Gates of Rome tr-5

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Here! It’s this one!’ shouted Sal suddenly. ‘This one!!’

  She stepped towards the drape, pulled it aside to reveal the concealed passageway. They stepped in just as some more voices challenged them from further up the main hallway.

  ‘IN! IN! IN!’ screamed Rashim.

  They stepped through the opened oak doors into the darkness inside. Bob placed Liam down on the floor, retrieved the locking bar from outside and brought it in. Then he quickly pushed the heavy doors to. He slid the locking bar across both sets of looped handles on the inside. The doors were secure for the moment.

  A candle still flickered beside Rashim’s opened cage and by its light they saw the Stone Men, standing where they’d been left, calmly watching the commotion going on around them.

  Rashim shuffled over to the nearest of them, out of breath and struggling to keep on his bow legs and arched feet. Sal hurried over and held an arm before he collapsed.

  ‘Thank you…’ he whispered. He turned to the Stone Man in front of him.

  ‘You are… you are in full diagnostic m-mode? Yes?’

  ‘Affirmative. All systems are nominal.’

  Cato whispered to Macro in the dark. ‘I’ve only ever heard their leader talk,’ he said. ‘And only on one occasion.’

  ‘They sound like devils,’ Macro growled suspiciously.

  ‘I… I wish to talk to you.’ Rashim’s voice seemed to have settled. A lower, calmer timbre; a less manic delivery. ‘What is your current… mission status?’

  ‘I have no stated mission.’

  ‘That’s very good. And tell me, who was your last authorized user?’

  ‘Temporary-User Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Also known as Caligula.’

  ‘Your… your last registered user is no longer authorized to issue you commands. Is… is that understood?’

  The clone nodded. ‘You will need to provide me with a system password before I accept that as a command protocol.’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’ Rashim frowned for a moment. Long enough that Maddy felt her heart sink. He’s forgotten. Perhaps not surprising given that his hacking of these support units happened so many years ago.

  ‘Ahh… yes!’ Rashim slapped his head several times. ‘… I… I have it. I have it!’

  ‘Please state your password,’ the Stone Man calmly repeated.

  ‘The pass… the password is Patrick Starfish?’

  The Stone Man’s eyes glinted by candlelight as his head slowly swivelled down to regard Rashim. ‘Your password is correct and accepted.’

  ‘I am your user now,’ muttered Rashim.

  The clone nodded. ‘That is correct.’

  ‘And these people are my… friends. Protect them.’

  It looked up from Rashim at the others, a smooth, cool sweep of machine-like eyes. ‘Affirmative.’

  Rashim giggled. Pleased with himself. ‘Transmit your updated status and accepted password to your friend… over there.’ It nodded and began blinking rapidly. A moment later, the other Stone Man stirred to life and swept the chamber with its gaze.

  Rashim turned to look at the others and spread a gummy smile. ‘Our friends now. Yes indeed.’

  The oak doors suddenly rattled under the impact of something outside; the locking bar jumped as a vertical thread of light from outside appeared momentarily between them.

  ‘They’ve found us,’ said Bob.

  Maddy looked at him then the others. ‘Well, that’s just fantastic

  … now we really are trapped!’

  CHAPTER 75

  AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

  ‘NO!’ shouted Rashim. He pointed to the ground. Dropped down to his knees and spread his fingers on the floor, caressing the stone almost tenderly. ‘Below… I hear it whisper… every night! My ocean… in my world!’

  Cato looked at Maddy. ‘What is that mad fool saying now?’

  She shook her head. He was talking in English. Gibberish. Might as well have been in Mongolian.

  Rashim rolled his eyes with frustration. ‘Water, you fools! Dripping water!’ And again in Latin for Cato and Macro’s benefit.

  ‘Of course!’ Cato dropped down to his knees. ‘Running water!’ He looked up. ‘A network of sewers beneath the palace! Somewhere beneath this floor… we just need to dig — ’

  ‘Dig?’ Macro shrugged. ‘With what?’

  The oak doors boomed and rattled again, more insistently this time. ‘They are using a battering ram,’ said Bob. ‘These doors will not last for long.’

  Cato pulled his gladius from its sheath and dug the tip of the blade into the hairline seam between the stone tiles. With a soft crack, the clay cementing the tile gave up its hold and the tile dislodged with a puff of dust and grit. ‘Come on, Macro! Help me!’

  Macro produced his sword, knelt down and did likewise, both of them gouging at the floor frantically.

  ‘Help them!’ said Rashim, pointing. ‘Dig… dig us a hole!’

  Both Stone Men chorused an ‘affirmative’, produced their own blades and joined in hacking into the tiles.

  The doors boomed again, accompanied by the sound of cracking wood. Bob braced his back against the doors, supporting the locking bar with his own substantial weight. ‘We will not have long,’ he cautioned.

  Maddy looked at Liam. ‘How are you doing?’

  He grinned. ‘Not so bad. Getting used to the sting now.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she whispered and smiled. ‘We’re getting out of here, you know.’

  Cato dug frantically at the dried clay floor beneath the dislodged tiles, his sword gouging out fist-sized chunks, rust-red and crumbly. The four of them quickly had a crater three foot across and several uneven inches deep. He cursed under his breath. ‘How deep do we have to dig?’

  ‘Water… down there!’ hissed Rashim. ‘Beneath our feet, yes? I hear it every night!’

  Sal picked up a candle and headed towards the piles of dusty equipment.

  ‘Where you going, Sal?’ called out Maddy.

  She pointed at the piles of artefacts on the floor. ‘Maybe there’s something we can use from over there?’

  ‘Sure, uh… OK, go look.’

  The chamber filled again with the sound of a deep boom and the crack of surrendering oak; hairline fissures of light stretched up and down each door.

  ‘You must dig faster,’ suggested Bob.

  Cato peered down at the rust-coloured clay. His sword tip was hitting and sparking on stone again. Another layer. By the flickering candle nearby he could see little. Desperately he scrabbled with his fingers, feeling for another seam to wedge the tip of his blade into.

  Sal squatted down next to the pile of things. Her hands pulled at the threads and edges of half-seen things: clothes, shoes, glasses, boots… a child’s toy, the dark and cracked touch-screen of a long-dead holo-data pad. But nothing remotely useful.

  Come on… come on!

  The cavernous chamber boomed again.

  She thrust her hand deeper into the piles of things, fumbling, patting, pulling, feeling for something that might help them. Her index finger caught in something and wrenched painfully as she struggled to twist her finger free.

  It scraped out of something. A hole. She pulled clothes and boots aside until she found herself staring at a small iron grille in the floor. She could hear it, coming up through the grille, the unmistakable soft trickle of water.

  That’s what Rashim had heard. That’s where the noise had been coming from!

  ‘Over here!’ she cried. ‘Over here! There’s a grille!’

  The men looked up from their digging, a moment’s hesitation — no more. Not a clue between them as to what she was saying. She wished she had one of those buds. ‘Shadd-yah, Maddy! Tell them! There’s like a sewage grating or something! Right here!’

  Maddy did, and both Romans were out of their shallow crater and beside her moments later.

  Once again Cato used the tip of his sword and levered the iron grille out
of the floor. Macro helped him, grunting as, between them, they slid it to one side.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Cato, leaning over the small hole and peering down into the darkness. The faintest reflection of candlelight glinted back at him. The foul smell of rancid effluent was overpowering.

  ‘Oh, that’s it all right,’ said Macro, curling his lips in disgust.

  The doors boomed again and this time a strip of oak from the left-hand door clattered on to the tiled floor.

  Cato picked out the shape of Maddy near the doors, a comforting arm around Liam. ‘You! You two, come here!’

  Maddy helped Liam to his feet and they both came over.

  ‘This sewage aqueduct, you have to follow the direction of the flow!’ said Cato. ‘It leads to the river.’

  She nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘You should go now.’ He glanced at the doors. ‘They’ll be through soon enough.’

  Maddy nodded. She turned to Sal. ‘Can you help Rashim down?’

  ‘Right.’

  Sal lowered herself down through the hole in the floor. ‘I can’t feel the bottom. I think it’s a drop.’

  Maddy peered through a gap to the side of her, until she caught the flicker of reflected candlelight. ‘I don’t think it’s far.’

  ‘Here goes, then.’ Sal lowered herself down until her arms were fully extended then let go. Maddy heard the echo of a viscous, muddy splut.

  ‘It’s OK, not far.’ Her voice reverberated as if it was at the far end of an underpass. ‘Ughh! But it’s total chuddah!’

  Maddy grabbed Rashim’s hand. ‘You next.’

  Another deafening boom and more fragments of splintered wood clattered to the floor. Thick shafts of light speared into the darkness, and she could see the glint of helmets through the fractured doors.

  Liam pulled himself painfully up to a seated position.

  ‘Liam? You OK to…?’

  ‘I’m fine, Mads… I’m OK. I can get myself down.’

  ‘Your friend… then you, Maddy and your Stone Man,’ said Cato. ‘But hurry!’

  ‘What about you?’

  Cato glanced at Macro. Macro returned a subtle nod. An unspoken understanding between the pair of them. ‘We need to cover over the sewage trap. And perhaps we can buy you some time.’

  She looked from one to the other. ‘They’ll kill you!’

  ‘Of course they will,’ Cato smiled. ‘But then, as you said, you can make it so this never happened? Am I correct?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Then you should go. Now. Give us both a better end than this one.’

  Rashim was down. Liam eased himself into the hole, groaning with pain as his arms worked and his torso flexed.

  Boom. The cavernous room echoed with Bob’s deep, angry roar as he thrust his sword through the jagged hole in the left-hand door and there was a yelp of agony from outside.

  They heard the echo of a muddy splat and Liam’s voice groaning at the impact.

  ‘Bob!’ cried Maddy. ‘We’re leaving! Get here now!’

  ‘I must remain by these doors!’

  Cato stood up and approached the Stone Men. ‘Will you two take my orders?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ they both replied. ‘You are to be protected.’

  ‘Then kill anyone who comes through.’

  Both clones drew swords from their sheaths and crossed the floor to stand in front of the shuddering, flexing oak doors.

  Bob nodded at them as he passed by. ‘Good luck,’ he offered. They paused to look at each other briefly, both clones bemused by such an oddly human gesture of compassion from another support unit. Then they took up their positions before the fragmenting remains of the oak doors, legs apart, a two-handed grip on their swords, braced to kill.

  ‘Go!’ said Maddy, slapping Bob on the shoulder as he squatted down beside her.

  ‘You first, Madelaine. I will guard the rear.’

  Cato seemed to understand Bob’s intent. ‘He is right. Let him be the rearguard.’

  She was about to drop down through the hole, but hesitated. She leaned over and kissed Cato on the cheek. ‘I’ll make things right… I promise you that!’ Then she grasped Macro’s forearm. ‘I’ll make it right.’

  ‘Go!’ said Macro. He grinned. ‘Go on… don’t worry, we’ve been in tighter spots than this.’

  She lowered herself down into the sewer and landed with a splat. Bob quickly followed her down, squeezing, barely, through the hole in the floor.

  Both Cato and Macro reached for the iron grating and eased it back into place as a final crash against the doors sent them juddering open. The clones stepped forward together into the light of flickering torches and braziers and engaged the Praetorians stepping across the splinters of wood and twisted iron bracing.

  Cato picked up his sword as Macro pulled the rotting and dusty artefacts across to cover the manhole.

  ‘Is that the truth, Cato? They can change this?’

  He bent down and picked up a shield from the floor. ‘Perhaps.’

  Macro pursed his lips as he gave that a moment’s consideration and finally nodded. ‘Good enough for me.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Macro.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You never overthink things.’

  Macro laughed. The two clones were doing a lethal job so far, holding the doorway and filling it with a growing pile of squirming bodies.

  ‘I hope our other fate sees us both as old men,’ Cato grinned. ‘Old and rich. How does that sound?’

  Macro flexed his arms, sword in one, shield in the other. ‘I always figured we’d go out like this, you and me.’

  Cato smiled at his old friend. ‘Ever the optimist. Shall we?’

  He shrugged. ‘No point standing here gossiping like a pair of old fishwives.’

  CHAPTER 76

  AD 54, outside Rome

  They emerged into the night. No shining light at the end of the tunnel, just the darkness of full night, the stars and moon lost behind clouds and a pall of smoke from the many fires across the city.

  They took several steps down a delta of silt and sewage into the cool water of the River Tiber to wash the muck off. Rashim shuffled over, savoured the cool tickle of water on his skin, cupped it in his hands and drank and drank.

  ‘Eww… I wouldn’t drink from here,’ whispered Maddy, watching him.

  ‘Liam? You OK?’ asked Sal.

  He was holding his side, wincing with pain. ‘I’ll hold together… I think.’

  Maddy washed her hands clean and waded over to him. She pulled her glasses out from beneath her tunic. The arms were bent. She fiddled with them for a moment then put them on crookedly. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  ‘You won’t be able to see a thing in this light,’ replied Liam.

  She reached out to his side. ‘Is it bleeding?’

  ‘It’s OK, I think.’ He touched the tight binding Macro had fastened round him. ‘It’s dry.’ It burned painfully — literally burned — but it seemed his exertions hadn’t opened the wound.

  ‘Macro did a good job,’ said Liam. He looked up at her, an expression on his face that told her what she already knew. He’d grown rather fond of the ex-soldier.

  Maddy nodded. Me too. Between gasps back in the tunnel she’d explained that the pair of them had decided to stay behind and cover their escape.

  ‘We owe them,’ she said sombrely. She looked around at the city, dotted with the flickering light of fires. ‘We’ll fix this for them. I promised them that.’

  ‘Aye. Then we’ll make sure we do it.’

  ‘No time for this!’ said Rashim. ‘No time! We must leave Rome now! Aye, skippa! Yes, indeed!’

  Sal nodded. ‘I’d really like to leave now.’

  Maddy looked up and down the river. To their right a bridge running across stone arched supports. To their left, further along, a rickety-looking bridge made from wood.

  ‘Which bridge?’

&nb
sp; ‘Neither,’ said Rashim. ‘We follow… see?’ He pointed along the bank of silt to their left. ‘Takes us round the bottom of the city, then we go…’ He frowned as he thought, tapped his temple with his knuckles as if to shake loose a memory.

  ‘Are you sure you know where this portal’s opening?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!!.. We go north-east from Rome… for some hours.’

  ‘Can you be more precise than that?’

  Rashim tapped away at his scabby temple. ‘In here… all in my head! Let me… let me get it out!’

  ‘Information.’ Bob lifted his head. ‘If we are within several miles of the correct location, I may be able to detect tachyon particles.’

  ‘As it opens… yes,’ said Maddy, ‘but if it opens for just a couple of minutes and we’re a mile or two away, we’ll miss it!’ She turned to Rashim. ‘We need the precise location. We need to be in exactly the right place!’

  ‘So long ago…’ Rashim muttered. He closed his eyes. ‘I… I remember coming along a road into the east of Rome.’

  Bob’s eyelids flickered, accessing his database. ‘The Via Praenestina?’

  ‘Yes! Long road! A big archway! A… a market!’

  ‘Go back. Remember it backwards,’ said Maddy. ‘Before entering Rome…?’

  ‘Can we go now?’ said Sal, looking back at the sewage outlet they’d emerged from. ‘Can he remember and walk at the same time?’

  Maddy followed Sal’s gaze. If Caligula’s soldiers had figured out they’d escaped through the sewage outlet, it surely wasn’t going to be long before they saw the faint flicker of torches emerging.

  ‘She’s right. Let’s get going.’

  CHAPTER 77

  AD 54, outside Rome

  Dawn saw them on a dusty track flanked by rolling fields of parched soil and withered wheat stalks on one side and an orchard of fig trees on the other. Rashim’s weak bow legs had long ago failed him and now he was fast asleep on Bob’s broad shoulders.

  Sal walked beside him in thoughtful silence, occasionally sharing a word or two with Bob, but mostly lost in her own thoughts.