by J. D. Moyer
“But what does it include specifically?”
“Nine articles: Free Expression, Bodily Integrity, Shelter, Sustenance, Privacy, Justice, Healthcare, Education, and Property.”
Jana had many questions, which Ingrid and Lydia answered in detail. Part of Tem’s mind rebelled; listening to Ingrid and Lydia reminded him of a boring civics class. But he understood the importance of it. Jana didn’t want to bring coalition membership to her town council without a full understanding of what exactly that entailed.
“What about ecology?” Jana asked after a long pause. “Human beings aren’t separate from the land we live on. Shouldn’t a human rights charter include something about not ruining the planet, not repeating our environmental mistakes?”
That didn’t sound like Jana speaking, or even Sperancia. Someone much older maybe, someone who actually remembered what Earth was like when it was crowded with people and pollution. He realized Jana had three councils to negotiate: the group currently sitting at the table; Bosa’s town council; and the council of previous hosts who all shared her body, whoever they were.
“That’s a good question,” Ingrid said. “For the ringstations, it’s not really relevant. Our environment is one hundred per cent managed. All our green spaces are gardens and parks, and we don’t have any large bodies of water. No oceans or deep lakes, just streams and ornamental ponds. And our wild animals aren’t truly wild. They’re all tagged and tracked, more like pets on the loose.
“But that doesn’t mean we don’t think about ecology. It’s the main concern of the Repop Council, the top priority of things to not fuck up, if you’ll excuse my language. The guiding principle is to limit human population growth and sprawl so that human settlements never take up more than one per cent of the available landmass. The idea is to leave the vast majority of the planet available to nonhuman species, to—”
Ingrid stopped mid-sentence, distracted by something coming in on her m’eye.
“What is it?”
“It’s Svilsson, from the Stanford. They’ve just received a return transmission from the location of the gamma-ray burst.”
Chapter Nineteen
Filumena told Cassia everything. She even told the green-haired giantess about Sperancia, how the maghiarja, before her death, had instructed her to befriend Maro, even to seduce him if possible, in order to gain information about the Michelangelo. Sperancia had speculated that the powerful worldship had vulnerabilities, and that Maro might disclose those weaknesses in a moment of unguarded intimacy. Worm your way into his heart, the maghiarja had said. He’s just a man, weak like any man to sexual temptation.
Cassia spoke Italian fluently and understood Filumena perfectly. She gently held Filumena’s hand in her enormous palm, comforting her as she disclosed everything. Maybe it was a mistake to trust this giant woman, but Filumena sensed that the senator had a good heart. And she considered herself a good judge of character. She’d chosen good people to be her friends – people like Jana and Antonio – and those people had never betrayed her.
Cassia promised Filumena that she was now safe. Soon she would be returned to Bosa. Maro had lied; the Michelangelo had ships that could travel to Earth at any time, as easily as sailing a boat across a lake.
Filumena cried from relief, knowing she would soon be reunited with her mother, with Jana, with her familiar way of life. Everything about the worldship had overwhelmed her senses and her spirit. Even though Maro had done his best to shelter her, to provide her with a safe sanctum, the sheer novelty of the Michelangelo had nearly shattered her mind. The way the ground curved upward, the undulating globe of brilliant light far above, the extravagant decadence and luxury, the sheer beauty or strangeness of everyone she encountered, the unfamiliar language they spoke among themselves; it was all too much. She wanted to be home.
Cassia cradled Filumena as she wept. She felt comforted in the senator’s encompassing embrace. Everything was going to be all right. She still had to convince Cristo to leave with her – she couldn’t in good conscience leave him behind as Maro’s plaything. Maybe Cassia could talk some sense into him.
Filumena heard footsteps. Someone walking slowly, with confidence, as if they could walk through the ranks of an opposing army with impunity, untouchable.
“Maro’s here,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry – I’ll handle him.”
And at first that seemed to be the case. Cassia and Maro sparred verbally in their own language (Latin, Maro had told her, which had some similarities to Italian). Cassia appeared to have the upper hand. But then they stepped onto a walkway, out of Filumena’s sight, and their exchange escalated into a full-blown argument. Cassia yelled out in anger, and fell with an impact that shook the floor and the bed and Filumena with it, and there was a horrible sound of bone hitting marble, and then silence.
Maro entered the bedroom calmly. Filumena considered running, or attacking him, but what then? There had to be others sympathetic to Cassia and hostile to Maro, people she could ask for help and sanctuary. But as she had these thoughts, Maro gently touched her neck.
And that was the last thing she remembered.
***
She awoke in complete darkness. As wide as she opened her eyes there was only pitch black. She was naked, afloat in some sort of thick liquid. Something was wrong with her scalp. She could breathe easily enough, but when she tried to move her arms and legs, they moved only a little, as if the messages from her brain were very quiet and far away. She felt much calmer than she should. “Hello?” she said weakly. From the muted reflection of her own voice, she could tell she was in a small, enclosed space.
She had to get out, to find help. Maro had enemies. That was important. Once she returned to Bosa she would tell Jana, who would in turn tell Sperancia. And Sperancia would know what to do.
But for now she would just close her eyes for a minute, to gather her energy.
***
Filumena awoke again, still submerged but now standing, with water up to her neck. The water was pleasantly cool in contrast to the hot sun on her face. Was she back on Earth?
She opened her eyes. She was at the edge of a vast rectangular pool, surrounded by stone columns and marble floors. The walls were decorated with numerous mirrors and mosaic artworks of fish and other sea creatures, some of them mythical. She was not alone; a few dozen people, all women, languidly swam nearby or sat on the edge of the pool with their feet dangling in the water.
“I love the frigidarium,” said a young black-haired woman nearby. Somehow Filumena knew her name: Hadriana. “I could spend all day here. Look at my fingers!” Hadriana raised her hands out of the water, displaying her palms. “They’re as wrinkled as dried dates.”
Was she dreaming? Beneath the water line she pinched her right hip. It hurt. This didn’t feel like a dream. The water felt cold; the stone beneath her feet was solid. And time was flowing at a normal speed, with no discontinuities.
“So tell me,” Hadriana asked. “How is Titus in bed? Is his cock as large as they say it is?”
Titus was her husband, she realized, though to her relief she couldn’t recall what he looked like naked or remember any sexual activity with him. But an image sprang to mind of a short, powerfully built man, with a large nose and squinty eyes. She had no feelings associated with the image, no tenderness or lust, nor antipathy or fear. It was a false memory, something Maro had placed in her mind.
As was this entire world. It was all part of Maro’s game. A fantasy in which she was a character.
“I’m not playing along,” she said aloud to Hadriana.
“I was just curious. But fair enough, I’ll just keep on wondering.”
Filumena searched her mind for other things she knew. They were in Nemausus, a Roman city near the Mediterranean coast, not so far from her real home in Sardinia. She was the wife of Titus Vitelius, a famous centurion.
Nemausus, until very recently, had been held by the Gauls. But no longer.
“Have you heard of the celebrations in Rome?” Hadriana asked. “A grand procession to celebrate the emperor’s military victories over Queen Zenobia, and well as his conquest of the Gallic Empire. There were elephants, and panthers and lions, and great horselike creatures with spots and bizarrely long necks.”
“I’m not really here,” Filumena said. “You’re not real.”
“Aurelian is a great emperor,” Hadriana continued, either not hearing or ignoring her comment. “Surely the best we have had in a long time. Even now he is fortifying the walls of Rome against barbarian invasions. And he has constructed a great temple to unify the empire, and declared a new holiday, a winter solstice feast day. The birthday of the invincible sun.”
Dies natalis solis invicti, Hadriana had said. She was speaking in Latin, which Filumena understood perfectly. Another trick of the mind, but one more interesting than the false memories of her fake husband.
Another woman approached and spoke to Hadriana, capturing her attention. As the two chattered on about Gallic wines and imported Chinese silks, Filumena considered her predicament. Was she better off stubbornly resisting, or playing along? Whatever Maro had planned for her, he seemed determined to deliver. It was unlikely she could escape – whatever that meant – by simply refusing to interact with her surroundings. Maro wanted her to react, to feel things, to make decisions. If she resisted, he was unlikely to just give up. She might be stuck in this place forever.
Maybe the fastest way out was simply to play the game.
Twenty minutes later, Hadriana got out of the pool, continuing to complain about her wrinkly fingers. Passing a mirror, Filumena recognized her own reflection. She looked like herself in this place (with the exception of her hair, which was parted and intricately braided in an unfamiliar but pleasing style). She followed Hadriana to the apodyterium where both women retrieved their clothing and dressed. Hadriana apologized at length for her plain linen tunic; she didn’t dare leave silk clothing at the bathhouse, even with the hired guard. Perhaps if she had a personal slave to guard it. Filumena was lucky that thieves had not taken her fine silken tunic.
They strolled through the gardens surrounding the baths, wandering along stone paths sheltered by cedars and willows. Hadriana continued her pointless blather, gossiping about people Filumena didn’t know and commenting about other women’s clothing and makeup choices. Filumena began to wonder if something had gone wrong in Maro’s fantasy world. Was it meant to be this boring?
And then she heard screams. Almost as if in reaction to her thought.
There was a commotion ahead. Men and women were running toward them, past them. An older man was clutching his shoulder. Blood streamed down his arm and stained his tunic. One woman was completely naked, still dripping wet from the baths.
Hadriana grabbed a fleeing slave girl by the wrist. “What’s happening?” The girl tried to wrench her arm away but Hadriana refused to release her. “Tell me!”
“Barbarians – the Gauls are here!”
“How many? Is the city overrun?”
The girl kicked Hadriana and yanked her arm away, this time succeeding. Hadriana cursed at the slave as she ran away but the girl did not look back.
Filumena continued along the path, curious. After all, what could happen to her? None of this was real. It was a game Maro had created, and for some perverse reason he wanted to watch her play. And so she would. At least something interesting was happening.
“Filumena, what are you doing?” Hadriana called out, rubbing her shin. “We must flee!”
“Leave if you must,” Filumena said. “I want to see what the Gauls look like.”
Rounding a corner, she saw a group of five men descending an ornate curving stone staircase. They were tall and rangy, with pale skin and reddish-blond hair. Their features were alarming: heavy, protruding brows and noses that jutted from their faces like bird beaks. One of them saw her and pointed, shouting something in Gaulish. An older man in a toga, wandering along the path below and oblivious to his surroundings, froze at the base of the staircase when he noticed the invaders. The nearest Gaul ran his spear through the old man with a short, efficient thrust. The old man collapsed, gasping for air, fumbling to keep his guts in place.
Filumena had a moment of doubt. She could smell fear in the air, as well as the putrid contents of the old man’s bowels.
“Filumena, this way!”
She turned and followed Hadriana, sprinting along the path, holding up her tunic with both hands to free her legs. She stepped on a sharp rock and cried out, but kept running. The pain in her foot was real, and she imagined a sword cutting her flesh would feel no better. What limits had Maro set in this game, if any? Surely if she died here she wouldn’t really be dead? But maybe she would experience dying, painfully and bloodily, while Maro watched. Perhaps she would die here over and over again in a myriad of gruesome ways. Maybe Maro had even worse planned for her: brutal rapes and sadistic torture. There was no reason for him to inflict, observe, and record her suffering other than his own perversity. Just how sick and twisted was he?
For the first time she felt real fear, and ran faster.
The Gauls followed, yelling at her, presumably to stop and surrender. She risked a glance over her shoulder. The men wore leather leggings and could run at full speed. They were swift and tall, unencumbered by heavy armor or shields. These were not regular soldiers, but some kind of raiding party. Kidnappers. Maybe here for her specifically, the wife of a famed centurion.
Filumena grabbed Hadriana’s hand and pulled her companion along as she veered onto a sheltered side path. To her surprise she felt protective, however shallow and frivolous Hadriana might be. Maybe she was a real person, not just part of Maro’s game. For all she knew Hadriana could be Cristo. Though that seemed unlikely. She looked like herself in this place; it was likely Cristo would as well.
Cutting through the trees, she pulled Hadriana behind a large boulder jutting over a creek. She could no longer see the Gauls and their voices sounded more distant. But then one called out, very close, in accented Latin, “I know you’re nearby. Come out! We won’t hurt you. We only mean to capture you. We know you are the wife of Titus Vitelius.”
They must be desperate men, to stride into Nemausus so boldly. The city was full of armed men. Not only Titus’s legionaries, but gladiators who were housed in the barracks in the nearby amphitheater, and the Vigiles Urbani who were tasked with guarding the baths along with their firefighting and other duties. And where were those guards? Bleeding out, like the old man on the stairs? Was help on the way? Or were they on their own?
Hadriana squeezed Filumena’s hand, whispering, “Should we surrender? Titus would surely pay your ransom.”
Filumena pressed her finger to her lips. They were not found yet.
The Gaul had entered the creek and was splashing upstream toward them. They would be discovered within seconds. Filumena gestured for Hadriana to run. Her companion nodded and clambered up the bank, but slipped and cried out.
“There you are!” The Gaul had rounded a bend and was close enough to throw his spear.
Filumena dragged Hadriana to her feet and pushed her up the bank. “Run and don’t look back!”
The Gaul closed the distance in seconds and tripped Hadriana with his spear. Filumena raked her hand across his face, doing her best to gouge an eye, but only managed to scratch his eyebrow. He punched her in the nose, then grabbed her by her braids and forced her to kneel. The Gaul was immensely strong, stronger than anyone she’d ever grappled with, and as her knees ground up against cold creek stones, and her ears rang, and blood and mucus welled in her nose, the idea that she was playing a character in a game faltered. This was as real and painful and terrifying as anything she had ever experienced.
The other Gauls arrived and efficie
ntly gagged and bound Hadriana and herself with leather straps. The biggest of them slung Filumena over his shoulder and began to jog. He smelled like sweat, wine, and goat hide. Good smells on any other day, but now imbued with fear. Bizarrely, she worried more for Hadriana, and for the state of her silken tunic, a fine garment she had become unreasonably attached to in the brief time she’d been wearing it. And now it was covered in mud and blood from her own nose.
The Gauls had planned their raid well. They escaped without further violence through a sewer main – possibly the same way they had entered. The stench of the sewers, which ebbed and flowed, nearly made her vomit, especially when a surge in the runoff water splashed up into her face. Her indefatigable captor trudged onward, unbothered by her weight. Eventually her sinuses burned out, inured to the effluvium. Hadriana’s sobbing ceased. The raiders spoke quietly among themselves in Gaulish.
It was dusk when they emerged in the countryside. A farmer dragging an empty cart gave them wide berth. When she could no longer tolerate the pressure in her bladder she made her distress clear. The men stopped, unbound them, and averted their eyes while the women squatted behind a tree.
“Should we run?” Hadriana croaked. She looked a mess, eyes red-rimmed, hair hopelessly tangled, her tunic torn and dirty.
“No. I don’t think they’ll kill me, but I’m worried what they might do to you.”
“My family will pay a tidy ransom.”
“Good,” Filumena said, realizing there was a great deal she didn’t know about Hadriana. The memories Maro had implanted in her mind were incomplete. She wondered if Maro had expected the events to play out as they had, or if something she’d done had created an unexpected turn.
Their captors permitted them to walk the remainder of the journey with only their wrists bound. The man who had caught her in the creek introduced himself as Corius. He offered them fresh apples, smoked cheese, and a skin of spiced wine to share. Filumena accepted the food and drink – the men had no reason to poison her – and after a moment of hesitancy so did Hadriana.