Jericho Johnson: The Gauntlet of Time

by J. A. Stowell

  An unreasonable love of history.

  The weekly combat/weapons training that had begun since his arrival was also fun. It’s kind of cool to have your teacher refer to you as ‘Master Johnson‘.

  He was also one of the two people from the 21st century that knew about my knack for traveling back in time. Tonight was extremely special for Evonne, though. He didn’t know it yet but I had finely decided to ask him to join me again on my upcoming voyage.

  He'd came with me only once before when I'd went to see Nero and, I've got to be honest, that little venture didn't end well.

  The elevator dinged again and the door opened to a ten foot hall. The floor, walls and ceiling were all made from chrome steel. At the end of the short hall was yet another door that required my hand impression, retinal scan and voice recognition for access. After slapping my hand on the scanner, widening my right eye and saying my name, the one foot thick steel door slowly opened from the ground up.

  I walked in and clapped my hands three times fast.

  The lab, or man cave, as I called it for Evonne’s benefit, who didn’t exactly understand the term, or chose not to express that he did, was where I spent most of my time in the house. Upon my clapping the enormous room lit up with white lights.

  “Welcome, Jericho Johnson.” A female computer voice announced when I entered. As much as I like to say that I had an awesome computer that I could talk to and would do all my paperwork for me- that would be a lie. I had the female computer greeting installed with the lab. I mean, why not, right?

  Inlaid in the walls were some of the most state-of-the-art touch screen monitors to date. Right now each one of the six foot tall by ten foot wide screens were all filled to the brim with my Rome information. The first had longitudes and latitudes and some of the most accurate maps I could find of A.D. 97 Rome. The second had names of famous structures, places and people of that particular date.

  The tops of most of the tables in the room were the same touch screen monitors, just laying down. These were easier to access so were employed in basically all my studies. The tables that weren’t boasting the touch screen top were located at the back wall and were all overflowing with armor and weapons from at least twelve different eras. I approached these and selected my latest edition. The double-bladed axe that Bjourn the Berserker had his best blacksmiths craft for me before my departure yesterday.

  I swung it around a few minutes when I heard Evonne’s voice buzz over the speakers. “I am here, Master Johnson, and I have your sushi tacos.”

  “Admit guest.” I said and the steel door slid open. Evonne stepped in with a tray held high. He brought it over to the table with a three-dimensional map of the entire city of Rome glowing green from the monitor and set it right on the coliseum.

  “Your tacos and the morning newspaper, If you have not seen it, sir.” He said

  Evonne only brought me the paper if it had something about me in it. This was the custom he had adopted on his own and I must say, it was fantastic. Early on I had made it a point not to read about myself in the paper. Chicago had a bad habit of boasting to the world that the awesome future-telling genius Jericho Johnson lived in their city limits.

  But if I had never started reading about all the conspiracy theories around my persona that the newspaper folks liked to think they knew about me, then I wouldn’t have had all the laughs that I get out of reading them.

  But tonight was different.

  “So what is it this time?” I asked, starting on the sushi tacos. “I sacrifice virgins to obtain my sophisticated premonition?”

  Evonne held up the paper. “Something like that.”

  The front page was of me and five of my students, conveniently all girls, at a local restaurant. We seemed to be laughing and one girl had her arm linked dangerously through mine.

  I swallowed my bite and took another crunchy chomp on my taco. “It was like a field trip of sorts.” I said through a mouthful of sushi and corn chips.

  “Of sorts?” Evonne asked, raising an eyebrow. “To Denny’s.”

  I swallowed again and leveled a finger at him. “Don’t forget your place, butler. I will, like, fire you in a split second.”

  “No you won’t.” Evonne said and smiled for the first time that evening. “Who else would put up with your eccentricities, Master Johnson?

  I finished my first taco and started on the second. “You’re right. So it would be a shame to lose you, Mitch.” I laughed.

  We both chuckled for a second then Evonne became serious. “But really, sir… your students? It just does not look… proper.”

  “What?” I asked around my last bite of awesome deliciousness. “It wasn’t anything, honestly, man.” I held up my hands in surrender. “Strictly schoolwork stuff. So what’s the headline say?”

  Evonne scanned it with an uninterested glance. “Something about a prophet-pimp from Chicago… oh and they mention your familiarity with Mr. Gates, sir.”

  I stood, shaking my head. “Dude, this town sucks, Mitch. Is there no decency?”

  “In America? No, sir.” Evonne decided to throw in.

  I moved the tray off the three-dimensional map, watching the coliseum phase back into life again. “Yes. We’ll have to see if the Romans were anymore decent.”

  But as I looked at the coliseum, the most infamous thing about the said Romans, I knew that the answer to their decency was no.

  “To work, then.” Evonne said to me, taking off his long tailed coat and rolling up his sleeves.

  After a few hours of sifting through all the information we had about A.D. 97, Evonne proposed the brilliant idea of going back to A.D. 98 instead. “Cornelius Tacitus, Roman historian and senator, finished two whole books that year, Master Johnson. And Emperor Nerva died and was succeeded by Trajan.”

  “Are the books obtainable?” I asked.

  “Possibly. And the celebration for a new emperor would not be one to miss, sir.” He said, swiping his hand over the screen to scroll through his list of events. “Trajan also went to Germania the same year and defeated the Bructeri, returning as a hero. What a busy little emperor. Yet another glorious celebration…”

  I had mapped out my landing spot in the city, choosing some grassy flats on the outskirts. What? Did you think I would blindly appear somewhere in the great city of Rome? No. Not a good idea. My glove was able to just land me anywhere but would land me in exact places when the correct longitudes/latitudes were punched in. “We’ll only need a moment or two with the books. Just make sure we have a digital camera.” I said this purposely and watched Evonne’s reaction.

  He had his back to me but turned his head slightly. “Master Johnson, did you say we?”

  I smiled and walked to his table. “I did indeed, Mitch.” I slapped him gently on the shoulder, “I need a hand on this one and, who knows, maybe we’ll get to use all that combat training you’ve been pouring into my head again.”

  He nodded simply, as if I had just asked him to ride with me across town instead of time and space. Then he added, “I hope we do not have to use any combat training whatsoever, Master Johnson. Rome is not the best place to have a good knowledge of such things, sir, and after Nero...”

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember Nero.”

  I walked to the bulletproof glass case that held my white metallic glove, spinning on a turnstile like a show car. “Well then,” I said, taking the glove out and slipping in on my right hand, wincing a little as the tiny jolt of electricity hummed on the veins in my wrist. Within a few seconds my heart rate and temperature appeared on the screen. “We’ll just have to nip that it the bud, now won’t we?” I said, pointing a ridiculously sharp finger at the coliseum.

  Chapter 4

  The roar of the seventy-thousand Roman citizens was deafening. Literally. Evonne and I blended in pretty good in our scholarly robes in the upper section of the coliseum. No one noticed us as we both produced a pair of earplugs and put them in. Not that they helped that much but at least our eardru
ms didn’t feel like they were about to burst.

  And they said rock music was the number one damaging thing for ears. I’m guessing whoever came up with that statistic had never watched a bloodbath unfold in a coliseum filled with eager bloodthirsty Romans.

  As we watched the scene unfold before us and the body count started to rise, or drop might be a better term. Because the more men that fell let the viewers know that their entertainment was almost at an end, it made me somewhat proud to be an American.

  Obtaining money in such places was never easy and Rome had been no exception. After wasting two precious hours at the market and doing a little jumping back a day or two- Evonne and I had been handed enough money to purchase almost everything we needed for our expedition by a few truly perplexed merchants. Which mainly consisted of robes and sandals. I pocketed the remaining denari and had set out for the arena with Evonne close behind.

  Getting in wasn’t hard after a quick cash flash and a comment about the two of us being part of the senate, we had been ushered to some of the best seats to watch the sport.

  I mean, if that’s what you want to call it.

  Let me just go on record here to say this: blood and sand mix a little too good. For real. After a few minutes the hot sun coupled with the hot sand results in a large dark brown spot that’s usually accompanied by the body of some poor shmuck that has just given his last breath all for the sake of entertainment.

  So am I proud to be an American? Yes. Yes, I am.

  I glanced over at Evonne and noticed that he was watching the spectacle with a shockingly cavalier attitude about the whole thing. Then I remembered that he used to be a major league black ops dude. No doubt he’s seen stuff almost this bad. Maybe even worse. This wasn’t the case for me and I was beginning to regret my rashness in coming to the arena at all. Don’t get me wrong, my travels haven’t left me unscathed and yes, I have seen folks killed.

  The crusades were rough times. Too rough to explain in a few pages in a history book. I had stayed in the Holy Land almost the whole first month prior to getting my glove. I became a squire the first day and was working for a good natured Englishman by the name of Sir Rodney of London. The real article, that guy was. From London and everything. After he'd taught me the basics of swordplay for a few weeks our camp had been attacked by raiders.

  Please try and understand that I am a twenty-four year-old almost billionaire with severe fan boy like tendencies.

  So at the first shouts of an attack, I had ran out of my tent shirtless and brandishing my claymore and red-crossed shield. I discovered that my glove had a grip like a crocodile’s jaws as I clenched the hilt of my broadsword and waited for the oncoming enemies.

  I totally blame my inner nerd for the two lives I took that night. Had I been thinking clearly, I would’ve just zapped back to the windy city at the first signs of attackers. But I hadn’t been thinking at all, much less clearly.

  Watching the blood hit the sand now and turning my head away just before the inevitable decapitation of the sod on his knees clutching at the deep stomach wound that had just been issued by the beheader, I recalled the surreal, primeval feeling that had gripped me that night and had been the cause for my sword swinging true twice.

  Upon arriving back to Chicago the next day I had swore to myself not to be so foolish again. Will I defend myself if someone is trying to hurt me? Yes. Will I kill someone I meet in my travels if they’re trying to kill me? Not if I can help it.

  The crowd started shouting louder, if that was even possible, to the winning gladiator to not end it too quick. At least that’s what I gathered do to the immense theatricality the victorious gladiator was flaunting to the maniacal crowd. He put a hand to his ear as if he couldn’t hear what they were screaming at him then nodded knowingly after a few seconds. He knew exactly what they wanted.

  He rolled his neck once before swinging at the man’s throat, hitting the jugular vein. I didn’t need my earpiece in to know what the audience had been shouting. This was what the crowd came to see. Not just death. No that wasn’t good enough for them.

  But shockingly visceral, mega-bloody, all-out-gore was what they wanted.

  I had turned my attention to anywhere else but the scene before me, not caring to see the winner who was probably holding his arms up to receive the bloody shower that no doubt was already happening do to the reaction from the spectators.

  Somehow I kept thinking that all those times of playing God of War should have prepared me for this. But it didn’t. This made God of War look like Winnie the Pooh.

  “Master Johnson, it seems the match is over.” Evonne shouted next to my ear to be heard over the roar of onlookers. “Perhaps we should make ourselves scarce.”

  Upon exiting the arena we headed west, roughly in the direction of the house of the senate, if the map on my glove was correct. The passing people were all talking about the last match. It resembled, to me, the way teens talk about how awesome a movie they had just seen was as they exited a theater. This notion was increased due to the teens we saw swinging imaginary swords at one another and talking about the highlights of the arena.

  Side note: Rome is was pretty much the most amazing place I’ve ever traveled to. Coming from the guy who has personally watched the first stone of the great wall of China being laid into place and also witnessed the birth of Charles I,in the same day, might I add.

  But seriously, Rome was awesome. I never really worried about people seeing my glove in my travels. I mean, yes, it is the most advanced gadget ever invented so far, but I never had anyone so far try and lift it. Good thing for them, too.

  Oh yeah. I guess this is probably the best time to tell you that the glove I keep going on about wasn’t exactly made in 2012. Yes. This is the best time to tell you that. Is it the best time to tell you when, exactly, it was made and how I, the genius prodigy who graduated college with a masters degree in history at the age of twenty-two had come to obtain it? Not so much.

  Suffice it to say that I’ll tell you about all that later. Maybe…

  The streets were packed with Roman citizens going about their Romanly ways doing whatever it is that Romans happened to be doing at that time of a day in the great city of Rome.

  Did I mention that I was in Rome?

  It was A.D. 98 on a beautiful Thursday afternoon.

  The day my perfect time-traveling life completely went to pot. The day I finally met her.

  I should have been more alert, I guess. I mean, as I look back on it I can see that I really should have been paying more attention to my surroundings. I’m also guessing that you know now that whatever horrible shenanigan my butler and I got into on that fine Thursday afternoon in A.D. 98 didn’t cost us our lives because I’ve just told you that I learned a good life lesson from the experience.

  No. We didn’t die. But I still to this day don’t know how.

  Chapter 5

  We had walked for almost five minutes when the beginning of my end took place.

  “Master Johnson.” Evonne said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

  I could tell by his tone that he was calling a problem to my attention and I turned to him. “What’s up, Mitch?”

  He nodded ahead of me and I glanced back the direction we‘d been walking, scanning the moving crowd. That’s when I first saw her. Maybe it was because she was the only person in the crowd who seemed to be watching us. Or it could have been that she was paler than most of the tanned citizens. Her jet black hair, perhaps?

  But I’m thinking it was mostly because she was wearing a black leather jumpsuit with high heeled boots that reached her knees. She was also walking straight toward us.

  Great. Some Dark Angel wanna-be come to call on the time-traveling ba-jillionaire.

  “What should we do, Master Johnson?”

  Like I said before- we almost died that day. Mostly because I, yes I just said that, was too stupid not to see danger when it was swaying up to me on four-inch heels.

  “Let’s
see what the broad wants, I guess, Mitch.” Then, with my voice dropped, “Just keep your guard up.”

  See? I guess I wasn’t totally stupid back then.

  When the woman came to a stop in front of us I could see she was in her late twenties and probably had been divorced a few times, already. Either that or her face just had a natural scowl that told all that she was hard to do business with. After she had stopped in front of us and had scowled at us for almost ten seconds, I decided to break the ice.

  “Nice suit, toots. Except that Cat-Woman called and said she wants it back.”

  Okay. Maybe I could have been a tad nicer on the first meeting. But after finding out her motives, I’m extremely glad that I wasn’t. At least not for a while…

  She smiled, and I must confess, she was pretty hot. In a kind of looks-like-she-could-kill-you-with-a-phone-cord kind of way. I had instant visions of this and had to fight the involuntary urge to take a step back from the menacing woman.

  “So how has Rome treated you thus far, Mr. Johnson? Been to the arena?” She asked with an odd amount of malice and calm.

  “Glad to see you know how to refer to your betters. Mitch, get a load of this chic. ‘Mr. Johnson’. I love it.” I chuckled, pointing at the woman while elbowing my partner in time. Ha. See my little joke there? Sometimes I just crack myself up…

  The woman seemed not the least bit bothered by my sarcasm, which worried me some, I must confess. Mainly because I knew that probably only a robot could take my wit. That’s a little Jericho tip for you guys. You might want to log that away for future reference.

  Ha. Future reference. Get it? No? Just never mind…

  “I can see you find yourself very clever,” she stated consulting her… Oh, God. She was wearing a glove just like mine! Wait, no. Upon closer inspection, which was just me narrowing my eyes at it while my mouth gaped open like a complete retard, I could see that it was somewhat different.