Fortuna

by Nicholas Maes

  “It’s beautiful,” Aceticus said with a sigh. “Do machines perform all the work?”

  “The physical work, yes,” Felix replied. “Humans do other things.” He didn’t bother adding that these humans were machine-like, too.

  “Where are these humans?” the old man asked. “The streets are almost empty.”

  It was true. Given the time of day, the downtown should have been packed. Instead there were few pedestrians about and those that appeared were clearly in trouble: they were walking unsteadily, if they were walking at all. Some had collapsed and were being assisted by Health Drones; others were barely able to manage. Felix assumed the people indoors were no less affected.

  “It’s as I said,” he replied. “The population is sick. Those people you see are typical. They are dying, all of them, because you didn’t write your book.”

  “That’s nonsense. You can’t blame me for this. You may as well blame Romulus for Spartacus’s mutiny.”

  Felix didn’t answer. There was no sense arguing, not when he could take a different tack.

  “Let’s visit Rome,” he said. “But you’re in for a shock. Rome, the ancient forum,” he ordered Bernard in Common Speak.

  The scene changed drastically. One moment the Toronto skyline was before them; the next they faced a stretch of ancient ruins. The contrast was so sharp that even Felix was impressed.

  “What is this?” Aceticus asked. His voice was suddenly dry with emotion.

  “I think you know,” Felix said. “Those columns joined by an architrave? They’re all that’s left of the Basilica Aemilia.”

  “On the right, is that the temple of Vesta?”

  “Yes. It’s recognizable still. And you see those other ruins? That arch, the curia house, and that pitted structure belonging to some thermae? They were built long after you were alive. Not that it matters. Rome collapsed eighteen hundred years ago. Only a tiny part has trickled down, the very best the city produced. I’ll show you an example of what I mean.”

  As Aceticus looked at the ruins in shock, Felix told Bernard, “Toronto, Area 2, Sector 4, Building 9. Place us in unit 2103, please.”

  A moment later they were gazing at the Taylor home. Instead of the usual tidiness, the place was a mess. The windows contained two gaping holes, shards of metal littered the floor (from the Enforcement Drones Felix had crushed), a shelf was overturned, and books lay everywhere. The stone from Ganymede was lying on the couch. While this disorder was shocking, he couldn’t dwell on it then; instead he called to Bernard.

  “Can you restore the Domestic System? Its power source was neutralized.”

  “Repair protocols established,” Bernard replied, a split second later. “Power is restored. 3L Domestic Service, nicknamed Mentor, is back online.”

  “Thank you,” Felix called. “Mentor? Can you hear me?”

  “I can,” a familiar voice spoke up. “Welcome home, Felix. You are cognitively linked to the WSRS, I believe?”

  “That’s right. Listen. Can you find Aceticus’ Historiae? It was in my dad’s study when I saw it last.” Even as Felix posed this question, he could see that Mentor was tidying the unit. The holes in the window were being sealed, retractable arms lifted the shelf off the floor, and the metal shards were being swept away.

  “I have found the book, Felix. I have returned it to your father’s desk.”

  “Thanks. Can you open it to the first page and direct our gaze above it?”

  No sooner had he spoken than they were eyeing the book. Its pages were brittle and yellow with age, the signatures were coming loose, but overall the book was in fair condition. And as Felix had anticipated, Aceticus was reading the opening page.

  “These words are mine?” Aceticus said, after a minute.

  “When Rome collapsed, a small fraction of its texts survived. Yours was among them.”

  “Incredible,” the old man marvelled. “This print is so beautiful, so sharp and crisp. And my Latin isn’t so terrible, is it?”

  “It’s not just the style, magister, but the contents, too. Of all the books that have survived the ages, yours is easily the most important. This new Rome won’t survive without it. There are twelve billion new Romans at large; all will turn to dust this very day, if you don’t write your Historiae. Our future rests in the tip of your stylus. Bring us back,” he told Bernard, “and log us off the system.”

  “Logging off,” Bernard replied.

  Before they could draw a single breath, they were back in OR 3. After blinking several times to adjust to the change, the old man gazed at Felix. His anger was gone and he was smiling shyly.

  “I know what must be done,” he said. “I will finish my Historiae. I swear this by Clio, the muse of history.”

  Felix nodded and thanked the old man. He then addressed the surgical drone.

  “Is he ready for the TPM?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you tracked his memories since his arrival here?”

  “Yes. All recent memories have been registered.”

  “Including his promise to complete his book?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then implant this last memory and delete the rest. And administer a sedative. He must not remember his journey back.”

  Felix just had time to squeeze the old man’s arm before a sedative invaded his veins and he dropped off like a baby. With no time to waste, Felix told the Health Drones to return the historian to the TPM.

  Aceticus was soon lying in the see-through sphere. Its gases were swirling into a black discontinuity — the start of the wormhole that Felix had created. Stroking the old man’s cheek one final time, Felix said, “Pax tibi.” He then retrieved his figurine and, exiting the sphere, pressed its base and sealed the wormhole closed. Aceticus vanished in a puff of smoke.

  Again Felix gasped. Alive and breathing a minute before, the historian had now been dust for over two thousand years.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ten minutes had passed since the Roman’s jump to the past. To his surprise, Felix discovered that, in all that time, he hadn’t moved a muscle. His eyes were half-closed and his breathing was uneven. The general and doctor were poised by the console and just as reluctant to stir as Felix, as if the slightest move might reduce them to dust. What if Aceticus hadn’t written his book? Maybe its absence was taking shape in later eras, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Belle Époque, the Great Depression, the TV Age, the Religious Wars, the Great Reforms. Maybe these were falling like dominoes and, any moment now, the last “brick” would totter and flood the present with the plague’s effects. In ten seconds, five, people’s atoms would melt and Felix would be the last man standing….

  Another minute passed. The silence was deafening.

  But the general and doctor existed still. Their eyes were glued to a Teledata screen, and, while neither showed the slightest emotion, they weren’t shaking as much and their bodies seemed stable. Their hair, too, was back to normal. So maybe they were there to stay.

  Felix took a step. When the world didn’t end, he took another, then another. Emboldened, he moved away from the sphere, climbed some stairs, and joined the pair.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” the general answered, daubing at some blood that had escaped his nostril. “I might look terrible, but at least that weird inner quirkiness has passed.”

  “Readings show our atomic ‘glue’ is stable,” Dr. Lee pointed out. “I guess that means the Roman is back in his time frame.”

  “Of course he is,” the general said. “And that rogue signal has vanished, as well.”

  “Pardon me general,” Bernard broke in, “but all three of you could use caloric input. And Felix should be hydrated.”

  “Thank you, Bernard,” the general said. “This way, gentlemen.”

  On legs that were still wobbly, the general led them across a catwalk to his office. The only piece of furniture was a Lignica desk whose surface wa
s empty but for a hologram of Carolyn. It showed her as a girl, without ERR: her features were relaxed and her smile was full.

  Felix gulped. She was all alone.

  “Sit,” the general said, pointing to a pair of seats that had risen from the floor. “Nutrition,” he barked. Felix was used to Mentor, whose circuitry was old. It surprised him, then, when a port swiftly opened and three glasses with a pink, viscous liquid appeared.

  The general nodded, encouraging them to drink. Lifting his glass, Felix took a sip. While it wasn’t as tasty as the meat from last night, it did provide him with a feeling of well-being. Not only did his energy increase, but his mind was suddenly sharp and focused.

  “All right,” the general sighed, regaining his strength as well. “The first threat’s over. What’s next on our plate?”

  “I’ve got to get to 2111,” Felix said. He briefly described the assassin’s attack and how, despite their efforts, he’d made good his escape. On the off chance the “child” was heading for Stockholm, Carolyn was pursuing him there. Felix planned to join her, the sooner the better.

  The general nodded. While he wasn’t happy that his daughter was alone, he appreciated the need to follow the killer. He asked the doctor if the date and place meant something special.

  “Indeed they do,” the doctor spoke. His body was normal, but his face was still pinched, as if he were fighting an affliction that would never let him be. Even a year after the fact, with ERR to smooth things over, his son’s abrupt death still tormented him. “The ‘child’ is headed for 8 Haymarket Street, in Stockholm. This address is where its famous Concert Hall stood.”

  “A concert hall?” the general asked. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s a building where people called ‘musicians’ would gather. They would play various instruments: violins and objects you sometimes see in museums, as an audience listened in.”

  “You must be joking,” the general said, then snorted. “That sounds insane.”

  “I’ve seen films of this. It’s very odd,” the doctor replied. “But never mind that. In addition to its orchestra, this hall hosted the Nobel Prize festivities.”

  “I’ve heard of those,” Felix broke in, glad to escape the subject of music. If these men found out that he listened to recordings, for sure they’d think that he was touched in the head. “They were awarded to great scientists and other thinkers. They were prestigious in their day.”

  “I see,” the general said. “Why is that ‘child’ travelling here?”

  “On December 10, 2111,” the doctor explained, “a Nobel ceremony is scheduled to take place. Among the winners is a familiar name: Johann Clavius.”

  “The same Clavius behind the TPM?” Felix asked.

  “Through his unified field equation, yes. But that was published later, in 2165. He’s also the ‘father’ of accelerated cloning, chaos theory, and neuro-mapping. This last field led to memory deletion and ERR. In fact, it was for his work in neuro-mapping that he won a prize in 2111.”

  The doctor paused to let his words to sink in. The three sipped their drinks in silence. Whereas the general was nodding his head in approval, as if to say he admired Clavius greatly, Felix wasn’t sure what to make of the giant. Sure, the guy was brilliant, but had he really made the world a better place? Had ERR created as many problems as it had solved? Not that it mattered. “Why would Clavius interest the killer?” he asked, voicing the more crucial question.

  “That’s what I was wondering,” the general agreed.

  “Bernard, bring up photos of Johann Clavius, please,” the doctor replied. Moments later, several holograms appeared alongside Carolyn’s. One showed Clavius as a ten-year-old boy, blue-eyed, blond-haired, and chubby-cheeked. He was posing with five trophies he’d won, in all the major sciences. Later shots showed a man in his twenties, with a distracted, haunted look. In one he was dressed in a Zacron tuxedo and wearing a medal about his neck — the Nobel Prize. The only other image was of a filthy hobo with a beard and wasted cheeks. The man in this photo was clearly dead when it was taken.

  “You can see from these pictures,” the doctor went on, “that there was a puzzling gap in Clavius’s life, one in which he vanished from the public scene. In fact, it was just after this event in 2111 that he pulled up stakes and disappeared. For the next sixty years he lived alone in a hut. This picture shows his corpse when it was found, in 2173.”

  “He became a hermit?” Felix asked.

  “Yes. He cut himself off from the rest of the world, without a word of explanation. Strange to say, this period was his most productive. It was when he was living in the middle of nowhere that he devised his theory of accelerated cloning, chaos computation, and unified theory. And there you have it. The life of a genius.”

  Again the doctor paused, and again the group drank. After a minute of silence, the general spoke.

  “I’m sorry, Chen. I’m not following. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying the killer knows Clavius will be on hand to accept his Nobel Prize. After that, the genius will be impossible to find. If he’s going to kill him, this date marks the perfect occasion; the only occasion, I might add.”

  “But why kill him?” the general demanded. A spot of the pink fluid was on his lip and, despite the serious tone at large, Felix almost smiled.

  “Surely that’s self-evident,” the doctor replied. He pointed to the general’s lip, to advise him of the spot. “If he kills Clavius, there’ll be no unified field theory. No theory, no TPM. No TPM …”

  “No time travel,” Felix groaned.

  “And again the plague rages. In other words, I’m afraid we’re back to zero.”

  The general’s face was like a totalium block as the doctor’s reasoning hit squarely home. The single word “delete” was uttered and Bernard cleared away the scientist’s photos. Only Carolyn’s shot remained: was it Felix’s imagination or was she giving him a wink?

  “All right,” the general said, “our mission is clear. We stop that killer by any means necessary. Do you hear me, son?” He was staring straight at Felix.

  What choice did Felix have? “By any means necessary,” he agreed.

  “Remember. Three minutes. And every word will be recorded.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I know he’s your father, but he deserves no pity.”

  “I understand, really.”

  “And we have plans for him, just so you know.”

  “I’m just grateful for the opportunity, sir.”

  With a feeling of dread, Felix watched the general approach a retinal scan. Its beam verified that he was General Manes and there was a hum as the magnets on a door disengaged. The totalium slab opened and Felix stepped into the space beyond.

  It was large and dimly lit with ceiling pods. Three of its sides were nothing but metal; the fourth consisted of metal, too, only it was broken up into a series of windows. Beyond each Durex square was a prison cell. Of the five cells present, only one was filled. Felix stood before it and looked inside. As expected, he spied his father. Bernard had warned him that his son was coming, but his dad was lying like a lump on his cot, too dispirited to move or blink.

  Unless guilt had him paralyzed.

  “Vale pater,” Felix spoke. Just as quickly he switched into Common Speak, so the general wouldn’t think that he was plotting with his father. “It’s good to see you although I wish these were happier times.”

  His father showed no sign that he was listening. Felix almost groaned. This was going to be even harder than he’d thought. “We have three minutes,” he went on. “I was hoping you could supply me with your version of the facts….”

  Felix placed his hand on the window. When his dad didn’t follow suit, he lumbered on.

  “Let me ask you this. Are you plotting to bring the plague back? A simple no or yes will do.”

  Nothing.

  “We’re high up on a space station. It contains the TPM — a top-secret time machine. So
meone flew here in a CosmoComm shuttle, the one we took to get to the Space Hub. This person forced a scientist here to send a killer to the past — we can do this now. He happened to leave a pencil behind and some fibres from a Zacron suit. These details suggest you were that guy. In fact, that scientist fingered you when he saw your picture. It looks like your guilt is written in bold letters, but maybe you can explain this stuff.”

  There was still no response. If anything, his dad seemed more removed than before. His silence angered Felix. He spoke again, almost shouting this time.

  “I’ve seen the full effects of the plague. If it runs unchecked, it will kill everyone! Not a single soul on the planet will survive.”

  He stared long and hard at his dad. It was unbelievable. He was being told his guilt was obvious yet he didn’t seem to care. This was absurd; no, it was … monstrous. To hear this news without batting an eye meant he was more cold-blooded than Felix had dreamed. He yanked his hand away from the window.

  “I’ve always admired you,” he said. “It’s why I took the classics to heart. But if I stop the killer and keep the plague from recurring, I swear I’ll never touch a book again. If your learning can push you to act like a brute, then there isn’t any value to such ancient wisdom.”

  A light signalled his visit was over. He wanted to tell his father that he’d always loved him, and that his very best moments had been spent by his side, but he couldn’t get a word out. Instead he turned and retraced his steps to the entrance. Crossing the room’s threshold, he heard the totalium slab close behind him.

  It was as if a lid were slamming shut on his father’s coffin.

  “Are you all right?” the professor asked with an anxious look.

  “Yes,” Felix said mechanically. “Actually no. I saw my father.”

  “I’m very sorry,” the professor said. “That can’t have been easy.”

  They were sitting in his office and preparing for his jump to Stockholm. The next best time for TPM engagement was an hour from then, and they were hurrying to get certain details arranged. Once again the professor’s cabinet door kept swinging open. As they spoke, it kept banging MacPherson on the skull and he kept closing it with a look of impatience.