Edward Crichton - To Crown a Caesar

“Obviously they’re all insane sadists.”

At least our conversation was back near our normal banter level.

“You have no idea,” I said, tearing open the rice pilaf package and handing it to her.

I tore open the turkey and gravy and started digging in. Helena and I traded packages after a few scoops from each, and I used the MRE’s small container of Tabasco sauce to spice up the rice, finished off the rest of our crackers, and split the black and white cookie desert with her. Never liking chocolate much, I gave her that end, and I ate the vanilla side. Even without warming it through, the meal had tasted good and had been substantial.

We policed our mess and got comfortable again. I looked up at the bottom of Galba’s bed and picked at some splintered wood with a finger, hoping we were in fact doing the right thing. Helena had a point about one thing. No matter how I justified it, we were in fact messing with people’s lives every time we took a breath in this world, and the only responsible thing to do would be to just flee into the shadows and never interfere with society again.

But that felt like giving up, and even if we stayed away from every human being for the rest of our lives, it still wouldn’t matter. Even if we buried our heads in the sand like an ostrich, we were still interfering with the lives around us. Even that deer Santino shot the other day could alter the timeline. That deer could have been meant for a starving family two months from now, but since it won’t be there for the family to hunt and feed off of, the children in that family may die of starvation. Those kids could be the ancestors of Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Louis XIV, Jacque Cousteau, Celine Deon, even Bordeaux, or any other countless soul who could possibly draw their ancestry back to the area around the Rhine River.

I tried to keep track of all the people we’d helped over the years, and the number sat at eighty five men, women and children. Each was a life we interfered with, but that number didn’t include the few hundred we’d killed while helping them, not to mention the thousands upon thousands of men had who died on the battlefield outside of Rome four years ago, which included Claudius, and later Caligula, whose deaths alone could be more than enough to alter the future. After all we’d done, there was no telling what 2021 looked like anymore.

Maybe I’m not being fair to the rest of the world, but I think it’s hard to argue that the decisions made by the various civilizations to call Europe home weren’t amongst the world’s most influential. Sure, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan still needed to embark on their rampage through the area, and I’m sure nothing we do here will stop that from happening, but even with their intervention and… seeding, the emigrating hordes of barbarians weren’t the only people to call this area home. What if through the results of our actions here we somehow produce a stronger, more enduring Rome, one that could hold off the invading hordes of Huns, Mongols, Goths and the rest of them?

The possibilities were mind boggling.

As for places like China and Japan, they didn’t really catch up to the rest of the world until the likes of Marco Polo and his successors got involved a thousand years from now. Eastern civilizations may be older, and at one point or another more advanced, but where the western world progressed over the millennia, the east hit a plateau.

Even Islam’s day might be over. I knew Augustus had sent a Legion to Yemen to conquer the area for their stash of incense and precious stones. He’d been hurting for cash after establishing his unilateral dominance over Roman politics and needed whatever resources he could find. The expedition had failed thanks to traitorous guides and a deadly Arabian summer, but now that someone like Agrippina was running the show, they might try again. Who knows? The prophet Mohamed may accidentally trip on a rock after receiving his visions from God because a Roman siege engine, hundreds of years earlier, knocked a stone onto his path where there originally hadn’t been one.

Then again, maybe nothing quite so revolutionary will happen by 2021 and the only discernible difference would be that Betamax players will put VHS tapes out of the market in the 1990s.

Stranger things have happened

And probably will.

“What are you thinking about?” Helena asked from beside me, closer than we’d slept last night, but still not in my arms. The distance seemed like miles. “You have that far off look on your face again.”

I smiled. “Just thinking… like always.”

“Obsessing.”

I hesitated. “Yeah, I guess. I just can’t stop thinking about it, Helena. I simply can’t be responsible for something that could potentially end western civilization.”

“You’re being melodramatic.”

“Maybe,” I admitted, “but even if only one life is changed because of all this, I can’t help but feel like I’ve murdered them all.”

She leaned up on her elbows and tilted her head to look at me. “Just stop it, Jacob. You’re beyond melodrama now and not helping anyone with talk like that.”

I shook my head before turning to gaze at her. “I’m really not, Helena. If just one person back home ceases to exist because of what we did here; it’s no different than if I held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”

“It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Maybe not, but it’s no different than if I just stood by and did nothing while someone else did the deed.”

Helena didn’t have a quick response herself this time, but I could feel her mind churning. I couldn’t guess what exactly was going on in there, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. She’d never been a deep thinker, relying instead on a clarity of mind that gave her answers to problems more easily than they came to most. I’d always respected her opinions because of it, at least I had until recently I suppose, but in this case I still wasn’t sure she understood the situation enough to render an appropriate perspective.

A few seconds later, she lowered herself to the ground and pressed her body up against mine. She propped herself up on one arm and looked down at me. “I suppose I’ve never thought about it that way, but I still don’t understand where all this is coming from. You haven’t voiced a thought on timelines or changing the future in years, so why now? Why this past year? What’s changed?”

“Because now is the time to worry about it,” I answered easily. “I’ve tried to keep it out of my mind in all that time to avoid going crazy, but I have to think about it now. The longer we wait, the more divergent things will become and the more difficult it will be to put back together. Now is the sweet spot.”

She nodded, accepting that. “But you still don’t know if the timeline even needs to be ‘fixed’ because you can’t see the future, Jacob. You can’t lay there and definitively tell me that we need to do anything to ensure the future remains as we left it. You just can’t.”

“And you can’t tell me that we don’t need to do anything at all with any conviction either,” I retorted with a long, slow sigh, waiting for the right thing to say to come to me. “I need you to trust me on this, Helena, I really do. Listen. In light of our last conversation, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you really think we shouldn’t do this, just tell me now. Tell me this is more about your intuition and not your feelings being hurt because I wouldn’t talk to you. If you can do that I promise we’ll leave, never come back, and find a quiet place to live out the rest of our lives, but I need to know now.”

She was quiet for a very long while as she stared in the general direction of my stomach, her eyes contemplative. After a while, she laid her left hand on my chest and pounded it with a clenched fist in frustration.