Read Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome Online
Authors: Edward Crichton
“How…” I found myself saying. “Why… How are you…”
The image on screen waved his hands at me, cutting me off. “There’s no point asking questions, Jacob. I can’t hear you. I’m just a message on a computer screen.”
“How…”
Merlin rolled his eyes. “Well, if you insist on asking, and I know you are, let’s just go with the Western Union gimmick from
Back to the Future
parts two and three. Arranging this was slightly more complicated, but it’s pretty much the clearest example I can think of.”
“Oh, God…” I said, but I wasn’t praying. I was mostly just exasperated by the fact that this trick was way worse than anything Santino could have ever played on me. “This can’t be happening.”
“Oh, it’s happening, Jacob, my boy. I’m sorry, but it is.”
“Why?” I asked, but then caught myself, realizing he couldn’t hear me.
“Because you have work to do.”
I squinted at the image again, suddenly suspicious.
Merlin on screen smiled and shrugged. “Believe me, Jacob, we’re not communicating here. I’ve been in your head. I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re going to say. It’ll get trickier as this message goes on, so I’ll try to keep it to a minimum from here on out.”
I rolled myself to the left so that I could slam my door shut before maneuvering back to my desk again, waiting for Merlin to continue. A part of me wanted to shut the message off immediately and ignore it completely, but I couldn’t. If this was really happening, and Merlin was somehow contacting me from the past, the present, or the great beyond, for all I knew… then I had to listen. I didn’t want to. I
really
didn’t want to, but for some reason, I knew I had to.
Suddenly the image of Merlin frowned. “I’m sorry I had to do this, Jacob, I really am, but I need you. Well… the Multiverse needs you. I’m in all likelihood dead at this point, although who’s really to say, so it all rests on your shoulders.”
Apparently Merlin hadn’t any idea that I no longer had the orbs because I wasn’t sure what exactly he expected me to do.
“Sorry again, Jacob, but you’re not getting out of this that easy. The orbs aren’t gone, they’re simply… smaller now. They’re inside you.”
I looked at my hands, dread beginning to set in at his words.
“Remember when we discussed how the orbs are just analogs? Simple objects that contain and harness the Old God’s power? How they could really be anything? Like a DeLorean or a phone booth? Well, that was all true, and now they’re a part of you. The orbs are gone, in a manner of speaking, but their legacy and potential lives on… in you. When I took them from you after you and I returned Romulus home, I… I rigged them to alter their form the moment you returned home.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No… no, no, no… this can’t be happening.”
“It is happening, Jacob. I’m sorry.”
“You said I was free to make my own choices! To live my life the way I wanted to live it!” I knew I was just yelling at the air, but I was certain Merlin would preempt my thoughts again anyway.
“You are free to make whichever decision you wish, Jacob,” Merlin said, as a gust of “wind” blew his straw hat off his head full of stringy gray hair. He watched it go in disgust for a moment before looking back at me. “I cannot control your decision once I have said what I’ve come here to say, so don’t think for an instant that you don’t have a choice.”
I sighed, trying to rein in my emotions. “Just when I thought I was out…” I muttered to myself, “…they pull me back…”
“And please refrain from using that Godfather III quote. Please. That movie doesn’t deserve such immortalization.”
I let out another breath and waited for him to continue.
“Jacob, the reason why I’ve had this message sent to you…” Merlin let in a deep breath before he let it out. “When you first used the blue orb, you fractured the Multiverse. You created a new timeline out of sync with all the rest. You know this, but this fact is important for a single reason alone: before you used the orb, there was only one timeline with the blue and red orb in it. Now, however, there are a number of them. Every time you used the blue orb on your own, you made a new timeline with new orbs in them.”
Merlin’s shifted his shoulders and fidgeted on his feet, then continued. “‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.’ It’s from Einstein, Jacob. Think about it. You’ve created quite a few different timelines, each unique, and there’s no telling who will find the orbs within each singular one. I knew that potentiality always existed after Romulus had me imprisoned, but if anyone was to shatter the Multiverse, I am glad it was you. You have no understanding of how
lucky
I was. I did not want to thrust you into this position when I gave you guardianship of the orbs, but I suppose I forgot to provide the asterisk that also made you responsible for
all
of them.”
I lowered my head and looked at the pane of glass that was used as both my table and computer interface, analyzing all the various icons and interface options, so unlike what I’d used just a decade ago, but familiar enough now that I could send Merlin away almost thoughtlessly. It would be so easy to just shut him up and send him away, forgetting everything he’d just said, and continue to live my life as I see fit.
“I know you don’t want to think about this, Jacob,” Merlin continued. “I know you want nothing more than to be inconspicuous and live out a quiet, happy life. And I wish I could make it so that you could without the pressure of making this decision. But I can’t. As much as I do not want to ask this of you, I cannot possibly
not
ask you for help. This is my mess, but I’m powerless to fix it. You are not. You have the training, the wisdom, and the power to do what I never could. Perhaps not today, but in time, I need you to act. Without your help, it is fully possible for someone along the various new timelines may recover the orbs, or maybe just one of them, and use them to great and reprehensible effect.”
He took in another breath, and appeared as though even after everything he’d said, he didn’t want to continue any further. “There… there is also the question of your sister. And of Remus. It is quite possible both still live. I do not want to think of it, but it is possible that Remus will find a way to continue his vengeful crusade against his brother or… or your sister may fall to the corruption of one orb or the other. I know you would prefer to never think on this possibility either, but the fact remains that these are potential disasters I seek to rectify, if nothing than to appease my own conscience.
“It is your choice, Jacob. I made sure that this message found you only after you had a few years of happiness, but I heed you to act. I cannot offer you any direction other than you must travel the Multiverse and retrieve the orbs, whether at this point in time or in another, but find them you must. You are a resourceful man, have many friends to call on in this time of need, and are capable of… sniffing out the orbs, if you will.”
Merlin frowned and looked away again before returning his eyes to the “camera.”
“So I will leave you simply with my thanks and my continued hope that I will see you again,” he said earnestly. “Thank you, Jacob. I could never dream of a better man finding the orbs than you. It pains me that you neither deserved such a destiny nor deserve to be endlessly involved in the ongoing fate of the Multiverse, but that is often the task a hero must endure. There is another wonderful quote from your world, Jacob, by one Edmund Burke, and is one that I often think on. The fact that a man is remembered for it gives me hope for the future of our species and the glorious nature of what it means to be human, and I again thank you for providing it to me. It goes simply, ‘all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’” He paused. “I… I hope you make the right decision. Goodbye, Jacob. Thank you.”
With a quick tug of his lips, Merlin smiled and the screen went blank, enticing a message to pop up and flash at me, questioning if I wished to replay the video. I let it flash there for quite a while, not moving, barely thinking, just feeling the well of emotion in my chest begin to cave in. I wasn’t sure how to react to what I’d just seen, thinking for a moment that it
had
all been a practical joke, but there wasn’t a chance.
Reaching out, I took the USB thumb drive and adaptor in my hand, and separated them. Placing the adaptor back in the drawer, I glanced at the thumb drive. Its sole purpose in this world was to carry Merlin’s message to me, and it would be so easy to simply destroy it and remove any potential reminder of his request. I thought about squeezing it until it snapped in half, but the finality to the action didn’t seem deserved. If what Merlin had said was true, there could be serious complications out there that I had been a part of creating. I no longer blamed myself for them, but I understood Edmund Burke’s quote just as well as Merlin did. It hadn’t been a quote that sat in the deepest recesses of my mind where only Merlin could find it, but one I often considered, often contemplated. Compounding matters was this idea that I was somehow a time machine now myself. As in me, myself, I. Somehow I could do everything I’d once done before, only now without the need of the orbs. This thought terrified me, and was one that would require serious introspection in the coming days…
But then another thought suddenly hit me.
How was I going to grade all those final exams with this looming over me?
Anger bubbled in my chest.
“Fuck you, Merlin,” I said angrily
Pushing myself away from my desk, I stood and took a step to my left so that I could throw the USB drive into the garbage. I stepped away and stared at it with a scowl on my face, hating Merlin for the responsibility he’d thrust upon me. There was no way I could help him. I had other responsibilities now. I had a life. I had a career. I had a family. I had children. I had Helena. I couldn’t abandon them now so that I could go gallivanting through the Multiverse with Santino, all at the request of a madman who had no idea of knowing if he even had anything to really worry about at all.
I jerked my head away from the waste basket, content in my decision, and then stepped to my door and retrieved my winter gear. Donning my jacket, a scarf, and a hat, I then picked up my bag and shouldered it. Opening my door, I didn’t even glance back at the garbage can as I stepped through and shut it. I turned again and held my palm over the identification pad that would allow me to lock the door, but found it hovering there, unable to move, realization swimming through my head that if I left my office, by the time I returned weeks from now my garbage would have been emptied and the thumb drive lost.
Slowly, I let my forehead hit the door, and I stood there, shaking it repeatedly in utter disbelief that I hadn’t yet walked away. Every instinct was screaming at me to get the hell out of here and run for my life.
But I couldn’t do that.
It wasn’t who I was.
Not anymore.
Pulling away, I reached down and twisted the door handle and pushed open the door. Stepping in, I knelt before the trash can and picked up the thumb drive that had rested comfortably atop a few crumpled up pieces of paper. Looking at it one last time, I lowered it back into the trash, but then quickly pulled it out again. Finally, I stepped around to my desk, opened a drawer, and carefully placed it inside before shutting it again.
I stood there and stared at the desk for a second or two, surprisingly content in my decision, but then quickly left the room, locked the door, and set off down the hallway, doing everything I could to forget Merlin and his impossible quest to save the universe.
If I hurried, I could probably catch Helena still cleaning snow off her car, and we could carpool to the pizza joint together after picking up Vincent, but try as I did, I couldn’t forget the message Merlin had left for me.
And probably never will.
Edward Crichton, a native Clevelander, lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife, where he spends his time coming to grips with his newfound sports allegiances. A long time enthusiast of Science Fiction, Fantasy, History and everything in between, he spends his time reading, writing, and overusing his Xbox (he wishes).
Until recently, Crichton had often hoped for a cat, but his wife decided to let him have a baby boy instead. Born in November of 2013, the child has turned into a little hellion but he and his wife couldn’t be happier
Crichton will begin work on his next Starfarer book in the fall of 2014 and hope to have it ready for release by early 2015.
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