New Pompeii (31 page)

Barbatus glanced back towards the gatehouse. “Then lead on.”

“W
HEN WE LAST
met,” Harris said, “you told me you saved Harold McMahon’s life. Would you care to elaborate?”

Kirsten hesitated. It seemed like a lifetime ago. The memory was distant, almost dreamlike. And now she was starting to doubt herself. What had really been happening while she floated in the bath for all those years?

She breathed in slowly. It hadn’t taken long for Harris to return to the office; his phone call with “Marcus” had been brief. “I was always late for work,” she said. The words came slowly, but then gathered pace as she let them form in her mind a piece at a time. She had to get this right. Had to make sure she got every detail correct. “Even though I lived in college, I struggled to get out of bed on time. The day I saved McMahon, I was late.”

Kirsten stopped. Harris leant forward, and indicated she should continue with a roll of his hand. “I went to empty his bin. If they were in but didn’t want to be disturbed, the students left their bins outside their doors. But McMahon hadn’t done that. So I went in – and there he was. Sitting at his desk. Choking. He’d been eating peanuts, and one had got stuck.”

“You helped him?”

“I hit him hard on the back until he coughed it up.”

Harris leant back. That flicker of a smile had returned. “That’s why McMahon wanted to remove you from the timeline,” he said. “That’s why you emerged as a paradox.”

“Because I saved his life?”

“Because if you’d been any other bedder, his bin would have been emptied on time – and he would have died at his desk.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No one knows about you, Kirsten. Nobody knows about that little incident with the peanut. You’re not even a footnote in history.” He paused, thinking. “I bet you took that bath not long after you helped him.”

Kirsten nodded. It had been the evening of the same day.

A look of triumph crossed Harris’s face. “He needed to take you out of history at a point just after you’d saved him, and before you told anyone about that incident, so that no one else would know to come along later and take you out just before you saved him. If he’d left you alive, you would forever be a gun pointed straight at his head.”

Kirsten drew in a sharp breath.

Tap – tap – tap.

A knock at her door. He’d come to her room. Maybe to say thank you. So he’d known exactly where she was, on one of the most memorable days of his life.

But now she was back. A gun. Forever pointed at McMahon’s head. She looked back at Harris. “So are you going to kill me now?”

For the first time, Harris looked uncertain.

“Kill me?” repeated Kirsten. “To kill McMahon?”

“Oh, I see. You think we’d go to all this trouble to save you, only to go and kill you straight away?”

“I don’t know.”

“Understandable. But no, that’s not our intention.”

Kirsten shifted in her seat.

“Relax,” he said. “We don’t have the technology to rip you from the timeline. Only NovusPart can move people forward, out of time, and McMahon keeps the company in the hands of a select few. And the tricky thing is that, when you move someone who had a future from the past, you make changes. The people of Flight 391 had no future. They all died, never to be seen again. So they appear and NovusPart knows what they did to bring them there. But when you move a person who wasn’t meant to have been moved, you create a paradox. You rip away the future, and the reason they were transported.”

“In other words,” said Kirsten, filling in the blanks, “Harold McMahon may not know he ordered my transportation.”

“I
’VE BEEN THERE
before. There’s nothing of interest inside.” Nick nodded, but ignored what Barbatus was telling him. Cato and a couple of the
duumvir
’s guards walked behind them. “You’ve never been upstairs though, right?” he said.

The
duumvir
didn’t answer. Nick turned a sharp corner into a narrow street, and found himself facing the House of Samson.

Unlike McMahon’s base of operations, this townhouse didn’t have any shops built into its frontage. Instead, the cubicles on either side of the main door seemed to be small homes. Or rather, hovels. A flight of stairs led up from a side alley. Nick looked upwards. There were more cubbyholes in the building’s upper floors, accessed by a fragile wooden walkway. Each one was shuttered. Typically Roman. No space wasted. And it was an arrangement that meant Samson would have had plenty of real-life Romans living right on his doorstep. Enough study material to keep him going for years. He would never have just left voluntarily.

Nick approached the shuttered front door. He pressed his hand against the solid wood. They wouldn’t be able to break through it. But they didn’t need to. Just like at the House of McMahon, a grid was etched into the doorframe.

Nick tapped in the code. 391391. The door didn’t shift. Behind him, Barbatus seemed impatient. What code would Samson have chosen? He tried again.

2

The wood didn’t give any indication it had sensed his input. But could it really be this simple?

4

Whatever, it was the best place to start.

0 8 79

The twenty-fourth of August, AD 79. Doomsday.

The door clicked open. But before he could smile in triumph, something sharp pushed into the base of his back. Nick felt hot breath in his ear. “If there’s anyone in there waiting for us,” said the
duumvir
, “then the last thing you’ll see is my sword pushing out through your stomach.”

Nick didn’t respond. He walked forward, pushing aside the heavy curtain that hung across the entrance. The atrium corridor was longer than that at the House of McMahon, and the light from the street was blocked out when the curtain fell back into place behind them.

The house was empty. Looking around the atrium, Nick was unimpressed. The house was a shell, with only a thin layer of plaster on the walls. No mosaics, not even simple ones. And it smelt damp. The floor plan echoed that of the House of McMahon, a set of wooden stairs leading upwards from the corner of the atrium.

Nick let his eyes follow them to the balcony, and noticed the opening above the pool was covered with a steel grate – presumably to stop intruders climbing in over the walls. Behind him, Cato and Barbatus started to whisper to each other. The slave was dabbing at his mouth with a corner of his tunic. Without lips, saliva dripped from his teeth. It wasn’t clear what they were saying to each other.

“I wonder if they’re all like this?”

Barbatus glanced at him, his eyes narrow. “You mean you really don’t know?”

Nick didn’t reply. He walked around the pool to the
tablinum
. Plants were growing in the garden beyond, so at least some attention had been given over to getting the house ready for permanent occupation. He turned back to the
duumvir
.

“I still think we’ll find the truth here.”

Barbatus didn’t look convinced. “Do you remember what I said? Whichever direction you head out of town, soldiers turn you back. Most of the people accepted your story as a consequence of the disaster. It was Calpurnia who asked me, ‘What exactly are they hiding?’”

Nick didn’t reply. He walked back into the atrium, scanning it for clues, but nothing was leaping out at him.

“So we found the villa, and your giant metal mosquitoes.”

Nick felt the ground shift beneath him. “They’re called ‘helicopters’.”

“They bring everything here – the food, the money, the iron and the bricks. They even brought you. They seem to be the only way in.”

“And out.”

“Really? The only people we’ve seen leave are the men who control the mosquitoes… your ‘heli-cop-tors’.”

Nick nodded. “How many of your people know about the villa?”

Barbatus shrugged. “That information only matters if I let you go, and your people ask you.” The
duumvir
let his eyes flick upwards. “So let’s finish exploring. If it’s true you know nothing about these houses, you can just set up a meeting with your people and I’ll leave you alone.”

“All right.” The wooden stairs flexed under Nick’s feet. It was the first time Barbatus had expressed any interest in meeting with McMahon and Whelan.

The layout of the upper level of the townhouse also mirrored that of the House of McMahon. Four rooms led off the balcony above the atrium. A narrow walkway extended out around the peristyle. Nick moved to the first room – the equivalent of Whelan’s – and pushed open the door.

Someone had been living here. Probably Samson. Behind him, he sensed Barbatus prowling.

“I’m told there are rooms like this at your villa.” The
duumvir
entered, then stepped into the en-suite bathroom. There was the sound of running water. “Clever,” he shouted. “The water is hot. I shall have to tap the spring.”

Nick made no comment. With the
duumvir
distracted, Nick started searching the bedroom. Cato was an unspeaking presence behind him, breath continually whistling out of his always open mouth.

And then he found them. A collection of notebooks in a neat stack underneath the desk. Nick started to flick through one. Sure enough, it contained Samson’s original notes. The handwriting was appalling, but the content matched what he’d already read on his tablet. And there were additions. Little notes in the margins.

“What’s this?” asked the
duumvir
.

Nick turned, and found Barbatus examining a large flat-screen television attached to the wall. He was also holding a tablet computer, and had started to give it an exploratory shake.

Nick walked over and switched on the television. It showed views of the town, directly fed by NovusPart’s security cameras. He picked up the remote control and flicked between camera angles.

“You know how to work this?” asked Barbatus. He didn’t look shocked. It was almost as if Nick had shown him something completely ordinary. “You’ve seen something like this before?”

“Yes,” said Nick. “McMahon has a similar device.”

“It’s a trick. A very clever trick.”

“An oracle,” said Cato, clearly more impressed than his boss. “And one that actually works.”

“Yes,” continued the
duumvir
, suddenly thoughtful. “And I can see the advantages. He can see where everyone is… See where the crowds are starting to turn nasty. Ha!”

The security feed was showing the forum, where a large crowd was standing outside the Temple of Jupiter, witnessing another sacrifice to the gods.

“Look at those fools,” said Barbatus. “Slaughtering bulls like they mean it. We could put the haruspices out of work at a stroke!”

Nick smiled inwardly, reminded of the politicians back home when they turned up to the occasional church service – usually at Christmas or Easter – while clearly having no appetite for organised religion. “What about those worshipping at the Temple of Isis?” he asked.

“Those bastards had better keep a low profile.”

“There have been problems at the temple?” He was interested to see how Barbatus would spin the disturbance Whelan had told him about.

“Yes. As Naso told you, when things are going badly, people look for someone to blame. And people getting on their knees in front of an Egyptian goddess put themselves at the top of the list.”

“They don’t seem too happy about worshipping the Emperor, either. There are no crowds at the Temple of Fortuna Augusta or the Temple of Vespasian…”

It was clear Nick had touched a nerve. Barbatus issued an audible growl. “You forget I’ve met the Emperor,” he said. “He’s real enough.” After a pause, the
duumvir
shook the tablet. “And what does this do?”

“Give me a second,” said Nick. He took the device and flicked it on. When the tablet loaded, he realised it had all access rights enabled. The video screens, maps of the town, the GPS tracking system… and the internet. He could even get on to his email. Look at
Who’s Where.

He tapped the screen and brought up his profile.

Who?
Nick Houghton. (NovusPart.)
Currently working for NovusPart.
Where Been?
[Expand]
Where Now?
Unknown. Probable location: New Pompeii.

“What are you doing? Show me!”

Nick looked up. Barbatus was visibly angry, his face red. And then it clicked. The television may have been an alien system, but at least it was easily understood. After all, it was like looking into an oracle’s pool. But a tablet computer… the internet… They were going to take some explaining.

He opened the GPS mapping application. Dots appeared on the screen. “The system tells you where certain people are at any one time,” he said.

“Show me the full town.”

Nick zoomed out, then turned the tablet round to show Barbatus.

“Thirty,” the
duumvir
said. “You have thirty people.”

Nick saw that he was right. The GPS system was tracking thirty people. There would be more at the villa. Maybe another twenty or so. Not many more. So that made perhaps fifty people. Not enough to hold the town.

And Barbatus knew it.

“T
ELL ME ABOUT
Harold McMahon.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sure you do. What was he like?”

“He was just a kid.”

“Talented?”

“He was at the best university in the country…”

“If Cambridge only took geniuses, then it would be a fairly empty place. Most people there just make up the numbers. Especially now it’s gone back to being a rich kids’ finishing school.”

Kirsten hesitated. “I didn’t see any of his work, I just emptied his bin.”

“But what was your impression?”

“He was lazy. He wasn’t often in his room but when he was, he stank of alcohol and takeaways. He must have missed a lot of lectures.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“He didn’t say much. I got the occasional grunt of thanks.”

Harris considered this. “What was his relationship like with Whelan?”

“Whelan was the exact opposite. He was almost always out. Whenever I
did
see him, he was either dressed like a soldier—”