ANY TIME I LIKE, AND THAT TIME HAS FINALLY COME.”

  The ball snapped and sizzled as it threw off brilliant sparks that landed in the dead grass and burst into flame. Apparently, the time for negotiation was over. He turned and ran as fast as his wobbly legs would take him.

  “STOP, FOOL!”

  A bolt hissed ahead of him. He threw himself to the right, fell, and rolled across the scratchy grass stubble. Blinking hard to clear his vision, he pushed himself up and staggered on.

  Without warning, she was there, towering before him, laughing, her whole body crawling with electricity. It was a good thing Wilson was already dead, Kerickson told himself as he swerved, because after this, he would have had to kill him anyway. Give the gods some real power, indeed!

  Between one rasping breath and the next she vanished, then reappeared in his path again. Too late, he tried to throw himself aside; then he was rolling on the grass, beating at his smoldering tunic.

  She loomed over him. “GIVE IT UP, ARVID.” Another ball crackled into life between her palms.

  He crabbed backward on his elbows and heels, singed and smarting in a dozen places.

  “STOP!” The voice, much higher and sweeter than Demea’s throaty rumble, rang out over the empty field.

  Demea’s black eyes narrowed as she gazed around. “WHO DARES TO INTERFERE WITH MY PLEASURE?”

  “I DO.” A small brown owl appeared in midair, then fluttered to the ground in front of Kerickson. “YOU MARCH IN STRANGE LANDS THESE DAYS, DARK QUEEN.”

  Demea bent down and peered at the owl, a writhing blue storm of electricity obscuring her face. “BUTT OUT, MOUSE-BREATH!”

  “IT IS MY FUNCTION TO SAFEGUARD THE CITY” The owl hopped onto Kerickson’s knee. “AND THIS HERO IS UNDER MY PROTECTION.”

  “HERO?” Demea’s harsh laughter rolled across the field. “HIM?”

  The owl clicked its beak. “YOU MAY NOT HARM HIM.” It jumped off his knee and gave him a meaningful stare with one gray eye.

  He swallowed hard and scrambled back onto his feet.

  Demea’s eyes began to flash. “GO AHEAD, TRY AND PROTECT HIM, FEATHERBRAIN. WE BOTH KNOW WHO’LL COME OUT AHEAD.” She raised her white arms high above her head.

  “RUN, HERO!” The owl flipped its wings and took to the air. “YOU MUST SAVE MY CITY!”

  The metallic smell of ozone filtered through the air as Kerickson ran toward the shack. Close behind him lightning blasted the ground, and the impact sent him flying again. He pushed himself up from the grass and went on, his eyes dim and his brain feeling as though it had been hacked in two.

  “NO!” Demea’s voice was harsh, discordant. “YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME, NOT AGAIN!”

  The shack was agonizingly close now; he could see the nails in the door, the warped, graying boards. The breath rasped in his struggling lungs. Just a few more steps, and then he would be outside. His legs pounded, keeping time with his throbbing head. Three more strides, two more—

  Lightning streaked over his shoulder. For a moment he could see nothing except an explosion of pain behind his eyeballs. His hair tried to run away from his head; his mouth struggled for nonexistent air.

  Then he realized he was lying on his back in the prickly, dead grass, staring up into the deep blue sky. A few feet away orange-yellow flames roared. Acrid black smoke burned his eyes and made him cough.

  The owl landed on his chest. “SHE HAS EXHAUSTED THE POWER AVAILABLE TO HER FOR THE MOMENT.” It cocked its small brown head. “BUT SHE WILL RETURN. YOU WOULD BE WISE TO LEAVE.”

  Sheets of heat played over his face, and a spark burned through his tunic. He sat up hurriedly and beat it out. His head whirled
. In the background he heard the whine of approaching fire drones.

  He staggered onto his feet and wavered there for a moment, staring through smoke-induced tears at the flaming remains of Players’ Gate 3.

  No one was getting out this way for some time to come.

  THE CRIMSON cloaks of Praetorian Guards and Legionaries dotted the muttering crowd like red Christmas berries. Kerickson kept his bare wrist out of sight as he pushed between white-lipped mothers hustling their crying children along by the arm and bewildered couples who clung to each other. No matter what their rank, everyone he passed seemed to be upset: plebes, aristocrats, and slaves alike, even the visiting barbarians. It didn’t make any sense. Saturnalia, with its end-of-the-quarter feast and advance in rankings, was usually one of the happiest times of the whole year in the Imperium.

  “I don’t understand,” a potbellied man said just ahead of him. “General Catulus was all set to win. How can Gracchus possibly be Emperor? He doesn’t have any points.”

  “He can be Emperor if the Praetorians say he is.” His prune-faced companion dabbed at her perspiring brow. “And they do—every six-foot-six man of them.”

  Gracchus had made Emperor after all? Kerickson stared over their heads at the stately white columns of the Imperial Palace. That couldn’t be right; he had erased Gracchus’s ill-gotten points last night. At the moment, Gracchus shouldn’t have enough points to make Imperial dogcatcher.

  “And they said everyone had to have new bracelets,” a gray-haired woman to his left complained. “They said something was wrong with the old ones and made me switch.”

  New bracelets . . . In spite of the heat, the back of Kerickson’s neck went freezer-cold. Evidently Publius Barbus wasn’t waiting around for people to die anymore. He had brought his nasty business up onto the playing field as well.

  Kerickson considered going to one of the two remaining players’ gates, then decided it would be useless. If Gate 3 was being watched by the robot guards, then the other two were sure to be monitored as well; he was not going to get word out to the police that way. But there was one more gate, Number 4, used only by HabiTek staff and the Emperor himself. It suddenly flashed over him: perhaps that was why Gracchus was so desperate to become Emperor—to gain access to that gate.

  He shook his head. It all depended now on whether the computer recognized Gracchus as Emperor. It was one thing to say you were Emperor, quite another to convince the computer when your points had disappeared. In fact, the computer probably recognized Catulus as Emperor at this point—and if so, Catulus would have access to Gate 4.

  If he could find Catulus and convince him of the danger they were all in, maybe the General could get him out—but where to start looking? Catulus had been assigned quarters at the Palace, no doubt because his role required easy access to the War Room. After having been chained to the foot of Catulus’s bed, Kerickson knew he could find his way back, but first he had to sneak through the guards that were bound to be posted.

  An hour later, puffing and sweating, he climbed through the grounds-keeping equipment bay into the main Palace. In spite of the Saturnalia, servants scurried up and down the shadowy hall, their arms laden with fresh towels and steaming platters of roast duck and fresh-baked bread.

  His mouth watered, but he reminded himself that he had more important things to think about. Trying to act as though he belonged there, he slipped out into the hall and joined the traffic.

  He decided to try the War Room first, although Catulus could be almost anywhere in the city. After that, he would try the general’s suite, then resort to asking around—an option which he knew would call attention to him. Still, he told himself as he dodged a troupe of acrobats, what can’t be cured . . .

  He kept his head down and his wrist hidden in his pocket, but few players gave him more than a cursory glance. They were all too busy with preparations for what was evidently to be a huge celebration. When he reached the War Room, he waited until the corridor was momentarily deserted, then peered in; the General sat before a wall of screens, his chin sunk to his chest, his gray hair uncombed, a bruise darkening on one cheek.

  “General Catulus.” He edged through the door.

  “Get out!”

  Kerickson shut the door. “General, I need your help.” Up on one of the monitors, unsupervised video soldiers marched against barbarian hordes.

  Catulus turned around. “Well, if it isn’t the deserter.” He stood and drew a gleaming dagger from the sheath at his waist. “There’s still a little life left in the old boy yet. Come ahead!”

  “General, this isn’t about the Game!” Kerickson eyed the knife warily; it looked real. “Everyone in this city is in danger. We’ve been invaded by drug-runners and crooks. I have to get out and call the police.”

  “Out?” Catulus blinked at him. “Oh, no one’s getting out these days.” He shifted the dagger to the other hand and glided closer, studying Kerickson as though he were measuring him for a suit. “That’s been obvious for some time.”

  “Not through the players’ gates, or the phone lines.” Kerickson backed up until he smacked into the wall, then slid along it, trying to stay out of reach. “But you’re the rightful Emperor. You have access to Gate Four. We can get out that way and call in the authorities.”

  “Me, Emperor?” Suddenly, Catulus flung the knife, which buried itself with a twang in the wall next to Kerickson’s right ear. “Took this off the last slave that tried to kill me.” Catulus jerked the dagger out of the wall and held it up to the light. “I don’t think he was really playing at all.”

  Kerickson swallowed hard as the light gleamed along a familiar ivory handle, the same kind used by both Tithones and Menae, Catulus’s would-be assassin. “Let’s get back to Gate Four.”

  “Gate Four.” Catulus grimaced. “Well, the Senate did declare me Emperor earlier today, but as of the last ten minutes, I’m a goddamned slave!” He held up his wrist so that Kerickson could see the yellow status light shining on his Game bracelet.

  Kerickson stared at it, stunned. A change like that had to have been done. through the computer.

  “So . . .” Catulus dropped back into his chair and propped up his sandals on the bank of controls. “I couldn’t get you into the War Room latrine, much less through Gate Four.”

  Kerickson closed his eyes. Just who in the hell was it down there in the Interface, and why were they going along with this? Surely they didn’t think they could keep this from the HabiTek board forever. And then a cold prickle crept down his back. Was the board in on this, too?

  “There has to be a way!” He slammed his fist back against the wall. “I refuse to give up!”

  “WELL SAID, HERO.”

  The air shimmered in front of his face.

  “THE TIME OF RECKONING IS AT HAND.” The shimmer became a blue glow, and then a small, scruffy brown owl fluttered to the floor.

  “Look, Minerva,” Kerickson said. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment, and since you can’t help, you’re just part of the problem.”

  The owl cocked its head and stared at him with two bright gray eyes. “THINK, FOOL—A GENERAL IS MORE THAN A STATUS LIGHT, JUST AS A PROGRAMMER IS MORE THAN HIS FINGERS AND VOICE.”

  “Such profound wisdom.” Catulus folded his arms under his head and gazed up at the ceiling. “I can’t think why I don’t get to the temples more often.”

  “HUMANS!” The owl clacked its beak in disgust. “MUST YOU HAVE EVERYTHING SPELLED OUT FOR YOU?”

  “Once in a while, it wouldn’t hurt.” Kerickson sat down on the cool floor tiles and stared at the owl. “If you know a way to save your precious city, then spit it out!”

  “MOST OF THE PRAETORIANS ARE ROBOTS, AND THEREFORE FAR BEYOND THE STRENGTH OF HUMANS.” The owl reached a tiny, taloned foot up behind its head and scratched vigorously. “IT IS, HOWEVER, TH
E BUSINESS OF GENERALS TO MAKE LESSER STRENGTH DO MORE.”

  Catulus’s feet thumped to the floor. “Strategy—military strategy!” He prowled over to the electronic map on the opposite wall and punched up the city. Each section glowed a different color—red for the Market District, green for the Subura, brown for entertainment facilities like the Tiber River Adventure and the Circus Maximus. “It isn’t always necessary to be the largest or best-equipped force as long as you have your wits about you.”

  “AND DID YOU LOSE YOURS WHEN THAT LIGHT WENT YELLOW?”

  The General stared down at the bracelet, then ripped it off and bounced it against the wall. “By the gods, I did not!”

  “THEN USE WHAT YOU KNOW TO SAVE MY CITY.” The owl disappeared.

  Catulus turned around, his jaw squared. “This city is mine by rights, and there are a lot of good players who will stand behind me.”

  “What we need is a diversion.” Kerickson followed him to the map. His finger traced a line from Gate 4 inside the Palace out to the Forum. “If you could draw the troops away, I’ll slip through and call the police.”

  “That would never work.” Catulus’s face creased thoughtfully. “Robots being what they are, we’ll never fool them that way. No matter what we do, Gracchus isn’t going to leave a gate unguarded, not even for a second.”

  He was right, of course. Kerickson kneaded his forehead with his fingers, trying to coax his brain into working. There had to be a way to deal with this mess. No matter how bad things had gotten back in the Interface when he and Wilson had worked together, there had always been a solution if they just kept plugging away.

  Too bad he didn’t have Wilson now; the two of them would soon put this mess to rights . . . Then he knew, really knew, all the way down to the tips of his toes, what had to be done. Everything about this mess was an inside job, and the only way to clean it up was the same way—from inside.