He waited for a few seconds, letting everything sink in, before offering me a skeptical look.
“You learned all this from watching TV?”
I nodded. “Pretty much. I used to read a lot of science fiction as a kid as well. For future reference, I suggest checking out The Future War. It should be available at your local library.”
Vincent snorted in amusement. “And they said the youth of America was doomed generations ago. All right, pretend I understand half of what you are saying. Why do you think we can’t go back, besides not being able to travel fast enough?”
“Well, think about it. If it’s impossible to time travel by any known technological means, the only other way I can think of this happening is through… well… magic.”
“Be serious.”
“I am serious… I think. Tell me, how does a glowing blue ball cause a temporal shift like the one we experienced? It has to be magical. The way the ball felt in my hands… it didn’t feel natural. Here’s another thing. When I first gazed through the ball, I noticed there was a similar one in the hands of the men we met in the cave. When we were transported, the ball I held came with us. Did you notice if the men had one of their own?”
“One of them did have one, yes.”
“I thought so. If technology is the culprit, how could one of these balls exist during the days of the Roman Empire?”
“I’m completely lost.” He said with a scratch of his head
I sighed. “Me too. I’m starting to confuse myself. There is one thing I don’t get, though. How come when Abdullah held the ball nothing happened, but when I touched it with my finger, something happened?”
“Good question, but immaterial to our problem. The questions should be whether any more of these balls exist at all.”
“There very well may be a dozen of the damn things in the future, but the one we used certainly isn’t where it was anymore. If we tried to connect with any other sphere out there, we could end up wherever and whenever that sphere is, not 2021. We could end up anywhere in time. That’s what makes me think there are only the two. If there were more, why did we connect to this one? Why not all of them? Why did I only see images from this time, and not images from 1453 or 2543 as well? Who knows when another sphere, or this sphere, would have been found along the timeline.”
“Hunter, you are thoroughly confusing me.”
I laughed. “I get that a lot. Here’s another wrench to throw in the engine.” I waited, giving Vincent a chance to catch up. “Are you ready for this? I think the ball we found is the same exact one the Romans have. I don’t mean the same kind of object, but the same ball.”
Vincent just stared at me as we continued to stroll through the city. I thought I saw anger brewing in his expression, but it was probably just utter confusion.
“I hate to sound like Santino here, but you’re crazy.”
“I’m sorry. You have no idea how much I hate sounding like a know-it-all, but I’m really just spit-balling here. Look. Clearly the ritual being performed in the cave before we got here happened in our history. We know that because we just dropped into it an hour ago. It being history and all. But be that the case, from our perspective in 2021, we all should have been in those history books too, yet there is no record of us. Why not? Two possibilities. As I said earlier, maybe we were here, but we just died real quick. The cave may have collapsed killing all of us and nobody thought twice about it. Think Terminator, just without as much Arnold. We had to be here to fulfill some predetermined roll we played here, namely to die.”
Vincent held up a hand. “Wait. What’s a terminator?”
I looked at him whimsically. “Your favorite band is the Beach Boys, but you’ve never heard of Terminator?”
“Just get to the point, Hunter.”
Great, he’s no better than Helena.
“Fine. In any case, that theory doesn’t seem very likely though, because our gear would have been found, leaving an obvious record. So my theory is that when the ritual originally took place an hour ago, the original before we got here, nothing happened. The sphere was deemed useless. It was then packaged up as a pretty trinket, and lost to the annals of history. It wasn’t until a hapless soul such as myself found it in the future, and activated it, did it do what it was supposed to do.”
“Which is what?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s enchanted… or whatever, to open a one way trip through time to a prearranged destination. I guess that would explain how we ended up in Rome. Not only does it transport you through time, but through space as well. Think of it this way. Imagine a rubber band. Now, grab it with both hands and slowly stretch it out. Over time, it gets longer. It’s actually moving through both time and space. Now, let go of one end, and it will snap back into its original form. But instead of just moving through space, like the rubber band, it moves back through time as well, to when the stretching began. ”
He sighed. “So, you’re saying that the sphere, like the rubber band, has its physical existence stretched through time, and when activated, will find a way back to when it was originally activated?”
“It’s a theory. Although, I guess all this presupposes a linear and not cyclical time…”
“Hunter. Focus. So this sphere would take everything in a room with it?” He asked skeptically.
I shrugged.
“But how is it activated?” He asked, moving past the things we couldn’t immediately explain.
“Great question. Haven’t figured that part out yet. But the rest makes sense. Sort of.”
“Nothing makes sense at this point,“ Vincent mumbled. “So how is it that two exist now? How is that possible? Shouldn’t the spheres have joined to become one sphere?”
“That’s another very good question. It seems as though we’ve created yet another fundamental paradox of some kind. How can the same object be in a different place at the same time? It’s easy to say my boot exists here at five o’clock, and then in the same place at six o’clock, but for the same boot, to exist at the same time, in two different places, is seemingly impossible.” I tapped a finger against my chin thoughtfully, before wagging it at Vincent. “On the bright side, we may have just discovered a way to replicate glowing, blue, time traveling balls at no expense. I bet we can market them for a good price back home.”
“If this situation wasn’t so insane, that might actually be funny. So. I ask again, more confused than ever, what do we do now?”
“I’m sorry to say that I’m just as lost as I ever was. Who the hell knows? Honestly, I’m ready to just throw in with the Romans and join the legions.”
Vincent didn’t respond, and for some reason his silence bothered me. It was like he knew something I didn’t. Like he was hiding some important piece of information.
I shook my head and decided to drop it. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I ignored the man and focused on the road. All I wanted right now was a hot shower and a fresh change of clothes. Luckily, Roman baths were way ahead of their time, and a hot dip was perfectly feasible. Another plus was that some were openly co-ed.
Maybe Helena would be up for it.
Nah.
***
We walked the last few blocks in silence, both of us too tired to think anymore.
My fatigue surprised me. I knew I had to be in better shape than ninety nine percent of humanity, but while the last few hours had been strenuous, I’d gone through way worse before, and I’d never felt this bad afterwards. Everyone else had to be feeling it as well. My only conclusion was that the trip through the orb taxed its travelers far more than the painful transition alone.
A few feet before I collapsed out of exhaustion, the Praetorians slowed, and made their way to a wooden doorway, which opened to a small and simple house. It didn’t seem like a prison, but I assumed these kinds of clandestine operations were common practice in the backstabbing world of ancient Rome.