King thought about his encounters with Alexander before their trip to the past. The man was mysterious. He kept to himself. He led a devoted group of followers. He was immortal. He had an army of the Forgotten around the world — failed scientific experiments, he had claimed. He knew things before others did. He obscured the truth about history, allowing the myths to obfuscate the truth further.
And he knew about Chess Team’s battle in Norway, even though he wasn’t there. King had traveled through a dimensional portal to another dimension, where he had encountered a creature that called him one of the ‘Children of Adoon.’ King had come to learn that Adoon was another name by which Alexander was known. And now King was looking at yet another dimensional portal that Alexander had created. The design was clearly the same basic structure.
“You’re…not human, are you?”
Alexander smiled. “Depends on your definition of human, Jack. I am a man, with biology roughly similar to most people on the planet, though more similar to yours. I don’t have two hearts or scales on my skin. I am human, but no, I’m not from this dimension. I was a scientist. A simple man of science. And I found a way between worlds. This dimension wasn’t the first I visited. I saw myself as an intrepid explorer. I investigated several dimensions and encountered many different kinds of…people, including the monster Fenrir, you encountered in Norway. I became addicted to discovery and with each new dimension, I became more arrogant. And sloppy.”
King interrupted. “You got stranded here.”
Alexander chuckled softly.
“I had the know-how to design this machine from scratch. I just didn’t realize that I wouldn’t find any suitable power sources.” Alexander stood and paced back and forth. “Can you imagine how I searched? I was just over four hundred years old when I met Acca.”
“Four hundred years old?” King asked, a skeptical eyebrow raised.
“A natural lifespan for people in my dimension, where a richer atmosphere, free of pollutants, and slightly different biology allow for longevity. There was a time in this dimension where men lived nearly a thousand years. Methuselah. Adam. Noah. All are said to have lived more than nine-hundred years.”
“You don’t believe that—” King stopped his argument, remembering the age of the man to whom he spoke.
Alexander grinned. “I travelled the world in search of power. I investigated every meteorite that fell to Earth. I followed up on every rumor of the supernatural and the strange.”
“And you built a portal home from scraps and bits you cobbled together yourself…”
“I mined some of the gold in those connectors myself.” Alexander pointed at the machine.
King looked to Acca. “Did you know he was from…somewhere else?”
She simply nodded.
“Can she live in your world?” King asked.
Alexander nodded. “Of course. The air is almost identical. It’ll be like living on the side of a mountain for her. Clear crisp air, with a slightly rarefied atmosphere. It’s a peaceful world, with far more wide open natural spaces than here…even in this time.”
“So even after Acca ‘died’…” King made quotes in the air with his fingers, “you worked to find a power source for the machine.”
“At first, I was destroyed by the grief, and like most people, I just wanted to go home to my loved ones. My family. And I had been trying for so very many years. I operated out of the shadows as best I could. For a while I affected the outcome of events and wars. If a potential outcome could get in my way, I got involved. After a while, I realized little could get in my way. So I worked from the shadows. I kept my identity a secret, and when something powerful from antiquity came along, I got my hands on it first. If something didn’t suit my purposes, I kept it safe and out of the wrong hands. Eventually I gained some followers — the Herculean Society — people dedicated to my ideals of preventing powerful objects from being used for evil and protecting historical sites — many of which hold meaning to me personally — from desecration. They also helped obscure the truth about the past with mystery and myth, though not even the Society always knew why.
“And then I encountered Chess Team. My first encounter was with Rook and Queen. They were rude but brave…and expected. I saw a recording of that battle in New Hampshire. I watched how you handled the monster, and I knew our time together had nearly begun. I kept an eye on you from then on, knowing you would become an ally. I had inside information, after all.”
“Inside information?” King asked. His face darkened. “Who?”
Alexander smiled, but it quickly faded. He became serious. Quiet. “Before the Hydra. Before Ridley and Delta. Before Julie died. I have always known you, Jack. How is that possible? Think. You have all the pieces. Use that incredible mind of yours. You were never just a soldier.”
King looked at the machine and thought about what he had just heard. He had Alexander’s genes in him. He was a descendant. Did his parent’s know more than they had told about that? Or was Deep Blue holding back on a secret alliance with Alexander? No, that doesn’t make sense. But then, as he looked at the flimsy portal and the crude copper cabling, he realized what was missing from the machine — a computer.
This machine couldn’t be automated.
Someone had to run it.
Someone…who stayed behind.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Alexander’s Lab, Antium, Latium, 780 BC
“I have only the one machine, Jack, and only one black hole to power it. It’s good for one trip. One way. If you want me to use it to send you home, I will. But Acca and I will be stranded here, out of time and space. Even if we go into hiding somewhere, the danger of me running into the younger version of myself will be extreme. I travelled broadly.”
“You bastard,” King stood up, and stalked across the lab to shout in Alexander’s face. “You brought me here against my will. Now you’re emotionally blackmailing me—again—telling me I’m the only hope you have for getting home. What made you think I would go for this?”
Alexander’s face was sober, but friendly, despite King shouting at him so hard that spittle had flown from King’s mouth and landed on Alexander’s face in little specks. “Because you already did.”
King frowned, confused.
“How do you think I snuck into your highly secure base in New Hampshire and stole that laptop with the plans for the Norway machine, Jack? Without triggering a single alarm? Without anyone seeing me? I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“You’re saying I took the laptop?”
“You already made this decision.” Alexander reached out to place his hand on King’s shoulder, but King yanked away.
“You fooled me into believing you were a good man,” King said.
“This is all new to you,” Alexander said, “But to me…Jack, we’ve been friends for a long time. A very long time.”
King shook his head and stormed away. He was flustered. His face felt hot. Blood rushed through his ears. The possibility of what Alexander was telling him scared the shit out of him.
Sara. Fiona.
King felt the muscles in his neck constrict as panic set in. He wasn’t one to run from a fight, but he ran from this, as fast as he could, out of the lab. He blindly stumbled through the hallways and passages in Alexander’s Antium villa, looking for the way out. Eventually, he opened a window and just climbed outside, sucking in the evening air in huge gulps. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
He was trapped. He couldn’t get home.
He was stuck in the past.
He ran a hundred yards away from the building toward the beach. They were on the northern shore of a town called Antium — a place Alexander had told him would eventually be the modern city of Anzio, made famous by the Allies landing here in World War II.
He staggered down to the water, thinking about the Allied landing, trying to keep his head from the enormity of what lay before him.
At the water’s edge, Jack Sigler, callsign:
King, gave up. He fell to his knees in the sand and hung his head.
He stayed like that a long time, until the sky turned dark, and he heard Alexander’s footsteps behind him. The man sat softly in the sand next to him. He was quiet for a while.
“If there was any other way—”
“There is,” King said weakly. “Send me home.”
“If you really want me to do that, I will. It’ll take a few months to recalibrate the machine…but—”
“But, you know that’s not going to happen,” King said. “Because it would have already and you would have no memory of me. Did I tell you why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why I decided to remain in the past? Why I decided to give up my life?”
“You’re not giving it up,” Alexander said. “Merely postponing it.”
“By 2800 years!” King shouted, clenching his fists.
They stayed quiet for a minute and then Alexander said, “You told me…it was the right thing to do.”
It was a God-awful stupid answer, but King recognized the thought as his own, the primal force that motivated all his decisions. The right thing. But this didn’t feel right. “This can’t be how it happens…” King said softly.
“A lot of good will come of it,” Alexander said.
“For you,” King said, “I’m sure.”
“For us both.” Alexander leaned forward and lazily traced his finger through the sand. “For the world. You…make a difference, Jack. The world needed saving long before you were born.”
King perked up. Alexander was playing to his sense of duty, he knew, but he couldn’t hide his interest. “Explain.”
“The details, I’m afraid, will have to be discovered later on, but simply put, there are times throughout history when grievous wrongs need to be undone, when men and women need saving, when all of humanity finds itself on the brink…and sometimes, more often than not, I am not the one who stands up to the darkness.”
“You are full of shit,” King said. “You think a good speech is going to—”
“I didn’t save Fiona.”
King turned to him. “No, you kidnapped her.”
“Before that, Jack. On the reservation, where you found her, in the car. That was you. She would have died with the rest had you not been there. This circle…this path…it saves my wife, but it also saves your daughter.”
“How do I know that anything you’re telling me is true?”
Alexander leaned back revealing a drawing in the sand, two vertical lines joined by a circle, the symbol for the Herculean Society and Alexander’s calling card.
Mental tumblers once again fell into place. If Alexander was telling the truth, this symbol wasn’t just used by Alexander. According to his stories, King left a note bearing this symbol, once after saving Fiona and once after stealing the laptop.
“You have always misinterpreted this symbol,” Alexander said. “It was never an H. Never stood for Hercules. The circle is the world. The lines are two pillars, holding everything together. The two leaders of the Herculean Society.”
“The wraiths in the library in Malta,” King whispered. “This is why they obeyed me.”
Alexander nodded. “They could see you were different. Less sure of yourself. But the Forgotten, in the future, would never harm you.”
King searched his mind for an argument, for some other reality that made sense. Sara and Fiona were within his grasp. They had never been further, but he’d been expecting to see them soon. But if Alexander was telling the truth, and King did not stay, Fiona would die. King’s life would be radically altered. The circle that bound him and Alexander would be broken and Acca would also die.
“She’s a good woman,” King said.
“Unparalleled,” Alexander agreed. “You…will stay?”
King forced the smallest of smiles. “You already know the answer.” He stood and patted Alexander on his shoulder. “I’m glad you got her back.”
Alexander stood as well. “What now?”
“Now…we send you both home,” King said. “Before I change my mind.”
They walked back into the villa. Alexander led them directly to the lab. Acca was waiting there, sitting in a chair, wringing her hands together.
She stood when they entered. “Are you alright, Jack?”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Alexander explained what you must do. I am very sorry.” She took his hands. “Do you remember what you told me? About why you do the things you do? You said because it was the right thing to do, but you never said it was also the hardest thing to do.” She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tightly. “Thank you.” She had tears in her eyes when she stepped away.
He nodded, then turned to Alexander. “Show me what to do.”
Alexander procured the rock on the chain around his neck. He tugged the chain hard, until it snapped off the top of the rock, where it had been affixed. Then he held it out to King.
“You’ll need to set it into the machine…there,” Alexander pointed at a round receptacle he had made from a cup, with wires running into and out of it. “The portal should open instantly. When we step through, there’s a good chance that everything will blow up on this end. I suggest you run like hell. Immortality isn’t a blessing if you’re buried alive.”
“Sounds like you speak from experience,” King said, taking the dwarf black hole in his hand. It was far heavier than he thought it would be. Probably over thirty pounds.
“I’ve seen the inside of a few jails, yes. Keep to the edges of history, Jack. You can change the world, but be subtle. Keep your face out of the history books. Stay in the shadows.”
King smiled. “Sounds like business as usual.”
“There will come a day when you will return to your present, as promised. It will be hard to remember them…your family, your friends. Do what you can to preserve their memory and do not forget Carthage. Chess Team will need its King.”
King didn’t think he could ever forget the most important people in his life, the people who made him who he was, but 2800 years was a long time. He felt his resolve waning. “We better do this now.” He stepped up to the machine and held the stone above its receptacle. “Ready?”
Alexander walked to him and held out his hand to shake with King. King grasped the hand and felt it warmly close over his. “Thank you, Jack. For everything.”
“How will I know you made it over there safely?”
“You won’t. You just have to take some things on faith.”
Alexander walked back to Acca, and they stood in front of the empty portal. “Say hello to Lancelot for me.” Alexander smiled broadly as King laughed. He pulled Acca close to him. She smiled nervously at King, then looked up at Alexander. He met her eyes with a reassuring smile and gently stroked her face with his hand.
King heard him whisper to her. “We’ll be fine.”
King dropped the golf-ball sized stone into the cup, where it connected with the copper wires.
Blue arcs of electricity shot across the bare metal cables, filling the room with a burnt stench instantly. The stone shell burst into dust, revealing a small black swirling sphere. Smoke poured off the apparatus, and the arch began to glow with a wall of bluish light.
“Goodbye,” King said.
Alexander gave a nod and led Acca into the blue light. It washed over them like a wave of water and then — they were gone. The light bowed out of the arch, stretching across the room for over twenty feet, before it snapped back into the arch and inverted. Then the frame of the arch buckled and it toppled inward, sucked into the portal. King watched, unable to turn away as the light stretched inward for what looked like a mile. Then it stopped and snapped back toward him.
He closed his eyes.
* * *
When King woke, it was daylight, the sun streaming down from overhead where the roof of the lab should have been. He stood up and breathed in the salty smell of the sea. As he stood, a large piece of burnt timber
slid off his back and onto the ground. He was standing in a field of rubble.
He could see the beach and the blue waves to his left, and far off to his right he could see a shepherd leading his flock of sheep and carrying the long hooked stick of the trade. No one else was around, but the explosion would eventually draw the curious.
King stepped over the rubble and saw that his robe was in tatters. Although it still covered his crotch, there were more than a few holes singed through to his chest. That would have to be one of his first steps. He paused at the ruined wall and admired the view.
The sound of a jangling bell turned his attention away from the sea. A boy, accompanied by a goat, ran toward him. The boy couldn’t be more than ten. His eyes were wide, his face streaked with tears.
“Help!” the boy yelled. “You must help me.”
He knelt down and caught the panicked boy by his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“Thank the gods for sending you,” the boy said. “I knew it would be you.”
“You know me?” King asked. He’d never seen the boy before.
“Everyone knows you,” the boy said. “I prayed to the gods for help. The ground shook. I saw the smoke. You must have leapt from Olympus!”
King glanced back at the crater left by the explosion. The place looked like it had been struck by a meteor. “Tell me, who do you think I am?”
The boy smiled despite whatever emergency had sent him in search of aid. “You don’t know your own name?”
“Tell me,” King said.
The boy’s smile widened. “You are Perseus, son of Zeus.”
King returned the boy’s smile. “Let’s go.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
Carthage, 2013
Knight watched in horror as the Colossus slapped its hand down on the top of its head, hard enough to break two of the huge spires off the rear of its crown.
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