Last Prophecy of Rome

Epilogue

Over the coming months, Myles would watch the video of Placidia talking to Dick Roosevelt in the Pantheon several times. He always wondered: did she know her people were already safe? If she did, then why did she meet with Roosevelt? And if not, was her death a tragedy that he — Myles — could alone have stopped, if he’d just run a few seconds faster to reach her?

The question was only answered when Myles was fully recovered and preparing to return to Oxford, to restart his academic work.

Exactly six months after her death, he received an email. The address seemed odd, but he clicked on the link it offered nonetheless.

A video file opened on the computer. The format was the same as the YouTube broadcasts Placidia had sent out while she was alive — the broadcasts which had warned of a plot to bring down America like ancient Rome.

Myles pressed ‘play’, and a picture of Placidia appeared. She was in the Pantheon, and he realised it must have been filmed a minute or two before the main recording, when the meeting with Dick Roosevelt was broadcast live to the web.

Placidia moved back from the camera. She looked nervous, and checked behind her. The sound quality was poor. ‘This is a message for Myles Munro,’ she said. ‘Myles, I don’t expect to survive my next meeting with Dick. I think he’s going to kill me, which is why I’m making this video. Myles, I think the whole US is in danger. Every aspect of American power: its military, its reputation, its finances — unless something is done to stop Roosevelt, America will share the fate of Rome. Even the once-great democratic tradition is threatened — the more people like Dick Roosevelt rise up, the more the country will go down, and states could start to peel away by 2020. Someone had to take a stand. That’s why, when Dick asked Juma and I to pretend to be terrorists, to help Dick become President, I said yes. Not to help him, but to sabotage his plan.’

Myles rubbed his eyes as he watched Placidia. In the video she checked behind her again to make sure Dick hadn’t arrived yet.

‘But, Myles,’ Placidia continued. ‘Please believe me. I never meant harm. I always believed in trying to save as many lives as possible. That’s why I insisted the lead factory in Germany only used calcium from chalk, and why the men in Istanbul never got near the real plague.’

She glanced away from the camera again. ‘You see, Myles. The plot was like this. Dick Roosevelt just wanted there to be Islamic terrorists. But I said we needed smart terrorism. It was me who suggested the threat to “bring America down like ancient Rome”. It was the thing I knew most about, so it gave me control. And it meant I could make sure you were brought in. Myles, I thought you’d decode all the references to Rome and understand. And I hoped it might finally bring us together. I never really gave you a chance. I regret that.’

Placidia looked strained for the first time in the video. Myles guessed it was because of what she was saying, not because she expected Dick to be with her soon. ‘Rome fell because it had too many civil wars,’ she said. ‘These didn’t just kill off its soldiers. They meant it came to be ruled by selfish, dangerous, nasty people — like Roosevelt. And once the Empire had started to decline, its civilisation could never be restored. Like love, once lost, it was lost forever.’

Placidia reacted to a noise behind her. Myles saw the light change in the background: the doors to the Pantheon were opening. Quickly she leant forward and pressed a button. The footage continued, but now it was the public video — the material which the world had seen. The video of Placidia and Dick Roosevelt talking. The image stream of Roosevelt incriminating himself, then shooting Placidia while she prayed.

For several minutes, he wondered about everything Placidia had said. Could their relationship ever have come to something — at university, or in the years before he met Helen?

And was she right, that America could be doomed by a single bad President? The country seemed too strong for that. The United States had become as permanent as his relationship to Helen.

His thoughts drifted back to the present — the video should be evidence in Dick Roosevelt’s trial.

He tried to replay it, but somehow he couldn’t. The file was missing.

Myles scoured his computer and his email, but it no longer seemed to be there. It took him an hour to realise, and finally accept: the message had deleted itself.

Like ancient Rome, Placidia’s last words to him were gone forever.