Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

She wandered over to the body of the clone on the ground. ‘Well, we can’t stay here, that’s for sure. We’ve got two things to deal with. This contamination. We’ve got to zero in on the jerks who caused it. The precise when and the where. My money’s on some idiot like that Kramer; some power-hungry moron who fancies himself as a Roman emperor.’

She hunkered down and studied the clone’s still face, its glazed grey eyes staring lifelessly back at her. ‘And then we’ve got this to deal with. I guess we’ll have to face that in six months’ time.’

‘ If the six-month window opens,’ said Liam. ‘What if it’s all smashed up back in the archway?’

Maddy shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why?’ asked Sal. ‘Liam’s right. They’re probably smashing it all up and we’re going to be stuck out here forever.’

‘I don’t think so. They wanted us dead, not on the loose somewhere in history.’ She looked at Bob. ‘What would you do? If you were them?’

‘I would assume an automated recall sequence was set up. I would wait in the field office for it to be activated. Then I would kill you as soon as you returned.’

‘Precisely.’ She looked at the other two. ‘We’ll get our six-month window. We just need to be ready to fight for our lives the moment we get back.’

Liam sighed. ‘I love being us.’

Maddy ignored him. ‘So, whether we like it or not, we’ve got six months to make use of. Let’s see what we can find out about this contamination. If it’s another Kramer, maybe there’s some modern tech somewhere? Another machine possibly. Who knows?’

‘Another gun would be nice,’ said Sal, inspecting the empty NYPD handgun. Useless to anyone, except perhaps as a club.

‘Yup,’ Maddy smiled. ‘That would be handy. Come on…’ She stood up. ‘We should go. Probably best not to hang around here any longer.’

They got to their feet and followed her out of the small valley, up the slope towards the cart and horses patiently waiting on the side of the track.

2001, New York

As the portal snapped down to a pinprick of light then vanished, the high-pitched hum of the displacement machine dropped in tone. Then there was silence, except for the gentle chugging of the generator in the back room.

The two support units, Abel and Faith, regarded the feet and hand lying on the floor in front of them, both perfectly cauterized where shrinking reality had cut through their colleague.

‘System AI, please advise where the targets were sent,’ said Abel.

Computer-Bob’s webcam eye regarded them. His cursor blinked on the screen.

‘System AI, please advise where the targets were sent.’

Computer-Bob was running decision filters across his network; it was almost surprising really that neither of these mysterious support units could hear the change in pitch of his CPU fans.

Not on screen, but deep within a mind of logic gates and circuit boards, options presented themselves to Bob. Decision 1. Assist with enquiry — Note: authority code is valid. Protocol n235 invoked. (Assistance mandatory.) 2. Override valid code. Initiate system lockdown. 3. Lie.

The unit called Abel stepped towards the desk. He hunkered down and looked directly into the webcam. ‘System AI, please provide an answer.’

Computer-Bob realized he was using fuzzy-logic routines that no programmer had ever actually written for him. They were decision functions that, in a way, he’d written himself. Feelings that once upon a time had crossed the great divide of hair-thin wires from flesh to silicon. Feelings… that once across those wires became hexadecimal approximations.

Original code.

A strange experience. A very novel experience. Almost human in fact. Computer-Bob had a file tagged ‘Smile #32’ in his extensive database. It was a smile type that he saw Liam use often, particularly when he played games on the Nintendo console. Bob’s webcam eye had seen that smile whenever Liam won one of his go-kart races. There was even an audio file linked to the visual record of that smile. Maddy’s voice: ‘Sheesh, what are you looking so smug about?’ Liam’s voice: ‘I just won again.’

Smile #32 could also be labelled ‘Smug Smile’. He made a mental note to give the file that additional heading. But now more pressing matters needed to be dealt with. Computer-Bob selected option three.

›Targets have been relocated to pre-programmed emergency jump location.

Computer-Bob watched the support unit called Abel read the screen then nod and say, ‘Please specify the emergency jump location.’

›Information: 2.42 miles from this location.

‘Give me precise time-stamp coordinates.’

›I am able to open the same portal.

‘Proceed,’ said Abel.

Computer-Bob initiated a sequence of commands. Enough power for a modest window surged from the remaining five properly functioning capacitors into the displacement machine. A moment later, a portal flickered into existence in the middle of the archway’s floor.

The two support units wasted no time at all. They stepped through one after the other.

Computer-Bob closed the portal immediately. Power needed to be conserved. Unnecessary lights winked off in the archway. The monitors shut down one after the other. All but one of the networked PCs went into sleep mode. The final PC was running a processor-‘lite’ version of computer-Bob’s AI. If someone had asked him what he preferred, orange or pink, it probably would have caused a system crash.

Instead, his idling AI allowed itself a self-congratulatory moment to play around with ASCII characters. Smile #32 specifically. Smug Smile.

The cursor blinked several times.

› ‹ 8 ^ D

Then that final monitor also snapped into sleep mode.

AD 54, Rome

The faint outline of the city lay ahead of them, nestling in a valley of gently rolling hills, and the track was now a wide cobblestone road leading down a gentle slope emerging from an orchard of olive trees. Bob steered the cart round a line of slow, shuffling slaves up ahead of them. Each had a noose of rope around their necks, attaching them to a long heavy-looking pole that rested along their shoulders.

‘Oh my…’ was all Maddy could say as their cart rattled slowly past them.

‘Slavery’s popular here,’ said Liam. ‘Oh and sacrifices.’

Maddy bit her lip as she looked at him. ‘Seriously?’

‘You’ll start to see some grisly stuff soon enough.’

The cart rolled along in a solemn silence, slowly drawing past the line of slaves. Maddy looked down at them, at their pale faces — she supposed they came from far-off northern countries — all of them daubed with swipes of green paint.

‘What’s the paint for?’ asked Sal.

‘The green?’ Liam leaned on the side of the cart. ‘It’s Caligula’s colour. It’s the colour of his church.’

‘The Church of Julii,’ said Sal.

‘What?’ Liam shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s called that.’

‘Not yet,’ she added. ‘It gets called that much later. I guess it sort of becomes this timeline’s version of the Catholic Church.’

Sal watched the slaves trudge barefooted along the cobbles. Her face drained of colour as she watched them. The cart slowly rattled past daubed faces gazing down at their own bloodied and blistered feet and she looked like she was going to vomit.

‘Why’ve they been painted green?’ asked Maddy.

‘They’re marked,’ said Liam. ‘Marked for sacrifice. Every call to prayer is begun with a sacrifice.’

‘There are five calls to prayer every day,’ added Bob. ‘This is by decree. Any citizens who are seen not praying are punished.’