Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

‘Anyone mind telling me what’s bleedin’ well going on here?’

AD 54, 7 miles outside Rome

It took Maddy half an hour to get Liam and Bob up to speed on everything that had happened to them since she’d sent them off to Ancient Rome. ‘I’ve never been so scared,’ she concluded. She cast a quick glance at the dead support unit. ‘I thought we were going to die.’

Sal nodded. ‘So stupid. I kept thinking, “Why are Bob and Becks trying to kill us?” Even though I knew it wasn’t them.’

‘I would never harm any of you,’ Bob assured them.

Maddy looked at him. ‘Because it’s not a mission parameter.’

He nodded. ‘Correct.’

‘But, hang on! So who sent them support units after us, then?’ asked Liam.

‘I don’t know!’ Maddy shook her head. ‘I’ve got no idea, Liam. I just don’t know who would — ’

‘Maybe it’s someone we upset?’ said Sal.

‘Upset?’ Liam looked at her incredulously. ‘If that’s what upset does… I’d not want to know what totally hacked off gets us.’

Maddy waved him silent. ‘Someone wants us dead… who, though?’

‘Maybe someone doesn’t want us looking after history. Someone who wants history to be changed, all messed around.’ Sal took a sharp breath. ‘What if… what if this Roman contamination was linked to those support units? Somehow?’

Maddy stroked her chin, giving that some consideration.

Sal continued. ‘Maybe whoever came back here somehow knew all about the agency? About us? Maybe they wanted to make sure they took us down so we couldn’t undo whatever they’re up to right here.’

They looked at each other. A long, uneasy pause.

‘I think it was the message,’ said Maddy. She looked at the others. ‘Asking about Pandora. Someone other than Waldstein intercepted it.’

‘That’s not good…’ said Sal eventually. ‘That someone knows about us.’

‘They knew precisely where and when we are.’ Maddy pulled on her lip. ‘Not good.’

‘And those support units you were talkin’ about,’ said Liam, ‘they’re still back there? In our archway?’

Maddy nodded. ‘Quite probably trashing our place as we speak. Destroying everything.’

Liam looked up at her. ‘But this means we’re… we’ll be stuck here, then. Right?’

‘For the moment.’ Maddy sighed. ‘We’ll figure something out.’

He muttered to himself. ‘I’d rather have gone back and faced them crazy Bobs than — ’

‘I’m sorry, Liam! OK? I didn’t have time to organize another recall window. We were lucky to escape with our lives!’

He stopped. Accepted that. ‘Right. I’m sorry.’

‘Look… there’s still the six-month window,’ continued Maddy. ‘If they don’t smash the place up. If computer-Bob runs the recall sequence as scheduled.’

‘There’s a couple of them “if” words of yours, Madelaine Carter.’ Liam offered her an edgy grin. ‘That’s never a good sign.’

She returned it and nodded. ‘I’m not such a huge fan of embedded “ifs” either.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen back home. We might get the six-monther, we might not.’

‘I don’t want to stay here six more minutes… let alone months.’

‘Why?’ asked Sal. She looked around at the valley, the olive trees. ‘Seems all right to me. Nice and sunny and — ’

Maddy noted the look on his face. ‘Liam? Bob? Come on… what do you two guys know?’

‘This is a significantly altered timeline,’ said Bob.

‘Well, it looks pretty much what I’d imagine Rome to — ’

‘ This isn’t Rome,’ cut in Liam. He shook his head slowly. ‘This is a small valley full of wild olive trees. You want to see Rome?’

‘Well…’ Maddy looked around. ‘We can’t wait here for six months.’

‘It would be inadvisable to remain here,’ added Bob.

‘You’re right.’ Maddy pulled herself to her feet, brushing dry dirt off her jeans. ‘They might find a way to bypass computer-Bob’s security lockdown. Open another portal. We should move away from here.’

‘Affirmative.’

‘You want us to go back to Rome?’ asked Liam.

‘Well, where else do you suggest?’

‘How about anywhere?’

Maddy frowned. ‘Jeez, what’s got into you? Can’t be that bad.’

‘It’s bad.’

Maddy sighed. ‘Could we just get some clear, useful information out of you, please?’

‘It appears some sort of contamination event occurred in Rome approximately seventeen years ago,’ said Bob. ‘Something witnessed by many people, but it has become an interpreted event.’

‘Interpreted event. What do you mean?’

‘It appears that Emperor Caligula has manipulated the many different eyewitness accounts of this event to his own advantage. To create an accepted orthodox version of events.’

‘So, what’s the story?’

‘There are accounts of “a host of angels coming down from Heaven”,’ said Liam, ‘descending from the skies in vast chariots during some religious festival, seventeen years ago.’ He shook his head at how ridiculous it sounded. ‘They actually descended right into the middle of their largest arena during a gladiatorial show and they’re supposed to have announced that Caligula was a god. Their god, would you believe?’

‘What?’ Maddy looked at Sal. ‘Oh my — ! Did you just say “vast chariots”?’

Bob nodded. ‘Clearly vehicles of some kind. Modern technology.’

‘Someone’s gone big-scale,’ said Sal.

‘A large group of time travellers bringing with them… what? Tanks or something?’ Maddy shook her head. ‘The future’s getting careless.’

‘Or desperate,’ added Sal.

‘Just like that Kramer, then,’ said Liam. ‘But a much more ambitious version of his jolly jaunt.’

Maddy nodded. ‘And so, what? We’ve got some future power-junky jerk like that Kramer running the show now? Calling himself Emperor Caligula?’

Liam shook his head. ‘No. We think it’s still the real Caligula in charge.’

‘What about the time travellers, then?’ asked Sal.

Liam shrugged. ‘Gone.’

‘Information: the orthodox account is that the angels stayed for several years to prepare Caligula for his role as God, then returned to Heaven with a promise that one day soon he will be summoned there too.’

‘That’s the orthodox version,’ added Liam. ‘Ask me… I think he had ’em all killed.’

‘Liam is right. This would appear to be the most likely outcome. These “angels” have not been seen by anyone in over fifteen years. They most likely have been secretly executed by Caligula.’

Maddy looked at them both, then at Sal. A breeze stirred the olive trees and filled the long silence between them. ‘He’s clearly as mad as a box of chocolate frogs.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ muttered Liam. ‘Rome is…’ He shook his head. ‘It isn’t what I expected. It’s…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Rome… this Rome is the last place on earth you’d ever want to see again.’

‘But we will have to return, Liam,’ said Bob gently. He looked towards Maddy. ‘There is an unresolved time contamination. That is our mission priority.’

She looked at his hulking form. Yeah, that may be your priority, Bob. Not necessarily ours, though.

He was still working from code — programming that absolutely insisted this contamination was resolved before anything else. The agency’s programming. Waldstein’s. The guy who’d dropped all three of them into this never-ending nightmare without a word of warning… Without any support whatsoever.

‘Madelaine,’ insisted Bob, ‘this is our mission priority.’