Fortuna

by Nicholas Maes

  It was like a dream in which Felix was being chased and, as hard as he tried, there was no escape. His legs were weighted down and the air seemed to grip him, as if it contained a million microscopic hooks. Carolyn was beside him and lagging just as noticeably. Both saw the “child” grab hold of his victim and, with two, sharp movements, thrust his arms aside. Both screamed in warning as Aceticus flinched. Both saw the fall of the knife, its point aimed straight at the old man’s sternum. Both howled in anguish although their screams were silent.

  The world was suddenly an explosion of red.

  The dagger hit the old man’s diaphragm, causing him to stagger back. The assassin twisted and lunged again. This time he struck Aceticus’ flank and sliced it open a good four inches. He was preparing for a third blow to the throat but Carolyn was able to block the thrust, even as Felix kicked him in the ribs. The “child” went flying.

  An instant later he was on his feet. Despite his size he was remarkably strong. Punching out, he caught Carolyn on her cheek. At the same time he was able to knock Felix off balance before lunging at Aceticus to finish the job. Felix just managed to catch his ankle and trip him up. Carolyn had recovered and threw three punches. One half-winded him. With a curse he retreated and mounted a wall. Jumping from its heights, he disappeared.

  Carolyn started in pursuit, but Felix stopped her.

  “Let him go!” he cried. “I need help over here.”

  He was kneeling at the old man’s side. Aceticus presented an awful sight. His white toga had two red stains that were quickly converging. His limbs trembled and his eyes were wide with shock. Felix slipped his own toga off, bunched it together, and cushioned his head. Carolyn took a place beside him. She had some medical training and was cutting the old man’s toga with the “child’s” blade. When the wounds were exposed, she considered them closely.

  “How bad?” Felix asked.

  “He struck an artery, the mesenteric,” she said, probing with her fingers. “He also nicked two organs, the liver for sure and a kidney maybe. He’s bleeding internally and needs lots of repairs. If we don’t act, he’ll die for sure.”

  “Can you save him?”

  “Here? No way! They don’t have the equipment. And there are no antibiotics so he would die of infection. What do we do?”

  Felix was thinking hard. If they couldn’t fix him here, they had to take him somewhere else. The choice was obvious: the distant future.

  “You can’t,” Carolyn said, divining his thoughts. She’d tied three tourniquets to slow the bleeding. “If you take him from this time frame, he won’t have written his book. The plague will be raging and our world will die.”

  “I know,” Felix cried. “But if we don’t save him …”

  A crowd had gathered. People were chattering and offering advice. Some were saying they should give the old man water, others that they should keep him warm, and others that the gods should be duly petitioned. One man observed that he’d seen worse in battle. By now Caesar and Pompey were present and looking on in horror.

  “Aceticus!” Pompey called.

  “Pompeius Magnus,” the old man groaned. “Do not grieve. I welcome death.”

  “Don’t talk that way!” Pompey cried. “There’s life in you yet!”

  “It is better so,” Aceticus moaned. “A life without purpose is no life at all. I’m relieved to cross the bridge to Hades.”

  His words struck a chord with Felix. A bridge to Hades. A bridge. That’s what Felix needed, a bridge to the future. Of course! He fumbled in his toga and brought his figurine out.

  “Carolyn! I need your portal quickly!” He twisted the head on his statuette right.

  “What for? I’m telling you now, you can’t take him back….”

  “I can maybe make a wormhole,” Felix said. “No, don’t say anything. Just twist your figure’s head to 71 BCE. And raise its left arm to create a backward charge. I’ll twist my statue to our present and make a forward charge. The two combined might form a wormhole — if Clavius was right. If so, I can take Aceticus back and freeze the effects of anything here.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, taking her statue from her palla. She sounded doubtful.

  “No. But it’s worth a try. Go on. Turn the head.”

  As they fumbled with their portals, the bystanders thought they were praying to Fortuna. Some fell to their knees and started praying, as well. Pompey joined them. For his part, Caesar was eyeing Carolyn’s shoulder and was clearly taken with her circular scar.

  “I’m ready,” Carolyn said.

  “Okay. Now listen. If Aceticus recovers, I’m not coming back. I’ll travel to the next date, 2111. Can you make your way there?”

  “Yes! But you’ve got to move! Aceticus is slipping…!”

  It was true. The historian had lost such a quantity of blood that he was shaking violently and his skin was blue. The fading light of his eyes showed that he had mere minutes to live; if he was lucky. Amazingly, he was trying to speak. Felix leaned in closer to listen.

  “There’s nothing left,” the old man murmured. “Let me die and be forgotten.”

  “It isn’t that easy,” Felix answered. That said, he waved to Carolyn and pressed the statue’s base. His eyes were closed and he expected the unusual to happen.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  Chapter Ten

  In the car museum that Felix toured as a child, there’d been an ancient escalator that would take him from one floor to the next. He would stand on a step and the whole staircase would rise, allowing him to survey the main floor at his leisure. Although Dispersion Portals were more efficient, Felix had loved the “disappearing” staircase.

  Caught in that wormhole with Aceticus beside him, he thought of the escalator as they jumped to the future. A revolving tube of light engulfed them, its rays looping back on themselves, vanishing and returning, like the escalator’s steps. And just as the escalator provided a view of the museum, this “tube” gave him a view of time’s permutations.

  Behind him were the baths and the crowd, frozen in the instant at which he’d leaped into the future. While they grew smaller as he barrelled down the tube, their outlines remained as starkly defined. Before him were the Station and TPM, mere points in the distance, but also perfectly drawn. And in between? Countless forms stood on exhibit, like prehistoric flies paralyzed in amber. These would remain if Aceticus lived; they would melt and regroup if he died of his wounds. Felix’s head was spinning. Arrayed before him was one chain of causality, with souls laid out in one version of the past. Buried in the unformed folds of the kosmos were the many other pasts that might possibly result, if any one element were drastically altered. Immensity wasn’t the word for this display. He was gazing at the front door to the mansion of eternity.

  Then the “tube” disgorged them.

  They were positioned in the TPM. Coloured gases swirled about them and, through the sphere’s transparent membrane, Felix saw the control room. With a shaky hand, he set the figurine down: so long as its charge remained stable, the wormhole would stay open. He wanted to examine its hollows, but a groan drew him back. Aceticus. His heart was on the brink of stopping.

  “This man is dying!” he cried. “We need emergency treatment!”

  His shouts were uncalled for. As soon as Aceticus had entered the sphere, a sensor had swiftly scanned his condition. Felix had barely spoken when three Health Drones burst in and swarmed the old man. One thrust a tube into his lungs: it would spare him from having to breathe on his own. Another sprayed his wounds with proteins, creating a “bandage” until the cuts could be sealed. The third pierced his veins and pumped in plasma, to replenish all the blood that he’d lost. At the same time the drones extended their bases, creating a stretcher on which they placed their patient. They transported him to OR 3.

  “Wait,” Felix cried. “Give him a Mem-gauge.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when a cortical “cap” appeared on the old man’s skull.
It would track every memory that he formed in the Station. Once he was fit enough to go back home — assuming he survived this ordeal — they could deprive him of everything that he’d seen of the future.

  Once the drones were gone, Felix sighed with relief — way too soon. In the control room he glimpsed something that was far from reassuring.

  The general and Dr. Lee were standing by a console. But something was off. They were wobbling slightly, their hands were shaking, and their hair was standing on end, as if they’d both been given electrical shocks. Felix swiftly joined them.

  “Felix. What’s happening?” the general asked. He spoke slowly and with effort. His eyeballs, too, were shaking in their sockets.

  “Aceticus was stabbed so I brought him here. I did so by creating a mini-wormhole.”

  “I see,” the general observed without pressing for details. “Where’s Carolyn?”

  “She’s chasing the assassin to 2111. What’s wrong, sir? You don’t look well.”

  “I feel peculiar,” the general confessed. “It’s like something’s hollowing me out from within. I feel hot and cold and … a ghost of myself. And it’s not just me. The rest of staff is affected, too. And reports show the same is happening on Earth, although our telecom is off because a signal keeps intruding. Isn’t that so, Doctor?”

  “I’ve taken measurements,” Dr. Lee observed, in the same, heavy voice as the general’s. “The forces holding our atoms in place are starting to weaken. If this continues, we’ll literally fade to nothing.”

  Felix gulped. Everyone alive was a walking paradox. Because Aceticus was dying, he might not finish his book. If his book weren’t finished, Felix hadn’t stopped the plague. That meant every soul around him had turned to dust the year before. They were living contradictions, no more, no less. Their atoms were coming loose because, if Aceticus died, they couldn’t exist.

  As if to prove this point, a screen was crackling. That signal that the general had mentioned was breaking in. It was 90 percent static, but an image lurked beneath.

  “It’s that damn signal,” the general cursed. “It’s been messing with our instruments these last few minutes. And it’s only getting stronger. Have you any idea where it’s coming from?”

  “None,” the doctor mused. He might have been speaking from inside a box. A thin line of blood was stealing from his ear.

  Felix took a good look at the screen. He could just make out a ghostly figure. Beneath the static he could hear the occasional phrase. He closed his eyes and focused …

  “… created terrible havoc, delighting in war, savagery, and ignorance. But as often …”

  He frowned. These words sounded familiar. Where had he heard them? He leaned back in and listened closely.

  “… something rare and precious disappears — as light inevitably must dissolve into shadow. God bless us all …”

  He narrowed his eyes and considered the screen. A silhouette was visible, shaky and dim. Then he sucked his breath in as the words gelled together. He was listening to President Gupta speak! In the world where he hadn’t found the lupus ridens, Gupta had spoken before the plague had killed him. His speech had been broadcast all over the world. The signal was coming from this alternate future. The closer Aceticus got to death, the more this future was dislodging their present; very soon it might take over their time frame completely.

  “Where are you going?” the general asked, as Felix ran to an exit.

  “I’m checking on Aceticus. If he’s conscious, he’ll need reassurance. After all, those Health Drones can’t speak Latin.”

  “Go ahead.” The general sighed. He raised a shaking hand to the light. By now his skin was partially transparent.

  Felix walked to a door at the far end of the room. On its surface was written OR 3. The door slid open and … there he was. The old man was lying on a peculiar bed. Its surface could be lowered and raised, but its base was box-like and resembled a coffin. Its hollows were probably a storage space. Above it was a shelf with small blue orbs — these were portable memory disks. A line of them was labelled CM I-VI.

  But the old man was his first concern. Much to his amazement, Aceticus looked stronger. A surgery team had “sealed” his artery, repaired the cuts his organs had sustained, and fused his wounds without leaving a scar. It had replenished his fluids and injected him with meds. His pulse was strong and his colour was normal.

  “How’s the patient?” he asked the closest surgical drone.

  “He will recover. But he could use further repairs. His blood sugar and cholesterol are high, his bone density low, and his liver contains toxins. His teeth, too, are worn …”

  “Never mind,” Felix said, unwilling to extend the old man’s natural lifespan. “No maintenance is required. When will he be ready for TPM transport?”

  “Based on his hemoglobin,” the drone replied, “one hour and sixteen minutes.”

  Felix looked at a Teledata screen. It was full of static still, but the signal was weaker. Because Aceticus had been saved, they’d gained themselves time, but they weren’t clear of the danger yet, not by a long shot. They had to send the old man back, fully committed to writing his book. The question was how.

  Aceticus was conscious and agog at his surroundings. His eyes were wide and he was full of questions. “Am I dead?” he asked. “What are these devices? And what is the meaning of this gadget on my skull?” He was speaking Latin and the drones couldn’t answer.

  “Salve, magister,” Felix greeted him. “You’re looking better.”

  “Where am I?” Aceticus groaned. “And why did you keep me from dying?”

  “We’re in the future,” Felix said, without beating round the bush. “The Rome you know has long since vanished.”

  “What are you saying?” Aceticus wailed. “That it isn’t 683 ab urbe condita? And Lentulus and Orestes are no longer consuls?”

  “It has been 2,967 years since the city’s founding. There is no such thing as consuls now. And to answer your question why I saved your life, billions of people depend on you. If you die, they’ll die, too.”

  “Do you think me a fool?” the old man exploded. “Do you think I don’t know a lie when I hear one?”

  “Domine, please. You’ll open your wounds!”

  “Stop pretending that you care for me! You took away my will to live when you proved how paltry my efforts are! Leave me be and let me sink into the shadows!”

  When the old man paused to catch his breath, Felix tried explaining again. He repeated that Rome had turned to dust and that the world had made much progress since, to the point that people could visit the past. He added that these achievements would die and humankind languish if Aceticus didn’t finish his book.

  “It’s hardly a book,” he said. “It’s the scribblings of a wretch.”

  “It isn’t. I’ve read it. It’s something to be proud of.”

  “If you’ve read it, then I don’t have to finish it.”

  “You’re mistaken, domine. If you don’t write it, I can’t possibly read it.”

  Felix and Aceticus stared at each other. To convince him of the truth of his words, Felix held his hand and was squeezing hard. It was cold to the touch, as if belonging to a corpse.

  “Enough!” the old man shouted, yanking his hand free. “I don’t know what your plan is, but you won’t sway me with your lies! Send me back this instant! I find this place frightening. I’m not dead here, nor am I truly alive. As for that book, I won’t write it! Do you hear? I’ll die before I pick up a stylus! Why are you just standing there? Send me home!”

  Felix had one last play to make. That’s why he addressed Bernard, the Station’s operating system. When a soft voice answered, he requested to be linked to the World Satellite Reconnaissance System. He asked to be joined to it by cognitive implants so that the images it relayed would seem all the more real. “We’ll start in Toronto,” he stated, “on the roof of my father’s Book Repository.”

  These directives were bar
ely out of his mouth when a chair appeared from out of the floor. When he was seated, a probe brushed against his skull and he felt mild pinpricks as the implants were installed. Through his Mem-gauge, Aceticus was linked already.

  “WSRS hook-up in five, four, three, two, one …” Bernard spoke, only to conclude with, “Online.”

  Felix was whisked at the speed of light from his place in the Station to a busy urban scene. He was on the roof of the Book Repository in downtown Toronto. Below him was a four-tier thoroughfare (once known as Yonge Sreet) and, off to his right, the new Nano-Center, the city’s tallest super-structure, with its three hundred stories and iconic dome. Surrounding them were other towers, and the air was thick with shuttles and drones.

  In actual fact they weren’t on the roof, or anywhere else in the downtown region; their bodies were on the Station still. They were hooked directly into the system and this neurological link-up made them feel they were there.

  “What is this?” the old man gasped. He was still just as angry, but sounded deeply impressed.

  “It’s a city called Toronto,” Felix said. “It’s home to over ten million people. Do you see those flying objects?”

  “They are like enormous birds, only much more beautiful.”

  “Those are transport devices, winged chariots, if you will. Each can circumnavigate the globe in fifty minutes, with a thousand passengers inside its belly.”

  “These towers,” Aceticus asked, “they are higher than Olympus. How do they stand?”

  “They are made from a metal much stronger than iron.”

  They kept watching the scene. In the distance, a communications tower was under construction: service drones were zipping all over, transporting materials, welding these in place, installing circuits, and performing a thousand other functions, dozens of them, hundreds, all working together. In the streets, other drones were inspecting the roads, repairing cracks or zapping debris. Every window, every surface was clean enough to eat on, and the city, seen from a bird’s-eye perspective, was like one gigantic animal, so synchronized and finely tuned were all its actions.