We’re in a different section of the park than we were before. We didn’t exit the mine ride but rather a different doorway in the Frontier section of the park. The room we enter is drafty and bare with only a few rusting tools left strewn around the floor. When we make it out of the dilapidated building, we find that it was the façade of the blacksmith shop. We are led out of the Frontier village via a different route than Piper and I took, over another bridge and onward to the other end of the World History section.
We pass beneath a gate in the Great Wall of China that is flying tattered remains of various flags. There are a few decrepit animatronic guards atop the wall, staring lifelessly into the distance for signs of invaders.
Once inside the wall, we pass pagodas and pavilions of various shapes and sizes. There is a dragon themed roller coaster spiraling through a long-forgotten garden. Most of the plants are now brittle twigs, but I notice one determined vine still climbing its way up a wall, reaching for the supports of the roller coaster. It makes me wonder if in a different climate it might one day wrap itself over the entirety of the ride. Would that be a plant’s greatest aspiration?
A toddler’s version of the roller coaster is set up near the garden with mild undulating rises and comforting lap bars. As we walk past the ride, one of the cars clunks and moves a few inches.
Jimmy jumps.
“What the hell?” He spins to aim his rifle at the ride as if to threaten it into submission. When nothing else happens, he slowly lowers his gun and we move on. I look behind us a couple of times, and when I glance up at the now-receding battlements of the Great Wall, I catch one of the animatronic soldiers watching us.
Weren’t they all facing the other direction before?
We’ve only made it to the next building when we hear the music. A tinny and metallic sound is emanating from a speaker somewhere. Instrumental Chinese music.
“I thought this place was supposed to be empty,” Sal said.
Vanessa mocks him. “What’s the matter, Sal? Afraid of ghosts? It’s just old systems left in the sun too long.”
Another group of animatronic figures is ahead of us to the left—a group of six traditional Chinese dancers with ribbons and parasols.
Piper walks a little closer to me.
As we maneuver past, one of the dancers pivots and locks her eyes on Piper. Then she begins to move—an eerie sort of swaying. She is joined by one dancer after another. After a few moments, all six of the animatronic dancers are jolting and swaying. The music has stopped so the only sounds are their stiff and rusty parts scraping and grinding as they attempt to perform for us. The dancers all bear smiles, but several of the faces have deteriorated from being outdoors. One of the dancers has a wasp’s nest in her mouth. As she moves her mouth to attempt to sing, the angry wasps begin climbing out of various holes in her face.
“Oh, hell no,” Jimmy says. He lifts his rifle and starts shooting dancers.
Piper cringes and hides behind me.
“Hey! You’re wasting ammo!” Vanessa shouts. “Get it together. They’re just dolls.”
Jimmy raises his gun, smoke wafting from the barrel. The dancer with the wasp’s nest is now missing most of her head.
I catch Hitler smiling.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Sal says.
But the weirdness doesn’t stop there. The farther we walk, the more the park comes alive. Music begins playing in entryways, lights flicker along walkways, and occasional robotic voices beckon us toward rides and concessions.
“This place is really creeping me out. Let’s hustle to the gate and get gone,” Jimmy says.
The next time gate is hidden in the park’s version of the Coliseum. The amphitheater’s arched doorways permit us inside, and we climb a series of ramps past rows of stadium seats. The seats have been modeled to resemble stone steps, but consistent with theme park style, the stonework is all fake. This Coliseum is steel and concrete with more foam and plastic for façades, but I have to admit they’ve done a decent job. I imagine that whenever it was in operation, the arena would have been quite a spectacle.
It seems Hitler has finally found a place he recognizes. He spouts something in German I don’t understand. Sal just hustles him along.
“Let me guess. This gate leads to our metal-headed friend,” I say to Vanessa. “You guys draw straws for who had to wear that helmet or did he lose a different bet?”
“Franco was dressing like a gladiator long before I met him,” Vanessa says. “He says it gives him an edge.”
“I smelled the 4sight. His edge is all chemically induced.”
“Kicked your ass, didn’t he?”
“That what you go for in a guy? Thick skull?”
“What makes you think I go for guys?” Vanessa asks. “I’ll tell you what. When a man says he has a way out of prison and a boatload of time gates, you don’t care what he likes to wear on his head. Now stop yapping.”
I lapse into silence while I look around. There are a lot of passageways here. Enough to get lost in? Until now there haven’t been many escape opportunities. But even if Piper and I were to make a run for it, there isn’t anywhere to go. If we successfully eluded our captors here, there is still nothing but desolation outside the park. Whatever timestream we’re in, it’s nowhere we want to stay long. I’ll have to hope for something better at the next stop.
If I could find out which of these assholes has the warp clock, then maybe we’d be talking. Jorge’s deactivated chronometer is in the pocket of my jacket. If I could figure out how to turn it back on . . . well, then there would be the issue of finding an anchor from another timestream, and any of a long list of other problems to solve. But one thing at a time.
Sal has activated the time gate. Multi-colored brilliance illuminates a doorway down a corridor. The colors oscillate and swirl, making strange and beautiful patterns across the floor.
“Are we going to Italy?” Piper asks. “I like Italy.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I reply.
“They have the best gelato there,” she says. “You think they might let us get some?”
“Do we not take you out for gelato in St. Pete in the future?” I ask. “Is that what’s wrong with me as a parent?”
Piper wrinkles her nose. “It’s okay there. But in Italy it’s better.”
“Didn’t know I’d raise such a gelato snob . . .”
“Hey. Shut up back there,” Jimmy says. “Gate’s set. Get on through.” He waves us forward. “You keep your mouths shut, you’ll live longer.”
Piper falls in behind me.
“I’ll go through first. You follow. Got it?” Jimmy says. He waves a pistol at me. “No funny business on either end. I don’t want to shoot either of yas. But I will if I have to.”
“We won’t make trouble as long as we get gelato,” I say.
“What?” Jimmy balks at the comment.
“Nothing,” I reply. “Just a joke.”
“It’s how he deals with stress,” Piper adds helpfully.
“Just get your asses through, or I’ll really give you something to stress about.” Jimmy glances at Sal and once Sal gives him a nod, steps through the gate.
Sal resets something on the control panel, then waves us forward. “You two can go together. Get out of the way on the other side if you want to live.”
I know that drill. I’m not excited to be fused to a rifle, or to a part of Vanessa when she follows us. Clearing away from a time gate makes surviving a trip a lot easier. I take a breath, then walk on through.
The air is dusty and hot. Sound assaults my ears as soon as I’m through. Cheering. Screaming. Metal on metal. Drums are beating rhythmically somewhere overhead. We’re below the stadium now. A stadium anyway. There is a window on one side of the corridor looking out over broad expanses of countryside, so I don’t think it’s the Coliseum anymore.
I take a few steps, pulling Piper with me. Her head swivels, processing the ceiling above and the
thunderous applause that erupts from beyond the corridor. Jimmy gestures for us to keep moving, and we pass a barred doorway leading to the heart of the arena. The shouting and chanting is louder out there.
Vanessa and Sal appear through the time gate separately, but then Sal shuts the gate back down.
Definitely not the Coliseum. It’s too small. Even with the limited view of corridors from my perspective, there’s no way this would match up. When we’re led onward, my suspicion is confirmed. We follow Jimmy and Adolf Hitler up a set of stairs to a platform overlooking the arena. Wide, sail-shaped sunshades protect patrons in numerous rows of seats.
It looks like we are in the past. At least it seems so, but some of the spectators are wearing sunglasses. Others have bags of popcorn and bottles of beer. There is a chariot racing around the arena below us at high speed, and a man with a lance on a horse. He’s not Roman. He’s wearing medieval armor and a shield. It’s an exhibition or a Renaissance fair. It would almost make sense if I weren’t standing on a balcony next to Adolf Hitler.
In a raised section of seats to our right, I spot the Gladiator seated in a high-backed chair. It’s the first time I’m seeing him without his helmet on. It’s sitting next to him on a stand. He looks about how I imagined. He’s got a square jaw, a buzz cut, and a glare that’s all business. Beside him is a man I’m surprised I recognize. As we are led over to them, I gape at the balding time traveler I last recall seeing in a toga outside Ancient Rome. He’s in less formal robes today and he’s wearing boat shoes.
Octavius Theophilus Graccus. It was the name he went by at the time, anyway. The former chronothon facilitator glances over and spots us approaching. His eyes widen at the sight of me.
“Ben? Benjamin Travers?” He gets out of his seat and comes rushing over. He ignores my bound wrists and grasps me by the shoulders. “What a wonderful surprise!”
“Hello, Phil,” I reply. “It’s been a long time.”
“Has it?” Phil replies. “It’s so hard to know these days.” He looks down at Piper and leans toward her. “And you brought a little friend.”
I take a step sideways to block Piper from him, and Phil bumps his forehead into my shoulder. He straightens up and rubs his head. He looks at me, offended. “I’m just saying hello. No need to be alarmed.”
“Talk to me then, Phil. Where the hell are we?”
“What? This?” He turns to the spectacle below us. The armored knight makes a charge and successfully knocks the charioteer from his chariot, hurling him to the dust. The crowd erupts into raucous applause. The charioteer doesn’t look like he’ll be getting back up. Phil winks at me and sweeps his arm across the view of the arena. “This is the Circus Nefarious! The place where evil men come to die.”
15
“It is a gift that we are unable to stop time completely. We must all pay for life one second at a time. If this spending could be stopped, we might become misers and fear to live at all.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2025
“You made a Celebrity Deathmatch?” I ask, recalling the old Claymation MTV show. “But with real people. That’s horrifying.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phil replies. “We’ve merely created a spectacle for time travelers to flock to. A place where we can enjoy the great villains of history meeting their timely ends.” He grins at me.
I glance back to find that Jimmy and Vanessa have handed off their other prisoner. Adolf Hitler is being led away down the corridor. He’s back to cursing loudly.
I’m not sure which to be more disgusted by, the idea of completely altering history at a whim, or the brutality I’ve just witnessed in the arena. “Who’s that?” I say, pointing to the knight on horseback.
“John Hawkwood. Mercenary. Cuts quite the gallant figure, doesn’t he? Tends to play the role of hero here, but make no mistake, he’s a brutal man. If you stay for the events this afternoon, you’ll see him face off against Attila the Hun! That should be very exciting.”
“You can’t do this,” Piper says. She’s crept up behind me and has clearly been listening. “You can’t just take people from time and move them around. It’s wrong.”
“Wrong for whom, my dear?” Phil says. He rests his entwined fingers on his ample belly. “Wouldn’t you say that the timestreams these villains were plucked from would be better off?”
“You can’t possibly know that,” I argue. “You could be making things worse!”
“Well, thankfully it’s not up to me,” Phil replies. “We only do as we’re told.”
“By who? Him?” I gesture to Franco in the chair beyond him. The Gladiator seems engrossed in another matchup that’s just beginning. A mustached man wearing a bowler hat is being dragged out from a gate in the wall and forced toward the middle of the arena. Onlookers are whooping and hollering.
“Not to disparage Mr. Franco, but we get our orders from a higher intelligence now,” Phil says.
“The prisoners do not require explanations of our business, Graccus,” the Gladiator rumbles, apparently overhearing us despite the noise from the crowd.
Phil turns toward him. “You’ll have to forgive me. Not everyday I meet someone from the glory days. Did you know Benjamin here competed in a chronothon? We met in Rome. He did quite well.” He turns back to me. “Weren’t you awarded first place?”
I don’t have an opportunity to respond because the Gladiator rises from his chair and picks up his helmet. He’s now wearing a leather breastplate and has abandoned his modern clothing altogether. He steps over and appraises me. “Chronothon champion. You must think you’re a big hero.”
I glare at him but don’t take the bait.
“The only thing chronothons have been good for is providing us with our supply of time gates,” he says.
“You stole these gates from chronothons?”
Phil knits his fingers together as I glare at him. “I may have let some people know where ASCOTT was storing the gates after they were confiscated. It’s not exactly my fault if they left them inadequately secured . . .”
“We are putting them to better use,” the Gladiator says. “Out here, away from the coddling of ASCOTT and the regulations of the Central Streams, heroes are defined by their actions, not made-up games. We don’t need sanctioning now, or the rules of old men in lab coats.”
“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for some of those old men,” I say.
“The Quickly family is a different matter,” the Gladiator replies. “But we’re done with their ways too. We have a new mentor now.”
“You all keep talking about this great intelligence you’re following. I heard about your prison chats and crazy A.I. church. Whoever is running it is obviously playing you for suckers. You think if they are really that smart, they would organize this nonsense?” I gesture to the arena. The man who has been forced to the center is now stumbling around with a brown bottle in his hand. He looks disoriented.
“This is my arena,” the Gladiator says. “No one made me do this. It’s my reward for services rendered.”
“Who have you got out there now?” Phil asks. He reaches into a pocket and removes a wrinkled program. “Oh it’s H. H. Holmes, the serial killer. His weapon of choice was apparently chloroform and piano wire. Can’t say that will serve him very well. Wonder who he’s drawn for competition.”
Another gate opens in the wall and a man rides out on horseback. He has an elaborate helmet and pointed beard and is carrying a curved sword.
“Who is that?” Piper asks.
“Oh my. Poor luck there,” Phil says, scratching out something on his program. I notice it has bid amounts listed near matchups. “He’s drawn Genghis Khan. Very bad luck. Khan’s been winning all day. I rather think he enjoys this.”
The man on horseback locates Holmes in the center of the arena and urges his horse into a run. He swings his sword once, as if warming up his wrist, then bears down in the saddle and focuses on his target. H. H. Holmes makes a break for the wall. He�
�s running full out, but he doesn’t stand a chance. The Mongol is on him in seconds.
I pull Piper aside and make her look away. “You won’t want to see this.” I duck down with her and have her focus on me. There’s nothing I can do about the sickening sounds from the arena or the shouting of the crowd, but I pull her closer anyway. “Don’t let this scare you, okay?”
When the cheering has died down, I look up to find the Gladiator watching me. He’s scowling.
“Get him below till I’ve made arrangements for them,” he barks.
I’m hauled to my feet by guards that appear out of nowhere. The men shove me roughly toward the corridor. In a matter of moments, I’m being dragged away. Piper tries to follow but is restrained by the Gladiator. He grips the back of her hair. She squirms and shrieks but to no avail.
“Get your damned hands off her!” I shout before the wind gets knocked out of me by one of the guards’ fists. I shove the guard away from me, attempting to get back to Piper, but the other guard wraps me in a bear hug from behind. The first guard pulls a baton and brandishes it at me.
I make eye contact with Vanessa, who simply shakes her head. I bite back my anger and stop resisting. Getting brained by the guard with the baton isn’t going to help the situation.
“I’ll get us out of this, Piper. I promise!”
I’m dragged backward toward the corridor.
“No! Dad! Wait!” Her shouts continue as I’m dragged away. I grit my teeth and try not to think of what might happen to her on her own in the company of these men. For several dozen yards, I can still hear her shouting, even over the noise from the crowd outside.
“She’s just a kid,” I say, pleading with my nameless captors. “Don’t hurt her.” I have a hard time knowing if they even understand me. Are they locals? Are these more time travelers? I’m so confused about how I even got into this mess, but now all I can think about is how it’s getting worse.
I’m forced down a flight of steps into the bowels of the arena. We pass several chambers including one that looks like an armory before proceeding through a set of locked doors. It’s dark down here. The passage is smoky and dimly lit with torches. My stomach tightens at the sight of blood on the floor. Blood and what might be a human finger. The mystery appendage is on the floor near a table that looks like it may have been used for medical treatment. Wads of bandages, used cutting implements, and several bottles of murky liquid still adorn the tabletop.
In Times Like These Boxed Set Page 173