New Pompeii

by Daniel Godfrey

  Nick turned towards Maggie, interested to see her reaction. Sure enough, she looked disgusted. If they’d been watching a melodrama or tragedy, she could just have sat there as if watching an opera without needing to understand the details. But it was all too clear what was happening down on the stage – and Maggie was trying her best to protect her son from it. It didn’t take long for Astridge to lean in close. “We’re going when there’s an interval.”

  “Fine,” said Nick, concentrating on the actors. To one side, a man dressed as a god tiptoed into view. Probably waiting to intervene in a helpful manner. “I’m happy to wait for the deus ex machina.”

  28

  KIRSTEN WOKE AND felt herself slipping down. The water lapped over her face, and bubbles streamed upwards towards an indistinct light.

  She should have been used to it, but this time was different. It felt like she was drowning. She was under the water and slipping fast. Instinctively she shot out a hand, groping for the side of the bath. She found nothing but water and air.

  Because she was falling. Not drowning. Falling. It took a couple more seconds for her brain to register the new sensation. But her stomach screamed a clear message that gravity was pulling her down. Far too fast to be sinking through water.

  She was falling through air.

  Kirsten screamed. She felt a jarring pain. Starting in her left ankle, then tearing into her calf and thigh. She screamed again as the pain reached her hips and back. Her head lashed backwards and her skull smacked down. She heard herself cry out as the breath was forced from her lungs.

  She sucked in air. Tried to sense if anything was broken. It didn’t feel like it. Although rattled, she seemed to be in one piece. She was lying in sand, in what looked like a circular pit. Above her, light swirled and twisted. It took a while to realise that more people were falling into the sand around her. Men. Women. Children. All wearing the same expressions of terror as they plummeted through the air.

  Kirsten stared around the pit. It was huge, its stone walls lost in darkness except where spotlights shone down, nearly blinding her, but it was open to the sky; she could see stars above her. It certainly didn’t look like any part of the college grounds. No, she was a long way from Cambridge. And she was visible. The other people in the pit could see her. She was real. No longer the body in the bath.

  She gasped. A man was crawling towards her. He was dragging his legs behind him. They looked broken, probably from the landing. He was wearing a bright shirt and shorts, clothes that wouldn’t have been out of place on a beach. She looked around. Many of the other people were also wearing summer outfits.

  Kirsten started to get to her feet. Others were already standing. They waved at her, grinning. The expressions of confusion and terror on their faces had been replaced by a growing sense of relief.

  The spotlights dimmed. Kirsten blinked. Although difficult to see, there were clearly people circling them. They were dressed in black, and some were carrying long sticks. Prowling around the edges of the pit. Like a pack of lions hunting antelope.

  Fuck.

  They weren’t sticks.

  Kirsten started to scrabble away, heading for the wall.

  They’ve got swords.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  The words echoed out of the darkness. A man stepped forward. He held a large, angular handgun and was pointing it directly at her. His stern expression turned to one of adolescent amusement. He’d noticed she was naked. “What? Looking to join the mile-high club, were you?”

  Kirsten took a few steps backwards. The man leered, his gun still raised. His eyes flicked between her breasts and crotch.

  “You think you can get away from me, bitch?”

  Behind her, a shot rang out. The other men with rifles were holding back. But the men carrying swords were moving in. Each wore a metallic mask, twisted into an expression of fury.

  Kirsten turned back to the man. He waved his gun at her. The message was simple. She wasn’t going to be allowed to get away. He was going to keep her in the killing zone so the men with swords could have their fun. So he wasn’t the primary source of danger. She turned to see a woman standing in the centre of the pit – the arena – long blonde hair halfway down her back. She was gazing upwards, her arms open, screaming for help even as the swords closed in. Other people were starting to run.

  She looked frantically from left to right. She froze. In the shadow of the wall stood McMahon. He wasn’t looking at her. He watched the action with no emotion, and certainly no empathy. Mark Whelan stood close by, his brow furrowed.

  She was already dead.

  “Trying to work it out, bitch? Wondering when you’re going to wake up?”

  Kirsten snapped her attention back to the man. Back to the gun. The student had told her she’d already been murdered. All that was needed was for the trigger to be pulled. And there it was. Right in front of her. Her days of wandering the college were finally over.

  But the man didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry. He looked around, and relaxed the grip on his weapon. “How about you give me a show?” He waved his gun. Grinned. “Spread ’em.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  For the first time in a long time, Kirsten recognised her own voice. And she didn’t regret her choice of words. If this prick was going to kill her, then he could just do it. Because there was only one way out of this.

  She charged forward. Tried to ignore the dizziness ringing around her skull, and focused instead on making a last ditch dive to the right.

  The man just laughed and jerked his gun up so that it pointed directly at Kirsten’s head. “I’m going to kill you, bitch!”

  Kirsten didn’t wince. Didn’t even close her eyes. She heard the hammer pull back, and the crack of the shot. She felt the bullet hitting her forehead. Tingling as it passed through and out the back of her head.

  She didn’t know if the man fired a second time. The white haze had already started to surround her. Moving across her vision and taking her away.

  Like a stone, skipping across a pond.

  Maybe she hadn’t stopped bouncing yet.

  29

  HE’D ONLY JUST drifted off to sleep when the first wagon rumbled past. It came as a soft approach of thunder that only just faded before the next one came. The pattern continued until the first rays of light pierced into his room. Groaning, Nick levered himself up and pulled on his tunic.

  A tablet computer sat on the cabinet beside his bed. On arriving back from the theatre, he’d viewed it with some irritation and left it switched off. However, after an uncomfortable night on his Roman bunk, it now seemed easier to accept its intrusion. He reached for the device, and waited for the screen to load.

  What he found was limited. Most of the icons – internet, email and settings – were ghosted out. How long that would remain the case, would likely be down to Whelan. However, he’d at least been provided with a direct link to Samson’s notes.

  The bastard had written everything in Latin. Nick frowned. This wasn’t going to allow him an easy view into the professor’s thinking. He’d need to translate it line by line. But that wasn’t the most irritating aspect. Instead of using modern words where no Latin equivalent existed, Samson had taken the convoluted approach of describing anything invented after the fall of Rome. Simple words – computer, telephone, aspirin – became entire sentences of Latin. Extract of willow bark distilled and pressed into disks, ingested for the relief of pain. It was going to be very hard work.

  He first tried to make sense of the index. It looked as if Samson had focused on two main areas, starting prior to the creation of New Pompeii with what might happen to the timeline if they carried on with the project. Nick read a few paragraphs but quickly realised Samson had been working at a very theoretical level. And none of it was very interesting. After all, the population of Pompeii had been transported. What was done was done, and there was no going back.

  The second thread was more intere
sting. Just like Whelan had said, NovusPart had transported an initial batch of Pompeians and Samson had spent a long time interviewing them before transporting the rest of the town. One name stood out from among the others: Felix. The man he’d met at the control villa.

  Nick read a few of the entries, and then felt his stomach start to grumble. It would take him a long time to get through, and was probably a task best left for the evening. After all, there was now an entire town to interview. Putting the tablet back on his bed, he wandered into the atrium in search of breakfast.

  Just like the day before, he appeared to be the only one up. The front door was shut, the house secure from intruders. Nick stood for a moment, letting the patter of the atrium’s fountain soothe away his tiredness, before he made his way through to the tablinum.

  The House of McMahon’s main room of business wasn’t as grand as the atrium but it did have the benefit of a large map of New Pompeii painted on to one of its walls. The details were scant – an illustration of roads and main buildings rather than a detailed, modern town plan – but after two days of exploring, every feature on it now seemed very real.

  The surrounding countryside was also sparse, showing only the location of the main agricultural villas and a few tracks. A large residential villa sat on the town’s northern approach. Nick thought back to the journey from the control villa, but couldn’t remember such a structure. Perhaps McMahon was planning a summer retreat to complement his townhouse?

  Whatever the answer, the hinterland surrounding New Pompeii was clearly a work in progress. Given that McMahon received Pompeians in this room, he wasn’t going to reveal too much. The control villa looked like all the others – isolated maybe – and screened by the surrounding hills. But the map showed no indication of its helipad or real function.

  “Where do you intend to go today?”

  Nick turned quickly. Patrick was standing behind him.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Heading back to the forum?”

  “Maybe.” Nick paused, uncertain. There was clearly something else playing on the translator’s mind.

  “Look,” said Patrick, finally. “It appears I was wrong. Whelan told me you’re not here to do any translation work.”

  Nick offered a conciliatory smile, thinking about the awkwardness he still felt towards the spoken form of Latin used here. “I think that comes as a relief to both of us.”

  “I’ll have to find time to give you a proper tour,” Patrick continued. “Probably in a couple of days, once I’ve got Whelan and Astridge set. You know: the temples, gladiator barracks, amphitheatre. You name it.”

  Nick nodded. In a couple of days, he’d probably have seen everything anyway. But the offer seemed genuine. “Thank you. They say you don’t understand Romans until you’ve been to the baths…?”

  * * *

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  Nick ambled to a halt. He’d only just left the House of McMahon, and was heading south towards the forum. Although this was one of the town’s wider streets, there wasn’t much room to pass the man now standing in front of him. Sure enough, as he stepped to one side, his path was blocked.

  It was the same man who’d been watching him and Patrick in the forum. There was determination in his eyes. And they were locked directly on him. Like he was a target.

  “Hi,” Nick said. He gave a friendly smile, but it wasn’t returned. He shifted his gaze skywards, moving his left hand to the buckle of his belt. But he didn’t call for help. Not yet, anyway. “Looks like another nice day?”

  The man didn’t follow his glance. “You will come with me. My master – Manius Calpurnius Barbatus, the duumvir of Pompeii – wants to see you.”

  The man spoke without moving his lips, his mouth slightly parted to reveal broken teeth. It took Nick a few moments to work out but, when he did, it only added to his discomfort. The man’s lips were missing. It looked like they’d been cut off.

  “Okay,” replied Nick, trying to repress a shudder. He dropped his hand from his belt. This was clearly a slave. A fact about New Pompeii he suddenly realised he’d been trying to ignore. Because as well as transporting Roman citizens, NovusPart would have also rescued slaves. And slavery, something that was utterly abhorrent in the modern world, was never going to be extinguished in their attempt to recreate Pompeii. “I’d be happy to see him.”

  They walked in silence for ten minutes, heading into the north-east quadrant of the town. Straight into one of the zones which hadn’t been excavated in the original Pompeii. Which meant he was walking into an area built entirely from the imagination of Robert Astridge.

  Their destination was a building that looked much like the House of McMahon. Whereas the townsfolk gave the NovusPart base a wide berth, this one seemed to be a centre of activity. A long queue snaked out of its doorway, but Nick wasn’t taken to join the end of it. His escort took him straight inside and along the atrium corridor.

  At the threshold to the house proper, a porter was stationed inside a cubicle, his feet poking out, and acting as a rudimentary gate. The slave stepped around them and waved Nick past. A small, scrappy dog yapped to announce their arrival, and Nick couldn’t help but flinch at the animal’s sudden appearance. He heard a few people at the head of the queue mutter in tones of amusement and frustration. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to pick out individual comments. Not that they’d be very complimentary. After all, he’d just jumped ahead of them, and there was no telling how long they’d been waiting.

  “Stay here.”

  The slave headed towards the tablinum, its entrance hidden by a blank wooden screen. Nick turned back towards the doorway. He was being closely watched by the porter, and remembering his first night at the House of McMahon, he quickly removed his sandals. This done, he surveyed the rest of the atrium. Just like at the House of McMahon, the roof opened at its centre directly above a shallow pool. However, the area was clearly being refitted. There was the smell of wet plaster and paint, and decorator’s equipment was scattered around. The layout was also subtly different; while McMahon’s mansion was long and thin, this one was notably wider, allowing for what looked like a second atrium off to the right. Whoever owned this property had clearly acquired the building next door, and was knocking the two properties through to make an even larger house. Which only confirmed his view that the transformation of New Pompeii was well under way.

  A man walked towards him from the tablinum followed by the slave. This must be Manius Calpurnius Barbatus, the duumvir.

  “Cato? This is the man from the northern gatehouse?”

  The slave nodded. Barbatus gave Nick a cursory glance. Even when compared with the rest of the Pompeians, the duumvir was short. But he was stocky, his rounded shoulders giving him a look similar to that of a bulldog. And he also had something else which most of the population didn’t yet possess: age. This was a man clearly in his fifties or early sixties, his skin wrinkled and flecked like an old oil painting.

  Nick smiled cautiously. Barbatus, however, was already heading back to the tablinum. Nick followed. The duumvir’s main room of business was nothing like McMahon’s; it had been embellished with painted columns framing scenes from Greek myth. Without thinking, Nick ambled to a halt. The decoration created the illusion of both grandeur and space; and all in the deep red and black of classical Pompeii.

  The duumvir hadn’t stopped, but had carried on through the tablinum into the traditionally more private space of the garden beyond. Nick glanced behind him before continuing. If the people in the hallway hadn’t liked him jumping the queue, then they’d be mad as hell if he was seen in the relative privacy of the peristylium. Fortunately, the wooden screen meant they wouldn’t see the further snub.

  And as it was, the garden was anything but private. Just like the house, it was more of a building site than a finished home. The wall through to the next-door property had been dismantled, and several columns lay on the ground, presumably ready to be erected in another location. A
deep pit marked the location of a planned pool.

  Barbatus led the way to the back of the property, where a shallow niche had been cut into the rear wall at about chest height. It had two shelves built into it, the upper one housing a painting of three figures and a snake. The lower shelf held an oil lamp, and a few crumbs of bread. The duumvir inclined his head slightly, then reached forward and tossed a crumb into the lamp’s flame. He waited for Nick to do the same.

  “I don’t know why it’s out here,” said Barbatus, nodding at the family shrine. The action emphasised his thinning mop of grey-blond hair. “The idiots renovating the house thought it was a suitable spot. Soon, I’ll have it moved back into the atrium.” He gestured towards the painting of the three figures. “It’s adequate in summer, but I think they’ll be cold in winter.”

  Nick smiled, but kept quiet. He was only just about understanding, struggling with Barbatus’ pronunciation. He’d need to do his best to imitate it. The last thing he needed was to sound like he’d done at the taberna.

  “So tell me,” Barbatus said. “Are you a god, or simply one of their helpers?”

  For a second, Nick’s mind went blank, trying to recall Whelan’s preferred script. “I’ve been brought here to advise,” he said, his Latin still sounding clunky even if the duumvir didn’t noticeably react to it.

  “Interesting. And your name?”

  Nick hesitated. “Decimus Horatius Pullus,” he said, pronouncing each syllable as clearly as he could. Barbatus listened politely, but raised his eyebrows sceptically. Nick suddenly realised that the duumvir – one of the most important elected officials in Pompeii – was not wearing a toga but just a simple off-white tunic. Why?

  “A good Roman name.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Pullus, I’ve heard about your intervention at the northern gatehouse. Thank you for telling your friends to obey the rules set down by the new aediles.”

  “It was nothing.”

  Barbatus issued a deep sigh. Frustration. Disappointment. Maybe somewhere between the two. “Really? Your friends would have just pushed through that gatehouse and ignored our man.”