Another voice behind me spoke up, saying, “What’s wrong, Santino?”
It was an angelic voice.
A feminine voice.
Helena’s voice.
I turned to see her standing there. Alive, healthy, and as beautiful as ever. I blinked. Nope. Still there, and no wings. Making my way to her in two long strides, I wrapped my arms around and kissed her as hard as I could. If God was in fact sending me to Hell, I was going to drag her with me. I didn’t care what she thought.
The ghost of Helena shoved me away, but she didn’t look mad.
“Jacob,” she whispered shyly, “what are you doing? We’re on a mission.”
A what? Is that what they called it here in… purgatory?
Was that where we were?
Helena’s ghost pointed to her right.
I looked at what she was pointing towards, hoping it wasn’t Satan. The room looked oddly familiar. It was large with numerous tiered levels that descended from where I stood. I also saw people and enough treasure to fill Ft. Knox. Wang and Vincent were there. As was Titus. Gaius and Marcus as well. Bordeaux!
I was in the goddamned treasure room.
The same damn room I’d stood in fifty minutes ago!
But how was that possible?
I looked at my hands.
I was holding the orb.
I looked towards the heavens, or at least just the ceiling, my eyes furrowed in confusion… thinking.
Déjà vu?
Had I gone back in time?
I had to have.
Wait, wait, wait.
If I’d gone back in time, where was the second orb? And why hadn’t the transition hurt like hell? And if the orb transported all matter within a room with it, where was all the rubble, dead Praetorians, and a horribly disfigured Agrippina? In fact, since I was transitioning back to a point in time where I already existed, shouldn’t there be two copies of me? And of all my friends too?
I looked at Helena and poked her cheek, definitely feeling resistance. She looked at me angrily and poked me back. I felt that too. Just in case, I gave her a little shove. She stumbled back a step. In response, she slugged me in the shoulder.
It hurt.
I met her eyes. “You’re alive?”
“Last time I checked, Jacob,” she said, looking at me like I belonged in the loony bin.
I smiled and leaned her back as I kissed her again, pulling away quickly and tossing the orb in her direction. She made a grab for it but bobbled it a few times before finally catching it awkwardly. I made my way to Bordeaux as she called after me.
He was setting the bomb he’d already set once upon a time. I nearly tackled him as I ran to where he was burying it beneath the treasure.
“Wait, you big, beautiful, beast of a Frenchman, you!”
He gave me a funny look. “I’m flattered, Hunter, but I’m married.”
I shook my head, still amazed at what was happening. I would have kissed him too if I’d had the time.
“Set it for thirty five minutes,” I ordered.
“I was going to set it for…”
“Just do it. Trust me.”
He shrugged reluctantly. “You’re the boss.”
He reset the timer and placed it beneath the treasure.
Everything made sense. Everything! I knew how the orb worked. I knew what it was intended to do. How it could take us home. And I knew what was about to happen. And how I could fix it.
I turned to see Titus once again analyzing the box, his hand poised to open it.
“What’s thi…”
I struggled to find my voice as I grinned like an idiot. “Wait, stop, don’t do tha…” I repeated for no one’s benefit but my own.
And there was the white burst. My eyes immediately went blank, but unlike last time, I laughed, groping about like a zombie. Then I waited for the sound of clinking armor running into the room. And there it was. Now, time for the…
I’ve been knocked unconscious quite a few times in my life. More than the average…
I squeezed my eyes tightly, the muscles in my face recoiling from the pain.
Really? Even my post black out monologues were the same? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since the pain sure felt the same. Despite knowing what to expect, I still felt like shit as I slowly regained consciousness. I used the time while my body recovered to hash out the last of the details about the orb. I couldn’t believe how simple it was. Varus had been right. Our usage of the orb had been much too complicated. Far too random. Using it properly was in reality almost elegant, if not genius.
I couldn’t explain what had happened when I first touched the orb but Helena had noted a flash of blue light at the time. Something I hadn’t noticed. I’d been out of it, but she must have clearly seen the orb activating itself. How I activated it was something I still didn’t know, but I suspected I knew someone who did. I only hope he left a trail for us to follow when we got out of this.
But that could wait. For now, the elegant part.
When Agrippina forced me to inspect the orb earlier, I had seen something beneath the swirling white clouds that always seemed to indicate the orb was… active, for lack of a better term. I hadn’t understood it at the time, because I thought I had only seen a reflection of myself, but it had in fact been me. It had been me at the point in time and space when I first touched the orb in the treasure room. An hour later, when I came into contact with it as Helena held it in her dead hand, the orb finally worked the way it was supposed to.
Instead of haphazardly transporting everything in a room and replicating itself, it took its sole user on a ride back to its starting point. My rubber band theory actually made perfect sense. The ball was never supposed to be used by two different people. It was meant as a transportation device for one person to travel back to a prearranged point on the timeline, taking only the users’ consciousness with it, not the body. All the pain and wounds I’d received during the previous timeline were gone.
And hence, its true elegance.
Conventional time machines from the movies transported the entire entity of its user. Mind, body, spirit. All of it.
That never made much sense to me. A time traveler would still be susceptible to the effects of time. If I’d taken my DeLorean off joyriding through the timeline for twenty five years in total, when I finally decided to return to my original point on the timeline, I would be twenty five years older than when I’d left. The body still ages at the same rate. I couldn’t come back twenty five years later from the starting point, or else there’d be a twenty five year gap where I simply didn’t exist. Unless I wanted to go the whole “fake death” route.
But the orb only transported the consciousness of a person.
Their memories. Their experiences.
This thing would have been great to have back in college. Set this puppy a day before a test, go in to take it the next day, learn all the questions, sit through the damn thing, return to my dorm room, and proceed to warp myself back to the day before, all the knowledge of the test’s contents still in my head. And no physical aging to go along with it. I don’t even want to think about how well I could have done with the ladies. It wouldn’t even have been hard.
Simply elegant.
But how did I activate it to begin with?
I grunted. All that thinking made my head hurt even more, but I still managed to regain consciousness before the others. And just like last time, when I opened my eyes I confirmed that everything seemed the same and everyone was in their places, ready for the final scene.
Lights, camera, action.
“Agrippina,” I said, hoarsely. “How’s the ass? Oh, that’s right. It is quite perfect and I of all people should know that. By the way, your face looks a lot better than the last time I saw it.”
I almost shuddered at the memory of the faceless Agrippina, but thoughts of watching Helena die for a second time hardened me.