New Pompeii (30 page)

“So why did you bring me here? Why not Ronnie? Or both of us?”

“We told you the truth at the restaurant, Nick. At the time, we were looking for a replacement for Professor Samson. So when I saw you hadn’t been taken, I asked myself, ‘Why not?’ What were the people in the future trying to tell me? Then I saw your CV. Let’s just say this is the sort of coincidence that doesn’t just happen. It was clear we needed to employ you. The message was received and understood.”

“So I’m going to do something important,” said Nick. “Something that means I can’t be transported.”

Whelan laughed and Nick felt his heart momentarily freeze. “You’d think so, right? Maybe you’ve already done it. Maybe identifying Felix was your big contribution to NovusPart.”

Nick mulled this over. Felt a stab of pain in his groin. “If I’d been on my own in the bathhouse, then not being transported might have been a sign I was no longer important. But you took Patrick. Another clear signal: there’s something left to do.”

“Well, I hope you’re right, Dr Houghton. Because there are various ways in which you can contribute to history. It might just be that you think of something. A random, off-hand remark that helps someone else find a solution to a problem. Or it might be something less pleasant. Those people pushing the buttons in the future? They’ve already proved they don’t mind your getting hurt. Have you ever heard of dying for a cause?”

* * *

“You came here alone?”

Nick nodded, although he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Whelan had sent a couple of guards to accompany him. He’d said they were for his protection but he had sensed they were there to make sure he kept his word. They were nothing but a frustration. He’d intended to head over to Barbatus’ mansion via the House of Samson, but their presence had made that impossible.

Still, that didn’t mean they had to come with him every step of the way. On the final approach towards the queue snaking out of the
duumvir
’s door, Nick had told them to wait at a distance. So yes, he was now alone. But help wasn’t far away.

Barbatus stood at the back of the atrium, surrounded by men wearing heavy armour. They were all carrying swords, likely forged in the workshops on the eastern side of the town. He’d walked straight into a fortress – and it would have been unwise to arrive with an armed escort. He’d made the right call.

The
duumvir
looked at him for a long time. “I must admit, I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said.

“I guess I was lucky.”

“Well that depends on your point of view.” A few of the men behind Barbatus chuckled. Despite what Whelan had said, they’d clearly heard what had happened at the bathhouse. “So why are you here, Pullus?”

Nick paused. Whelan had given him strict parameters. He couldn’t promise too much. Couldn’t deliver too little. And the sand in the hourglass was slowly trickling away. “There’s been a lot of disruption in the town. We need it to be brought under control.”

“We warned you, and you ignored us.”

Nick thought back to the party.
They attack their masters. And they attack monsters – whether they are real or not
. “That’s why we’ve come to you now.”

“And you expect me to do what, exactly? Stand in front of you? Allow the people of this town to associate me with you and let me take a share of their anger?”

“We were hoping to come to some sort of arrangement.”

“You mean you were hoping I’d call out the city watch.”

Nick opened his mouth to speak, but Barbatus waved at him to keep quiet. “So what are you going to offer me?” he asked. “More money? More land?”

“We want to hand more control back to the town,” said Nick.

“Oh, spare me, Pullus. This isn’t a town; it’s a prison. The ash cloud has gone. The roads are clear. But every time we send out riders, they are stopped by legionaries who send them back.”

“Augustus…”

“Ah, yes! Augustus! The first god-emperor! You know, Pullus; I once saw a man who called himself a god. He would argue with Jupiter in his temple. It was a fairly one-sided conversation, as you can probably imagine, but we would all just stand there and watch. No one dared say he was crazy. The Emperor Gaius killed people on a whim, you see. For his amusement.”

Nick nodded, understanding. “You’re talking about Caligula?”

The
duumvir
’s face twisted in anger. “Caligula?” His voice was now ice cold. “Only cocksuckers use that name now. Men who became brave the moment ‘Little Boot’ was safely in his mausoleum. Men who didn’t have to watch their wives and mothers raped, or their friends and brothers executed.”

The academic side of Nick’s brain was ringing loudly –
Barbatus met Caligula
– but the rest of it was registering a slow pulling fear in the pit of his stomach. It was different to the immediate terror he’d felt in the bathhouse. Because the men around Barbatus were wearing armour and carrying swords. And the
duumvir
’s house looked like a fortress. Which meant they were going to war.

But whatever he was meant to do for NovusPart, it was unlikely that they intended him to die here and now. There was still time. “We haven’t acted like the Emperor Gaius,” he said.

Barbatus chuckled. “Tell me about Felix,” he said. “He was a good man, so I’d just like to know: did you have a reason to kill him, or was it done on a whim?”

Nick’s mind blanked. Maybe dying wasn’t on the cards, but that didn’t mean he had to blindly follow a path leading nowhere. He needed to find a new tack. “The town stands,” he said, trying to keep his voice firm and controlled. He looked at the men around Barbatus. Most stood steadfast but some were looking distinctly nervous. Like they weren’t sure the
duumvir
was making the right call. After all, they didn’t know everything that had happened in the bathhouse. Whelan hadn’t left anyone to report the transportations. There was still some room for doubt.

“Caligula was no god,” Nick said, trying to push home the point. “But, then again, he did nothing to prove it. But you each felt the heat of the mountain, didn’t you? The shaking of the ground? The wrath of Vulcan? And yet you all survived.”

“Then take control of the town yourself,” Barbatus said. “What do you need me for?” The
duumvir
looked around at his men. His words seemed to have the necessary effect. The uncertainty had been brief.

“Let me tell you a story from Rome,” the
duumvir
continued. “A Roman legion once brought a northern ‘king’ back to the city. The soldiers were expecting him to act just like all the other defeated barbarians. He’d see the majesty of Rome, compare it with his mud huts back home, and quickly fall to his knees. Quaking at the sight of Rome’s power. But this one didn’t. He stood in the centre of the forum, and told Emperor Claw-Claw-Claudius to fuck right off.”

A few of the men behind Barbatus started to laugh; they’d clearly heard the tale before. But Nick hadn’t. He swallowed uncertainly. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” he whispered.

Barbatus took a few steps forward. He leant in close. “That’s right, Pullus. That barbarian king had no idea how we built our aqueducts. And I don’t know how you pull off your little miracles. But know this: I’m no barbarian. And I’m not awed. So you want control of this town? Too late. It’s mine. I didn’t leave when the earth shook twenty years ago, and I didn’t leave when the mountain pelted us with rock either. So if you want it, you’ll have to take it from me.”

In the
duumvir
’s anger, Nick saw his new tack. Not money, or land. “When I last spoke with your daughter, I offered her something.”

“What?”

“I offered her the truth,” said Nick. “And somehow, I think we could find it together.”

N
ICK LET OUT
a long, low whistle. It was clear Barbatus had acquired yet another neighbouring townhouse. What Astridge had designed as a neatly organised home for a modest Roman family was now a warren of rooms. All of which seemed to be alive with people and filled with chests of coins and swords.

“We’ll leave by the back.”

Nick nodded. The
duumvir
’s building work meant there were now several ways into and out of his stronghold. They could leave without passing the two NovusPart guards who’d escorted him there. And his trip around town would go unrecorded in other ways too; he’d given temporary charge of his belt to a household slave. However, it soon became clear they wouldn’t be heading straight to the House of Samson.

Barbatus stepped down into the street and immediately took a road north. Nick hesitated before following, trying to get his bearings. Yes, they would miss the House of Samson by a few blocks. Unless Barbatus planned to make a late turn. But he didn’t. And the men with the
duumvir
didn’t allow him to catch up with his new host. For those watching, the symbolism was clear: they weren’t walking together. The
duumvir
was keeping the association between them light, not wanting to stand between the mob and the men of Augustus.

They reached the Vesuvius Gate and Barbatus stopped as soon as he’d passed through the outer wall. He’d only brought a handful of his men with him, but most remained at a courteous distance. The only one the
duumvir
seemed to talk to at any length was his household slave, Cato.

As Nick approached, he thought back to Caligula and his immediate predecessor, Tiberius. Both had promoted their slaves and freedmen to powerful positions. Some of them had been even more powerful than the senators. And they’d been extremely loyal because they owed their position to their master’s patronage. Even in the face of tyranny.

So was Barbatus running Pompeii on the same model?

Maybe he was. Because there was another group at the gatehouse, a rag-tag assembly of men carrying swords. The city watch were now guarding the main trade route into and out of the town. And in the distance, Nick could just about make out some horses approaching. Heading directly past the spot where there should have been a volcano.

The
duumvir
started to walk into the long grass that butted up against the town’s northern wall. Nick didn’t want to follow. He hadn’t been told where they were going, and he’d seen enough movies to know bad things happened in lonely locations. But he’d made his decision. He followed. Within a few steps, he realised what he was going to be shown.

The only clue he needed was the rancid stench of rotting meat. It seeped into his nostrils, and made his guts twist.

A pile of bodies, none of them longer than a man’s forearm. Like small leathery dolls in the ash-covered grass. They looked like they’d known nothing but a few short days of terror and hunger. Some had been scavenged by animals; one was missing its limbs, its stomach open, its guts spilled.

The traditional way Romans dealt with unwanted children.

They left them outside the town walls to die.

“You can understand it, of course,” said Barbatus, his voice low. Respectful of the graveyard around them. “They are poor, their future uncertain. So the people bring them out here.”

Nick said nothing. He looked away from the crèche of empty eye sockets staring up at him.

“You offer me a way to get to the truth,” Barbatus said. “But what I want to know is simple: why do you people keep bringing children here, when there are so many unwanted already? Why keep good homes empty, when people are living on the street? Why lock us in our town, and cut us off from Rome?”

Nick nodded dumbly, but his mind was racing. The nursery in the control villa. The crying baby. NovusPart were bringing children here. And it solved a puzzle posed by the man known as Harris. It was all around him. The way NovusPart could take people from the timeline, and then hide them away without the need to cut their throats:
you took them while they were young. And you hid them where no one would look.

Maybe some of the missing were out here with the unwanted Roman babies. Maybe others had been given to employees of NovusPart – like Noah and Julian. But whatever the answer, they’d been taken out of the equation. The political titans of the present, reduced to children.

“So the empty townhouses,” continued Barbatus. “What do you suppose we’ll find there?”

Nick turned to the
duumvir
, feeling his time was close. “Let’s go and see.”

Barbatus smiled like he knew he’d won. “The closest is only a few blocks away. The people in the neighbouring buildings reported it to us. They thought it was unfair that such a fine property remained empty.”

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing. Life’s unfair. I was going to give it to Calpurnia. Until some ignorant cocksucker tried to dig their way through the walls. Underneath the brick and plaster is a metal skin.”

“Metal?”

“Yes,” said Barbatus. “Not iron or bronze. Something new.”

Nick nodded. Another question ticked off the list, and another explanation conveniently erased. The empty houses weren’t meant for the people of Pompeii. They’d been designed like the House of McMahon. Secure housing, for whomever McMahon invited to the town. Or forced here. He swallowed hard. “There’s a particular house I want to go to.”

“Oh?”

“There was a man who lived here. A few blocks south and east of your own home.”

Again, the
duumvir
grinned. “You mean your predecessor?”

Nick stared blankly ahead.

“There have only been two men from your camp that have shown any real interest in this town. You, and an older man. He seemed like the big chief in the days after the calamity.”

“Samson?”

“Was that his real name? Anyway, it soon turned out he wasn’t such a big man. And then you arrived to pick up where he left off.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“He was murdered.”

Nick faltered. Murdered. “You know this for sure?”

“This is my town, Pullus. I know what goes on here.”

Nick believed him. NovusPart had murdered Felix, and they’d killed Samson too. But why? It was time for a gamble. He looked towards the sky. The sand was falling. “I think there’s something in his house which could be useful.”