by Rob Steiner
When she came to the top of the stairs, he walked into the gathering room and then stood to the side of one of the blown out windows. He stared at the river and the lights on the Trastevere beyond.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Ocella said.
“You, too,” he replied. He turned. Shadows from the city lights behind him masked his features. “Why did you join Umbra?”
“Why are you here?” she countered.
He sighed and then folded his arms. “I was once Umbra, too.”
“Not anymore?”
Kaeso shook his head.
“You selfish bastard...”
“Don't start with me, Sp— Ocella.”
“Too, bad,” Ocella said. “Do you know what your 'death' did to your daughter? She lost both parents within a year. She was devastated.”
“You don't have to tell me what I already know.”
“I don't think you do know. Did you know she tried to commit suicide six months after you “died”?”
His form stiffened.
“Yes,” she continued, “your ten-year-old girl tried to jump off the Hestium Bridge. She thought it was her fault you died. She said you two had an argument the night before your “accident”.”
“We did...” Kaeso whispered.
“She said you’d still be alive had she not said she hated you.”
“I thought she did.”
“You are such a fool, Kaeso. She was ten-years-old! She'd just lost her mother a year before. It was an argument. She didn't mean it!”
Kaeso turned around and stared at the river. “I know that. Now. I've made many mistakes, ones I'm not proud of. But there's nothing I can do about them now. All I can do is avoid the same mistakes.”
Ocella shook her head in amazement. “You haven't changed at all. That's the same thing you always say after you hurt someone who loves you.”
Kaeso turned around. “I didn't come here to get lectured on my faults. I’m here to get you and that boy off this planet.”
Ocella clenched her fists. “I'm not taking him to Libertus.”
“Not Libertus.”
She paused. “Where then?”
“I don't know, but it has to be far from the reach of Roma and Umbra. From what I hear, the boy has talents both sides want.”
Ocella walked over to the window so she could get a better view of Kaeso's face. She wanted to see his eyes. Is he the same man I knew? she wondered. Or is he now Kaeso Aemilius, Umbra Ancile?
“What do you know of his talents?”
“My handler told me Cordus knew how to cure the Cariosus, though I think he can do much more. I think he might know how to cure the Muses.”
Ocella waited for more. Either he was a good liar or he actually didn’t know the boy's full potential.
“Are you still with Umbra?” she asked.
“Like I said, not anymore.”
“Then why did they send you?”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “Because every other Ancile is dead.”
Ocella looked away.
“Why did you do it? Why did you give away your world’s only defense against Roma? Do you know what they're doing to Libertus right now? Claudia could be dead right now because of you.”
“It was the only way to get the boy away from...” She stopped. “Are you here to take him away from me or not?”
She studied him. She was able to detect his moods, once, no matter how much he masked them, and she always called him out whatever his emotion. It was that ability that ended their relationship. He hated how she could tell what he thought simply by studying his face. Not that he habitually lied to her, but he was a private man who kept his thoughts and emotions to himself. He couldn’t be with a woman who would not give him that privacy. So he chose Petra, who in many ways did the same thing as Ocella. She at least had the wisdom to let Kaeso think otherwise.
Kaeso shook his head, his gaze holding hers. “No. But I don’t know where we can be safe with the most deadly security forces in the universe after us.”
“I do,” Ocella said.
“Where?”
She shook her head.
“I know you don't trust me,” Kaeso said, “but I'm your only option.”
“Gaia Julius has promised to help us. We don't need you.”
“Gaia Julius is being hunted. She’ll be recognized wherever she goes. Same with you and the boy. The Romans announced to the universe the Consular Heir was kidnapped. They may not show his picture publicly, but you can bet every security force in Roman space has it.”
“Yes, but they've said the Liberti have him. People won't expect to see him right here in Roma.”
“But the Praetorians will,” Kaeso said, exasperated. “They'd be foolish not to search for him here unless they had solid proof he was off-world. And he's obviously not. I can get you off Terra, because nobody is looking for me.”
Ocella knew Kaeso was right. It was bad enough she and Cordus were the most hunted people in Roman history. It would be foolish to also associate with Gaia Julius, another face now on the Praetorian most wanted list.
“To do this, though, I need to trust you,” Kaeso continued. “I need to know you won’t throw me to the wolves like you did every Ancile on Terra. And the only way I can trust you is if you tell me everything that's happened to you since you took this mission. I want to know why you sold out Umbra, and I want to know how you got the boy out of the Consular Palace.”
Ocella looked at him. “Umbra should have told you that when they brought you back into the fold.”
Kaeso gave a cynical laugh. “We both know Umbra doesn't tell Ancilia what they need to know, much less want to know.”
“They thought you could bring me back because of our history, right?”
Kaeso was quiet a moment. “Yes. They said I was the only one who knew you and had the skills to get you out.”
“You were retired. Why did you agree to this mission?”
Kaeso looked away. “I own a small cargo ship. I caused one of my crew to get infected with the Cariosus. Umbra said the boy may have a cure, so here I am.”
“That's it?”
Kaeso turned back to her. “And you're the only family I have left that I'm...allowed to talk to.”
Emotions warred in his eyes, something only she could see. She saw his grief over not being able to hold his daughter again, not being able to tell his parents he was alive. She saw his anger at himself for joining Umbra and leaving behind all he loved. She saw the confusion he felt every day he woke up, looked in the mirror, and forced himself to memorize a new name and to forget another. Knowing that Umbra was the only family he could have, and the only family he deserved.
She saw these things because they were the same feelings she once had, before she decided to escape Umbra. Ocella joined Umbra because she lost the two most important people in her life: Petra and “Kaeso.” Umbra Corps was her escape from the pain, to a new life without attachments. She could not imagine the pain Kaeso had tried to escape. Or the pain from which he still ran.
Ocella wrapped her arms around Kaeso's neck and pulled him close. He kept his arms at his sides and did not return her embrace.
“I miss them so much,” he whispered in her ear, his voice catching.
She tried to pull him closer, but he shrugged away and retreated to the other side of the room. He cleared his throat, and said, “It’s my turn for questions. Why did you betray the Ancilia in Roma?”
Ocella sighed. “You already know one reason. I needed the Praetorians’ trust. I spent four years in their academy excelling at all the tests. To get close to the Consular Family, however, I had to stand out in a way they couldn't help but notice. A way that made my loyalty unquestionable.”
Kaeso paced the floor, his anger building. “So you threw away your world’s only defense just to stand out?”
“I didn't betray my world just to stand out. I came to understand that Umbra was just as dangerous to Cordus, and humanity, as Rom
a.”
“How was Umbra dangerous?” Kaeso said. “They would’ve given you every resource to extract the boy.”
Ocella shook her head sadly. “Umbra didn't send me to extract Cordus. They sent me to kill him.”
38
Ocella paced on the other side of the room from Kaeso in the townhouse’s burned out gathering room. He tried to remind himself she indirectly killed Ancilia who were once good friends.
But all he could see was his beloved wife's sister. A woman he once loved himself. She was a link to his past before Umbra, a happier time that didn’t seem so then. Though Umbra had altered her facial features in subtle ways, there was no mistaking the woman he once knew so well. She still curled her fingers at her sides when she was anxious; she still chewed the inside of her lower lip before she said something she knew Kaeso wouldn't like.
He would not kill her.
“I would’ve done it, too,” Ocella said, referring to her Umbra mission to assassinate the Consular Heir. “It wouldn’t have been my first kill...but it would have been my first child. That didn't matter to me, though. I was a well-trained Ancile. I didn’t question orders. I had faith the Muses knew what was best for Libertus.”
Ocella smiled grimly. “But then Numerius Aurelius Scaurus helped change my mind. He headed the Praetorian Guard for twenty years. He retired ten years ago, but was still respected in Guard circles. Even the Consul invites him to dinner parties now and then. Or, he used to.”
“Scaurus is dead?”
Ocella nodded. “Cordus and I were in the safe room beneath his house. The Praetorians did it. I don't think they got anything out of him, because they never found us. At least I didn't think so at the time.”
Scaurus was the Praetorian Guard Prefect when Kaeso was in Roma. Kaeso never met the man, but he knew Scaurus was one of Umbra’s highest placed contacts. The information he funneled to Umbra prevented many Roman attacks on Libertus before they even hit the planning stages. Why would such a highly placed contact betray Umbra? Did his loyalties switch back to Roma? It happened from time to time, but Umbra always found out and eliminated the contact before he could give the Romans anything useful.
But Kaeso didn’t say any of this to Ocella, mostly out of old habits. Ancilia never talked about their work or contacts, even with other Ancilia.
“How did he persuade you to turn on Umbra?” Kaeso asked.
Ocella smiled and then surprised him by giving up her contacts easier than he. “Did you know Scaurus was an Umbra contact? Forty years in the Guard, twenty as the Prefect, and the Romans never suspected. He knew my mission because Umbra asked him to help me. He got me into the Praetorian Academy, and then a post in the Consular Palace.”
Ocella walked to a half-burned couch and sat down without wiping away the debris.
“Scaurus was a complex man,” she said. “He was also a Saturnist.”
Kaeso shook his head. “Praetorian. Umbra. Saturnist. Complex or confused?”
“Scaurus was anything but confused. His life's purpose was to stay close to the Consular Family and watch them. Saturnists have this theory—or prophecy, considering their religious devotion to it—that one day humanity will evolve to a point where the Muses could no longer control us. That human beings would one day control them. He watched the Consular Family for such a person, just as other Saturnists watch the infectees in the Collegia Pontificis. While still others watch Umbra Vessels. The Saturnists have watched infectees for a thousand years.”
Ocella looked up at him. “Scaurus believed Marcus Antonius Cordus was the first human with such an ability.”
“How did he know this?”
Ocella shrugged. “Scaurus knew the Consulars well. He knew how they acted, or rather, how the Muses inside them forced them to act. But Cordus was different.”
“How?”
“He had no interest in politics, for one. The Consulars—at least the Muse-infected—eat, drink, and sleep politics. It's in their Muse strain’s nature. Cordus also hated being treated like a god. That really got Scaurus’s attention, because the one thing the Consular’s love above politics is their godhood. Scaurus confirmed his suspicions through careful observation and secret talks with Cordus.”
Kaeso scratched his three-day growth of beard. “So Scaurus managed to persuade you to betray Umbra with that?”
“Of course not. He didn't come out and say “I’m a Saturnist and, oh, by the way, the Consular Heir is a one in a billion child.” He was more subtle than that.”
Ocella arose from the couch and paced the floor. “One day he brought me into the Consular Palace to meet the Family. They were like Umbra taught us: cold, distant, calculating. They were polite and they smiled when I bowed before them, but they treated me like a commodity they could buy or sell or kill should the fancy strike them.
“All of them except Cordus. He acted the same way as his family while he was with them. On his own, however, his eyes wandered and he looked bored. The Consulars never look bored. They either stand there like deactivated golems or they give orders. They don't fidget. They don't even laugh. But Cordus did all that. In other words, he acted like a human being.
“Scaurus introduced us during a private dinner one night. And by private, I mean over a hundred Senators and powerful patricians. Cordus sat at a table by himself reading a book when we approached. I tried to keep my emotional distance: I didn't want to know the boy I was supposed to kill. But he disarmed me with a simple question.”
When her pause continued, Kaeso asked, “What was the question?”
Ocella sighed, then turned her eyes to him. “'Will you protect me?'”
Kaeso held her gaze. She said, “I told him I was a Praetorian. It was my duty and honor to protect him. I gave him all the assurances a Praetorian would give her client. I played the part well.” Ocella smiled. “Then he laughed and said, “I meant, will you protect me from this dinner party?” He explained he wanted to talk about anything other than politics, and I had to talk to him so the sycophants at the party wouldn’t approach him. Those were his words.”
“Why didn't you kill him that night?” Kaeso asked. “You had an Umbra cloak. You could have finished your mission and slipped out.” Kaeso watched Ocella as she stared at the floor with a soft gaze. “He got to you, didn't he? After just one meeting.”
She turned away as if he'd accused her of something shameful. “He's a good boy. Brave, smart, kind. He has a great sense of humor. Yes, I'm fond of him. And that bastard Scaurus knew it would happen.”
“But your mission...”
“I told myself the timing wasn't right. That my escape plan wasn’t perfect. That I couldn't just slit the boy's throat in front of a hundred nobles and an army of Praetorians.”
“Yes, you could have,” Kaeso said. “Unless Umbra training has taken a complete turn since I left.”
“I know I could have completed the mission had I wanted to. But after meeting him...I didn't want to. I came up with all kinds of excuses, but my mission failed when Cordus asked me that first question.”
“One question made you give up Umbra?” Kaeso asked.
Ocella's face tightened. She continued pacing the room, debris crunching under her shoes.
“At another dinner party a few days later, the boy and I were talking about some gladiator match when Scaurus came over and said Cordus had a unique talent he wanted to show me. I turned to Cordus. The boy smiled, took my hands, and...”
Ocella shuddered. “Thoughts exploded from my implant. Memories that weren't mine. Memories of ancient Roma, when Marcus Antonius sacked Roma and deposed Octavian. Only I saw things through the eyes of Marcus Antonius Primus.”
Kaeso stared at Ocella. What she described was impossible. There was no known way to transfer another person's memories from one implant to another. Not even Vessels could send their memories to an implant.
At least, that's what Kaeso was always told.
“I know this sounds ludicrous,” Ocella said, “
but it happened. In a flash, I saw the entire history of Roma from the time the Muses came to Marcus Antonius in Egypt to the second Cordus released my hands.”
“Are you sure it came from your implant? Perhaps the boy’s Muses—”
“It came from my implant,” Ocella said firmly. “You know that buzzing you get behind your ear when your implant receives orders from Libertus? That's what I felt with these memories. Only more powerful than anything I ever experienced.”
Kaeso still wondered if Cordus somehow used Ocella’s implant to manipulate her, but he decided to avoid that argument for now. “What did you do?”
“After I recovered my wits, I left the Consular Palace as fast as I could without looking suspicious. Scaurus tried to stop me, but I ignored him. I ran back to my Praetorian apartment at the base of the Capitoline. I took a long hot shower. I told myself my implant must have malfunctioned, because what I saw in those memories was too unbelievable. Because if those memories were true, all human history was a lie.
“An hour later, Scaurus, came to my apartment and offered to answer my questions. I still reeled from my experience. Everything was so vivid, like watching a video wall in my mind. I could use my implant to recall every memory Cordus gave me. Not even Umbra orders were so clear. It all opened my mind to the possibility these things were true. Without those memories, I would’ve killed Scaurus for being a double agent when he came to my apartment. Cordus’s ‘transfer,’ if you want to call it that, was just part of Scaurus’s plan to recruit me. He showed me copies of ancient documents on his com pad. He told me the originals were in a secret basement beneath his house, which I confirmed when Cordus and I fled there. He told me the Saturnist mission, how they sought a way to free humanity from the Muses.”
Ocella stared at her empty, soot-covered hands. “That’s when we came up with a plan to rescue Cordus. That’s when I decided to betray Umbra, so I could stay close to Cordus.”
