Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1) (14 page)

“When they come back with the curtains, you can shower,” Kaeso said. “And do what the medicus tells you.” He glanced at the decon leader, and added, “Within reason.”

The medicus leader’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing.

When Kaeso and Galeo were in the corridor between the cargo bays, Galeo asked, “What was that?”

“We’re not criminals.”

“The Romans would disagree.”

“Stop playing with me, Galeo. What's happening in Umbra right now?”

“Those men are not Umbra.”

“Obviously. They’re civilians, so why are they here? I’d have thought a Cariosa would've been grounds for high-level concealment protocols. Umbra handlers only. Not these outsiders.”

Galeo’s lips thinned. “Umbra is in a crisis. Our resources are spread thin containing the damage your old friend has inflicted.”

“She may be innocent. You said we don't have all the information.”

“Perhaps, but we’re in a crisis that’s stretching Umbra’s resources farther than they’ve ever been, thus the civilians. Now will you please play nice and do what they tell you? The showers and other procedures will protect you and your crew.”

“I know.”

Galeo gave an exasperated laugh. “Then why the theater?”

Kaeso stared at his crew through the Cargo One windows. All five were huddled together and whispering as they watched the medicus team set up privacy curtains for their showers. Lucia caught Kaeso's eyes through the window, and she nodded.

“Because I'm tired of hearing I’m going to be fired upon,” Kaeso said. “And that medicus was an ass.”

“Well you’ll need to control your pride and follow orders if you want back into Umbra.”

Kaeso looked at him. “I’m back in?”

Galeo held his hands up. “I didn’t say that. They didn’t dismiss the idea, but neither were they warm to it. Right now I’m sure you’re the subject of heated debate in the Magisterium. If you do the mission and don’t create more problems than you solve, then you might have a chance.”

“Right. Oh, and my crew is not coming with me.”

“You see, that’s what I meant by creating problems,” Galeo said and sighed. “We’ve been over this, Kaeso. We don't have time to train a new crew.”

“I'm going alone. Just like I’ve always done.”

Galeo clenched his teeth, shook his head. “Kaeso, if you don’t do as you’re ordered, the Magisterium will arrest your crew and extradite them to Roma. Not to mention you’d forever burn any chance you have at getting reinstated. Do you want that?”

“They won't arrest my crew because they know I’d never go on this mission. Judging by the help these days, they need
me
to go to Roma. Are they going to screw that up just to punish me for bending a few rules?”

Galeo stared at Kaeso. “Why are you doing this? This just proves you can’t follow orders.”

“Once I'm back in, I will follow orders just fine.” Kaeso regarded his former mentor and friend. “Galeo, I
want
back in. I'm committed to this mission, but my crew did not sign up for this. They have no idea what can happen to them in Roma. What the Praetorian Guard would do to them if they were caught working for us. They actually think crucifixion is the worst that can happen. On my honor as a centuriae, I can't put them in that kind of danger. Honor is still an Umbra prerequisite, isn't it?”

“Honor?” Galeo snorted. “Honor is a luxury for the military and civilians.”

“I won't take them. If the Magisterium can't accept that, then the mission is off.”

Galeo frowned.

“They’ll just have to trust me,” Kaeso pressed. “They know my record.
You
know my record. I’ve always been a loyal patriot. Still am. The reasons for my discharge were administrative
cac
. I can do this mission, but they have to let me do it my way. Like they did when I was an Ancile.”

“What happens if they call your bluff?”

Kaeso shrugged. “Then my crew goes back to Roma in chains. Which is what will happen anyway if they go on this mission.”

Kaeso turned to his crew in Cargo One. He saw their shadows behind the shower curtains as they rubbed the scalding water and antiviral soap over themselves.

“Do they know you want to abandon them?” Galeo asked. “That you don’t want to be the centuriae of a smuggling freighter?”

Kaeso scowled. “You ask too many questions. Will you pass on my conditions or what?”

“I will, and there will likely be howling, spitting, and gnashing of teeth before they realize you have them by the balls and accept your demands. And you wonder why you were kicked out.”

“Jealousy?”

“Go take your shower.”

Kaeso went back to Cargo One while Galeo walked through the connector tube to the way station. As soon as Kaeso returned, Blaesus emerged from behind the shower curtain, drying his body with a large white towel.

“Centuriae, the shower was exhilarating. My first hot one in weeks. I don't know why you were complaining before.”

Kaeso began removing his clothes. “Wait until the antiviral agent kicks in. You'll be itching your body red before the hour is out.”

The old Senator’s eyes widened as Kaeso entered his own shower. When the hot water fell over him, he smiled. He was going to miss playing with Blaesus.

“I found it,” Cordus called out.

Ocella scrambled from the ductwork in the ceiling, dropped to the floor, and hurried to where Cordus shouted. He stood before a low hole behind one of Scaurus's massive bookshelves, which was swung outward like a door. The hole was maybe four feet by four feet, barely enough room for an adult to crawl through.

“How did you find it?”

“I wanted that book,” he said, pointing to a bound copy of Cicero's
De Republica
. “It would not come out, so I pulled harder and the bookshelf moved.”

Ocella smiled, but she felt only sadness. She should have expected the old man would make Cicero his means of escape. She was confident he was dead, for he had not returned since the Praetorians arrived. Ocella and Cordus had spent a harrowing two days in the basement since the Praetorians had torn the house apart upstairs. She was sure they’d find the basement, kill her, and return Cordus to his prison.

But they had not. Scaurus had likely gone to his death without giving up Ocella and Cordus. She shuddered to think what he had to endure before the end.

Even though the Praetorians had left, she did not want to leave the basement in case the house was still under surveillance. So for the last two days, Ocella and Cordus had kept themselves busy by searching for this secret escape hole. With each passing hour, however, she grew more fearful that Scaurus lied, that she'd have to lead Cordus out a back window upstairs, which the Praetorians surely monitored.

Now the boy may have saved them.

“Does this mean we can leave?” Cordus asked.

“
I
will meet with Scaurus's contact.
You
will stay here.”

Ocella rushed over to the locker with coats, togas, and clothing Scaurus had given them. She selected a long black coat with a hood. She found an Umbra-built voice mimicker on the top shelf, and smiled. She shouldn’t have been surprised at Scaurus’s resourcefulness—he was the head of the Praetorian Guard for twenty years and would know how to get what he wanted. She placed the mimicker in her coat's inner pocket and then shut the locker doors.

“I can handle myself on the streets of Roma,” Cordus said indignantly.

“When have you ever been ‘on the streets of Roma’?”

“I snuck out of the palace many times.”

“With loyal slaves,” she countered. “Never with Praetorians waiting to kill you. Look, I just need to find Scaurus’s contact. I can't skulk in the shadows if I have to make sure you’re with me all the time. I won’t be gone long. Once I get the passes, I'll come back. Then you can show me these street skills you learned from your slaves when we go to the ship.”

Cordus regarded her a moment, then sighed. “Fine.”

He turned around, sat down at the tabulari, and called up a game of
latrunculi
. The holographic squared board auto-populated with pieces.

“That better not be over the bands,” she said.

“No, it is against the tabulari. Go, you are disturbing my concentration.”

Ocella remembered again why she’d never wanted children.

Ocella went back to the tunnel behind the bookshelf and peered into the darkness. She couldn't see more than six feet ahead, so she went back to Scaurus's desk—enduring Cordus's silent frowns at the interruption—and took the small pen torch she'd found the other day. Back at the tunnel, she got on her hands and knees and crawled with the pen torch in her teeth lighting the way ahead.

She came to the end of the tunnel thirty feet from the basement. She pointed her pen torch up and saw the tunnel became a shaft. Metal rungs stuck out from the wall, but she could not see the top within her torch’s limited range. She put the torch back in her mouth and started climbing.

She reached the top twenty feet up and found a metal hatch with a wheel. Balancing precariously on the ladder rungs, the pen torch in her mouth, she tried turning the wheel. It stuck at first, but moved after much grunting and pulling on her part. The hatch issued a series of clicks, and then she pushed up. The hatch only moved a fraction, so she pushed harder. An avalanche of dirt fell through the opening onto her head, and she struggled to keep her balance on the rungs. When the falling dirt stopped, she pushed the hatch again. More dirt trickled over her as she opened the hatch all the way. It made surprisingly little noise after years of disuse.

The sky was dark, and cool air rushed down to dry the sweat beads on her forehead. She shook the dirt from her hair and tried to wipe it from her face with her coat sleeve. Once she had blinked away most of the dirt in her eyes, she poked her head above the ground.

At first she thought she was in Scaurus's garden, towards the back of his property. To her right was a large stone wall, and an olive tree towering above her. To her left was a red-painted house. She realized it was the house next to Scaurus’s, and that she was in their garden. Lights blazed from inside, and she saw the neighbors were hosting a dinner party. Guests walked back and forth in front of the windows, and a man and woman stood on the patio sipping from wine goblets. They held each other closely, laughing quietly. They seemed more interested in each other, for they did not seem to notice Ocella’s head peeking out of the ground. She thought she was well hidden, since the olive tree and three large bushes cast a large shadow around her.

The question now was how to leave the garden. Her first thought was to mingle with the guests, but she dismissed that idea. A sweat-streaked, dirty face was not worn to Roman dinner parties. No, if she did not want to be seen, she would have to wait for the man and woman to leave the patio before she scrambled over the wall. Patience was the most useful thing Umbra had taught her.

But after almost fifteen minutes watching the two lovers exchange kisses, she was quickly losing her patience. The painful spasms in her calves and back from balancing on the ladder rungs made her all the more willing to kill the lovers and be done with them.

Two young men in white togas and wine stains burst from the patio doors, singing “What Lies Between My Lady’s Thighs.” Ocella was never gladder to hear that vulgar song. The two lovers exchanged annoyed looks, then went back inside.

To Ocella's horror, the two young men stumbled straight toward her, swinging their wine goblets and singing as loud as their voices could muster. There was no time to pull the hatch over her, so she ducked down inside the shaft. The men went to the stone wall six feet to Ocella's right, then she heard them relieving themselves on the wall. She held her breath, praying they were too drunk to notice the deep hole six feet away. It was dark, so her chances of remaining undetected were good.

But she would not underestimate the serendipitous luck of a stumbling drunk. She slowly reached for the pistol in her coat.

“Rufus, Ahala,” a male voice shouted from the patio. “Get in here, the dancers are starting.”

The two men made a triumphant howl, then staggered back to the house, still screaming the vulgar song. Ocella made sure they went inside, then jumped up from the hatch, and crouching low, quietly closed it. She moved some dirt on it and covered it with dead leaves. Once again ensuring nobody from the party was outside, she leaped to the top of the wall a few feet above her, pulled herself over, and dropped to the alley on the other side.

She scanned the alley to her left and right. Besides stray dogs fighting over garbage, the alley was deserted. She searched the surrounding buildings, but saw no sign of Praetorian surveillance. Either they were well hidden, or they had abandoned all hope of finding clues at Scaurus’s home. Until she was sure, however, she would assume the former. She hurried to another dark alley, walked fast for several dozen yards, past more garbage-eating dogs, then down another alley. She stopped to listen for footsteps behind her. Nothing.

Ocella took her coat off and shook out the remainder of the dirt, then rapidly ran her fingers through her hair. She was glad she had cut her once long black hair short to better fit into the Praetorian Guard, for the dirt would never have left her hair without a good washing. She used the coat’s interior to wipe more dirt from her face, then put it back on. She paused to get her bearings, then headed right, toward what she assumed was the Via Ostiensis.

Scaurus mentioned his contact was a Zhonguo with a merchant ship in the Mars Trading Fields. It wasn’t much to go on, but since the Zhonguo were rare in Roma—and Terra—since their diaspora 300 years ago, she thought Fortuna might be with her if she asked around. It was not that late, so the contact might still be at his ship.

She put the hood over her head and merged into the crowds packing the Via Ostiensis. This part of the Aventine was renowned for its taverns, gambling dens, and brothels. Ocella figured she would have no problem fitting into the plebeian revelers filling the streets. Young men wearing their finest togas, their arms around each other or a prostitute, shuffled down the street singing songs just as vulgar as the two in the garden. She passed a small ceremony honoring Bacchus, seven men and women standing before a priest holding a wine cup to a ten-foot idol of the god. Their chanting was as boisterous as she'd expect to find in a prayer to the wine god. To her right was a small park where a dozen old men played
latrunculi
on stone tables. She even passed a street fair where a small comedy troupe performed. Ocella did not stop to watch, but judging from the half-naked performers and the positions they mimicked, it was a play well suited to the street’s clientele.

Ocella found a taxi zone and stood on the sensor pad. A small electric taxi pulled in front of her and then opened its door. Ocella got in the back seat, and the door closed.

The friendly male voice came from a hidden speaker. “Destination?”

“Mars Trading Fields,” she said.

After a pause, the taxi said, “Five sesterces, please. Account number?”

One of the first tricks Umbra taught her before coming to Roma was how to hack an electric taxi. You never knew when you’d need to get somewhere fast, and you didn’t want to leave an electric trail by using a traceable account number. Electric taxis did not have an interface, relying on voice for commands and identification. If a passenger's account number did not match with the voice pattern on record, there would be no transaction and the taxi would not run. It would have been easier with an active implant—she could have used it to send an override command directly to the taxi—but that was why she brought another tool.

She took out the voice mimicker she got from Scaurus’s locker, a tool built by Umbra for this purpose. She thumbed the record button and said, “Maintenance override.”

She rewound the recording, adjusted the treble and bass settings, and then played the recording into the taxi microphone. “Maintenance override,” her adjusted voice said from the mimicker.

“Destination?” the taxi asked again.

Ocella adjusted the mimicker settings again and then played her altered voice. “Maintenance override.”

The taxi paused, then said, “Override accepted.”

“Take me to the Mars Trading Fields.”

“Of course. Estimated time to destination...seven minutes.”

The taxi zipped into traffic and headed down the Aventine toward the Tiber. Ocella kept her hood up. She wasn’t worried about people outside the taxi noticing her, but rather the dome light camera above her head inside the taxi. Sooner or later the taxi company would discover her unauthorized “maintenance override,” and they would search the camera footage to find out who had done it. Hopefully she and Cordus were long gone from Roma by then. If not, a taxi company tracking her down for a five-sesterce fare would be the least of her worries.

The taxi pulled up next to the marble-columned entry to the Mars Trading Fields exactly seven minutes after its estimate on the Aventine. The Trading Fields were a vast market of merchants from across the Republic, along with some Lost World merchants lucky enough to obtain a selling license from Roma. Almost anything could be found in the Fields, from exotic produce and meats to clothing, media, and slaves (human and golem). Most vendors sold their wares right from the back of their cargo ships. Though the hour was late, Ocella noticed the gates to the Fields were still open and customers trickled in and out.

“Mars Trading Fields,” the taxi said.

Ocella said, “Find a place to park and wait for me.”

“Of course.”

Ocella opened the door and stepped onto the street before the Trading Fields entry. The taxi zipped away from the gate and parked itself in a spot along the street less than a block away.

Ocella spared a look at the Trading Fields’ entry as she hurried through the gates. A dozen two-story marble columns built over six hundred years ago supported a classical roof structure over the entry. Bas-reliefs along the roof showed images from the Fields’ past: its beginning as a herding field for sheep, a training field for ancient Roman militia, a gathering for elections, and its current use as a market for commodities from across the Republic. The customers were sparse near closing time, but Ocella had no trouble imagining the throngs streaming through the columns during the Trading Fields’ prime hours.

Once inside, Ocella passed dropships with their wares displayed beside them or from their open cargo doors. Exotic scents filled the air: fruits, vegetables, and spices from every corner of Terra and the Republic. Strange art from distant worlds were arrayed on shelves and tables and on the ground. Vases, sculptures, paintings, holographic comedies and tragedies, synthesized music from non-Republic nations. Ocella passed caged animals from off-world—reptiles with feathery wings, dog-like creatures with furry tentacles sprouting from their sides, insects the size of Ocella's hand mimicking the voices of passersby. Even an experienced Umbra Ancile like her struggled to keep her focus on the crowd rather than the vendors calling her attention to their wares.

The Zhonguo contact—if he existed—would be at the back of the Fields. Roman merchants always populated the sections near the gates. The foreign merchants, however, were put in a section downhill from the main Fields and next to the Tiber riverfront. The stench of dead fish, excrement, and chemical pollution was the price foreigners paid to do business in the largest market in Roma.