Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1) (8 page)

“Mavor's balls! How can anyone still be alive in here?” Blaesus shouted over the pounding and screaming at the door. He stared wide-eyed at the severed arm on the floor. Nestor bent down to inspect the arm.

“Careful, Medicus,” Kaeso said.

“I won’t touch it.” Nestor used a screwdriver from his tool bag to turn the arm over. “They are starving.”

“Obviously,” Blaesus said, “and we’re the juiciest morsels they've seen in two years.”

Lucia holstered her pistol. “I bet they came down for shelter from the diraenium bombs. They must have brought the Cariosus with them.”

“I know Cariosa are tough,” Blaesus said, “but two years in this vault? How did they breathe? Where did they get their water?”

“There must be something here we haven't seen yet,” Kaeso said, watching the door and listening to the screams.

“You mean air tanks?” Blaesus said. “An underground cistern not on the schematics? Maybe they've watched dramas on their tabulari this whole time? And we were so close to becoming richer than—”

Kaeso rounded on Blaesus, but Flamma beat him to it.

“Hey, old man,” Flamma said, grabbing Blaesus's arm. “We're not dead yet.”

“Centuriae,” Dariya's voice crackled over the com. “What's happening?”

“Stay on the ship, Dariya,” Kaeso ordered. “Don't come down here. Survivors with the Cariosus attacked us.”

“Is everyone all right?”

“Yes, we’re safe in the vault room.”

“Safe?” Blaesus said.

“Maybe they'll give up,” Flamma said. “Sooner or later they'll figure they can't beat the door down.”

Blaesus turned to him. “Didn't you see reports on the Cariosus, or the bodies upstairs? They won't give up until they've turned their hands to pulp scratching and beating that door.”

Dariya said, “We’re coming down, Centuriae.”

“Negative, Dariya. You and Daryush stay up there. I don't know how many Cariosa are out there, but it's more than one. All they have to do is rip your suit and you'd be dead...or joining them.”

“I have a plan, sir. We will be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Dariya, you will obey my orders and stay on the ship. Dariya? Dariya!”

Kaeso ground his teeth. Dariya and Daryush were brilliant engineers, but he had no idea how they’d react in a fight. Dariya might be willing, but was she able? And Daryush, despite his size, fled to his bunk whenever two of the crew had a mild disagreement. Could he fend off several mad, inhuman Cariosa?

The Cariosa continued pounding on the door and screaming in their nonsensical tongue. Blaesus was right; they would not give up, even when their fists were bloody mash. When that happened, they'd start kicking the door until they collapsed on their broken bones. Then they'd start smashing their heads against the door. Kaeso knew what the virus drove its hosts to do. It would use their bodies until their muscles or bones no longer worked.

He knew the Persian twins were his crew's only hope, but his mind railed at his own greed and stupidity for getting them in this fix to begin with. He knew this had been a possibility, but he also knew this was his best chance to escape the chains of responsibility without abandoning his crew.

“Centuriae,” Lucia said, interrupting his thoughts. “I have twelve rounds in my gun. You haven't fired yours yet, so you have sixteen.”

“How many did you see out there?” Kaeso asked.

Lucia paused. “Three came at me at first, but I saw four more behind them. More shadows behind those four, I think. I don't know how many.”

“So even if we hit them with every last round, do you think we could stop them all? They won’t stop.”

Pain exploded behind his right ear, and this time Kaeso couldn’t stop the gasp that came with it.

“Sir?” Lucia put her hands on Kaeso's arms to steady him.

He took a ragged breath. “I'll be fine. Just a headache.”

“That was no headache, sir.”

Nestor stooped next to him. “What's wrong, Centuriae?”

“I'm fine,” Kaeso growled. “Let's think up a plan before Dariya and Daryush do something stupid.”

Lucia eyed him with worry, and he knew he’d have to give her an explanation later.

Later
. He wanted to laugh aloud at his worries over “later.”
Always the optimist
, he thought.

“As I was about to say, sir,” Lucia said, “we may not have a choice. We can't stay down here in these suits to wait those things out. We have six hours of air left.”

“Wonderful,” Blaesus said. “I won't hold my bladder the next six minutes.”

“Not to mention,” Lucia continued, “we’ll get thirsty.”

“Noted,” Kaeso said, staring at the door.

Dariya's voice crackled over the com. “Do not do anything just yet, my friends. And Lucia. We have a little surprise for your Cariosa.”

“What are you going to do?” Kaeso asked.

“You would rather not know, sir. I would advise you all to stay there until I tell you to come out.”

“Dariya, what are you going to do?”

“Stand by.”

The floor hummed, and a faint murmur came from behind the wall on his left. The wall closest to the elevator.

“Hey, Cap,” Flamma said, “I think they’re coming down.”

Fortuna grant them your luck
, Kaeso prayed.

Kaeso could feel the elevator more than hear it over the Cariosa shrieks. When its rumbling strengthened, the pounding on the door stopped, along with the screaming. All was quiet outside except for the elevator’s motors.

“Dariya,” Kaeso called, “they know you're coming. They'll be right outside the door when it opens.”

“That is what I'm hoping for, sir.”

Lucia shook her head. “She's going to kill us all.”

“I am going to save your ass, Trierarch. I suggest you all move to the back of the vault room. I do not know how hot this will get.”

Once the crew huddled in the far corner behind three rows of shelves, Kaeso said, “We’re away from the door.”

“Good,” Dariya said over the com. “Open it, 'Ush.”

Kaeso heard Cariosa shrieks, Dariya’s Persian curses, and pistol shots. Daryush screamed once, and then an explosion made the shelves tremble. Then silence.

“Dariya!”

“We are fine, sir,” she said, her breathing labored. “I think we got them all.”

“Got them with what?”

“The last of the way line plasma.”

Kaeso was too stunned to speak, but not Lucia.

“You fool!” she yelled. “Now we can't leave the system!”

“We can buy some from the Romans,” Dariya said.

“Why would they sell it to us? They'll leave us stranded first. They’ll probably take all the marques anyway.”

Blaesus said, “Trierarch, I for one am glad Dariya did what she did. At least now we’ll be alive to haggle.”

A knock came from the vault door. “Are you coming out or what?” Dariya asked over the com.

Flamma hurried over, punched some keys on the control pad, and the lock clicked. He opened the door to find Dariya standing there with her hands on her hips. Daryush was behind her, staring back at the elevator door. Kaeso nodded to Dariya, then entered the blackened, steaming corridor and looked back at the elevator. The lights from the car illuminated seven charred forms in front of the door. None moved, but he didn't count them dead. Not at all. He'd seen Cariosa come back from much worse injuries.

“All right,” he said. “Everyone grab the last bags. We're leaving.”

Lucia looked at him. “There are still millions of marques left.”

“Really?” Kaeso said. “Don’t you think we've had enough of these vaults? We're getting out now before we’re ambushed again.”

“Centuriae,” Blaesus said, “there’s only one load left. I'm willing to risk it if everyone else is.”

Kaeso stared at him. “You're the one who wanted out the most.”

Blaesus shrugged, then glanced back at the last marques. “I’d say Dariya took care of the problem. Would be a shame to leave these for the Romans to pick up.”

Flamma nodded. “Let's get it all, sir.”

Kaeso glanced at Nestor, who shrugged. He sighed. He wanted every last sesterce just as much as they did. But they had no idea what they were dealing with, and there was no way to explain it without the implant liquefying his brain.

The longer you stand here, the longer you stand here
, he thought to himself.

“One more load,” he said. “Let's move.”

The crew sprang into action, while Lucia stood guard in the hallway again. Kaeso walked back to the elevator. The scorched bodies had curled into a fetal position when they roasted in Dariya’s plasma conflagration. Kaeso was glad he couldn’t smell them.

Who were they? Did they have families and people who loved them? How
had
they survived down here for two years? Even a Cariosus-infested body needed water, air, and food. They had eaten the food in the pantry and then eventually turned on each other. Could that alone have sustained them?

The missing bodies.

Of course,
Kaeso thought. Somehow the Cariosa had reached the surface and dragged away all the irradiated bodies. That was how they survived. But how did they endure the radiation up top?

“Be careful, Centuriae,” Nestor said from behind him.

“I know.”

He drew his pulse pistol and fired into the head of the nearest body. The red and black head exploded. He shot each head and then walked back to the crew.

Lucia stared at him. “Paranoid?”

“Yes,” he said, holstering his pistol.

A Cariosa jumped at Lucia from the darkness before Kaeso could warn her. The emaciated, bald madman hit her with the force of a large gladiator golem, knocking her onto her back. Kaeso drew his pistol, aimed at the madman's head, but the Cariosa ducked. Lucia pushed the Cariosa up and then rolled over. Before Kaeso could shoot, he saw movement down the hall. Three more forms ran at them. Kaeso shot two in the head, but the third sped toward Lucia. Before it reached her, Dariya charged out of the vault room and slammed her shoulder into the madman’s flank, hurtling him into the blackened hall. The Cariosa bounced off the wall and back into Dariya, screaming its guttural language. Both tumbled into the vault room.

By this time, Lucia had turned over and pinned her attacker to the floor. She brought her pistol against the thing’s head and fired. The head blew apart, and the Cariosa stopped struggling. It still twitched as Lucia jumped up. She turned and aimed her pistol down the hall at any other attackers.

Dariya’s curses blasted over the com as she struggled with the Cariosa. Kaeso ran into the vault room to see Daryush, Flamma, and Nestor trying to pull the thing off her. It took all three to pry its arms off Dariya’s neck and then throw the Cariosa into the corner. As soon as it was clear, Kaeso shot the attacker in the head and it crumpled to the floor.

“Dariya?” Kaeso said, turning to the door, his pistol raised. He stood next to Lucia, facing the dark hall again.

“I'm fine, sir,” she said, breathing heavy. “I'm fine...I think I...”

A dire alarm toned in Kaeso's helmet, and he checked his visor to see a contamination warning from Dariya's suit. Kaeso looked back in the vault room, found Nestor’s eyes.

“Her suit's torn,” he said, helping her up. “We need to get her back to the ship now.”

“Was she bit?” Kaeso asked.

When Nestor didn't respond, Dariya did.

“Yes, Centuriae, it bit me.”

Quintus Atius Lepidus stood with folded arms in his Ostia villa’s atrium. He watched his fifteen-year-old son, Silus, practice sword forms against the Zhonguo slave Lepidus had bought for just this purpose. The boy’s two-handed katana was a speeding blur against the slave’s attempted defense with his own katana. The slave held his own, however, so Lepidus was pleased the boasts of the herder from whom he bought the Zhonguo were accurate.

“Move your feet,” Lepidus said to his son. “Don't stand in one place.”

Silus moved his feet to his father's satisfaction, then brought his two-handed katana around and severed the slave's right leg. The slave screamed and fell to the ground, blood pumping from the new stump. Silus stood over the slave, his breath heavy, sweat glistening his forehead. He eyed Lepidus.

“Don't look at me,” Lepidus yelled. “Finish your enemy.”

Silus raised his sword, ignored the slave’s pleas for mercy, and drove the sword into the slave's heart. The slave gasped. Blood spurted from his mouth; he twitched a few seconds, and then his eyes went vacant. Silus pulled the katana from the Zhonguo’s chest, the tip dripping blood.

Lepidus rushed over and grabbed his son’s arm. “Never take your eyes off your enemy until you finish him. He can still kill you as long as he draws breath. Do you understand?”

Silus nodded, his eyes lowered. “Yes, father. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.”

Lepidus sighed, then embraced the boy. “You did well today. You killed him in less than five minutes, a vast improvement. Your progress makes me proud.”

Lepidus nodded to the slaves standing nearby. Two slaves hurried into the atrium, put down a body bag, and rolled the dead Zhonguo into it. Once they zipped the bag, they hauled it away while two female slaves rushed in and scrubbed away the Zhonguo’s blood with sponges.

Silus grabbed a towel from a nearby table and wiped the blood from his sword. He then returned the sword to the scabbard on his back in a fluid motion.

“Father, why must I practice with this Nippon weapon? Why not a good Roman
gladius
?”

Lepidus smiled. “I wish a Roman
gladius
was superior to other swords. But it's not. The gods gave us wisdom to use the best tools available. It would be blasphemous to ignore the wisdom of using the best tool simply because a barbarian made it. That wisdom has enabled Roma to guide humanity’s evolution. You see,
we
are open minded—the rest of humanity is not.”

The boy stared absently at a potted tree in the atrium, which he tended to do when Lepidus spoke of Roman virtues. Lepidus could not blame him: He did the same thing when
his
father lectured
him
. It was the nature of youth to gain wisdom through hard experience rather than listen to wisdom explained.

Lepidus noticed his master slave, Kalan, approach. He stopped several paces away, head bowed and waiting for Lepidus to notice him.

“What is it, Kalan?”

His eyes to the floor, Kalan said, “My Lord, a courier from the Collegia Pontificis is at the door. He says he has an urgent summons for you.”

Lepidus and Silus were supposed to attend the gladiatorial championship tonight between Herculaneum and Alexandria. He had box seats two rows up from the glass wall, seats that would make Senators envious. But an “urgent summons” from the Collegia meant he had to leave immediately for a mission that would end in the death of an enemy of the Republic. His duty to the State and to the gods required his presence, even if it meant disappointing his only son.

“Have the courier wait for me in the library,” Lepidus told Kalan. The slave bowed, then hurried off.

Lepidus turned to Silus. “I may not be back tonight. I want you to use the tickets. Take a friend from the gymnasium.”

“
We
were supposed to go.”

“I have a duty to Roma.”

“I know your duty,” Silus said, and turned to go. “I'll call Titus. Maybe he doesn't have more important things to do.” He walked away to his room.

Lepidus watched his son leave, choosing to ignore Silus’s disrespect to his
paterfamilias
. Most house leaders would never allow their children such liberal license, but Lepidus knew the boy was honorable and respected his father. The gods had taken the boy’s mother at an early age, so Lepidus gave Silus more leeway than his father had given him. Children weren’t complete unless they had both their fathers and mothers to guide them. If a child lost one or the other, he would never have the same advantages as other children with a proper family. But despite the handicap of one parent, Silus had grown into an honorable young man. He just had moments where he allowed his temper to take control. It was a handicap Lepidus constantly worked with Silus to overcome.

Unable to coach his son now, Lepidus strode through the atrium and to the other side of the house. He opened the library door, and a courier golem dressed in a gray suit and white toga stood at attention.

“I thought you were from the Collegia?” Lepidus said, entering the library. “Where is your finery?” Courier golems from the Collegia wore ceremonial gold armor over a black cloak, and a gold helmet with red plume.

“The Collegia wished this meeting to be discreet, Evocatus Quintus Atius Lepidus,” the courier said in the clipped monotone of a golem.

Lepidus raised an eyebrow. His meetings with Collegia couriers were always “discreet” affairs, but that never stopped them from sending an adorned messenger to his house.

“Well out with it, golem.”

“Not here, Evocatus,” it said, glancing at the open door behind Lepidus. “I am to escort you to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The Pontifex Maximus wants to give you your new assignment personally.”

Lepidus studied the golem. He’d never had to go to the Temple to receive mission details. Every mission Lepidus took was sensitive, from assassinations to the negotiations of deals the Collegia could not be known to negotiate. And every assignment came from a courier golem, the most secure way to pass sensitive information Roma had ever developed. Electronic messages could be intercepted and decrypted. Courier golems never gave up their information, and were programmed to “die” if they fell into the wrong hands.

What could be so important that the Collegia did not trust a courier golem?

“I’ve been instructed to tell you, Evocatus, that you should not expect to return home until after this assignment is complete,” the golem continued. “You are ordered to come with me after you’ve acknowledged receipt of this summons.”

Lepidus nodded. He was a servant of the gods and the State. Obedience was his duty.

And the mystery only enhanced his curiosity over the mission. It had been weeks since his last one. He was restless.

“I will be ready in an hour,” Lepidus told the golem. He left the courier and went to get his mission pack. He always kept it ready for these occasions, so he could leave within minutes.

He wanted the hour to break the news to his son.

Lepidus threw his pack into the back seat of the courier’s aero-flyer and then sat in the front. The courier climbed into the pilot's seat on the right and sealed the doors. He tapped some keys on his controls, and the flyer rose smoothly above Lepidus’s Ostia villa without a sound or a bump of turbulence. Lepidus shaded his eyes from the sun’s glare off the Mare Mediterranean to the west. The courier rotated the flyer so it pointed east, and then it shot over the Tiber River toward Roma.

Within two minutes, the flyer sped into Roma’s air space. Lepidus’s awe never lessened each time he flew above the Eternal City. He made out all Seven Hills, the homes of wealthy patricians covering them all. Most prominent among the Hills was the Capitoline, where the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus towered above all other buildings in Roma. Its columns gleamed white in the sun, and its bas-reliefs along the top displayed colorful images of the god who had made Roma capitol of Terra and most of human space. The Senate House stood nearby. Though smaller than the Temple, it was no less grand with its circular structure, columned arches, and twenty-foot high statues of Roma’s greatest politicians.

In the Suburba valleys between the Seven Hills rose the plebeian tenements and commercial towers. Most had classical Roman facades: lots of columns, arches, orange tiled roofs, with bas-reliefs on the larger banks and merchant offices. Though not as beautiful as the historic and grand structures of the Seven Hills, the plebeian buildings had their own simple beauty that showed the practicality of Roman citizens.

The courier circled above a rooftop landing pad adjacent to the Temple. “When we land, Evocatus, I will escort you to the private office of the Pontifex Maximus. He will give you further instructions.”

“What is my mission?” Lepidus asked mostly to himself as he watched the city.

“I do not have the information you request. The Pontifex Maximus will explain the mission.”

Lepidus nodded, expecting nothing more from the golem.

Once the courier landed the flyer, he unsealed the doors and stepped out. Lepidus slung his pack over his shoulder and followed the courier off the windy pad toward the guard station. Two Capitoline Triad Custudae, dressed in black jumpsuits and with pulse rifles slung over the shoulders, stood at attention on either side of the guard station door. They wore round Capitoline Triad patches on their arms—the white faces of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on a dark blue field with gold trim—rather than the black togas and red-plumed, gold helmets the Custudae wore at the Temple’s public doors.

The guards did not move as the courier walked past them into the station. Inside, another Custudae at a console desk handed an identicard to Lepidus.

“Sir, please press your thumb here,” the Custudae said, holding a thumb pad out to him. Lepidus did so, and then looked at the indenticard. The small card blinked, and then his picture and name displayed. Lepidus frowned, uncomfortable with having his arrival recorded. At least the card didn’t show his name, only his Evocatus rank. His name had been classified years ago.

The courier led Lepidus to an elevator, and they took it down to the sixth floor. They walked down an ornate hallway with frescoes, statues, and portraits of the gods lining the walls on either side. Red curtains hung next to the multiple windows on the left and right, golden sunlight illuminating the hall. At the end of the corridor, the courier guided Lepidus onto a balcony above the Temple’s main floor. Below were hundreds of worshipers on their knees surrounding two
flamens
standing on a raised dais. The
flamens
wore white tunics with blue togas and waved incense burners over a chained pig in the dais’ sacrificial pit. The
flamens
chanted an old Latin hymn asking Minerva for a bountiful harvest in the coming autumn months. Lepidus paused, then bowed his head and clasped his hands in front of him.

The courier walked back to him. “The Pontifex is waiting.”

“He can wait two more minutes.”

“Evocatus, he asked—”

“You are a soulless golem, so I don't expect you to understand, but human beings respect the gods.”

The golem closed its mouth and then waited next to Lepidus.

Lepidus knew how to affect a certain tone and a glare that made most people give him what he wanted. Courier golems, however, could not be intimidated. It likely realized Lepidus wouldn’t leave until the ritual ended. Lepidus didn't care, so long as the golem left him in peace to give his respects to Minerva.

Once the hymns and the squeals of the dying pig stopped, Lepidus raised his head. “Lead on, golem.”

The courier turned and took Lepidus to the right, along the balcony that encircled the Temple’s vast hall. They approached the entry to another corridor guarded by two Triad Custudae on either side. While they wore the ceremonial fluff of the Custudae, Lepidus knew they were trained as well as the Custudae on the rooftop. Lepidus and the courier walked past them, and they did not blink. He knew sensors along the way scanned his identicard. If he wasn’t authorized to be here, he never would have made it into the Temple.

The hall they entered was more opulent than the one connecting the Temple to the administrative building. Though Lepidus had never been here, he knew the offices of the Collegia Pontificis were close. He frowned at the statues within the alcoves along the hall. Unlike the Temple hallway, these statues were of previous Pontiffs. Lepidus thought it unseemly for statues of mere humans to have such a prominent place in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. He understood they were not in the worship hall proper, but at least a token acknowledgement to the gods should be displayed.

Lepidus calmed his annoyance. The Collegia had been the voice of the gods for a thousand years. The gods spoke to the Collegia and Consul, who gave the wisdom and technology of the gods to the people through divinely inspired Missives. He had to trust in the Collegia, for they would do nothing to anger the gods. He had faith the Collegia knew best.

The courier stopped before a large, polished oak door.

“When you enter, Evocatus, please kneel and—”

“I know how to address the Pontifex, golem.”

The courier nodded, then put his hand on a control pad next to the doors. The lock in the doors clicked, and the courier turned the handle on the right door.

Lepidus entered an office that could have been used by the first Pontifex. Marble shelves filled with scrolls, leather-bound books, and parchments lined three entire walls of the large, rectangular room. The shelves rose from the polished, white marble floor to the ceiling twenty feet above. Ceiling frescoes depicted the gods granting wisdom to the Pontiffs, and then the Pontiffs announcing that wisdom to the Roman people by reading from Missive parchments. On the office’s far end, a large oak desk covered in scrolls stood before the bookshelves. Three cats, a large gray and two whites, lounged on the desk at different corners, their tails swaying back and forth languorously. All three stared at Lepidus through squinted eyes.

Besides the light domes on the ceiling, there was no technology in the room that wasn’t used when Marcus Antonius became Consul.