Life was a tease. Hang in there, Jerry, it’s not challenging work but, if you do your bit, if this is the Big Hit, there’ll be promotions and raises and bonuses. That was the tease. In the end, he’d still be at a desk in front of a group of post-grads doing invisible work with invisible consequences. He’d get more out of tasking the brunette with a few suggestions of his own. Even if they caught you, the first time was just two weeks lecturing from HR.
The watch he’d laid across the desk in front of him began to beep. “Alright, that’s it for tonight,” he announced and the group began to sit up straight, rub their eyes, filter back in stages to the real world. “Straight to your apartments and to sleep. Sleep. We need you back here, rested, 7pm sharp. No wandering around, no parties-we’ll be monitoring everyone, so don’t get cute.” He threw a sad-eyed glance at the brunette, mourning the loss of possibility. The girl didn’t seem to notice the gesture.
As they wandered out, Jerry scrubbed the whiteboard. Spies, teachers, brokers or Mafiosi-all jobs were routine. Consistency, do the job reasonably well, reasonably the same, time after time. No wonder he was bored. He checked in with the cathedral by cell-they were closing up as well. Managers meeting 530p. Stay sharp tomorrow.
He flipped off the lights and walked out into the warm night. Was there someplace to eat? He was hungry. There was a waitress at a place near the Pantheon who’d flirted with him the night before but she couldn’t still be working at this hour. And he refused to eat based on sex that might possibly maybe happen someday if he got ridiculously lucky. Not.
He headed in that direction anyway. There were lots of restaurants and he wasn’t ready for sleep, no matter the company line. L Corp wouldn’t be monitoring managers. At least, not him specifically. At least, he didn’t think so.
The Coliseum shown through the dark streets like the world’s grandest jack 0’lantern. Lowery cut through a grove of trees across the street and under brick arches extending from one of several hundred local churches. From God’s power to man’s-that was the progression of the human race.
When Rome was the center of the European world, it built three churches a block to God’s glory-now the cathedral on Tiber Island was decommissioned, a conference center for businessmen and politicians to hold polite dinners and divvy up their worldly scraps-financial aid, military assistance, the strings-attached charity of the World Bank. The early Christians had received communion in church; so had his mother, probably last week. Lowery, a man with no active God, had gone to the center several times in the past few days to receive his suggestion, the mental image that he passed on to his charges in the viewing room. An image was all it took, in the Information Age, to conquer the World-an image and the power of the mind.
As he crossed the next street and worked his way around the remains of Palatine Stadium, he didn’t feel much like a conqueror. Rome was a big city; wandering dark places alone at night wasn’t particularly brilliant-but then, what mugger would be looking for a muggee at 5 in the morning?
The ruins had weathered smooth like skulls, the clay red like everything else in this furnace of a city. In June, Rome remained hot all night. The arches of Domitian’s Palace towered in deep shadow, the lights at the Forum nearby placing everything else in silhouette. Jerry wanted a beer. A couple of beers. And maybe a cognac. Tomorrow was the day.
Jerry had walked this way at least twenty times, day and night, since arriving in Rome but somehow, this time, the sightlines looked different, the landmarks springing from the ground at odd angles and odder locations. Where he expected to break out of the Emperor’s overhanging confines, instead he found himself more deeply withdrawn, walled-in. Rows of bone-white pillars stood against the red clay wreckage, pointing skyward like missiles. When he looked up for stars, clouds were gathering, swirling, too quickly and very specifically too close to him. The wind kicked up, gusting through the cavernous gaps between pillars and arches and ruins, whipping his jacket from his hands. He ran after the stupid thing, ending up even deeper in the labyrinth of ancient passageways. Ripples of lightning pulsed through the clouds-this felt just about obligatory, with all else that was happening-next had to be ghosts of Emperors long dead, Lowery both joking with himself and admitting real fear simultaneously. The atmosphere had gone deathly way too fast for real life.
And then there was Pietr Volkov, advancing on him like a general across a battlefield, lit up like he’d swallowed a neon tube and marching right through the bars of the fence surrounding the ruins. What the hell did he want? Lowery had only met the man once, which was plenty. He’d heard the rumors-or the rumors about the rumors-that surrounded Volkov. Lowery thought back-had he missed a cue somewhere? Nobody had missed session tonight or last night. He’d checked them all in. He hadn’t checked the clarity of the transmission as often as the regs demanded, but nobody did, except Vlada, the toadie-every time he’d checked, everything had been to spec.
Volkov should have reached him by now but he was still marching and Lowery’s panic kept rising. What about check-out? Making sure none of the drones carried any of the suggestion out of the room after they were done? Had he checked everyone? Oh Jesus-the girl with the pumpkin thong! She’d seemed so disinterested, even disdainful-maybe he hadn’t…Shit! Shit! Now…?
“Is it possible,” Volkov bellowed, still a few yards away, “that our enemies know our plans?” The last words exploded inside Lowery’s skull like someone was pounding with a hammer.
“Not from me!” Lowery cried immediately, trying halfway through to drag his voice down and exert some kind of control. Volkov was right on top of him, the two of them alone in the center of the center of the Ancient World.
“Alright, not from you! Maybe from one you were responsible for!” Volkov drilled at Lowery. “Maybe from this girl you have the stupid infatuation with. Is it possible?”
“How can they?” Lowery blubbered, desperately trying not to think of the pumpkin-colored line between the girl’s legs, even though-especially because-Volkov clearly knew about it already. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? We each had our portion. I only had Emerald. If they don’t have them all-?”
“Don’t quibble with me!” Volkov bellowed into Lowery’s face. He was backing him into one of Domition’s ancient walls. Behind Volkov, an ancient alcove rose skull-like five stories above them, flashing blue now in the sudden lightning. “You got your instruction at the same time as the others, yes?”
“Y-yes!” Lowery admitted, not sure what infraction he could have committed there.
“So you had Emerald. Who sat next to you?”
“Ruby.”
“How would you know that unless you paid attention to that portion as well?” Volkov thundered. All Lowery had seen was the identifying logo on the screen as they started feeding the images to them-that was all. He was sure. He clung to that denial, repeating it over and over like a mantra. If Volkov was going to read his mind, let him read that, please.
Maybe he did. Instead of ripping his skull off, Volkov held back now a moment, still only half a foot away but regarding him with at least a little detachment. Maybe this was how they looked at you just before they turned you to dust, Lowery thought. It wasn’t like there was any point resisting. An odd thought occurred to him as lightning struck the skull arch behind Volkov and the light seemed to gleam through him.