Empire of Time

by Daniel Godfrey

  It didn’t matter. Galbo was dead. He’d been trying to ignore the fact, but the dead face of his steward hung before his mind’s eye. Galbo’s constant talk of discipline and duty had often irked Pullus. And yet the man had taken that blade for his master without question.

  Duty, thought Pullus with more than a little bitterness. He’d sacrificed himself out of duty, and a wilful ignorance that they were no longer part of the Empire. At least, not the Roman one. His other, younger slaves may well have understood that, but they were likely already dead anyway. Even if the aedile’s bodyguard had disobeyed his master’s order to kill Pullus for fear of divine retribution – the fact that the aedile himself hadn’t stepped in perhaps meant that he too wasn’t completely sure of Pullus’s power – it probably only meant the bodyguard had been more willing to spill other men’s blood to make amends.

  Pullus got to his feet, feeling a little pain in his back as he rose. He could hear little from the street outside, but the shop was situated down an alleyway, a good distance from the thoroughfare. Perhaps that was why it had closed. But it did make the perfect prison cell. Small. Square. And with one heavy wooden door.

  He was sure there was at least one guard outside. He’d heard the occasional scrape of sandals, the odd snort and spit. Pullus stood close to the door’s panelled shutters and squinted through the narrow slats. The man outside was new, not the bodyguard who’d killed Galbo.

  Were they just going to leave him here? Starve him to death rather than risk killing him outright? Turn him into a shell, like they’d done with Whelan?

  He turned and leant on the door, scanning the shop for any other exit. The rack against the back wall looked unsteady but he ran his eyes up it anyway. He quickly realised there was no point attempting to climb it; the roof was sealed – there was no compluvium to escape through.

  He stooped and picked up a piece of broken pottery from the floor. He’d been wrong before; whoever had been operating this place hadn’t been making new amphorae. This fragment was older than that, bearing an Oscan design. Pullus looked back at the rack. Not a pottery but a wine store, which probably explained the strength of the door, and its position away from the street. He was stuck here until someone came for him. He tossed the Oscan fragment, and heard it scatter away.

  He’d just resigned himself to more hours of waiting when he heard raised voices outside and the sound of approaching footsteps. Pullus peered through the shutters but could see nothing, the light beyond too bright. He hurried back, pressing his back against the wall, as the door began to open.

  Marcus stood silhouetted in the doorway, Habitus at his shoulder. Calpurnia’s bodyguard took a few steps forward, the frumentarius’s eyes scanning the interior of the shop. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. Marcus too was armed.

  “Pullus!”

  For a moment Pullus couldn’t speak, his gaze flitting between his rescuers. “How?”

  Marcus tugged at the buckle of his belt. “Something from NovusPart,” said the boy, amused, and yet also puzzled. “You pull on it and it sends a call for assistance, though I don’t know how. I came back to your house and found you gone and that dead slave, so I called Habitus. It wasn’t hard to figure out where they’d put you; they didn’t have the wit to take you far.” He patted the belt buckle. “I thought you’d know about it?”

  Pullus nodded slowly. “I didn’t think they still worked.”

  “Well lucky for you they do,” Habitus said, cutting in. “Although you might come to wish we hadn’t found you.” The frumentarius stared at him angrily. “When were you going to tell us about the papers?”

  55

  Naples

  NICK STOOD ON Amel’s balcony, watching Vesuvius burn and smoke against the steadily brightening horizon. The start of the new day had transformed the forest of apartment blocks into every shade of peeling pastel paint. Many had vegetable and herb boxes hanging from their windows. Buying fresh food was a luxury for many these days.

  Behind him, Fabio sat slumped in the same sofa upon which Amel had been curled the previous night. The Italian hadn’t said a word to him, not even to pass comment on Nick’s attire – he was wearing Amel’s dressing gown, his own clothes still strewn on her bedroom floor.

  Waldren stood with his back to the front door, cutting off the only route of escape. But Nick wasn’t about to run. “Let’s talk about the NovusPart device,” Waldren said.

  Nick didn’t acknowledge him. The smoke from the summit of Vesuvius appeared to be thickening. “It’s erupted many times, you know,” Nick said, absently. “But people just tend to remember the event that buried Pompeii.”

  “Arlen. McMahon. Whelan. They’re all dead.” Waldren’s voice was cold.

  “Charles Dickens visited during one eruption,” Nick continued. “He described it as ‘the destroyer’.”

  “Those three men were basically the only ones who knew how the device worked… until your Roman friends managed to gain control.”

  Nick blinked. He shook away a memory of Whelan’s screams. “Another eruption in 1944 buried the small village of San Sebastiano,” he said. “It damaged dozens of US Air Force planes too. Remarkable really: to have beaten Hitler and Mussolini, and then be defeated by Vesuvius.”

  Waldren let out an impatient cough. “Is Calpurnia the only one that knows the secret?” He paused. “Answer me, Nick.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Except there’s this little place you don’t know about. It’s called the NovusPart Institute.”

  Nick flinched. He turned to look at Fabio, but the Italian was avoiding his gaze. Fabio hadn’t told him. Waldren didn’t know he’d already been. “NovusPart Institute?” he repeated.

  “Set up by Arlen’s mother,” Waldren explained. “If you want to amuse yourself, you might want to look it up. They offer people a quick deal on the afterlife. More interestingly, they had some of Arlen’s personal data files, his research. A glimpse into Arlen’s mind when he was conceiving his device.”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t see your point.”

  “Anything that can be built, can be rebuilt, Mr Houghton.”

  Nick stared down at Fabio, willing him to meet his gaze, but he continued to stare at the floor. “Arlen’s research isn’t going to be enough.”

  “You’re right. The Brits may have foolishly dismantled the NovusPart headquarters, but they didn’t touch the R&D labs. The prototypes.”

  Now Fabio did look up at him. The Italian’s face was grey, his expression one of regret. “If you have a prototype,” asked Nick, “then what do you need me for?”

  Waldren didn’t answer, and Nick started to chuckle. “It doesn’t work, does it? You’ve had fifteen years, access to the labs and old prototypes, and you still can’t figure it out.”

  “As you well know, Mr Houghton, we need the correct authorisation codes to overcome the safeguards. The ones Whelan gave you.”

  Nick shook his head. All that screaming. “I don’t have them.”

  “But you can get them. You just need to find the settings we’re missing before your next visit to Naples.”

  Nick thought about Naples. Pompeii. The prospect of never returning to the real world. He turned to Fabio. “I want to talk to ‘the professor’ alone,” he said, his voice starting to crack. “Wait for us downstairs.”

  .

  56

  NICK WALKED INTO Amel’s kitchenette and poured some of the previous night’s wine into a tumbler. “Do you mind?” he said to Waldren. “I suddenly need it.”

  Waldren shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  Nick swallowed the contents of the glass in one go. “A few dollars’ worth right there,” he said, refilling the tumbler. This time, he drank more slowly. “If I do this for you, then what? What happens to me?”

  “A nice apartment in Naples,” Waldren replied. “Or Rome. Or wherever the hell else you want to live. Maybe even England. You don’t need to worry, Mr Houghton.”

  “And this busin
ess with the girl, Amel’s niece? Sabine?”

  “Forgotten. It will be as if it never happened.”

  Nick didn’t appreciate the joke. It hadn’t happened. “If the Romans find out I’m a spy, they’ll crucify me.”

  “You’ve been living amongst them for years,” Waldren said. “You’ll just need to find a good reason to get to the device. I’m sure a man like you can find a way.”

  “The biggest problem will be Habitus.”

  Waldren raised his eyebrow. “I’m sure you can get past Calpurnia’s thug.”

  “He’s a spy,” replied Nick, suddenly chuckling. “Don’t you know? Not a thug, an Imperial spy. He was in Pompeii at the time of the eruption for reasons he won’t reveal. Even now.”

  “I didn’t think Romans went in for spying. Not really their style, was it?”

  “True,” said Nick. “There wasn’t much call for spies when you could simply crush your enemies with a legion or three. Of course, they had state police – Gestapo, Stasi – that sort of thing, to keep watch on their own citizens. But Habitus was – is – most definitely a spy. I suppose it’s a bit like all those Roman slums that have disappeared over time, whereas we still have the Coliseum. Easier to see evidence of legions than spies.”

  Waldren looked at him almost pityingly, and Nick wondered how many sad middle-aged men he’d lured with a few kind words from a naked young woman. But he couldn’t have counted on it to work, not when the stakes were so high. “If I hadn’t said ‘yes’, there would have been another rung up the ladder, wouldn’t there? Another way to apply pressure?”

  “People tend not to betray their countries for a singular reason,” Waldren said, nodding. “So yes, I’ve taken out an insurance policy.”

  “I’m guessing Chloe,” Nick went on. “The only person here with whom I have any real connection.”

  Waldren shrugged and smiled. “You shouldn’t worry about Chloe. Not for a while, at least.”

  Not for a while, at least. He’d taken her to the NovusPart Institute, Nick guessed. The thought pinged into his brain almost immediately, and he couldn’t shake it. Waldren had taken his friend, and put her into one of those godawful cells.

  Could he do anything about it? Call the police?

  Unlikely. If Fabio’s instructions had come from the Italian government, then Waldren’s scheme was likely authorised. That didn’t mean he had to go along with it, however. All he needed was to give himself a little time. Create a little confusion so he could escape…

  Nick looked through a couple of kitchen cupboards and retrieved the second bottle of Pompeian wine. He retrieved a corkscrew from a drawer, then paused and searched for another tumbler. “Do you want some? The way I’m feeling at the moment, I could just about drink the whole bottle.”

  “Sure,” Waldren said. “And don’t feel too bad you didn’t see this coming. It took a long time to set up. We just needed some way to focus your mind and allow you to see the right course of action.”

  Nick filled both glasses and handed one to Waldren. “You mentioned Oppenheimer the last time we met,” he said. “He created a weapon he thought too powerful.”

  Waldren nodded, letting out another hacking cough. “Cold War,” he said. “Something of a golden era for someone in my business.”

  “But you’re actually asking me to become the other guy. I don’t remember his name. The man who took the secrets of the Manhattan Project and gave them to Stalin. There’s some that say the Russian spy did the world a service, because it created a balance of power and stopped a nuclear war breaking out.”

  Waldren cocked his head. “There’s a lot of truth in that.”

  “I just wanted to be clear,” said Nick. “Just wanted to fully understand.”

  “You’ve made the right decision,” Waldren said. He looked at his tumbler of wine and laughed. “And as we’re both now agreed you’re no Roman, at least I can be sure it’s not poisoned.” He took a large gulp.

  Nick nodded. “But it is heavily spiced.”

  Waldren doubled over, coughing uncontrollably. He reached for his throat, droplets of wine spraying from his mouth.

  “Your Oppenheimer analogy is flawed,” Nick said. He lunged forward and stabbed the corkscrew into Waldren’s neck. He gave it a sharp twist. “Giving you a NovusPart device doesn’t counter the risk, it simply doubles it. So you can go to hell.”

  57

  NICK STEPPED OUT of the elevator and into the lobby of Amel’s apartment block. Fabio was pacing back and forth by the swing doors that led out onto the street.

  “You’ve changed,” the Italian said dryly.

  Nick didn’t respond at first. Then he realised Fabio was just talking about what he was wearing. He’d taken his time before leaving Amel’s apartment, carefully washing the blood from his hands and face, stuffing Amel’s stained dressing gown under the sofa and putting on his own clothes.

  Fabio craned his neck, looking around Nick, presumably expecting Waldren to appear. “I hope you didn’t get into a fight,” he said. It was clear he was trying to make a joke, but the comment lacked any humour.

  Nick suppressed a grimace. “Do I look like the physical type?”

  “So are we to wait for the ‘professor’?”

  “No,” Nick replied. He pushed open the swing doors and walked out onto the street. The morning heat was building, but the fresh air on his face was refreshing. “He’s clearing up after his whore.”

  “Look, Nick…”

  “You don’t have to say it.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  Nick stopped. He gazed up and down the street, spotting Fabio’s vehicle a couple of hundred metres away. The road and the cars lining it were covered in a centimetre of grey ash. A few kids were playing football, each kick lifting clouds of powder into the air. One of them was hobbling crab-like on bowed legs.

  You shouldn’t worry about Chloe. Not for a while, at least. “You’re enabled, aren’t you?” he said to Fabio.

  Fabio nodded. “I don’t like using it.”

  “Can you connect to Who’s Where for me?”

  Fabio looked confused. “No one bothers using that site anymore, Nick. Not for years. Is it even still active?”

  “Yes, and someone’s been dicking me around,” Nick replied. “Changing my Who’s Where location ever since I arrived here. So just run a search for Chloe, will you?”

  Fabio’s eyes glazed. “Nothing,” he said. “No messages either. I’ll try calling her.”

  A few seconds passed. Nick felt each one thump through his skull. “Well?”

  “No answer.” Then: “Huh. There’s something on Who’s Where about you though. Apparently you’re in Herculaneum. Which is odd, given that we’re in Naples.”

  Herculaneum. Another dot on the graph. Another point through which he could draw his line. Two findings in Pompeii. One at the Villa Maritima, halfway between the two towns. And one journey, marked out by a line of breadcrumbs dropped over two thousand years ago. There would be another anomaly there, he was almost sure of it.

  “We can pass by Chloe’s apartment on the way to the Bureau,” Fabio said. “She’s probably just taking a shower.”

  But Nick was already shaking his head. “She won’t be there,” he said. “Waldren took her, to put more pressure on me. You allowed him to do that.”

  Fabio blanched. “You forget what the Bureau really is, Nick,” the Italian replied. “In the end, we’re just a few people who administer your supply chain. And the world’s been happy to leave us to get on with things. Until that fucking fresco.”

  “Ignore the fresco,” said Nick. “It’s unimportant. What matters is Arlen’s research.”

  Fabio stumbled. “I don’t understand.”

  Nick took a deep breath. He’d thought about it as he’d washed Waldren’s blood off his hands and down the plughole. He needed some grain of truth. Something Fabio already knew to make him swallow the lie. “Waldren wants me to go back to New Pompeii and obtain the
authorisation codes.”

  Fabio nodded. “Sure.”

  “He’s asked me for five parameters,” continued Nick, stirring the pot. “He already knows two of them from Arlen’s research, but won’t tell me which he already knows.”

  Fabio frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m to give him all five settings he’s asked for,” Nick explained. “And if the two he already knows match, then he can trust the other values as being correct. If not, then he knows I’m lying and things will get worse. For all of us.”

  Nick knew the story probably wouldn’t stand up to much scrutiny – he had no idea if the device needed such parameters. But it was the best he could think of, and he didn’t have much time. Waldren wouldn’t be working alone and he’d soon be missed. The window of opportunity was closing and all he had to work with was Fabio, who didn’t yet know that Waldren was no longer their primary concern.

  “Waldren was right,” Nick said, slowly. “I’m losing Calpurnia. The risk she’ll use the NovusPart device to alter the timeline increases by the day.”

  “That doesn’t make Waldren any less of a bastard,” Fabio replied.

  “But it does mean he missed what I’ve been trying to do here,” Nick said. “Why I was so interested in Mary Arlen and the NovusPart Institute. Why, when I saw that fresco, I knew what had to happen.”

  “Which is what?”

  “It’s time to close Pandora’s Box,” said Nick. “Not create a new one. You agree that Waldren and whoever he’s working for mustn’t get hold of a device? A man like that?”

  Fabio nodded quickly. “Of course.”

  “Then we need to get moving,” Nick said. “Before he insists I get on a plane back to New Pompeii to get his parameters.”

  “Fucking hell, Nick! I don’t know what you want from me!”

  “I need to know which settings Waldren already knows,” he said. “I need Arlen’s research, and we need to get to Herculaneum. We’ll find our answer there, I’m sure of it.”

  “Herculaneum is easy, but Waldren won’t give you Arlen’s files.”