Times Relative: Book One - A Roman Affair

“This is some sick joke, right?” I laughed hesitantly while the two professors shared anxious glances back and forth. I began sweating, feeling the beads roll down the back of my neck. How is this even possible? I am just a regular orphan, yes, of course, just a regular orphan. My eyes started to dart around the room looking for an escape. “Please, calm down Ms. Smith, we promise to answer all your questions.” The only woman professor I met here said. She slowly raised her hand and placed it on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring squeeze. My breath hitched in my throat, and I felt the hot sting of tears rising. I darted my eyes straight for the floor, trying to avoid all contact. The male professor sighed loudly from the corner of the room. “Lidia, come on just tell her already, it’s not like she can leave if she wants to” he said with a harsh bite. “Joshua please! Don’t be so harsh! You have no clue what she’s been through,” she hissed at him. My eyes darted between them while they stared at each other. After a few seconds, Joshua threw his arms up in defeat and huffed as he walked out of the room, locking the door violently behind them. Lidia let out a soft sigh before turning back towards me, offering up a small smile. “Ms. Smith, please excuse my colleague, he’s a bit” she paused for a moment, fidgeting with her fingers “rough around the edges. Please know that I don’t judge you by your past actions and I know they were well warranted” she continued. I knew what she was referring to, the murder I committed. The murder that my hand was forced into, if I wanted to live. - Six months before being approached by scientific professors working for the Time Relative Corporation, I was your regular p********e. Sold by a man who kept us drugged and weak, bought by wealthy men who could buy enough power to keep their dark secret love of women at a whisper. I was only out of the orphanage a week before he approached me. I was new to living on my own, the state was paying my bills, but because of the increase in orphans and foster children, those who reached seventeen while still “in the system” were given a monthly allowance and an apartment. Just pushed out into the world. Not that anyone cared about the troubles of a girl like me but betrayed by the only family I had none the less. Sad, I suppose. He was my neighbor at the time, very charming, unlike the boys I met in foster care. He was a man, tall and lanky, still a child in his own right. He worked though, he paid his bills and always bought new and better items. Graciously passing down his rejected ones to me. It started with just a small smile, but that grew into one date and then a year later grew into moving boxes and empty promises. Some friends of mine called me crazy leaving state care and moving in with a man I hardly knew, but to me he was the family I found. The man I could create my new family with. Within a couple of months, he began to change. He started inviting strange older men to the house, he’d stay out all night and come home in fits of rage, beating me. It came to an end when a man called Red Eye came over and demanded payment for a batch of drugs he bought at the time. Of course, when no money could be produced, Red Eye offered to take me and my virtue as a payment. Without hesitation, I was pulled into the next room. I know he could hear my screams through the wall, but he never came to rescue me. From that point on, he kept me drugged till the next guy came in to buy a round of me and help pay down his debts. - “Ms. Smith, are you ok?” Lidia’s words broke me from my trance. Blinking a few times, I finally nodded. “Ok, great, as Joshua had said, we did work out a deal with the judge, if you agreed to help us with this project it will count toward your judgement time and you will be able to walk out of here a free woman after the study. Does that sound okay so far?” “Yes” I replied sheepishly. “So, onto the study, we need you to time travel back to ancient Rome and live with the Romans of the area. You will travel to a large village in Italy to live with the leader of the area. While you will not be within the city walls of Rome, you will be ruled by it none the less” Lidia paused, looking me over for any signs of stress. I let out a loud sigh as if to signal my defeat. I didn’t need to fight this, either live in a new world or live in a prison, the choice was easy for me to see. “How do you know this is safe? How will I even get into the area?” I asked. “We have sent an explorer in already; he had contacted the leader as a young boy. He taught him of our mission, our technology and our curiosity. We got him to comply with allowing you to live under his roof and under his protection, you’ll have to act as a royal from the New World, but that will help mask your obvious differences from the villagers. Your main duty will be to report what life was like for the Roman people, to help us decode the mysteries we still have of their society.” She started to pace the room, pitching her voice to show how clearly invested in this project she was. “I’m sorry, but I’m confused.” Lidia turned to me and raised an eyebrow, “I don’t understand why you need me to go through the time travel thing if you have already sent someone who has the leaders' trust?” “We thought he would be enough, but the effects of the time travel weighed on him tremendously. His body began breaking down faster and harsher than the average person's body”, she explained to me. “So just send the one destined for prison, right” I scoffed at her. “It’s not like that!” Lidia quickly shot back. “After we noticed the effects of the time travel, we located the gene within our explorer that was responsible for breaking him down faster. Unfortunately, that gene was present in every human on earth, except you. We don’t know how you manage to live without it or how your body ages, but we do know if we send you through the time machine you will age normally and when you pass back through to our present time you will age back down to the age you were when you crossed over the first time. There is a scientific reason behind it and we will explain that when it comes time for training, but for now we need to know that you are on board. That you trust us.” Lidia turned to me, eyes wide expecting my answer. I turned over the whole mission in my head. I have to travel in time and just live, it feels like a trick but who am I to really argue with them, I would rather live free with the Romans than in a cell. “Ok, I’m in.” - It’s been a few days since I agreed to become a traveler for the Roman Empire mission. I’ve learned a lot, like how these genes break down in normal people’s bodies, but how my body will age backwards. When I cross the time portal, I will be living and breathing in the Roman times. I learned that, because of the laws of time travel, the time will feel constant but is moving faster than present-day time. They broke it down that one present day is equal to about 4 weeks of the Roman time, meaning every year I spend in the past will only equal 13 days of present time. When I cross the portal five Roman years later, my aging will decrease, and my cells rebuild until I’m my original five years younger self. The whole science is more complicated than the language barrier and etiquette lessons. For now though, I’ll sit alone in my room and worry about the man who’s hands hold my future.