America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 20: Time Machine

by Walter Knight

  I enjoy giving Flip a hard time whenever I visit. He’s an uptight dude, always in character, never lowering his guard to the locals. He insists I call him Burgerius Flippicius. No way. Hell, I can’t even pronounce a mouthful of ostentatious bullshit like that.

  “Hey Flip!” I called out as I entered the Home of the Golden Arches. “Is Mo’Nique working?”

  “I freed all the slaves,” lamented Flippicius. “I must have got drunk.”

  “Hell yeah, you were, big-time. Really? All of them?” In exasperation, I flung my arms out. Italians speak with their hands, my one concession to staying in character when time-traveling. I accidentally bumped into a Roman soldier ordering a burger and fries.

  “Watch where you’re going, Greek!” ordered Licinius Crassus, eying me suspiciously. “Ply your craft outside.”

  “Say what, bitch?” I answered, patting the nine-millimeter pistol under my toga for assurance. “Get off me!”

  “How dare you address me in such a manner? I am Licinus Crassus, Centurion of the Legion.”

  “I don’t care how old you are, don’t even think about getting in my face. And I’m not Greek!”

  “You are a male sex slave just freed by Flippicius, or I’d slay you now for your insolence.”

  “Say what?”

  “I find your submissive perfumed charms and weak forearms attractive,” advised Crassus. “Perhaps you will join me in my tent? It’s been a long campaign hunting Sparticus. Shall we bathe together?”

  “Perfume? It’s called soap. Try using it. And there’s nothing wrong with my forearms, you tootie-fruity. No offense, I know you guys don’t ask, don’t tell, but I don’t roll that way. Back off, or I’ll trash you.”

  “A skinny wimp like you?”

  “Who are you calling a skinny wimp? I once ran for five touchdowns at Tucson High.”

  “Do you mean Tuscany?” asked Crassus, producing several gold coins. “Local boy, eh? How much for your charms?”

  “Hey, I may be easy, but I’m not cheap.”

  “He’s not a sex slave,” interrupted Flippicius. “Joey R. Czerinski is my nephew.”

  “You’re Polish?” asked Crassus.

  “A very distant nephew,” explained Flipicius, nervously. “Please excuse his behavior, the fool is weak-minded.”

  “I ain’t no retard!” I shouted. “I warned you to get off me. Do it now.”

  “Maybe I’ll feed you both to the lions,” threatened Crassus, suspicious. “I think you are one of Sparticus’s boy-toy slaves. Tell me Sparticus’s hiding place. One more lie, and someone gets crucified.”

  “I’ve never seen this fool before in my life,” said Flippicius, washing his hands of me. “I’m innocent. I don’t want to get involved.”

  Crassus drew his sword. I drew my nine-millimeter, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Damn! I forgot to chamber the first round, a safety precaution during time-travel transport. Crassus swung his sword, slapping the pistol from my hand. I fell back, clutching my injured palm.

  Crassus picked up the pistol, examining it thoughtfully. “What is this?” he asked. “Some sort of weapon? Greek fire, or weapon of the gods?”

  “Flip! Get me out of here!”

  Flippicius reached for a sawed-off shotgun under the counter, but Crassus adeptly sliced him across the throat. Flippicius bled out onto the floor as the shotgun rolled away. Crassus picked up the shotgun too. I had a grenade concealed in my pants, but Roman soldiers swarmed over me, giving me a good old-fashioned Roman beat-down.

  “You will explain these weapons,” demanded Crassus, looking down the barrel of the shotgun, sticking his thumb down the barrel and getting it stuck. “What is this device?”

  “You better be careful with that,” I warned when the soldiers got tired. “We can make a deal, right? You can have the shotgun. It will make you powerful. Just let me go.”

  “Search the premises,” ordered Crassus. “Bring me all suspicious artifacts. These Golden Arches are more than they seem.”

  “So we have a deal?” I pleaded. “I’ll show you how to use the guns.”

  “Stake him to the ground in the sun. You will tell me all, Greek.”

  “I’m Polish!”

  “Whatever.”

  * * * * *

  Romans don’t mess around when it comes to torture. Just one mention of tearing off my testicles and nailing them to a cross, and I told Crassus everything, and even stuff I didn’t know. I explained the use of each item his men carefully placed in Crassus’s tent, including how to use the time machine and the firearms. Crassus listened patiently, his stoic face not betraying his intent. Computer images on the time machine monitor startled him at first, but he kept listening. Finally I finished. “That’s it,” I said, producing my grenade, pulling the pin, and handing it to Crassus. I’d had enough Pax Romana for one day. I activated time machine, sending me to Ancient Greece. “Hasta la vista, punk Romans!”

  Chapter 22

  Sixty Greek galleys dotted the Aegean Sea, landing the Greek army on the coast of Asia Minor to rescue the fair Helen of Sparta from the evil clutches of Troy. The Trojans would pay severely for abducting Queen Helen. Achilles led the first troops ashore. The cowardly Trojans fled inland, behind the walls of their mighty city.

  But before laying siege to Troy, Achilles stopped at Starbucks for an espresso. There is no better way to jolt one’s self into a day of killing and mayhem than an espresso in the morning. Barista Kathy Kalipetsis cheerfully greeted the thirsty invaders. “Welcome, geeky Greeks. May I take your order?”

  “I’ll have a Hazelnut Macchiato,” answered Achilles after scanning the overhead menu.

  “Not a very manly drink,” scoffed Kathy. “I thought you Greeks were tough guys.”

  “Put extra nuts on my Macchiato,” ordered Achilles gruffly, puffing up. “Seen many Trojans today?”

  “Are you sexually harassing me? Sexual harassment will not be tolerated, although it will be graded.”

  “You have very pretty feet,” commented Achilles, leering over the counter. “Big, fine, grape-squishing feet.”

  “Got a foot fetish, do you?” asked Kathy, laughing as she raised her skirt to show off a little ankle. “I heard about you, Achilles. What a perv. So, why are you in town? Business or pleasure?”

  “We are here to rescue the beautiful and fair Helen of Sparta, but those coward Trojans ran away. I will kill them all for their insult!”

  “Beautiful and fair? Ha! I saw the skank bitch when they rode through. She thinks she’s all that, but she’s not so hot. She’s a dye-job bleached blond to boot. She’s Helen of Troy, now. Get used to it.”

  “Hold your tongue, wench, or I will cut it out. Helen is a goddess.”

  “Say what?” fumed Kathy, spitting in his espresso “You’re beginning to really piss me off, talking smack like that. Don’t make me come over the counter and slap you silly!”

  “We will rescue Helen before nightfall,” boasted Achilles.

  “Lots of luck with that,” scoffed Kathy. “The walls of Troy are too high to scale, and the main gate too thick to breech.”

  “Really?” asked Achilles, slumping as he sucked caffeine through a straw. “Is there a weak spot, or a backdoor? I didn’t come all this way for nothing!”

  “If I were you,” whispered Kathy conspiratorially, “I would build a giant hollow horse of wood. Leave it at the front gates of Troy as a tribute to their bravery. When the Trojans pull it inside the city to celebrate, your Greeks hiding inside the horse can sneak out and open the gates.”

  “That won’t work,” argued Achilles incredulously. “What have you been smoking?”

  “Nothing illegal in this time line,” answered Kathy defensively. “It’s the perfect plan. Use the Trojan Horse. All the history books say so. Just do it!”

  Trojan Horse has a certain ring to it, admitted Achilles to himself. He eyed the barista speculatively, seeing her in a new light. She was one clever coffee babe, maybe
even a keeper.

  “For Queen Helen, I might consider your idea,” conceded Achilles. “It has some merit.”

  “Forget that skank Helen. She’s just a camp tramp crack-ho that’s been passed around by half the army before she got her gold-digging hooks into King Menulaus. She ripped him off, and now the bitch has run off to shack up with young King Hector.”

  “Did you spit in my espresso?” asked Achilles suspiciously, ignoring her jealous rant.

  “No, of course not. I would never do such a thing to my big, brave, conquering Greek hero. Have a nice day.”

  * * * * *

  I materialized in the backroom of Starbucks, just in time to see Achilles leave. “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Achilles, off to conquer Troy. Your name?”

  “Joey R. Czerinski, retired billionaire extraordinaire. Who are you?”

  “Kathy Kalipetsis, poor college intern. It must be nice to be so rich. They say money can’t buy happiness, but poverty can’t buy anything.”

  “I used to work with your dad,” I commented, seeing the resemblance. “My Roman vacation got canceled when Flip called in sick. What’s shaking here?”

  “You’re just in time to see the Trojan War. They’ll be starting work on the Trojan Horse any day. You’re required to stay with the tour group once the fighting starts.”

  “War is boring, especially if I have no dog in the fight.”

  “It’s epic history in the making,” argued Kathy. “You’ll have a front-ow seat. I’ll be there, too. Everyone’s bringing ouzo and popcorn.”

  “Fine. Maybe I’ll hang around long enough for some pictures of the horse.”

  * * * * *

  After skirmishing, the Greeks dragged the Trojan Horse to the city gates. They retreated hastily back to their boats. The Trojans cheered, yelling insults and politically incorrect Greek jokes.

  “Your Olympics are for goat herders!”

  “Chain smoking isn’t an Olympic event!”

  “We can beat you at long-distance spitting!”

  “Change your clothes!”

  “You dirty dance to folk music!”

  “You wear leather jackets all the time, even in summer!”

  “How do you separate boys from men in Greece? With a crowbar!”

  “Stupid Greeks!”

  “Bendahos!”

  A lone Greek messenger stood at the base of the Trojan Horse, patiently enduring insults, tapping his foot. Finally he was noticed. The jeers died down.

  “What is this wooden horse?” called out King Hector. “Kindling for our kilns?”

  “This great Trojan Horse is a tribute from Achilles to your bravery,” answered the messenger. “It’s yours. Take it inside your city, but don’t burn it.”

  “Your stupid Greek horse stays where it is!”

  “What? You have to take the Trojan Horse. We even named it after you people.”

  “You people?”

  “Just take the horse!”

  “No, I refuse!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you want me to. That’s reason enough. Burn the horse!”

  “No!”

  Achilles was listening intently to the conversation. The odor of all those Greeks inside the horse was stifling. He panicked, trying to open the trap door. It was locked from the outside. Achilles pounded on the door with the hilt of his sword, but to no avail. His men grabbed him to keep him quiet.

  “I like the horse,” commented Queen Helen. “It’s very virile and phallic.” She motioned to the underside of the very well-hung Trojan Horse. “You can’t torch something so magnificent, so large. It would bring bad luck.”

  “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!” shouted a malcontent peasant among the crowd. Hector had him thrown off the wall for being a party-pooper.

  “Bring the horse inside at once!” ordered King Hector, hoping to get lucky tonight. “Tonight we get down and par-tay!”

  * * * * *

  Late past midnight, the tail of the Trojan Horse lifted, and Achilles led Greek soldiers out to open the main gate. Most Trojans were too drunk or passed out to resist. The city was sacked, its men killed or castrated, its women raped and sold into slavery, and that skank Helen rescued and brought back to Sparta, where she lived happily ever after with King Menulaus. Kathy ran off with Achilles. They went into the grape and shoe business. There was a vacancy in Gaul, so I was off back to Ancient Rome and the Second Punic War to watch Hannibal cross the Alps with his war elephants.

  Chapter 23

  The time portal in Northern Gaul on the Iberian Peninsula was owned by Taco Bell. My lifelong friend Manny Lopez managed the very lucrative franchise. General Hannibal and his army of Carthaginians were encamped all about the Taco Bell, which was doing a brisk business. Prominent in the parking lot were Numidians tending to Hannibal’s famous war elephants. They were all freezing their asses off.

  “Damn it, man, I didn’t sign on for this cold-ass shit,” complained one of the Numidians as I walked by into Taco Bell. “This is bullshit, is what it is.”

  “Long time no see!” I greeted Lopez, ignoring the elephant herders. “I come to see history. What’s the holdup?”

  “It’s too cold,” answered Lopez as we shook hands. “The war elephants won’t go another step. Hannibal paid the local barbarians to hunt bears in the forests for their furs, so they can make coats for the elephants, but it takes time. Local greeners are up in arms about permanently destroying the ecology, something about disrupting the top-dog carnivore in the food chain. They’re waging guerrilla warfare to harass Hannibal’s supply train, the Commie bastards.”

  “That’s going to be a lot of bear hides,” I commented, gazing out the window. “Maybe Hannibal should rethink his strategy.”

  “I tried to tell him,” replied Lopez, shrugging. “But he won’t listen. He thinks it’s all a Roman plot, but I know it’s Commie agitators.”

  “It will take too long. I mean about the furs. The campaign season will be over before the coats are made, and so will my vacation.”

  “What can be done? Those fat-ass elephants won’t move.”

  I consulted my communications pad, accessing eBay on the internet, and ordered a case of battery-operated cattle prods. UPS delivered them to the time portal within minutes. Ka-ching!

  “For half the gold Hannibal is paying those stupid bear hunters, I’ll sell him these cattle prods.”

  * * * * *

  Lopez made introductions to Hannibal and his generals. I demonstrated the use of the cattle prod. Hannibal was fascinated by the magic blue arc. Not waiting to read more detailed directions, he ran out behind the first elephant, touching the cattle prod to the elephant’s balls. The big bull turned around and stomped Hannibal into the ground, leaving nothing but a squishy spot and a flat bronze helmet. Lopez and I were promptly nailed to a cross, an idea the Carthaginians got from those punk Romans.

  “God that hurts!” I cried, looking up at my impaled palms. “Oh Lord, get me out of here!”

  God did not answer my prayers, but Lopez activated an emergency beacon, and we were rescued by the Fast Action Response Team. EMTs treated our wounds with skin grafts and medicated us with liberal amounts of opiates. Hannibal’s half-brother, Edgar the Great, resumed the campaign against Rome, impersonating Hannibal because no army in the history of the world has ever followed anyone named Edgar.

  Bored with elephants, I resumed my vacation, traveling through time to see the Great Fire of Rome, set by insane Emperor Nero. What an asshole.

  Chapter 24

  A finely dressed patrician parked his gold-plated chariot on the street in the Aqueduct District of Old Rome. Plebeians and slaves sauntered by, checking out the hot gold wheels. Finally, a shifty looking Christian wearing one of those flowing robes and a hoodie could resist no more, hopping into the fancy ride. At flick of the reigns, the Christian raced his ill-gotten chariot down the Via Sacra toward the Coliseum.

  Urban cohorts waited around the
corner. An officer blew his whistle, signaling the specially trained Chariot horses to go lame. As the bait chariot came to an abrupt halt, cohorts swarmed over the Christian, giving him the boot, and crucifying him on the spot as an example to other criminal miscreants and vagabonds.

  * * * * *

  The time machine transported Manny Lopez and me to Guido Tonelli’s Nike Sandal Shop, also in the Aqueduct District. Tonelli was glad to see us. “You got feet, I got sandals. Welcome to Imperial Rome. Why are you really here?”

  “Just thinking about taking in a show at the Coliseum,” I answered. “Maybe watch a few Christians get eaten. Which way to a good deli?”

  “Just take Main Street. All roads head Downtown. I know you, Czerinski. You’re here for the Great Fire.”

  “We need a good vantage place to view the fire,” advised Lopez. “Somewhere we can roast s’mores but not get burnt to a crisp.”

  “You’re welcome to stay at my shop,” replied Tonelli. “I live upstairs and just installed a brand new sprinkler and fire suppression system.”

  “I want to see to Emperor Nero,” I declined politely “Is it true he sings songs during the fire?”

  “Yes, it is reported that the drunken fool sings ‘99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ all night long, while playing his lyre. Nero thinks he’s a rock star, and who’s to say he’s not.”

  “Thanks for the help, Guido. You’re a pal.”

  “Have fun, and stay out of trouble. Remember, Rome was not burned in a day.”

  * * * * *

  After buying sporty new Nike sandals, we set out on foot towards Downtown. I could see the Coliseum off in the distance, but it was a long way. It’s huge. The heat was stifling, even in the shade. I looked about for a taxi, but only found a beautiful golden chariot parked unattended by the curb.