Edward Crichton - To Crown a Caesar

My subconscious spirit was broken, left adrift on a mission of its own, one I couldn’t even hope to fight against. Every precaution I’d hoped to take was suddenly left laughably at the door to this villa after I’d stupidly pulled away a piece of cloth that should have stayed where it was. Days and weeks seemed to drift by; time wasted as my soul and body continued their losing resistance against what my mind was trying to make them do.

After what seemed like a lifetime, my bare hand finally touched the orb.

And nothing happened.

In a bout of clarity, my body no longer fought against my mind and I held the orb out in front of my chest and gazed into it like a crazed fortune teller. After months, years really, worrying what would happen should I come into contact with the orb again, my confusion and surprise only grew as I now felt nothing. I waited for something to happen. Anything. But nothing did. I tossed it between my hands for a few seconds, juggling it back and forth.

I was so confused that I couldn’t even formulate a question to ask myself in this situation when, for once, questions were worth asking. Instead I felt my mind start to wander, and a sense of calm flowed over me. I felt almost peaceful as I daydreamed with my eyes closed before I finally caught myself. I forced myself to focus on the situation. With one last look, seeing nothing within, I secured it back in its burlap cloth with one last shrug.

I turned to see Helena and Santino finally join me at the top.

“What was that light, Jacob?” Helena asked.

“Hmm? Oh, I guess it must have been this,” I said, holding up the orb. “It wasn’t very bright though. Good eyes.”

She exchanged an odd glance with Santino, but shook her head and reached out to take it from me. As she placed it in her bag, Santino pushed past me and moved towards the gold box.

“Don’t…” I warned him.

“What? I was just looking at it.”

“Sure you were,” I said, returning my attention back to Helena.

She gave me a thumbs up after securing the orb. I clicked my com.

“All teams report to the top level.”

Really, I only needed Bordeaux up here, but it was best to consolidate all of us on high ground where we could more easily defend ourselves.

“Uh… Jacob?” Santino asked from behind me. “You’d better take a look at this.”

“What is it?” I asked, figuring he’d probably broken the golden box.

Surprisingly, he was at the column with the fine cloth, peeking beneath it at what lay beneath. He brought his head up and tore the cloth away from the column.

It revealed another blue sphere.

“Am I missing something?” He asked before looking back down at it.

I wasn’t sure. It certainly looked to be the same size and color, but how could it be another one of the orbs? Unless my math really was that bad, there should only be one left after we destroyed one of the two. Where did this third one come from? Where was the sense of compulsion and draw like the other one?

“You think Agrippina got it to work?” Santino asked. “Made a second one just like we did?”

“Maybe,” I replied, unsure. “Bag it and tag it. Might as well bring it along.”

“Wilco, boss,” he said, securing the orb.

I left him alone and went to find Bordeaux, who was pulling something big from his bag.

“How big is that bomb?”

He looked up at me. “Big enough.”

“Big enough to bring down the entire building?”

He smiled. “Just remember that it would be best to not be here when it goes off. I’m setting it for forty five minutes.”

I looked at my watch. 0230. We’d only been in the building for about twenty minutes. Plenty of time. I watched as he buried the bomb beneath a pile of treasure.

I watched as he worked but turned when I heard Titus’ voice from atop the treasure room ask, “What’s this?”

I finished my turn just in time to see him open the gold box Santino had been eyeing earlier.

“Don’t touch tha…” I started, but never had the chance to finish.

As Titus opened the small box, a small spark ignited within. When the spark touched the contents of the box, a simple bowl containing a white, glittering powder, a flash of light as bright as a flashbang went off and engulfed the room. All I could see was white, and even my ear protectors had trouble dampening out the sound it had created.

I groped at nothing, seeing nothing, the only thing my delirium allowing me to view being the abysmal white nothing. When I finally heard a clinking and clanking noise around me, I immediately wondered who had fell into the gold.

Still unable to see anything, I felt myself trip and fall onto a gold pile of my own. I tried to push myself up, but before my hands could find purchase on anything stable, I felt a horribly sharp pain in my head, and instead of white, all I saw was black.

I’ve been knocked unconscious quite a few times in my life. A few more than the average person I would think. Normally, when these lovely episodes of rest and relaxation were presented to me, hallucinations always seem to manifest themselves. They tended to revolve around loved ones or personal relationships, and were generally ambiguous as to their tone and meaning.

But not today.

Today I saw nothing, and as I came around I wondered if the lack of a hallucination meant something ominous was lurking. All I felt was a horrible throbbing inside the back of my skull, as if a construction worker had placed his jackhammer against it and was having his way with me.

When I regained consciousness, I did so tediously, my eyes attempting to regain focus. As always, my first visual was nothing but a dense haze. I blinked a few times and shook my head to clear it, cringing as the motion doubled the amount of jackhammers on duty.

Despite the pain, I knew I had to come to my senses quickly. I fought through the pain and fog and my eye sight started to clear. I found myself lying on my side with my hands tied behind my back. All my MOLLE combat gear had been stripped away including my thigh holster and my eyepiece system, and I realized that my shirt and boots had been removed as well. I laid their bare chested, unable to move my head, at least not without risking yet more pain, but I found that I could at least move my eyes.

Titling my eyes downwards, I saw the legs of one of my team members. Based on the size and clothing, it could have been Wang, Santino, Titus, or Vincent. I had no idea which. Tracking my gaze upwards, I saw another body, this one lithe and shapely, also having been stripped naked from the waist up. It had to be Helena. I could see her hands were bound behind her as well, but blood dripped from her fingertips.

Adrenaline coursed through my body, fear for Helena and my unborn child manifesting itself. It drove me as I struggled against my restraints, but before I could make much progress, I found myself manhandled by two men. I fought against them, but I was too weak to put up much of a fight and they maneuvered me into a kneeling position, my hands still bound behind my back. It made my head swim agin and I struggled to stay conscious. With a jerk of my head, the pain ever persistent, I grunted and breathed heavily before everything started to clear.

I looked up, hoping to better understand the situation. It didn’t take long to come to an assessment.

We were pretty much fucked.

The room we were in was large, easily twice the size of the treasure vault, but was only a single level room. It was rectangular in design, had no windows, one door that I could see, and only a single chair. There were no decorations in the room, merely torches hanging from the ceiling and attached to the half dozen columns supporting the ceiling. Lighting was negligible. The room was dark and there were deep shadows in the corners.