by Dave Weaver
“They will come from the eastern plains beyond Asia Minor like devils on horseback. And they will find you…” Jack’s voice was icy-calm, his brain quite unable to stop the words tumbling out.
“There! Didn’t I tell you! He lies! Devils on horseback…What puny tribe could ever match the mighty legions of Rome? And if he lies about that, he must also be lying about my sacred destiny. I have made a mistake. This fellow is not the vision I saw all those years ago. He is a fake seeking to dissuade you from supporting my command of the Britannic legions. In fact I have no doubt now that he is a spy sent by Vespasian himself to discredit me. Do not believe him! Rome shall rule the world forever and I shall be her next Caesar!”
As relieved heads began to nod, Drucillus turned to the Centurion. Handing him back his bloodstained short sword he spoke quietly to the man. “Have the boy taken out of town and killed. Do it quickly and without fuss; I don’t want his fate known to any here.” When the man made to reply Drucillus raised a clenched fist of anger. “Do as I bid you Centurion, get rid of him now! And if any of your men here,” he indicated the rest of the guards, now staring determinably straight in front of them, “speak of these events they will receive the same fate. This boy is a liar: an undercover agent sent by my rival to humiliate me. But I have exposed his game!”
Outside the Temple, though some of the crowds had begun to disperse, there was still a feeling of celebration in the air. Many remained to hang around the busy street corners and bustling walkways, eager to prolong the carnival atmosphere and maybe catch another glimpse of the great Drucillus. Some of those who had been at the arena recognised Jack and began to cheer.
For Jack, however, Drucillus had somehow become his death sentence. As he was pushed and prodded back through the town, by what he began to suspect was an execution squad, he tried desperately to make his drowsy brain recall the last few hours in coherent detail. He remembered the Games, and the walk to the Temple, climbing up the white marble steps as the vast doors swung open. He remembered the huge hall with his own likeness inlaid in its mosaic. He remembered Drucillus entering the room, speaking to him, a sword slashing his arm…
Then nothing more.
His mind seemed full of a dull emptiness. He began to feel the burnt wound stinging painfully. Another shove in the back made him stumble. Immediately he felt a sharp pain in his waist. He felt under the school jacket. There was something long and narrow inside his shirt, a hard object resting in the folds tucked into his trousers. He looked down as a small patch of blood appeared.
It was a knife! Someone had given him a knife; tucked it in his shirt. He was being given a chance to escape!
One of the guards pulled him roughly to his feet. The other three, younger men self-importantly waving the crowds aside, had noticed his falling but not the painful wince. The older man behind him had seen it though.
“What’s the problem, my little ‘demon’? Stomach all twisted up in knots? You’ll be crapping yourself soon enough when we get to the woods. You may be these local idiots’ hero but by tomorrow when you’re carrion meat they’ll have forgotten you. You’ll be sorry you ever opened your spying little mouth to Drucillus.”
“You think I’m a spy then, not a demon after all?” Jack looked up at the brutish officer and received a sharp smack across the nose.
“I think you’re a trouble-making little toe-rag who got lucky in the arena and tried to pull the wool over our eyes. Drucillus might have believed you for a while, but I’m no fool. I’ll bet that hurt but it’s going to hurt a lot more when I separate your head from your body.”
By now the small group were approaching the North Gate. Sentries were still pacing its ramparts. There was a further collection of guards around the hut at its base but at a command from Jack’s tormentor two of them ran to the giant wooden doors, raised a cross-bolt and pushed them open enough for the party to slip through.
As they climbed the hill towards the woods above the town, the cooling late afternoon breeze began to clear the fog from Jack’s brain. He realised two things: one, that when they reached the trees his captors would kill him; and two, that he’d better come up with an escape plan pretty damn quick. But what could he do against four armed soldiers? He felt in the pockets of his jacket. The time coin was still there. Perhaps he could activate it again? Though the coin only seemed to work in the last few moments before certain death, as when he’d faced the train and the lion in the arena. He’d tried to make it work in both the Roman fort and the cages before the Games but had no luck. If the coin worked at all, he knew that he would have to wait until the last moment to activate it, but not leave it too late. He might mistime it, or it might not activate at all; in either event, he would be dead. They were getting closer to the tree line, marching at a brisk pace as if the soldiers wanted to get his killing over quickly and get back to some serious post-Games drinking.
Jack’s hand touched something else; his phone. He’d not been searched thoroughly by the original guards, possibly spooked by his odd clothes. He’d seen enough sci-fi films to realise that letting his captors find future tech on him was a bad idea; he’d been extremely lucky. He had a knife and a phone. The knife on its own would be useless but the phone was promising.
They reached the top of the hill, trudging through ferns and bushes until they came to a small clearing; beyond lay the first pines of the wood itself.
“Right young ’un, come with me.” The older guard’s voice had softened as if he felt the certainty of Jack’s death had created some kind of bond between them. He led him a few paces away from the others. Jack was roughly twenty yards from the start of the wood. It felt like twenty miles; he’d have to zigzag the first ten then sprint like crazy. “Right son, bend down.” The man towered over him, short sword pointing heavenward. Shards of late sunlight reflected from the tip. The air hummed, a breeze ruffled the trees and Jack absently noticed that the birdsong had grown silent.
It had to be now.
He flung himself to the ground and wrapped his arms around the man’s shins. “Please spare me, let me go! I’ll never come back again!” Bleating pathetically, a lamb before slaughter, Jack locked his arms tighter. Meanwhile on his executioner’s blind-side he grappled with the buttons on the phone.
“Show some courage boy!” The heavy figure staggered slightly. The great head twisted around baring an indulgent smile. “Be a man for the God’s sake! Try to…”
Jack threw the phone into the undergrowth as the heavy rock song split the air at full ear-shredding volume.
“What in Dis’ name!”
The soldier swung around as Jack reached into his shirt for the knife. He flipped it up, caught the handle in his fist and plunged the tip into the soldier’s leather sandal. It sliced through the strap and pinioned his foot to the ground in a spout of blood.
The man bellowed in pain and tried to swing the short sword but Jack ducked easily then leant on the knife again for good measure. He whispered, “Still think I’m just a spy?” in his ear before standing to knee him in the face.
By the time Jack remembered to zigzag he was already at the clearing’s edge and threading his way through the trees, bracken whipping against his legs as he stumbled over roots and slid on fir cones. He was already deep inside the wood when he heard a distant, ‘Get the little bastard!’
Now he could hear the crashing of the guards, a short distance behind but gaining. As he turned to catch a glimpse a trailing tree root wrapped itself around his foot. He tripped and rolled into a thorn-bush. Before he could disentangle himself the guards appeared. They hesitated then one flung a spear. The steel spike embedded itself in tree bark next to Jack’s head. He grabbed the shaft and wrenched himself free then dodged around the next tree. At once, he felt the ground shift and collapse beneath his feet. The guards were almost upon him.
Jack grabbed the time coin; if it were ever to work again, now would be good.
He looked up as a second spear arced through the air
and punched into his chest. The blow sent him sprawling backwards, feet slipping on loosened rocks as the ravine opened up beneath him.
The world began to spin like a brightly coloured top, revolving faster and faster as he fell. A storm of static crackled around his head, colours fused together then faded into white light. The rushing air sucked and bulged as if pulling him out of time itself.
It felt like falling into forever.
Chapter 8
There was a low, persistent hum. Jack thought it was coming from inside his head. Slowly, he realised that its source was external.
Did this mean he was still alive? He cautiously opened his eyes.
He was lying in the wood at the bottom of the ravine, dressed in a thin gown. The spear was gone. High above him was an azure blue sky much brighter than late afternoon. But as Jack began to focus, the greens and blues of the wood and sky became two dimensional. He realised, startled, that they were mere images on the walls and ceiling of a room. A dull pain in his chest worsened dramatically as he attempted to sit up.
Now he could see he was on some sort of bed. Or rather, he realised with a start, he was not on it but hovering an inch above, on a pocket of air. He made another attempt, managing with a groan to raise his aching body before gently sliding over the side. Suddenly gaining speed, he tumbled onto the cold hard floor.
“Jesus!”
Looking up at the ‘sky’ above him he noticed a convex lens protruding from the ceiling, bathing the hover-table thing in green light.
What the hell was going on? He’d taken a Roman spear full in the chest and had somehow survived only to find himself bombarded with green rays like some kind of exotic plant in a hot house. As he stood up, a door slid open in a section of the ‘forest’ at the far end of the room and two shadowy figures silently appeared. They hesitated for a moment, as if studying him, and then one came towards him. Shielding his eyes from the light above the table, he found himself confronted by a young woman dressed in a white body suit. She had a cap, with a small red encircled T in its centre, perched primly on her head. The symbol was like the one on the back of the coin.
She smiled at him with remarkably grey eyes.
“Please return to your position on the bed, Mr Johnson, you’re really not in any condition to be getting up just yet.”
Her voice was soft yet insistent. It took a few seconds for her words to hit home; his name, she had spoken his name quite clearly! Exhausted and still in pain he automatically asked the clichéd question of all rescued travellers. He might have added, ‘When am I?’ Certainly not in Roman Britain anymore. There was a flash of metal as the girl’s hand touched his arm and he felt a small stab of air. As he sat heavily back down on the hover-table, he looked up into the pretty face with its short-cropped hair and those strange grey eyes. She helped him lie down again and he sensed an unusual strength in her slim frame. As his senses began to leave him, another voice, this time a man’s, told him, “Relax, Jack, we’ll be having a little chat very soon.”
When he awoke again he was careful not to repeat his previous mistake. Perhaps in sleep his body had adjusted itself to balancing on the airbed. As he swung his legs over the side he managed to stay on top of it. He found himself staring into the eyes of a man sitting on thin air. The walls and ceiling were now a soft mauve reflecting eerily on the stranger’s face. The Stranger smiled at him.
“Neat trick, eh? It’s an anti-grav seat. Carry it around in my pocket, surprisingly comfortable for its size. You’re Jack Johnson, right?”
“What… Yes… Who are you?”
“Let’s just say for the moment I’m Head of Lost Property.”
“What lost property?” Jack’s hand went instinctively to where his trouser pocket should have been.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” The man held the time-coin in the palm of his hand. “Your chest wound has healed nicely but I’d have to advise against being target practice for any Roman spear-throwers in the future.”
“Is that where I am then, the future?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Glad as he was to still be alive, Jack was in no mood for games. The patronising cat and mouse attitude of his mysterious host was already wearing thin. He tried to focus on the man’s face through the light’s distorting shade. About fiftyish he guessed, although without the receding hairline the frame could easily have belonged to a much younger man. The strong face had a hint of kindness around the eyes but also shrewdness. The eyes were those of a man who expected to get his own way. He wore a one-piece black suit with the same small emblem on its breast pocket as the one on the nurse’s cap, this one picked out in gold.
Apparently the other had had enough sparring practice as well. He gave a curt nod as if to say, ‘Here we go then, you asked for it…’
“Jack, you’ve been on a strange journey.” The forest faded around them to be replaced with images plucked straight out of Jack’s memory. “You’ve cheated death, not once but thrice,” the voice continued as an on-rushing train dissolved into a view of night time Fulchestorium. “You’ve survived on your wits,” images of Drucillus inside the Temple of the Gods, “and you’ve been lucky in your choice of friends.” There was a quick vision of Marcus staring in bemusement through the bars of the cage. The images faded. “We’ve studied and probed your memory for a week. We know everything that’s happened to you, everything your subconscious mind wants to tell us anyway. Now let me explain.”
Jack nodded. “Okay, that would be good.”
“What you’ve just seen are the memories of a time ‘jumper’. You’ve already realised the object you found in your own time was responsible for your jump back to Britannia. It saved your life three times, once from the train, once from the lion and finally from your botched execution. Now it’s brought you back to us, its rightful owners.
“What year is this?”
“You’ve come a long way, Jack. Today’s date is June 29th, 2149.”
The room swam around Jack for a few moments. He felt himself toppling forward and somehow regained his balance. He’d instinctively known that he was back in the modern world, obvious enough from the hi-tech bed and room, but in his own present, not over a century onwards. The anti-grav seat should have tipped him off; then again, who knows what secret marvels were being invented and tested at top-level military bases? He’d assumed that’s where he was, still in Britain probably but not in the future. Maybe this was some kind of test?
“All right, shall I continue?” Jack nodded. “You are in a secure research establishment, run by a dedicated team of scientists and technicians who have all been chosen by the Empire for their knowledge in this particular field of research.”
“The ‘Empire’?”
The man carried on. “The coin is a time portal, a device that creates a link between past and future that we use to visit and observe our ancestors’ lives. These ‘time-jumps’ are only undertaken by our researchers under the strictest of conditions. We made the portals to resemble coins so that if anything happens to them we can shut down their function and their true purpose remains undiscovered. We cannot risk contaminating the past with such technology, you see. Unfortunately, one of our portals…”
“…got lost.” Jack finished the sentence for him.
“The portal has the power to cloak the jumper,” the man continued ignoring the intervention, “so their presence remains undetectable to those belonging in that time period.”
“You mean it makes them invisible.” Jack offered. “But I wasn’t.”
“The portal must have somehow malfunctioned.” Jack sensed this was nowhere near the whole truth. “By the way, in case you were wondering, the mainframe of our time-transition computer, ‘Chrono’, translates past cultures’ tongues so you can understand whilst concurrently downloading their language patterns into your brain. That’s why you could understand what they were saying and reply to them perfectly in ancient Latin. I expect that spooked you out quite
a bit at first.”
He hesitated again, and this time Jack definitely had the impression that something else was being kept back from him.
“When you picked up the time portal it should have been dead; nothing more than a harmless, if odd looking, coin. Unfortunately, it had somehow become recharged. You probably felt quite a jolt when you touched it as the details of your genetic code and nervous system were downloaded into Chrono’s memory banks. It connected you to the mainframe and ultimately to us. When you touched the portal in a normal state nothing happened to you. However, when your adrenaline levels indicated a life-threatening situation, your touch triggered a programme in Chrono that automatically transported you back along that portal’s last timeline; Fulchestorium in 49AD. The first time you jumped the programme crashed almost immediately and returned you to 2016. The second time, it didn’t.”
“But I ended up in 79AD that time.” Jack told him.
“The programme setting was changed without our knowledge. We don’t know how the portal became active again in the first place, or why it crashed then readjusted itself to another time and jumped you successfully.”
“You don’t seem to know much at all. So what happened next?” He was secretly amazed at his own calmness. Was he still in shock? Better make the most of it before he keeled over again with the sheer fantasticality of it all. “How come I’m here now, wherever ‘here’ is? Why am I not just a pile of bones at the bottom of a cliff?”
“You’re here now because the mainframe somehow brought the AJP back online again and changed its setting a second time. I’m afraid we don’t know how it did that either. Or why.”
“The AJP?”
“Automatic Jumper Protector. It’s a programme we downloaded into Chrono designed to kick in whenever the Jumper’s life is threatened. It can sense this in a number of different ways but stress overload, particularly a rush of adrenaline, is the most reliable one. The programme automatically takes the jumper back along the last plotted time path. As I say we can’t understand how this happened in your case, particularly with a previously dead portal and three totally different time-paths.”