Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 35

AD 54, 7 miles outside Rome

‘How much longer now?’ asked Liam.

‘It is due in two minutes, thirty-six seconds,’ replied Bob.

Liam shook his head. ‘Can’t come a second too soon.’ He looked around the olive trees, grateful that their rendezvous was a quiet, discreet location and seven miles away from the stench of decay and squalor in Rome.

‘I’m glad we’re out,’ he added.

A week, that was all. One week in Rome and Liam could quite happily say he never wanted to see the city again. He shook his head at his naive hope of a week ago: assuming the place was the very definition of order and civilization, an endless spectacle of marbled splendour.

How wrong he’d been.

The city, what he’d managed to see of it, was a slum of over a million people. Buildings stacked several storeys high, packed tightly side by side like arrows in a quiver. And the smell was unbelievable. The stench of human and animal faeces. Of rotting bodies. The city was riddled with diseases from polluted water — typhoid, cholera. Liam recalled Nottingham, a city that had been in just as much trouble. But Rome had something else. It had Caligula.

Examples of his madness were everywhere. In every communal area — marketplaces, forums — T-shaped cruciforms were erected, from which hung those who’d displeased him in some way. Graffiti on almost every wall depicted the emperor as either mad or cruel or demonic, or god-like and benevolent. Rival gangs, collegia, daubed the walls with these lurid illustrations and most of the gangs seemed to favour the emperor. They flourished in the growing chaos of the city.

That was the thing. From those Romans they’d spoken to, overheard — their landlord in particular, a short, thickset and foul-tempered man who seemed to swear with every other word — Liam had got a sense that Caligula had disengaged from running his empire. Was content to let it descend into chaos, ruin and anarchy… while he prepared for some rumoured and imminent destiny.

Within the walls of the city, it had been the very definition of Hell itself. Liam felt queasy as images of the last few days flashed before his mind. Glimpses, frozen images, a slideshow of horror, splashes of blood and squalor.

Stop it, Liam. Think nice thoughts.

‘Surely they’re probing here already, are they not?’

Bob shook his head. ‘I have not detected any tachyon particles yet.’

‘That’s not right. They should’ve probed already.’ Liam looked up at the support unit. ‘Something’s wrong. Maddy always checks first before she opens.’

‘Affirmative. That is standard procedure, Liam.’

Liam shook his head silently. This was one place he really didn’t want to be stuck any longer than necessary. He had a memory of taking confession with Father O’Grady, his parish priest, a few years ago. Confessing to him guilty fantasies about Rosie McDonald, his schoolmate’s older sister who lived three doors down from him. Father O’Grady had given him chapter and verse about the temptations of Satan, and then gone on to describe in glorious detail the torments that awaited him in the underworld. Liam had gone home and that night had dreamed fitfully of the world O’Grady’s words had conjured up in his young mind.

These last few days he’d seen that nightmare world for real.

‘I am detecting precursor tachyons,’ said Bob.

‘Ah, thank Jay-zus for that.’ Liam felt relieved enough to try out a smile. Another minute and they were going to be back home and working out together how they were going to put an end to this nightmare timeline.

‘We should stand clear,’ said Bob, holding Liam’s arm and leading him several steps back. Liam turned to look up at their cart and the ponies. It was up the hill on the side of the track, where someone was likely to find it sooner or later. He was wondering whether they should have cut the poor animals free when he felt the puff of displaced air on his cheek. The branches of the olive tree hanging over them swayed and hissed excitedly.

Liam looked at the shimmering orb that had just appeared, hovering in front of them. He saw the familiar, welcoming, cool dimness of the archway and… there… he could just about see the flickering outlines of Sal and Maddy.

Sal burst out of the portal, running as she hit the ground. She lost her footing and tumbled into a patch of long grass. She was instantly up again on her feet. ‘Liam!’ Looking around frantically. ‘Liam!’

‘Sal?’ he called out to her. She spun round and saw him and Bob standing in the shade of the tree. ‘What’re you doing here?’

Before she could answer, Maddy was spat out of the portal, arms ahead of her as if she’d been taking a leisurely dive into a swimming pool. ‘-OOOOO!’ She hit the dusty ground and rolled head over heels.

‘Maddy? What’s going on?’

She scrambled to her feet, like Sal, spinning round, glancing in all directions to locate him. ‘Liam? Bob?’ She saw Sal. ‘Where’s Bob?’

‘We’re over here,’ Liam said. Then: ‘What the devil’s going on?’

She ignored his question for the moment, turning back to look at the portal’s shimmering image. ‘Oh God… close! Please!’ she muttered. ‘Close! Dammit!! Close! CLOSE!!’

‘Close?’ Liam looked at Bob then back at her. ‘Uh… why do we want it to close? Maddy? Are we not meant to be going back n-?’

Just then, as the sphere began to collapse in on itself, a third figure was spat out on to the dusty ground. Maddy screamed, backing away from it as it attempted to get to its feet. Only it had no feet. Just bloody stumps smoothly cut and cauterized above the ankle and one arm severed at the elbow by the edge of the force field as it began to collapse in size and winked out of existence.

‘ Who’s that? ’

‘Chuddah! It’s got a gun!’ said Sal.

Bob was the first to react, charging forward towards the footless figure, trying to steady itself on uneven stumps, wielding a pistol in its remaining hand. It fired off a shot at Bob, hitting home, a puff of crimson coming from his shoulder. But then Bob was upon it, throwing his full weight in and knocking it flat on the ground. They tumbled across the hard dirt, locked together in a lethal wrestler’s embrace.

Liam winced as the footless figure fired two more shots into Bob before he managed to knock the gun out of its hand. His eyes were trying to make sense of what he could see; it looked like two versions of Bob rolling around, squirming together in the tall, dry grass, kicking up clouds of dust between them.

‘Get the gun!’ shrieked Maddy. ‘Get the freakin’ gun!’

Sal stepped forward and scooped it off the ground.

‘Shoot it!’

She cupped the gun in both hands, a finger on the trigger, grimacing uncertainly as she tried to line up a shot on the right Bob.

‘Shoot it!’

‘I can’t… I… I’ll hit him.’

‘Give it to me!’ snapped Maddy. She wrenched it out of Sal’s hands and strode towards the two struggling support units; like a pair of giant pitbulls locked together, all rippling cords of muscle and entwined limbs. One then the other managing to get the upper hand. Bob was on top again now, this time holding the other support unit in a tight headlock and bracing his hold position with his legs spread apart as it flailed ferociously to struggle out of his grip.

‘Hold it still!’ Maddy yelled at Bob. She stepped forward, standing over the pair of them. ‘Hold IT STILL!!’ she screamed.

She aimed the gun and fired.

‘Jay-zus, be careful!’ shouted Liam.

She fired again. And again. And again. And again. Then the gun was clicking harmlessly in her cupped hands. The struggling stopped and as the dust began to settle, Liam realized he’d stood on the side uselessly, too confused by what he was seeing to be of any help to the girls. Cursing his moment of stupidity, he rushed forward.

Maddy collapsed to her knees, the empty gun still in her hands. She was gasping for air, or perhaps she was sobbing, he couldn’t tell. Either way she looked like an utterly spent force.

‘Bob!’ Liam pulled at Bob’s bloody shoulder. ‘Bob, you all right?’

His deep voice rumbled. ‘Affirmative. The damage is minimal.’

He sat up slowly on his haunches, releasing his grip on the other support unit. It flopped lifelessly to the ground.

Liam looked down at the thing’s head. ‘Jay-zus! It’s you… Bob. Your twin or something!’

‘Is it…’ Maddy panted several breaths, a ragged rattle. ‘Is that thing dead?’

‘Three well-placed cranial wounds,’ replied Bob. ‘It is quite dead.’

She sighed, dropped the gun into her lap. And this time Liam realized by the heaving of her shoulders she really was sobbing.

Sal came over to soothe her. ‘We made it, Maddy,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all over. We’re safe.’

Liam looked at them both, wondering which of a dozen questions spinning round his head to blurt out first. He ended up going with the obvious, catch-all question.

‘Anyone mind telling me what’s bleedin’ well going on here?’