Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome (25 page)

And then the orb was in my hand, placed there so suddenly by an Agrippina who had entered the psychedelic vision of repetition so elusively that she didn’t seem real.  I’d watched her move, as though immune to the time distortion, her body a rock in a storm of persistent motion.  She waded through my vision like a drawing on a series of cards, held and flipped one after another quickly as a trick to generate a motion picture.  With each repetition of the scene, she seemed just a little closer, until finally she was able to kneel down, take it in her hand, and place it in my own.

And then the cycle ceased, and time, space, and reality exploded into normalcy once again.

I rolled myself onto my back quickly and clutched the orb in both hands against my chest, my lungs heaving for air as though I hadn’t taken in a breath in hours.  I tried to tilt my head back so that I could find Agrippina, but found that she was already standing and looking down at me.

“What happened?”  I asked breathlessly, but then another second passed and I became aware that I had no trouble breathing at all.

I stared at Agrippina, demanding answers with my eyes alone.

She shrugged.  “You fell, Jacob, and the orb rolled out of your bag.”

“But… it happened over and over,” I said, still at a loss as I pulled myself into a sitting position, placing the orb in my lap.  “It was like an overdose of déjà vu, experiencing what I’ve already experienced before, except over and over and over with only a vague understanding that I’d seen it before.  And it wouldn’t stop…”

My head started to hurt at my own explanation, just having to recall the memory of it all.  I still didn’t understand what could have possibly happened, but I was beginning to think that the simple awareness of it in of itself was valuable.  I’d experienced a similar phenomenon before, minutes ago and in this general area.  First, with the man that had attacked our escorts, second with the comically fat orator who’d experienced an equally comic vegetable-thrashing.  Now that I thought about it, both had also felt like déjà vu, although a hyper-intense variant that couldn’t be natural.

A revelation that made me think.

The experience had to have been related to the orb, as what was déjà vu really if not some form of time distortion?  I recalled reading something back home about a theory that the phenomenon was simply the brain reacting to an event before the conscious mind had time to catch up, therefor tricking the mind into thinking that the event had already happened once before.  I could live with that explanation, even now, but something told me there was more to it than just that.

But nothing like this had ever happened to me before.  I’d had the orb back in Rome seven years ago, and I’d had it for the last six months as well.  I’d taken it from Syria to Judea to Egypt to Britain to Gaul to Italy, and now to Rome, but never had I experienced something like that.  There was only one logical conclusion: that it had something to do with the red orb.

But even that theory was flawed.  If the red orb was here, someone would have found it, so its effects certainly wouldn’t be prevalent in this location anymore.  Nor did it make any sense that the red orb would act in such a chaotic way.  I had the blue orb, so if the red orb was nearby, technically, neither orb should display any of their negative effects – whatever negative effects the red orb actually had.  And I certainly didn’t feel any less angry all of a sudden, which is what I expected would happen once I finally paired the orbs together. 

This was something else, but as I hauled myself to my feet, ignoring Agrippina’s outstretched hand completely, I found myself at a loss for what it could be… which is when I finally saw the source of the time disruption.  It couldn’t be anything else, and I’d never seen anything else like it before either.  Hyper-déjà vu wasn’t enough to confirm my theory that I’d experienced something to do with the red orb, but my eyes no longer needed convincing.  Only a few yards in front of me, situated at the entrance to a narrow alleyway formed by two nondescript buildings I didn’t recognize, at quite possibly the southernmost tip of the
Forum Romanum
, was a column of floating, white light that teased my senses like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

It made no sound, I felt no heat, I tasted and smelt nothing in the air, but my eyes weren’t lying.  Only slightly higher than I was tall, and easily wide enough for me to walk though, the beam of white light was ovoid in shape and pulsated to the beat of some unknown source.  Little tendrils of light swirled around the beam and fought to escape like wisps of plasma venting from the sun during a solar flare only to come snapping back, either by their own volition or some other power.  It was both startling beautiful and terrifyingly ominous, and was an entity that did not belong in this world.

I turned to Agrippina, hoping that she too saw it, but her face was blank.

I gestured at the object.  “Tell me you see that.”

She glanced to her right and then back to me.  “See what?”

“That!  That…” I shook my hand it, words escaping me.  “
That!
”

“I see nothing, Jacob,” Agrippina said, taking a step toward me.  “But if you see something I cannot, then perhaps you have discovered what we have been searching for.”

I looked back at it.  “It isn’t a red ball, that’s for sure.  It looks like… a doorway.”

“A door?”

I shook my head.  “Not like a door, but a gateway, an entranceway.  It’s almost like a… hell, let’s go with a tear in the fabric of reality.  An…” I narrowed my eyes at it, thoughts churning, “…entrance to another world?  Like Merlin’s cottage door only not camouflaged?”

Agrippina peered at me.  “Where do these deductions come from, Jacob?”

I shrugged.  “Not sure.  Intuition?  Too much TV?  Or maybe Merlin implanted me with memories of this thing when I was with him to prepare me for this.  Who knows?”

Agrippina looked back at the area of the world that glowed brightly for me but I assumed appeared empty to her.  “Then perhaps this is what you sought after all.”

I placed my hands on my hips and nodded but never took my eyes off the light.  “If it is, then that’s where I’m going.  If it’s a doorway to another world, then it’s one I need to enter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly as I said,” I replied.  “Everything I’ve suffered for, everything I’ve sacrificed… the very reason I came to Rome at all is because of whatever resides within that… portal.”

“But surely it isn’t safe.”

“Who cares?  Nothing’s ever been safe before.”

“But…”

“Enough,” I snapped, throwing my head in her direction.  “I’m going.  Why are you trying to stop me now?”

“I am attempting no such thing,” Agrippina countered.  “I only wish to offer you aid on your trip and… perhaps company?”

I looked down into her puppy dog eyes, and I was again reminded how much I had come to trust this woman.  But she couldn’t come.  Boudicca I may need, but despite how resourceful Agrippina was, I couldn’t have her diverting my attention or becoming a liability.

“Not this time… if you even
could
come.  You can’t see it; I can.  Perhaps that means something.  Since we don’t have the red orb, who knows what will even happen if I try to step through.”

She looked up at me and her mouth tightened in a warm smile as she placed the palm of her left hand against my chest, and her other against my cheek.  “You are most brave, Jacob Hunter.  You deserve to find everything you seek.  Now.  Go.  You must prepare.”

***

An hour later, I was ready.

I had my rifle slung across my shoulder, along with my SR-25 Sniper rifle right beside it.  My trusty Sig P220 was holstered at my thigh, and I had spare ammo for each weapon held within dozens of pouches scattered across my MOLLE vest, web belt, and secondary thigh holster on my left leg.  I carried a large backpack in my spare hand as well, one that contained enough food for a week, spare clothing, sleeping equipment sans an actual tent, and a myriad of other tools and gear that I may need.

There wasn’t much left, but it would have to do.  There was no way of knowing whether this was a one way trip or not, so I was going to take whatever precautions I could… what few were available.  Everything I could carry comfortably was coming with me.

The process of gathering and equipping my gear hadn’t taken long; it never did anymore.  After so many years and so much hardship, preparing for violence had become second nature, as familiar to me as brushing my teeth. It was a comforting act now, one I often looked forward to because it empowered me, giving me all the confidence I ever needed.

Nor had I wasted any time, returning to the tear in reality within an hour of my decision to cross over to wherever or whatever it connected with.  The multitude of questions that hung over my head remained, and I knew the answers to each rested beyond that tear.  I wasn't about to let those answers stay unanswered any longer, no matter how brash and insane my decision to walk the dimensional planes of reality seemed to be.

It was right there, directly in front of me now, as physical and real as a fruit vending stall or a horse stable.  It glowed white hot and pulsed like an artery but did not move and went completely unnoticed by everyone other than me.  Agrippina’s Praetorians had cordoned off the area, using their bodies like a string of police tape, which of course had created a scene, which in turn had brought curious onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of what was so interesting.  I gave one curious citizen a look as she too glanced within the circle of Praetorians, and smirked when a confused expression crossed her face just before she was shoved aside by a Praetorian.  She left grudgingly with another look over her shoulder, and shrugged at another woman who caught up to her and whispered in her ear.  The two rounded a corner and were out of sight by the time I reached the perimeter of Praetorians, who parted and allowed me access.

Agrippina was there already, waiting patiently beside the pulsating phenomenon as though she too knew where it was.  I approached her, repositioning the heavy pack against my back so that it was out of the way of my shoulder bag, and adjusted the SR-25 slung across my shoulder.  It was a lot of gear, but I would probably need all of it, and once through the tear, I could repurpose gear as I needed.

“Are you prepared, Jacob?”  Agrippina asked.

I didn’t need to answer for the benefit of either one of us.  We both knew I was ready.  So much so, in fact, that I had no intention of waiting for further conversation at all, but as I moved my hand to my shoulder bag to retrieve the orb, Agrippina took hold of my wrist and looked at me almost reluctantly.

“Are you
certain
you are prepared, Jacob?”

I tore my arm out of her grip as I answered.  “You know I am.  This is why we came to Rome, why I abandoned my humanity in Britain, why I allowed nothing to stop us between then and now.  The last
half decade
has led me here.”

It was in moments like these that my suspicions of this woman were usually piqued, but when the smile she offered me next came slowly and almost as reluctantly, I felt content with my trust in her.  She stepped back and waved her arm in a welcoming gesture, enticing me to step toward the portal.

I stared at it, and it seemed to stare right back at me, beckoning me, just as the blue orb used to do before I’d finally decided to wield it.  Such was the
modis operandi
for these objects, and I assumed that the red orb, once I found it, would have some kind of draw as well, one that I no longer had an issue acting on.  Once the two orbs were paired, any clouded judgment and lingering negative effects should evaporate.

I took a step forward, reaching out toward the portal with one hand while my other went for the orb in my shoulder bag.  I was a step away when I finally had the orb in my hand, outstretched toward the portal like a key ready to be turned.  I was focused, so absorbed by what I was about to do that I barely noticed the altercation going on to my left.  But it was distracting, and I couldn’t help but glance toward it, but I had little time before a hooded figure was bounding in my direction like a masked serial killer from a nineties horror movie, shoving its way through a throng of Praetorians trying to stop it – to no avail.

I tried to react, but not one moment later, a strong hand roughly clasp my forearm.  Instead of attempting to deter my progress, as I thought it would, it pushed me forward and through the portal.  I hadn’t a moment to wonder who the interloper was or what he was trying to accomplish before I felt my hand make contact with the energy barrier before me.  All I could do was ready myself for the transition, prepare to handle my attacker, and wonder what in the world Agrippina had been shouting as I made the transition.

***

There was a moment where nothing seemed to have happened, where all had remained the same, but the moment was yanked from me the instant I realized it.  And then everything changed.  Conscious thought returned, and with it, the understanding that I was no longer standing on a professionally constructed Roman road, but on the side of a hill, ready to plummet down its steep face, but not before a comical Wiley E. Coyote moment of suspended animation as I grew aware of what was to come.