The Imperium Game (13 page)

Another muffled
scream split the air.

“Amaelia!” Seizing the latch, he tugged at the towering door, but it refused to budge.

“Now, look here.” The priest hiccuped. “Be reasonable. He’s not going to let you in
there.”

Kerickson leaned his head against the bas-relief of Jupiter appearing as a shower of gold, trying hard to think. If only he could go back to the Interface, he could have her out of there in a second, but he had no access now.

Something flickered in the back of his mind, some faint idea, some way out. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.

From within the temple a deep voice rumbled, and then he heard Amaelia laugh.

“See?” The priest waggled his finger in Kerickson’s face. “She’s all right.” He took another deep swig of sacrificial wine, then threw the jug aside. “After all, it’s not every girl who gets to disport herself with
him,
and they didn’t exactly seem to be strangers, if you catch my drift.”

No, they didn’t, Kerickson thought, and then the glimmer from the back of his mind leaped out at him. Of course! He needed access to an Interface, and Amaelia had mentioned seeing screens in Quintus Gracchus’s villa. He whirled around and stared into the priest’s wine-spattered face. “Watch this door,” he said. “If Amaelia comes out before I can get back, tell her to wait for me.”

“Oh, you think I don’t have better things to do than sit around here all day?” The priest peered morosely into the mouth of the empty jug.

“I think you’ll spend the next quarter playing a eunuch in the Temple of Vesta if you screw this up.” Kerickson stared him straight in the bloodshot eyes. “And that’s a promise.”

The priest’s legs gave way and he slid down the column behind him until he was sitting on the floor, his tunic hiked up around his knobby knees. He blinked up at Kerickson with heavy-lidded eyes. “And why should I take the word of a freedman on that?”

“Because I’ll cram one of those damn sacred chickens down your throat if you don’t!” Kerickson started down the steps to the Forum, then heard Jupiter’s laugh rumble through the marble door.

* * *

Afraid, yet enthralled, Demea stared into the trickling water of the fountain, thinking of the promise of so much power and prestige. But at what cost? Was she doing the right thing?

“Can I ever go back?” she asked the shadowy spaciousness of her palace chambers. “Once I interface with the computer, can it be undone?”

“NO.” Pluto’s deep voice came from everywhere at once. “HOW CAN A FULL-GROWN MIND BE STUFFED BACK INTO THE WOMB?”

Her stomach contracted, full of icy fear prickles. He was talking about another plane of existence, as far beyond her as an adult was beyond an unborn child, something at which she could only guess. Rising, she stared down at her rippling reflection in the pool, appraising her assets. Tall and large-boned, with black hair, she was attractive enough, although she’d never had the money necessary for cosmetic surgery that could have softened the bold lines of her face into conventional prettiness. Her first husband, Arvid, had been able to afford either a good biosculpt or enrollment in the Game, but not both. She had chosen the Game.

In ancient Rome, women had been revered for their strength as well as their comeliness. and she had let that work for her, knowing that a certain sort of man liked to be bullied and pushed It had worked with Arvid, at least for a while, and later Micio—but this thing with Pluto was a new experience. Now she was the one who was pursued and persuaded.

“IT IS TIME, MY LOVE.”

A door, hitherto invisibly seamed into the wall, opened. A gleaming hallway appeared beyond, all silvery metal, quite unlike anything she’d ever seen on the playing field. Her heart thumped. Holding her head high, she walked into the corridor.

Another door opened at the far end, spilling a bright, almost surgical light. She steadied herself against the wall with one band, then recoiled from the cold metal.

“WHEN WE MEET AGAIN, WE WILL NEVER BE PARTED.”

His voice already sounded farther away, cut off by the corridor walls. She glanced over her shoulder, chilled by the realization that he did have limits, limits she would share if she took this step.

But what awaited her if she went back? Even if she could go on playing Empress, and there was no guarantee of that, it would be nothing but second best now. She wanted more power, more adulation, more of everything. Her eyes went back to the blinding light ahead.

The time had indeed come.

* * *

“ARE YOU SURE?” the glittering cloud of gold thickened, obscuring the colorful scenes of voluptuous young maidens in various stages of undress painted on the opposite wall. “WON’T YOU MOO FOR ME, JUST THE TINIEST LITTLE MOO? I WOULD BE EVER SO GRATEFUL.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Amaelia hunched her knees up to her chest, then fingered the gaping rent in the bodice of her gown. She was lucky to have nothing worse than a torn gown and a few bruises after being flung like a sack of grain into the temple’s inner room by Jupiter’s overwhelming gust of wind. “Look, I have to go. Gaius is waiting for me.”

Or was he? Jupiter had been yammering at her for several hours
now. If her new friend had gone off and left her, well, she could hardly blame him.

The golden cloud sulked on the other side of the chamber for a few minutes. Finally, it formed a skewed face that stared petulantly at her.

She crossed her arms. “This is very silly, not worthy of you at all.”

“HAVEN’T YOU EVER THOUGHT OF BECOMING A HEIFER?” The cloud coalesced into a huge white bull. It swished its tail. “SO YOUNG AND TENDER, SO SWEET, SO—”

“What is this obsession you have with cattle?” She jumped to her feet. “You should be out there protecting the city from Mars, and instead you’re mooning around in here with me!”

“MARS?” The bull dissolved into an oversized, slightly potbellied older man sitting on a golden throne. He twined a graying strand of beard around one finger. “IT’LL TAKE A FULL DAY FOR HIM TO GET HIMSELF TOGETHER AGAIN.” He leaned forward and raised one gray eyebrow. “SO WHAT SAY YOU AND I GO FOR A LITTLE SWIM? I CAN DO THE MOST MARVELOUS SWAN—”

A blow against the outside door made the whole temple shudder. The god hesitated.

“OPEN THIS DOOR, YOU RANDY OLD HE-ASS!”

Jupiter bit his lip. “ON THE OTHER HAND, MY DEAR, PERHAPS WE SHOULD CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION, PROMISING AS IT IS, SOME OTHER TIME.”

“I HAVE CONTROL OF THE CITY NOW, AND I WON’T HAVE THESE SORTS OF GOINGS-ON UNDER MY PROTECTION!”

Amaelia recognized the voice and paled.

“YOU SEND THAT LITTLE TROLLOP OUT AT ONCE OR THERE’S GOING TO BE SOME BIG CHANGES AROUND HERE!”

“Is there a back way out?” Amaelia asked him.

“NO.” Jupiter combed his fingers through his beard. “YOU’D BETTER GO OUT THERE AND EXPLAIN THAT YOU WERE JUST—JUST COMMUNING WITH ME IN PRAYER.”

Amaelia glanced around at the painted murals, each portraying a different seduction scene. “Prayer?”

Another blow made her head ring. She clapped her hands over her ears and stumbled against a statue of a swan, which wasn’t as heavy as it looked. It tipped back and forth, then crashed on the marble floor. Slivers of plaster flew across the room.

“RUN ALONG, MY DEAR.” Jupiter made shooing motions with his large hands. “WE HAVEN’T A MOMENT TO LOSE.”

“She’s your wife! Why don’t
you
go out there and explain?”

“BECAUSE I’VE SO VERY MUCH TO DO, YOU SEE.” Jupiter ticked each item off on his fingers. “THERE’S NEXT WEEK’S RAIN TO ORGANIZE, AND THUNDER TO PRACTICE, AND I SIMPLY CAN’T MISS THE JETS GAME. YOU REALIZE, OF COURSE, THAT THEY’RE UP FOR THE INNER SYSTEM CHAMPIONSHIP.” His face was dissolving into a fine blue mist. “SO GLAD THAT WE HAD THIS LITTLE CHAT. I’M SURE WE’LL MEET AGAIN.”

Just as the blueness faded away completely, the huge door swung inward and crashed against the Wall.

“ALL RIGHT, YOU HUSSY, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

Tucking in the torn edges of her gown as best she could, Amaelia faced the portico and the huge, floating face of Juno.

“I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN!” The goddess’s eyes narrowed. “A WHOLE CITY FULL OF MORTAL MEN WEREN’T ENOUGH FOR YOU, WERE THEY? WELL, I’VE GOT JUST THE PLACE FOR YOU, YOU LITTLE TRAMP!” Her oversized blue-green eyes began to spark. “LET’S SEE HOW YOU LIKE BEING DEAD!”

THE
shadows lengthened into blueness
as Kerickson detoured around a fruit seller on her knees gathering smashed melons, then a pair of basket weavers exclaiming over their trodden wares. People were drifting back into the Forum to search the overturned fortune-tellers’ stalls, battered copper pots, and smashed dove crates.

A platoon of armored Legionaries entered from a side street and fanned out across the square. Kerickson kept his head down and circled behind the marble public-speaking rostrum at the far end. When they had passed, he crossed into the Via Nova and followed its winding path down through the heart of the smoldering Market District. The air was still acrid and smelled of ashes as he passed row after row of burned-out shops; obviously the dome’s air-conditioning system was overloaded by all the damage.

His mind kept replaying the terrified look on Amaelia’s face when Jupiter blasted him with that so-called thunderbolt. Something had gone drastically wrong. Better than almost anyone else in the dome, he understood it was outside the parameters of an Imperium god program to damage either property or players. Exactly who had taken his place in the Interface, and what the hell did they think they were doing in there?

He was also worried that, if the old parameters still held, Mars would recover from Jupiter’s override in twenty-four hours. If not, Mars could be back sooner, ready to start this scenario all over again. HabiTek would have no choice but to evacuate the Game, and if that happened, he would never have the chance to prove his innocence.

As he passed into a smart neighborhood of apartment buildings, or insulas, favored by the Game’s more successful courtesans, he was glad to see it had escaped major damage. The simulated sun edged lower behind the buildings and the temperature began to drop. He shivered, and wished he still had his cloak.

The luxury estates began just across the broad expanse of the Via Ostiensis. Gracchus had moved into this area after obtaining his commission as Captain of the Praetorian Guard. Kerickson stared Over a brick: wall at the rolling, terraced grounds of a sprawling villa, trying to remember whose it was, but his weary brain refused to dredge up the answer.

Damnation! He should have come better prepared, but always before, he’d worn an Interface comlink when he was out on the playing field. He’d never been limited to the facilities available to players. He turned back: and looked for an oak tree. Oaks were sacred to Jupiter and were used throughout the Game as symbols of the administration. Five statues and one sundial down, he found a towering specimen and pressed the shiny steel button set nose-high into its trunk. The bark-covered access panel slid up, revealing a comm panel.

“Warning!” a voice intoned. “Use of this device will result in a loss of one authenticity point”

“Yeah, yeah.” He presented his Game bracelet to the blue screen. “Give me Directory Assistance.”

A chime sounded. “Imperium Dif—” The blueness broke up as a small brown owl appeared on the screen. “ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WISE?”

Kerickson jerked his wrist back. “What do you want?”

“IF YOU USE THIS DEVICE TO ACCESS DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE, YOUR LOCATION WILL BE LOGGED BY THE COMPUTER.” Lifting a hind foot, the owl scratched the back of its neck vigorously. “AND THAT WILL IMPERIL YOUR QUEST.”

“Great.” He leaned his forehead against the rough bark. “Are you saying someone flagged my file?”

“YES.” The owl blinked its solemn gray eyes.

He glanced over his shoulder. Two aristocratic women, clad in long, cream-colored stolas, strolled past, followed by their downcast, package-laden male slaves. On the other side of the street a large, curtained litter hurried by, borne on the shoulders of eight sweat-sheened bearers. He turned back to the screen. “I have to find Quintus Gracchus’s villa, and I don’t have all night!”

The owl ruffled its feathers. “I COULD GUIDE YOU.”

“Yeah, right.” He moved closer to the screen and lowered his voice. “Look. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re kind of, you know, noticeable.”

“I CAN TAKE THE FORM OF AN OLIVE TREE.”

“Oh, I’m sure
no one
would pay attention if I carried around a blasted tree!”

“MORTAL, YOU FORGET WITH WHOM YOU SPEAK.” The owl clacked its beak. “THIS CITY IS UNDER MY PROTECTION.”

“Not since you took up eating rodents and—” He hesitated as a large barbarian-class player stalked past him, swaddled in poorly cured furs and cracked leathers and twirling a club.

“AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT, MIGHT I ASK?”

He closed his eyes and reached within for a calmness that he certainly did not feel. “Will you please just get off this line and let me talk to Directory Assistance?”

“TWENTY-EIGHT NINETY-FOUR EGYPT LANE.”

Startled, he opened his eyes again, but Minerva had disappeared, leaving behind the trademark image of the Temple of Jupiter.

“Imperium Directory Assistance,” the screen said politely. “How may we help you?”

He punched the screen off, and the bark panel descended seamlessly back into place. Then he heard the jingle of armor and slid behind the tree trunk as a platoon of Legionaries jogged past, their scarlet plumes bobbing, their spears held in readiness. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, as though next week’s chariot races were being conducted in there. Had the computer noted his location? And if it had, who was searching for him—the police, HabiTek . . . or the murderer?

* * *

“Sit down,” the flat, mechanical voice said.

Demea stared at the metal chair in the middle of the otherwise empty room. The cold, dry air raised chill bumps on her bare arms as she tried to make up her mind whether to go through with this or not.

“Are you afraid?” the machine voice asked.

“Of course not!” she snapped before she thought. “It’s just that—that—”

“If you will sit down, we will begin the accessing process,” the voice said. “There will be no pain.”

Pain? She hadn’t even considered
that.
Eyeing the chair, she ran a hand over her elaborately braided hair. “What about my . . . body?”

“Your body will be placed in storage, of course, after your brain is linked with the Game computer’s subprogram.”

“Permanently?”

“For humans,” the voice said, “no condition can be considered permanent, except death.”

She realized she was wringing her hands, and forced them back to her sides. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“Pluto sends word that Quintus Gracchus has now accumulated enough points to succeed Micio Metullus as Emperor and will undoubtedly ascend to the throne sometime during the coming Saturnalia. Your stepdaughter, Amaelia, has married him and will play the new Empress. Your current point standing is inadequate to remain in the Palace. It is probable that you will qualify only for a lesser role, such as mistress to—”

“Enough!” She lowered herself into the chair, even though the icy metal
made her skin crawl. Turn her out of the Palace, would they? Well, that arrogant, lowborn wretch, Gracchus, had another thing coming if he thought he could treat her that way!

“Lean your head back to meet the neural contacts.”

What contacts? She hadn’t noticed any, but she let her head drop back. She didn’t feel anything. Maybe this whole idea was a farce, just something Pluto had concocted to impress her. Maybe nothing at all would hap—

A tingle began in her head, centered somewhere just behind her ears. She tried to turn and look, but her head wouldn’t move. Panic washed through her mind and she struggled to cry out.

“Testing,” said the mechanical voice.

Patterns flashed before her eyes: an array of marching red triangles that merged into pale blue rectangles, then swelled into green hexagons . . . golden starbursts of lines that reminded her of the exploding displays on System Independence Day . . . pinpoints of brilliant white winked at her, like stars against a velvety darkness, swirling like leaves caught in a whirlpool . . . She felt a rushing sensation, as though she were being hurled through a hole both infinitely large and infinitely small, moving faster and faster until her thoughts fell behind and she continued onward, curiously incomplete.

Something loomed in the darkness ahead of her . . . a presence, more sensed than seen.

“ARISE, MY LOVE, AND VIEW YOUR KINGDOM.”

She could not move, and yet somehow she did. A finger flicked, then her whole hand. She stood up, leaving behind something dross and unnecessary.

“COME TO ME.”

“WHERE?” Her voice echoed through the darkness, larger than before, rich with a new underlying resonance.

Suddenly he was before her, dark and commanding, his hand outstretched. “HERE!”

She stared at his hand, wishing he could take her in his arms and satisfy her in a way no real man ever had. Of its own volition, her arm rose. Their fingers touched and the shock of his solid warmth made her jerk away. “YOU—I FELT THAT!”

“AND MORE, I’LL WAGER, BEFORE THE NIGHT IS DONE!” His strong arms gathered her in and pressed her head against the chill hardness of his armored chest.

She smelled the leather of his harness, the cleanness of his crisp black hair as it lay in rings upon his forehead. And where her skin touched his. fire underlay the bite of electricity.

“WE WILL PLAY SUCH MUSIC UPON ONE ANOTHER AS THIS WORLD HAS NEVER HEARD.” He buried his face in her hair. “AND WHEN THIS NIGHT HAS PASSED. OUR TIME WILL NOT EVEN REALLY HAVE BEGUN.”

She felt endless corridors stretching out all around her as she reached up to trace the line of his firm jaw with one wondering, static-nimbused finger.

“COME.” He turned her around. “YOU HAVE TRANSCENDED FLESH AND BONE.”

Thinking of the creature left behind in the chair, she felt sorry for it now, so frail and powerless, so small. She stretched her arms high above her head. Energy leaped through her. boundless, ready for anything. “I WANT TO SEE IT ALL!”

“AND SO, MY LOVE,” Pluto’s voice rumbled in her ear. “YOU SHALL.”

* * *

Kerickson paused at the intersection of Egypt Lane and Lesser Spain Avenue. All Roman houses looked the same to him on the outside, with their whitewashed facades and unvarying blank walls. Like puzzle boxes, their treasure lay inside.

“Twenty-eight ninety-four Egypt Lane,” he repeated like a mantra, but the numbers here were too low. He needed to go farther north.

Somewhere behind him voices rang out in the night, questioning at first, then laughing, followed by cheers. No doubt someone was getting an early start on the next day’s Saturnalia. This was a joyful time of the year for most residents. He shivered, feeling very alone.

As he walked, he kept to the bare-limbed trees and bushes, using what scant cover they provided to avoid the numerous slave-borne litters and partygoers that passed him.

After another half hour he found Quintus Gracchus’s villa on top of a small rise, large even for this particularly expensive neighborhood. He stared over the brick fence up at the well-lit white walls, wondering if they, too, contained a party tonight. Then he remembered the speech he’d heard yesterday at the Palace; Gracchus was currently focusing his energy on becoming Emperor. Surely he was up at the Palace, wooing senators and seducing wives and doing whatever else was necessary to accumulate points at a dizzying rate.

A bored Praetorian Guard lounged before the front gate, spear at half-mast. Kerickson hiked around to the back, checked to make sure he was unobserved, and then scrambled over the brick wall. He caught his foot on the way down and hit the half-frozen ground on the other side with a muffled thump. Holding his breath, he lay there, expecting someone to come and check out the noise.

After a moment he got up and ran toward the main house, staying down and using the scattered bushes for cover. He slipped around the house and tried every door, but the place was locked up as tight as a coffin. After circling it twice, he knew he was going to have to climb over the roof. There should be the requisite peristyle garden in the middle of the house. A player as intent on authenticity points as Gracchus would build that before anything else.

Sighing, he gazed up at a rickety vine trellis, then wedged his foot in a crossbar and hauled himself up. Halfway to the roof, one board gave under his foot and he hung there like a fresh-killed turkey while the simulated stars glittered down from above.

Still no one came running, and after a moment of muffled swearing, he found another toehold and continued up until he lay spread-eagled on the red tiles and massaged his aching fingers.

Wheezing in the cold night air, he studied the villa’s layout: fairly standard for this size of house. The expected interior garden was massive, full of fountains and formal flower beds, and provided his best chance to get into the house proper. All the skylights had been sealed—not in keeping with Roman tradition, of course, but, not being made of as stern a stuff as the ancients, more players drew the line at maintaining open holes in the roof.

Creeping hand over hand, he edged toward the garden, then jumped down. He landed in a heap of brittle, winter-blasted vines that crackled loudly. He froze, but again no servants appeared. For an important man, he thought, Quintus Gracchus didn’t keep much of a staff.