Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

‘Now we’ve got varying accounts of Caligula’s reign, and not a great deal more about these messengers, though. It’s as if they’ve been purged from history rather clumsily. Or edited out somehow. Which I think makes them pretty damned suspicious, eh?’

Liam had his shoes and socks off and was trying on the flip-flops Sal had got for him.

‘Uhh… but generally it seems the same sort of account of Caligula’s reign. Over the next seventeen years it’s not a good period for Rome. Caligula seems to neglect his job as ruler; there are food shortages, water shortages. He gets really unpopular with the people, although, oddly… it seems Caligula’s version of a one-god religion catches on. This all goes on until he vanishes mysteriously — supposedly going to Heaven. He’s succeeded by an Emperor Lepidus, who encourages Caligula’s take on Christianity. The trident of Neptune becomes the symbol of the faith and the faith later becomes known as Julianity, after his family name Julii. In 345 it becomes known as the Holy Church Juliani.’

Liam emerged from behind the curtains wearing his tunic and flip-flops. Maddy was studying a clipboard of printouts.

‘How do I look?’

‘Like an idiot as usual.’ She smiled, looked back down at her notes. ‘So… I’m going to send you back to AD 54, the year in which he’s supposed to have blasted off to Heaven. There’s no month given, but there’s a suggestion it’s sometime in the late summer months because there’s a reference to poor harvests and stuff. So, Liam… we’ll make that year our first port of call, OK?’

‘Aye.’

‘Liam!’

He jerked awake. ‘Whuh?!’

He realized he’d dozed off and left a damp patch of drool down his own shoulder. The warm sun and the gentle rocking of the cart had seduced him into slumber like some dewy-eyed old codger sitting on a porch in summer.

‘You need to see this, Liam,’ said Bob, rocking his shoulder insistently with one meaty hand.

Liam pulled himself up from the mess of bundles of reeds and leaned over the front of the cart to the driver’s seat. ‘Bob, I just had the weirdest, creepiest dream.’ He yawned as he spoke, eyes still glued up and foggy with sleep. ‘Are we there yet?’

‘Affirmative, Liam. You should look.’

Liam rubbed crusts of sleep from his eyes. The dusty track had become a broad avenue of cobbled stone. That was the first thing he noticed. The second were the broad pylons of wood lining the avenue either side, each topped off with a crossbar making them T-shaped.

‘Oh, Mother Mary,’ whispered Liam. ‘This is the road to Rome?’

‘Affirmative.’

Across the T-bar of each, one arm nailed and lashed to each side of the horizontal bar, bodies hung like overripe fruit; some were recently dead, some leathered and desiccated by the summer sun like withered grapes on a vine and others pecked clean to the bone — carrion for crows. A grisly procession that receded along with the avenue to a vanishing point in the distance and the east gates of Rome.

2001, New York

‘OK, so it looks like Liam’s decided to give Rome a whole week.’ Maddy winked at Sal. ‘He’s such a tourist. Bob, let’s close the window.’

›Affirmative.

The portal collapsed into a pinpoint of light and energy, then vanished. The deep hum of energy being consumed dropped away and the archway was silent once more.

Maddy shrugged. ‘Can’t say I blame them. I bet that’s got to be a pretty cool sight.’

‘He gets to see all the totally bindaas fun stuff,’ said Sal. ‘Wish I got to go and see all that.’

Maddy looked at her. ‘But now you understand the price he’s paying.’

She nodded, immediately feeling guilty for her thoughtless comment. ‘When are you going to tell him, Maddy?’

‘Tell him? I… I don’t know.’

‘He’ll figure it out eventually, though, won’t he? When he starts to look like Foster?’

‘I know, I know… and I plan to tell him long before that.’ She clicked with a mouse and refreshed the portal dialogue box to enter the time-stamp coordinates for the one-week window, keen to find something else to do to take her mind off that particular question.

‘Can we start up the recharge for the one-weeker, please, Bob?’

›Important information, Maddy.

‘What is it?’

›One of the displacement machine’s power storage capacitors has just failed.

‘What? Oh… crud, that doesn’t sound good.’

›It is not good.

‘Well, come on, then, Bob — spit it out! What exactly does that mean?’

›There are six power storage units. One of the six units has failed. This means the maximum amount of space-time displacement we can deploy has decreased by approximately 16.5 %.

She frowned. ‘So… OK… that sounds like we can still get Liam and Bob back, right?’

›Of course. However, with only five power capacitors drawing energy, it will slow down the recharge time for the next window. There is also a possibility the other capacitors may begin to be unreliable soon.

‘Can we replace them?’

›Affirmative. It uses components that can be easily obtained from this time location.

‘Any idea where?’

›I will compile and print out a components list. These components can be purchased from any electronic components store. I have on my database a business called GeekMagnet. This is where some of this field office’s electronic components were originally sourced from.

Maddy knew GeekMagnet; they had half a dozen stores in New York City. She let out a breath. ‘Phew… I thought we had us a problem there.’

› We do have a problem, Maddy.

‘Go on.’

›This component should be repaired immediately and a diagnostic run on the other remaining five capacitors. If one capacitor has reached its reliable lifespan, the others may also be nearing the end of theirs.

She turned to look at the layers of circuit boards racked one above the other in the displacement machine’s metal frame. The thought of delving into that nest of circuitry and casually pulling out wires unsettled her. It was technology way beyond her understanding; way beyond messing around in the back of a PC, over-clocking a graphics processor, or switching out the synthesis chip on a sound card.

‘Can it wait until after we’ve got Liam and Bob back?’

›For safety reasons it would be advisable to replace the failed capacitor and the other five first.

Sal sat down beside her. ‘Yeah, I mean what if another one of those things broke down… you know?’ She looked at Maddy. ‘While a window’s open?’

›Sal is correct. There is now a decreased reliability margin. A second capacitor failure could be imminent. During the opening of a window this would be dangerous. The fluctuation of energy could cause the portal window to contract suddenly or affect the displacement attenuation.

Computer-Bob was talking about the possibility of losing a hand or foot, or a head even, of being turned into human lasagne, or worse than either of those — being lost in chaos space.

‘If I start pulling out circuit boards, you’ll talk me through it, right, Bob?’ Maddy looked again at the rack of circuit boards. ‘If I go in there and start… you know, if I break the thing…?’

›Of course, Maddy. I will supply detailed instructions. I recommend you move my camera closer to the displacement machine so that I can observe what you are doing.

‘Right.’ She looked at the rack of the displacement machine then curled her lips anxiously. ‘I’ve never even looked round the back of this thing, let alone pulled out boards and messed about inside it.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ said Sal.