Fallen Empire

chapter 3

III.

Inside the sterile white Vespa station, Alice asks Seren to return to robot form, he does so quickly. Together they walk out of the station and through the city to the Faith Laboratory in the northern part of the Rome, taking care to keep to covered walkways and dark alleys. They reach the lab and Alice looks around to see if the coast is clear. With no one watching them, she places her hand on a plate next to the door; the plate scans her fingerprints and the door opens. Alice and Seren enter and the door closes automatically behind them.

Alice calls out “Lights” and the circular room is illuminated with a fluorescent gleam. “Seren weld the door shut.”

“That is a little extreme. How will we get out?”

She crosses to a table on the left side of them room and sifts through sheaves of papers, “We are not going out the door again and I want to make it difficult for anyone to get in.”

Seren shrugs his shoulders and abides her request. He bends his right index finger, a cap on the tip clicks open; applying flame to a flow of gas he aims the blue flame on his fingertip at the c***k between the door and the wall until it disappears.

Alice starts up the computer and types in her password to bypass the security program. She selects the folder labeled Chronogynics Project and scans a list of files.

Seren turns from the now solid wall, “Finished… So, what exactly are you planning to do?”

“We’re going to Rome.”

“We are already in Rome.”

Alice looks up from the printed documents she is leafing through, “We are going to Rome, February 15, 44. B.C. We need to find the event that caused the rift in the Time Circle”

“I thought the rift happened in March?” Seren inquires.

“It does, but we do not know what we are looking for, it might take us a month to figure out.”

“What are you going to do if we find the event?”

Alice shrugs her shoulders, “We had not found a way to patch the hole before Father went back to find out where the separate Time circle was created.  He thought if he saw the hole being made, he might know how to fix it, I guess we can try a similar approach.”

“Do you have any idea what to do when we get there?”

“Somewhat, I know we can only travel through Time and not through space, according to the atlas, we will be in an olive grove near the Temple of Minerva.”

Seren raises his metal eyebrows, “You want to just appear in an olive grove? What if someone sees us, particularly me? Will that not cause another rift in Time?”

“I will go first… It will be much easier to explain someone seeing me ‘just appear’ than seeing you. We will arrive at night it should be deserted; if anyone is there, I will try to scare them off before you get there.”

“Oh yes you are very frightening.” Seren deadpans this jab.

 “If they see me just appear out of thin air they are going to be scared already. Once you arrive you will probably have to wait in the grove while I go and buy clothes. Then we can find a place to stay.”

“What are you going to do for money?”

“According to my research, we use almost identical coinage as they did in 44. B.C.” Alice pulls a drawing from her stack of papers and a coin from her pocket, “The only difference is the head on one side – theirs is Julius Caesar, ours is Brutus. It’s not a big enough difference to be noticeable.”

Seren looks satisfied. “Do you have any idea where this event is supposed to take place?”

“No… All we know is that it was caused by another time traveler.” She returns to shuffling through her papers.

“Then how do you expect to find it?”

“We will walk around the city, observe everything, it could be something very small, like a note passed to someone on the street, or it could be something big, like the death of the wrong person.”

Seren shakes his head slowly, “That sounds like a big job. Have you thought about what will happen if you fix the rift? It has to affect us somehow.”

“I am not sure.”

“Give me a worst case scenario.”

Alice thinks for a moment, “We both disappear as if we never existed.”

          “What about a best case scenario?”

“We live out our days in Ancient Rome.”

Seren sighs, “I suppose I will never see sunlight again I am not inconspicuous enough to blend in with the crowd. Maybe you should just leave me behind.”

“Do not worry, I will find a great disguise for you I do not want to leave you behind, I need you, both as a companion and a resource. Here, plug in to the computer and I will download these files into your database.”

“I hate having to leave like this” Seren says as he steps up to the terminal “if we had more time to prepare we could have grabbed a costume or two to blend in.” As Seren bemoans his fate a plug pops out of a compartment in his abdomen. He pulls on the plug and the attached cord extends. He inserts the plug into the computer terminal, Alice presses a key, and maps, dialect charts, biographies, and three years’ worth of scientific research are downloaded and stored for easy recall in Seren’s multilevel database. When the download is complete, the plug ejects from the drive and Seren inserts it back to its compartment.

“I know it’s not ideal but the Senate has forced our hand.” Alice says, looking around at her laboratory, her home for most of her life. The lab may look a cluttered junk pile to an outside observer but to Alice everything here holds meaning and significance. There is a manual light switch next to the door that may seem redundant since the lights operate by voice command, but that is where her father taught her not to rely on technology because it can always fail. She remembers her father being ever so passionate about time travel and the large digital clock on the wall displaying the time to the infinite, smallest, micro-finite, possible measurement was practically a shrine. A modified microscope sits on the table to the left of the clock that her father used to find the rift in Time.

A tear comes to Alice’s eyes as she looks over several discarded projects. She knows that each one was discarded because of helpful advice from her father and remembers that she would not be the scientist she is today without his guidance. She believes it is now time for her to return the favor and find her father

Alice wipes the tears from her eyes and says; “I think we have everything we need” She collects herself quickly and returns to the computer. She brings up a screen with a list of sequences:

She selects ‘Sequence .417’ and clicks ‘Activate’

Behind her, a three-foot circular cone uncoils from its base on the ceiling in the exact center of the lab. It breaks off into a three-tiered structure with the larger tier on the ceiling. Each level spins in alternating directions and has staggered tuning forks all around each tier. It emits a slight humming sound as it warms up and a light-blue light shines from the opening in the center of the smallest layer. A four-foot wide concave dish rises from a sliding panel in the floor directly below the cone; it is prepared to direct the radio waves.

“Are you sure about this?” Seren asks, “We only have one shot at this since your father has the only prototype of the retrieval device.”

“Even if we had the retrieval device we would only have one shot at this. We cannot go back to the same Time again or we risk running into ourselves. According to my research if two identical molecules touch the universe will cease to exist,” Alice continues to work on the computer, “That is too great a danger to even chance. I just hope we can find the cause of the rift on the first try.”

“If you are uncertain of this course of action then what is the point?” Seren asks

 Alice stops moving and answers, “The point is: it may not be easy, but we have to try… We are the only ones who can.”

An alert box appears on the screen. ‘Do you want to continue activation of this sequence?’

Alice reads this takes a deep breath and clicks the ‘Yes’ button. From the tip of the cone, the blue light grows brighter until the dish is enveloped in it.  Alice and Siren move to stand beside the dish. As the light fades slightly, they see a transparent whirlpool in the confines of the dish.

“Count to ten after I disappear.” Alice says as she steps over the side into the whirlpool. She sinks quickly into the center, and out of sight. Seren counts as he was asked and steps in after her.