New Pompeii

by Daniel Godfrey

  “You’re awake,” he said, simply.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Dr Chappell. I’m here to check on you.” He walked over to the bed and started examining Nick’s injuries. “It’s all healing well enough,” the doctor said, after a few minutes of prodding and manipulation. “It’s probably okay for you to start moving around.”

  Nick tried to keep still as Chappell worked between his legs. He wasn’t particularly gentle. “Is there any sign of infection?”

  “No.” The doctor sounded almost insulted.

  Nick nodded. He heard a familiar cry in the background. “We have a new addition to our family?”

  The doctor looked up. It seemed to take him a while to register the crying baby. “Yes,” he said. “He arrived on the morning of… well, you know. When you were…”

  Nick nodded, shifting on the bed. “So…?”

  “So, what?”

  “So who does it belong to?”

  “His name is Julian. He’s come here as a little brother for Noah.”

  Nick blinked, trying to work out what he’d just been told. “Adopted?”

  “Yes, the same as Noah.”

  Nick didn’t reply, his mind whirring. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  Chappell left. Nick let his head fall back against the pillow. But he didn’t keep it there long. He issued a deep growl and pushed himself to his feet, breathing through the pain, and walked over to the room’s small desk.

  On it were the design manual and maps he’d been given on his first arrival. He took the large town plan and spread it out on the bed, searching until he found the House of McMahon. It had the letters “HoM” inked in its lower left corner. He scanned the other houses and found two more marked with letters. “HoA” and “HoS”. Both were near the House of McMahon. He could only guess what the acronyms meant, but House of Astridge and House of Samson seemed to fit.

  All three were clustered in the same quadrant of town, separated by a couple of blocks. An easy walk. But he was a good five-hour ride away. That plan would have to wait.

  He returned to the desk and fetched the design drawing for the amphitheatre. Next to it were a couple of alien structures, unknown to Pompeii. The first appeared to be made up of several large cages marked simply, CATS. The second, HOLDING ROOM.

  A knock at the door. A NovusPart security guard stood on the threshold. “Whelan wants you.”

  * * *

  The control room was as he remembered it, dominated by video screens. Whelan stood before them. But the screens weren’t showing views of the town. Instead, McMahon and Astridge stared back, the wall of the tablinum of the House of McMahon clear in the background. The group looked like they were already deep in conference.

  “Nick,” said Whelan. “Are you well enough to join us?”

  Nick walked forward. “I’m fine,” he said. On the screen, Astridge didn’t appear too impressed he’d been included in the discussion. McMahon looked pale and clammy. Of course, it could have been the screen playing tricks; the architect’s bald head also appeared slightly too purple.

  “The Temple of Isis has been destroyed,” Whelan said. “We’ve got reports of other damage coming in from all over the town.”

  Whelan had said he’d cut the supply line to hunt for Harris’s spy. That would mean disruption to the food supply. And when the boats stopped arriving from Egypt…

  “A mob?”

  Astridge nodded. “I was out with a couple of the men at the covered theatre. The street seemed to empty – and then there was a surge of people. It all happened really fast…”

  Frustration clearly bubbled under Whelan’s otherwise calm exterior. “I saw something similar when I was out in Tunisia.”

  “Was the trouble just at the Temple of Isis?” asked Nick.

  “No,” replied Astridge. “There was other vandalism…”

  “Vandalism? Where?”

  “Some of the statues in the forum. They’ve been defaced. Literally.”

  “The statues of Augustus and his family?”

  “Yes.”

  Whelan paused, suddenly thoughtful. “The question is: how do we respond?”

  “You need to get the food convoys rolling,” said Nick. No one answered. “You’ll have riots if they think there are going to be shortages,” he continued.

  “Logistics isn’t a tap,” said Whelan. “We can stop things quickly enough, but starting them again takes planning. The food will start arriving again within forty-eight hours.”

  McMahon gave a deep sigh, then coughed. His breathing was heavy. “We should make an example of someone. Crucify a few dozen in the harbour.”

  “Precisely,” said Astridge. “Your smoke and mirrors routine has failed, Mark. Now is the time for action or else we risk losing control of the town.”

  McMahon grew paler. “We can’t lose control of the town,” he said. There was silence. Astridge grinned with satisfaction. But warning bells were ringing in Nick’s brain.

  “Roman citizens were never crucified,” he said. “It could trigger all-out civil unrest.”

  McMahon snorted. “The Roman emperors were brutal.”

  “And most of them ended up murdered.”

  Astridge gave a short, patronising chuckle. “So what do you suggest, Dr Houghton?”

  Nick took a deep breath. “If we can’t give them bread, then let’s at least give them circuses. We need to stick to what we agreed last time: distract them.”

  “We could put on another show at the theatre,” said Astridge.

  “No,” said Nick. “The best way would be to cement our relationship with the existing hierarchy. We need games at the amphitheatre, and we should strike some sort of new leadership deal with Barbatus. Offer him some real power and influence to give him an incentive to rule with us – not just sit on the sidelines, like he’s been doing up till now.”

  Whelan considered this. “That’s your recommendation?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can get the games going very quickly.”

  “Good.”

  “Which means we just need someone to talk to Barbatus to strike this deal, man to man.” Whelan stared back at McMahon and Astridge. “So the question is: which one of us should go?”

  Nick didn’t hesitate. He hadn’t been transported. There was still some purpose to his being there. And from what Whelan had just said, the helicopter would soon be on its way. So the hourglass had been tipped. The sand was falling.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “I know Barbatus. I can speak the language. And I know how these people think.”

  54

  “SO YOU AREN’T employed by NovusPart?”

  “No.”

  “And you have nothing to do with McMahon?”

  “No.” Harris adjusted his spectacles, shifting them higher on his nose. “I know people who work for them, of course. It took me a while to figure out they were ‘landing’ people at their old college – amongst friends – rather than the NovusPart HQ.” He paused. “The distance, I suppose, provides some degree of deniability.”

  Kirsten nodded. They were now in the heart of London, but she didn’t recognise the city she had once called home. There seemed to be a lot more skyscrapers than she remembered. The remaining Victorian buildings trapped between them – including the one they were in now – looked like they were just waiting to be torn down. Harris had led her up to a drab office where they now sat, quite alone.

  Kirsten let out a deep, pent-up breath and looked around the office. It probably wasn’t where Harris normally worked. It was too empty. There was a desk and a couple of office chairs. A leather sofa had been pushed up against the back wall, with only a coffee table for company. A frosted glass wall separated them from the rest of the open-plan floor, which appeared to be deserted.

  “So what are you going to do about it?” She felt a flare of anger when Harris didn’t reply. “Surely kidnap and attempted murder are illegal,” she said. “Even in the fu
ture?”

  “The situation is not at all straightforward,” Harris replied. “And technically we’re in the present, not the future.”

  “But the police…?”

  “Are in McMahon’s pocket.”

  “The government…?”

  Harris didn’t reply, just raised his eyebrows as if to underline her naivety. Kirsten swallowed hard. “So I’m just to go home like a good girl and be grateful?”

  “Not exactly. There are certainly things it would be useful for you to know before you continue your life… and we hope you’ll be able to tell us a little something about how the world once was.”

  Kirsten waited a few seconds, regaining some of her composure. “So how did you find me?”

  Harris allowed a smile to flicker across his lips. “As I said, we’ve got people working at NovusPart… and at your college. The porter who let us slip by at the gate?”

  Kirsten nodded, understanding.

  “Still, it’s interesting,” continued Harris. “You reappeared almost exactly thirty years to the day that the ‘bedder in the bath’ went missing.”

  “Thirty years…”

  “Yes. The boundary of McMahon’s power over the past.”

  Kirsten shrugged. “But why can’t he pluck people from today or yesterday? Surely that’s easier?”

  “No, we understand it’s actually quite the opposite. The further back in time, the longer they have to track the trajectory of the particles. Transporting from a few minutes ago would be like catching a bullet.”

  “But if they could…”

  “Don’t worry,” said Harris, interrupting. “We know NovusPart has tried short-range pulls on animals – lambs, we believe – and failed. Made quite a mess… but at least it made a good moussaka.”

  “How far can they reach back?”

  “The best estimate we have is five thousand years.”

  “All very interesting,” said Kirsten. “But not very useful.”

  “All information is useful.”

  Kirsten didn’t reply immediately. She remembered what Harris had told her. “McMahon must have wanted to kill me from the beginning?”

  Harris smiled again. “Kill you?” he said. “A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  Kirsten frowned. “You said I’d die. You said it was just a matter of pulling the trigger.”

  “I’m not sure I said any such thing.”

  Tap – tap – tap.

  I’m going to kill you, bitch!

  “I don’t understand…”

  “We’ve been looking for evidence that McMahon has been using NovusPart to tamper with the timeline. To remove people for his own advantage. Just like you.”

  “No,” said Kirsten, her eyes losing focus. She saw the pit, and the open mouth of the screaming woman. “I was going to be killed. I saw them. You warned me, and I saw them. I saw them killing the others.”

  Harris’s face hardened. “What do you mean, ‘others’?”

  55

  SHE TRIED TO tell her story calmly, but in the end just blurted it out. A stream of words, punctuated by tears: the hard landing in a circular pit. The man stepping forward from the darkness. The single shot. McMahon leering in the background. I’m going to kill you, bitch.

  Harris listened intently, impassive. “This is new information,” he said, his voice calm.

  “No,” said Kirsten. “You told me—”

  “That you were going to be taken from the timeline.”

  “No,” replied Kirsten. “You told me I was going to die.”

  “My memory is quite clear.”

  “You and Mr Black…”

  “Me and Mr Who?”

  Kirsten slumped back in her seat, unbelieving. “I’m telling you the truth,” she said. “There were about fifty people. They looked like they’d been taken from a plane. On the way back from holiday. The guy with the gun even asked me if I’d been looking to join the mile-high club. And then at the college I saw a newspaper… there was a story about survivors from a plane crash committing suicide, and I recognised one of the photographs. It was a woman. But she didn’t commit suicide. I saw her die in that pit.”

  “NovusPart has only ever admitted to taking one group of people. A plane crash over the Atlantic.” Harris picked a thin slice of plastic from his desk. It lit up and he started to work its surface with his fingers. Kirsten realised it was a new type of computer, one without a keyboard or separate screen. Harris spun it round and showed her some faces. He used his thumb to skip through them. Kirsten gasped. The man with the broken legs and the screaming woman.

  “Yes,” said Kirsten, softly. “These are the people I saw in the pit. They were butchered.”

  “Then you are indeed mistaken,” Harris said. “These people committed suicide.”

  “I saw them die.”

  “And I saw them in the morgue,” he countered. “In a secure government compound.”

  Kirsten leant forward in her seat, suddenly angry. But she was interrupted by a knock at the door and the arrival of another man.

  “Marcus is on the phone,” he said. “He wants to speak with you.”

  56

  FOR THE FIRST hour of their journey back to New Pompeii, all Nick heard was the grinding of gears as the Land Rover made short work of the bumpy road leading away from the villa. He’d expected to have to go by wagon and endure each bump in the road being transferred to his groin. But speed was required, and Whelan had pressed one of the control villa’s horseless carriages into service. It was doing a damn fine job. And a reasonably comfortable one.

  Nick glanced over at the NovusPart COO, but Whelan just stared at the road ahead. He was in his tunic, the wrist-guard back around his forearm. Nick hoped there would be no reason for him to use it.

  “A lesser man wouldn’t go back.” Whelan’s voice was quiet. Nick hadn’t seen the operations chief so uncertain before. “It would have been safer for you to stay at the villa and wait for the helicopter.”

  Nick nodded. “Something tells me I’ll be okay.”

  “Really? What?”

  Nick took a deep breath. He almost didn’t want to say it. Just in case it sounded foolish. “I wasn’t transported from the bathhouse,” he said. “Just like I wasn’t transported from the British Museum.”

  Whelan didn’t respond.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Six people came to kill my son that night,” Whelan said. “But the people pushing buttons in the god-knows-when only took four of them. The other two? A historian with an interest in Ancient Rome, and a general waster.”

  “So why did you bring me here? Why not Ronnie? Or both of us?”

  “We told you the truth at the restaurant, Nick. At the time, we were looking for a replacement for Professor Samson. So when I saw you hadn’t been taken, I asked myself, ‘Why not?’ What were the people in the future trying to tell me? Then I saw your CV. Let’s just say this is the sort of coincidence that doesn’t just happen. It was clear we needed to employ you. The message was received and understood.”

  “So I’m going to do something important,” said Nick. “Something that means I can’t be transported.”

  Whelan laughed and Nick felt his heart momentarily freeze. “You’d think so, right? Maybe you’ve already done it. Maybe identifying Felix was your big contribution to NovusPart.”

  Nick mulled this over. Felt a stab of pain in his groin. “If I’d been on my own in the bathhouse, then not being transported might have been a sign I was no longer important. But you took Patrick. Another clear signal: there’s something left to do.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right, Dr Houghton. Because there are various ways in which you can contribute to history. It might just be that you think of something. A random, off-hand remark that helps someone else find a solution to a problem. Or it might be something less pleasant. Those people pushing the buttons in the future? They’ve already proved they don’t mind your getting hurt. Have you ever heard of d
ying for a cause?”

  * * *

  “You came here alone?”

  Nick nodded, although he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Whelan had sent a couple of guards to accompany him. He’d said they were for his protection but he had sensed they were there to make sure he kept his word. They were nothing but a frustration. He’d intended to head over to Barbatus’ mansion via the House of Samson, but their presence had made that impossible.

  Still, that didn’t mean they had to come with him every step of the way. On the final approach towards the queue snaking out of the duumvir’s door, Nick had told them to wait at a distance. So yes, he was now alone. But help wasn’t far away.

  Barbatus stood at the back of the atrium, surrounded by men wearing heavy armour. They were all carrying swords, likely forged in the workshops on the eastern side of the town. He’d walked straight into a fortress – and it would have been unwise to arrive with an armed escort. He’d made the right call.

  The duumvir looked at him for a long time. “I must admit, I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said.

  “I guess I was lucky.”

  “Well that depends on your point of view.” A few of the men behind Barbatus chuckled. Despite what Whelan had said, they’d clearly heard what had happened at the bathhouse. “So why are you here, Pullus?”

  Nick paused. Whelan had given him strict parameters. He couldn’t promise too much. Couldn’t deliver too little. And the sand in the hourglass was slowly trickling away. “There’s been a lot of disruption in the town. We need it to be brought under control.”

  “We warned you, and you ignored us.”

  Nick thought back to the party. They attack their masters. And they attack monsters – whether they are real or not. “That’s why we’ve come to you now.”

  “And you expect me to do what, exactly? Stand in front of you? Allow the people of this town to associate me with you and let me take a share of their anger?”

  “We were hoping to come to some sort of arrangement.”

  “You mean you were hoping I’d call out the city watch.”

  Nick opened his mouth to speak, but Barbatus waved at him to keep quiet. “So what are you going to offer me?” he asked. “More money? More land?”