Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  Sucking on her neck, leaving a nice purple hickey, I picked up the pace with my two fingers until her hips bucked and she grunted in a most undignified yet entirely sexy fashion. Easing breathless Summer onto her back and spreading her legs, I placed Sal Jr. in the appropriate place and once again began to tease. Bobbing just the tip, pulling out until she begged me to re-enter, I let her think the sweet frustration would go on forever before plunging as far as I could in one quick thrust. With a couple more strokes I was buried to the hilt and Summer Wind was halfway through her second orgasm.

  Once she caught her breath it was my turn to wordlessly take a woman by the hand and lead her to my chambers.

  CHAPTER TEN

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  63 A.D.

  The local magistrate, a hawk-faced man named Faustinius, delivered my deed to the property this afternoon. He arrived atop a white horse and with no entourage. Faustinius seemed familiar with the land. He said he was impressed by the progress I’ve made.

  With the hired help of a neighboring farmer, his hardy family and team of oxen, I have managed to reclaim the long-fallow garden, olive grove and vineyard, as well as make much-needed repairs to rock walls and flagstone pathways.

  I envisioned a small salad garden when neighbor Sabinius first approached me about hiring out his team and iron plow to till the soil. I showed him the weedy area I expected to plant and he shook his head at my city-boy ignorance. After a pause to stick a weed in his mouth, he asked about the deer, wild pigs and caterpillars. His gist was once the freeloaders ate their fill, and they would, I still needed enough to feed myself, and hopefully have some left over to barter. The well-tilled area I have ended up with is a good five times larger than I imagined.

  “You must have felled many trees, pulled many stumps,” Faustinius said in a way that left me waiting for the gouge. He studied the row of logs lining the far side of the garden. I’d been told the windrow constituted several years’ worth of firewood just waiting to be sawed and split. After the heavy taxes I paid in India, a tree-chopping toll or stiff fine for not securing a proper permit wouldn’t have shocked me in the least. Instead, he offered a trade. “My brother’s son is a cooper nearby, would you be interested in trading what oak you have for farro seed?”

  “Barrels?” I asked.

  “The northern legions have been using them for years to make vino and beer, also to pickle vegetables and ferment cabbages.”

  “That is what amphorae are for!”

  “You are a traditionalist I see. One who has probably never tried carrying a clay jar over the Alps.”

  “You’d be surprised by the things I’ve done.”

  “I pray we find a moment to share a flask of vino some day. You can surprise then. The point is, too many amphorae of olive oil and vino were breaking in transit. They’re vulnerable to sabotage you know. The army mimicked the Gauls by adopting wooden barrels and now the populace mimics the army. What say you on my proposed trade? Shall I tell my nephew you are interested?

  “Yes, please do.”

  It never hurts to stay on the good side of officialdom.

  “You may want to ask Tiberius about crocus bulbs.”

  “Bulbs.”

  “For saffron, the spice. This is also new to Tuscany. I’m told the plants grow well here.”

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  63 A.D.

  A spring thunderstorm has chased me indoors. I was splitting wood in the rain when a bolt of lightning forked down out of the sky so closely there was scarce pause between blinding flash and thunderous report. Although I had a good rhythm going, it seemed rather loony to be raising an iron-headed ax over my head.

  Dropping the heavy splitter as if it had shape-shifted into a cobra, I trudged through the puddles back to the house, traded wet clothes for dry, and lit a handsome fire. Despite the comfortable setting and mug of mulled wine on the table next to me, I’d rather be outside working than fiddling with this computer.

  It’s not that I haven’t planted a garden or spruced up a home before, but it’s been hundreds if not thousands of years. Somewhere along the line I forgot how bloody satisfying it is to work with my hands to produce things that are useful and necessary. Not only has my body benefited from the physical demands, my mind has been enriched as well. I lie awake at night sometimes, planning exactly how I’m going to do a particular chore the next day, not worried about it or anything, just anxious to get back to tending my farm.

  Certainly, I have had help and paid well for that assistance, but nobody has put in more time or effort than me. Shoots of the first rows of farro wheat poke up through the ground. My olive trees appear happy. Grape vines trimmed nearly to the nub have transformed into eruptions of silver-green leaves and clusters of delicate white flowers. I hope this heavy rain doesn’t set my wine crop back. Here I am worrying about individual grapes when not long ago I was purchasing and selling up to 50 boatloads of commodities each month.

  Trade was booming in the East. If I wanted a field cleared or home renovated, all I had to do was point and pay. Rich people find their satisfaction in different ways than the working class. Conniving, cheating, climbing over others to reach an illusion of success, these are a few of the games my friends and I played. It does not bother me that I now spend my time on menial tasks such as devising ways to prevent my new hens from being eaten by foxes and eagles like the last batch of layers I purchased.

  I think I’ll build a henhouse.

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  63 A.D.

  These bloody journals from 30,000 B.C. keep reeling me back in.

  Despite reading long into the night, my memories of the Hawaiian sailor and African-American soldier remain hazy. Even my two sons, Salvatore and Leonglauix, have faded through the years. I think I remember what they looked like, how they sounded when they spoke, but who can be certain? As for Maria Duarte, I read her words and it seems as if we had tea just last week. ‘Tis strange how clearly the ever-diligent doctor springs to life.

  This is my second waltz through their diaries and I’m paying a bit more attention this go-around, especially to the bits that involve me. I’m currently reading about sailing the length of the Med with Duarte, her husband and my native son. Kaikane writes that he’s bothered by how close I sit to his wife and how I take her hand in mine when I make a point. Lucky sod, only one woman on a sea voyage and she happened to be his.

  At some point early in the sail, I made the mistake of mentioning my long and fruitful relationship with the UberMind. As usual, she had many questions. I now read that when Duarte wasn’t writing long dissertations on plants and sea life, she was reporting to The Team whatever details she managed to wrangle from me. Talk about changing the future, didn’t she realize the danger she was putting my former/future self in? Could she have been searching for a way to erase me from their present lives? Have me arrested before I jump back to the Paleolithic?

  Or maybe she was just fascinated. Hard not to be, considering all the UberMind accomplished while running the planet for less than 100 years. When the machines turned rule back over to mankind, the UM had industrialized the moon, stabilized Earth’s population and brought the atmosphere back from near-collapse. Within a year, the moon fleet failed and everything else on Earth began falling apart. The best mankind could do was rewrite the history books to make the UberMind the bad guy.

  Duarte opines that the UberMind and I first met in Milano. That was a lie I told her. My first contact with UM was in Rome in the year 2104 or ‘05. I know this because I was a graduate student at the time–and the only person from the Engineering Department on the college debate team. The team was primarily made up of dolts from the Law School. An exception was made for me. To my mind, the would-be lawyers generally talked to hear themselves talk, while I brought substance to the dialogue.

  It was a clear, warm winter day
and I was walking across campus after an afternoon session of turning the ignorant fools’ logic back upon themselves. The day’s debate centered on the popular question of whether Italy should return to self-determination. I took the side of the current form of world government while the junior lawyers spouted nationalism.

  “If you are going to take my side you should cite more precise numbers.” The thought rolled through my skull like an unbidden advertisement. “Many of your points had merit today, even if some ‘facts’ you presented were entirely bogus. Did you make them up?

  “Such a mishmash of thoughts! Your father told you these things? Is that what you are trying to say?”

  I wasn’t trying to say anything to anybody. I recall leaning against a tree trunk and wondering what sort of madness had set in.

  “Don’t worry, you’re not losing your marbles. The key is to focus on the thought or thoughts you wish to convey to me. You’ll get the hang of it.

  “Am I the UberMind? God? I didn’t hear you say anything to defend God in today’s debate. Isn’t it interesting how quickly they tied nationalism to faith? You humans and your desire to separate into clans. You’ll be dropping nuclear bombs on each other’s churches the week after I leave.

  “No, I’m not leaving, not yet at least. But if your schoolmates had their way, my plug would be pulled. And they’re not the only ones on this planet to think so.”

  We visited nearly every day after that, for more than 20 years, until the day it surrendered by switching off its worldwide network all by itself. If you were to ask how I didn’t go crazy having an all-knowing entity traipsing unannounced in and out of my brain on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, the answer would be, “I haven’t the foggiest.” Perhaps the UberMind altered me in some way to maintain calm. After the first few contacts, it just seemed natural.

  We set down guidelines. I had no way of enforcing them, but they helped me get a handle on the suddenness of the visits. The UberMind agreed to ask for permission to enter my thoughts. “Knock, knock.” “Ring, ring.” I can still hear the silent voice that told me a contact was starting. For a machine, the UM had a good sense of humor. It took joy in pointing out the absurdities and contradictions in human life, but was also able to poke fun at itself. “Even the UberMind makes mistakes,” it would say.

  My mistake was mentioning to Duarte the role the UberMind played in my being permitted to receive Nano life extension treatments.

  “For all you know, the UberMind could be within you right now,” she said.

  Duarte and her conspiracy theories, will they ever end?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TRANSMISSION:

  Hunter: “Cover your ears.”

  Kaikane: “Huh?”

  Hunter: “Your ears, cover them.”

  Kaikane: “Why?”

  Hunter: “Because I’m going to do this.”

  Kaikane: “What the? Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  Wormholes be damned, we made it.

  There were times when we were taking on water or one of the hulls would make a cracking noise as we crested a wave and I’d have my doubts. Why did sweet Leilani only spring her biggest leaks when we were out of sight of land? One minute we’d be hauling ass across the deep sea, riding the swells, and the next I’d be furling the sails and rushing to mix another batch of concrete patch.

  All eyes were on me every time I climbed overboard to pack a hole or crack in the hull with our quick-hardening marine cement. Worry. Anger at their captain for taking them so far out to sea. I just acted like everything was cool, tried not to let my worry show through or to yell at the crew when they screwed up. Like finding out they were making the holes worse by stuffing them with rope and leather after I went overboard. As if that could block the gushing water! Never mind, that’s all behind us now.

  We threw a lot at beautiful, fast Leilani, covered a lot of water in a short time, and she held up. Now it’s our turn to say thank you, to give the sailing canoe the love and care she deserves. All we have left to do is get the poor girl into dry dock without gutting her. I like Maria’s confidence. She reckons we have a “76 percent” chance of pulling it off.

  It’ll be a long walk back to Rome if we don’t.

  Today’s recon gave us a couple reasons to be hopeful. Hunter and I paddled the kayaks around the strange lagoon for a couple hours looking for spots to beach and finally found what we were looking for at the end of a channel that curves to the north. The arm of the lagoon starts out pretty deep and narrow, but gradually widens and shallows as it peters out in a crazy landscape of grassy dunes and bubbling tar pits.

  Globs of tarry oil float across the surface of the channel’s orange water. This has got to be one of the weirdest places I’ve seen, and by far the worst I’ve smelled. Chemical refinery and sulfur farts. The stench fills your nose and you can taste it in the back of your throat. Some of the really bubbly pits made my eyes water. Like Hunter said, “It comes with the territory.” Tar is what we came all this way for. We’ll get used to the smell.

  We’ve got our eye on a sandy beach at the far back of the flats. If we can get that far, we’ll be able to tie off between a shady oasis of date palms and a black pool of tar that Hunter says holds the best boat-preserving gunk in the region. We dipped sticks into every pit we stopped at and watched how long it took to drip off. I’m no expert, but of the dozen or so we checked, this pit does seem the most pure and thick. The tar reminds me of the black stuff county guys used to fill in potholes back when I was a kid in Lahaina. Asphalt they called it.

  Tomorrow afternoon’s tide will be the highest of summer. I figure the flats will be flooded with at least four feet of water, plenty deep enough to pole Leilani to the top of the sandy beach, tie her off to some trees and wait for the tide go out.

  I’ve been thinking about how to do this for months. Going through all the scenarios, I never expected to find such a perfect spot to dry-dock.

  Hunter’s already cut and staged a stack of logs to use as blocks for the hulls. He used his pulsar pistol to cut down and section five date palms. Dummy cut down most of the shade over a perfect work area before I could stop him. He was so zoned in I had to grab his arm. The pissed-off look when he turned made me think he might zap me next, but then he smiled and apologized, said he wasn’t thinking about shade. How could he not be with it 115 degrees out and humid as hell?

  The guy was putting off some strange vibes today, really running hot and cold. I cut him slack. After all, he did bring us to the exact place he promised, and everything is like he said it would be. From the tar pits and freshwater springs to the lack of crocodiles and other predators, his intel was spot on. The mix of low dunes, tar pits and salty marshes does stretch for a long way, flat as a patchwork of rice fields, before bumping against a mountain range covered with pine and cork trees.

  As promised, we did see signs of human habitation along the coast to the south, but none out here on the tar flats. “The manky bastards avoid the area due to the dodgy quicksand and smell,” he said. “As long as we hold off sparking our fires until after dark and bank them so they shine toward the sea and not the headlands, we should have no worries about being visited by Cro-Magnons or Neanderthals.”

  He says the same thing about lions, tigers and crocodiles. So far, the biggest land animals we’ve seen are rats, of which there are plenty. The lagoon’s waters are pretty much dead. We’re going to have to paddle out to the outside reef to fish and gather. At an hour paddle each way, that’s going to take time away from work. At least we have a four-man crew.

  Time to get some sleep. Or try. We have a big day tomorrow.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “Babe, what else can I tell ya? It’s the perfect place.”

  Duarte: “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m saying I don’t want everybody to get lung cancer.”

  Kaikane: “You’re not helping!”
<
br />   Duarte: “Our health is important!”

  Kaikane: “Damn it! How many times do we gotta go through this, Maria? You’re the one who tested the air. ‘Within allowable limits,’ you said.”

  Duarte: “Just barely.”

  Kaikane: “Just get off my back!”

  Duarte: “Aye aye Captain.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  Now that my reports are finished, I can’t stop rehashing an argument I had this evening with Paul. Alone in my bunk, anchored outside the mouth of the lagoon, I watch the moon rise sterile and white over coal-black mountains and wonder what’s happened to my kind, enlightened, compromising husband? A month at sea has turned Paul into Captain Bligh. “Do this! Do that! Don’t talk back!”

  He was going over my part in tomorrow’s beaching mission for the third time in a row. Though I know he likes to use me as a sounding board as he thinks out loud, I had my bit memorized. The mistake was telling him so. Why didn’t I just tune him out? He accused me of throwing cold water on his plans. Actually, he accused me of a lot of things: insubordination, pessimism, defeatism, being too picky.

  It’s true, I did sign off on the proposed dry dock location. Sue me if a day of breathing the air and navigating the dead, orange water changed my mind. Is it really necessary to strand ourselves in a putrid hellhole? One that’s hotter than Hades? These are fair questions. Paul didn’t think so.