The Imperium Game (9 page)

“Oh.”

“And it’s worked out just fine.” He nodded to himself. “A real meeting of the minds, as it happened. For a reasonable price, I lease my old buddies a cozy little corner down in Hades from which they can come and go and do their business outside, and no one’s the wiser.”

“Criminals?” Her voice squeaked. “You’re hiding criminals in the Underworld?”

“Not just me, your sweetness.” He reached up and pinched her cheek. “His formerness, your late old man, was real high on this gig, too, and now that you’re stepping into his place, that means it’s your show, too.”

Her head spun as she tried to make sense of this startling information. In a matter of minutes she had gone from being the bereaved widow of an Emperor to the head of some seedy criminal scheme for hiding out perverts and drug fiends and—

“You look a bit on the white side.” Barbus snapped his fingers at a dour, scab-covered female slave lurking on the other side of the crowded room. “Maybe you could do with a sip of grape.”

The slave dumped the dregs out of a cup, spit into it, then wiped it out with a corner of her tunic before filling it again with the contents of a grimy bottle.

“I feel rather tired.” She smiled wanly at him, but kept her distance from the proffered cup—there was no telling what sort of filth and disease lurked at the bottom of it. “I think that I should go home now. Could you perhaps loan me the litter and a few bearers?”

“Home?” A crafty gleam crept into Barbus’s piggy little eyes. “You can’t go home before you meet Himself.”

“Who?”

“Down in the Underworld.” He tugged at her arm.
“He’s
panting to meet you.”

* * *

Kerickson felt more respectable after buying a decent tunic down in the Market District. At least it was clean and relatively whole, an immense improvement over his Game-issued clothing.

Cutting across the Via Nova, he ignored the courtesans draped like oversized flags from their windowsills, his mind on more important matters. After leaving the Baths, he had decided that, as much as the idea made his skin crawl, he had to go to the Palace. Not only had Micio lived there, but he had come from there just before his murder. If anyone knew Micio’s business, it would be the Palace slaves, or Demea, his widow.

And Kerickson’s ex-wife.

Her face came back to him, pale as the new moon under her glossy, dark chestnut hair, just as he had seen her the day she’d told him that she wasn’t going to renew their marriage contract.

“You’ll never really play this game,” she’d said, “not the way that I mean to. Oh, you’ll piddle around, venture out on the playing field to make an adjustment here, straighten out a mess there, but you’ll never belong.”

“I paid for your enrollment.” A lump the size of New York lodged in this throat. “That’s what you said you wanted, but there isn’t enough left for me to enroll, too, and working in the Interface doesn’t leave me any time for playing even if I could pay for another enrollment. Someone has to pay your fees.”

“That’s the whole problem.” A thin smile flitted across her face. “You’re always going to belong to the outside, while all I want to do is to go out there and forget that I have ever known anything else. I want to live the Game, but you’ll never be anything more than an employee.”

“But—” He stared at her; she seemed a stranger in her elegant Roman tunic made of the lushest white silk. “It’s just a game. You can’t trade that for real life.”

She had laughed then, a terrible, hollow laugh that echoed inside his head, and he’d finally understood. She wanted things he could never give her, things he couldn’t even understand.

That same day, she’d entered the Game under the identity he’d saved and borrowed to buy for her—Demea Pollius, daughter of an ancient Roman family. Soon after, she became the wife of Micio Metullus, an up-and-coming senator.

Kerickson had retreated to the Interface, putting in sixteen or more hours every day, making the Game work better than ever, until enrollment was up fifty percent and everyone was ecstatic, except him.

He hadn’t seen Alline, now known as Demea, for almost two years, although he heard of her often—especially after Micio had acquired enough points to subvert the Praetorian Guard and become Emperor two quarters ago. It was all for the best, of course. Kerickson knew that
he
would never have made Emperor; he wouldn’t even have tried. All that time and effort and money, and for what? So you could try to keep everyone else from overthrowing you in a make-believe world? It seemed meaningless.

Well, despite everything, he had to see her today—if a freedman with no charisma could get past the Guard and the household slaves. He glanced down at his Game bracelet and frowned. Evidently, Wilson had formatted this lowborn identity so that he would be inconspicuous, but it was hampering his ability to be effective.

And there was the additional problem that, because players had to show an ID to enter the Game, he’d had to log in under his real name. As soon as the police investigating Micio’s murder thought to look for him in here, the Computer would be able to locate him through his Game bracelet in a matter of seconds.

At some point he was going to have to acquire a new identity, perhaps that of a Praetorian Guard or even a priest—someone with more authority, not to mention charisma.

Emerging out onto the broad avenue of the Via Ostiensis, he caught sight of the Imperial Palace up ahead: all columns and white marble, gleaming in the late afternoon sun, and with bronze-armored guards everywhere—in fact, rather more guards than he had ever seen in one place before. Slowing his pace, he listened to the people around him, trying to pick up information.

“—missing for how long?”

“Married, you say, this soon after the old man’s death? Positively shocking!”

“—and then every one of her bearers came back and said that she was murdered by Gauls! Poor thing, she must be in the Underworld now.”

“—should at least have a funeral pyre in her honor—”

“—two days out of the temple and here she’s gone off and married
him,
of all people, nothing more than a farmer by the looks of him.”

Moving with the rapidly increasing crowd, he stopped at the foot of the wide Palace steps to stare up at a man in bronze armor and a red-crested helmet, who had his arm around a slender red-haired girl gowned in pale green.

“Citizens of Rome!” The man’s voice rang out over the street, deep and powerful. “I know how worrisome this latest news must be, coming on the heels of our recent great sorrow.”

A murmur of assent went up from the crowd, and Kerickson found himself wedged against the people in front of him as those behind surged forward for a better look.

“As your Emperor’s son-in-law, and therefore only living male relative, I pledge that I will not rest until the Empress Demea is found and restored to the Palace and the arms of her loving family and the hearts of Rome!” He thrust his fist high into the air and threw his head back. The sun glinted off his curly black hair. “My strong right arm will defend Rome and all those we hold dear. Trust Quintus Gracchus now in your hour of need, and I swear you will never have cause to regret it!”

With a start, Kerickson saw that the girl beside Gracchus was Micio’s daughter, Amaelia. But how could she be married? She still held the rank of a slave since her recent dismissal from the Temple of Vesta. And what was all this about Demea being missing?

“I don’t know,” A puffy-faced man at his elbow turned to his matronly companion. “What do you think?”

“I think he would have done the old girl in himself, if he thought it would give him a chance to be Emperor,” she replied. “But then, whether we approve of him or not, someone has got to be Emperor—and it certainly isn’t going to be the likes of you.”

Edging away, Kerickson pushed through the crowd and leaned against the sun-warmed marble feet of a statue of Venus. He was too late. Something had happened to Demea right on the heels of Micio’s death, and there was no way he could believe that it had been a coincidence.

WHEN
it was almost dark
, Kerickson checked one final time to see that none of the bored Praetorian Guards were watching, then stepped behind a bare-branched acacia bush and removed his Game bracelet. It was too risky to throw it away—without it, he would be thrown out of the Game the first time anyone challenged him—but if he partially disabled it, then the computer wouldn’t be able to follow his movements.

He selected a sharp-edged rock from a nearby flower bed and crushed the primary location transponder, but left the power supply intact to run his status board. Unless someone looked closely, it should get him through most situations, although he still hadn’t solved the problem of his blanked charisma.

The wind gusted. He clutched the worn cloak closer and sauntered through the gardens, trying to look as though he had every right to be there. The back of the Palace was devoted to functions that most players never considered, such as waste removal, grounds keeping, and one of the major gates, for the Emperor’s private use and to receive supplies from outside. The appearance of authenticity, Kerickson reflected, was much more highly rated in the Imperium than authenticity itself. Much as players liked to pretend they were solidly Roman, living in every detail just as the ancients had, he had never heard an inquiry about who cleaned public rest rooms or picked up the trash.

And, of course, the automated bank tellers, located discreetly behind huge statues of Saturn throughout the city, were always busy.

At length he found what he was looking for—a barely discernible edge where there should have been no edge at all, indicating an access bay for the Palace’s array of grounds-keeping equipment, all automated and programmed to work silently in the dead of night so as not to intrude upon the players’ delicate sensibilities.

Running his fingers along the grooved edge, he detected a depression and pushed. The panel gave, and then the entire section receded and opened a door into the Palace that no one would ever think to guard.

He darted in and closed the door behind him. Inside, a bank of dim red lights illuminated the bulky equipment. As he attempted to squeeze past a rubbish collector, its sensor panel flared to life.

“Could this unit be of assistance?”

A chill ran through him. He hadn’t counted on any of the equipment being programmed in Interact and able to talk to him. “I’m just—performing a routine inspection. When is your next scheduled run?”

“Oh two hundred hours.”

“No changes.” He slipped past, holding his breath until he reached the far side and opened a door into a warm, deserted hallway. He nodded; it was the dinner hour for all good Romans. All through the Imperium, he knew players would be lounging on their divans, calling for servants, drinking watered wine, and dining on imitation stuffed dormice and flamingos’ tongues—in short, doing everything in their power to convince the Game computer that
they
were the most authentic players in the realm.

It took a few minutes to get his bearings; then he realized he was in the slaves’ quarters. Micio’s rooms would be on a higher floor, but perhaps this was the best place to start, anyway. Around servants, secrets were harder to hold on to than money. Here, as in ancient Rome, the slaves knew everything about everyone.

Unfortunately, he was still dressed as a freedman. Even though his rank didn’t entitle him to a citizen’s toga, he realized now that he should have bought one anyway. That would have commanded automatic respect from most slave-class players, and it wouldn’t even have occurred to most of them to inspect his Game bracelet.

He walked down the corridor until he came upon a long-legged young girl with jet-black hair done up in a simple bun; she was no more than fourteen by the looks of her. “Where can I find the personal staff for the Imperial family?”

She was dressed in only a simple white shift and met his eyes with such solemn interest that Kerickson decided she must be one of the many robot surrogates used to supplement the rather thin ranks of humans enrolled at this low level.

“Those not on duty should be eating at the moment.” Her voice was low and pleasantly modulated. “Shall I send for someone?”

Kerickson hid his wrist behind his back. “No, just take me to them.”

She bowed her head. “As you wish.” She turned around and led the way back in the direction he had just come.

“How are you called?” Kerickson asked.

“Menae, master.”

“And your function?”

“I am a bath slave, master,” she replied blandly. “Shall you require my services?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” He followed her through the maze of passages without further comment until they reached the Palace staff’s dining hall.

Inside, the large room was filled with the smell of roast beef and grilled chicken and spiced wine. A scattering of people sat at long tables and picked at their plates, while a short, stodgy man stood in the front and droned on about the coming Saturnalia “And even though they have to serve you with their own hands, don’t go thinking you can lord it over them.”

A long-faced woman raised a brown chicken wing in the air. “But I thought we were all supposed to be equal during the Saturnalia.”

The man’s squishy little eyes narrowed. “Don’t be foolish. They’ll pay you back for any impudence once the festival is over, and even though most of you will gain a level and play as freedmen in the coming quarter, you don’t want to make powerful enemies on your way up. If you want to get on in the Game, you have to play like you really mean it.”

“But aren’t we all going to advance anyway?” a gangly boy asked.

“Oh, you’ll get your quarterly experience point all right.” The man crossed his arms. “If you’re careful, you might even get an authenticity point or two, but don’t count on it—the computer has been stingy with those lately. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just keep your mouth shut, smile, and do as you’re told.”

A sallow-faced woman put her hands on her hips. “I thought we were supposed to get presents during the Saturnalia and not have to do any work. I thought this was supposed to be fun.”

“For
them.”
The man’s mouth twisted as though he’d tasted something sour. “Saturnalia is for the rich and powerful, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, and if you’re serious about advancing, you’ll remember that.” Then he noticed Kerickson standing by the door. “You, over there, I suppose you’re that back-ordered bodyguard I’ve been waiting for.”

Startled, Kerickson stared at him.

“Bodyguard.” The man’s mouth tightened. “I applied weeks ago. Are you it or not?”

“Uh, sure.”

Everyone turned around to watch him.

“Then where’s your sword and armor?”

“They—said you would provide them.” Gods, he thought, that sounded lame even to him.

“There goes my budget again,” the man muttered. “Just who does Costuming think they are, anyway? Very well.” He motioned to Kerickson. “I’m Prisius, Head Chamberlain here at the Palace. Let’s have a look at you.” He poked at the muscles in Kerickson’s upper arm, then glanced at his Game bracelet. “Jupiter above! Half a hit point? You’ve got to be kidding! I didn’t even know they came in halves. You won’t last the night! Besides, you’re classified as a freedman, and this is a slave role.” He shook his head. “Well, that’s General Catulus’s problem, not mine.” He snapped his fingers. “Menae, take—” He broke off and turned back to Kerickson. “Your name?”

“Gaius.”

Prisius frowned. “That sounds awfully Roman for a freedman.”

Of course, he should have changed it to something more foreign, Greek or Syrian maybe. Kerickson swallowed hard. “I— went to see the Oracle—you know.”

“Yes, the Oracle, well, that doesn’t say much for your judgment, does it?” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Menae, take Gaius here up to the War Room to General Catulus.”

“Catulus?” The name seemed familiar.

“And, for Venus’s sake, watch yourself.” Prisius sniffed. “He seems to think excess players can be found under rocks or on trees or some such nonsense, when, for the past two years, incoming slaves have been almost nonexistent. I don’t care what he says, I simply refuse to be responsible for finding him another replacement this month if you’re killed before morning.”

* * *

When Pimus showed her to her old room, where she had formerly stayed when on leave from her duties at the temple, Amaelia had to blink back her tears. The golden brazier in the shape of a dog, the immense oak bed, the low green velvet couches—none of it gave her any sense of security. Her hands clenched; it was all a terrible lie. Nothing in this game was safe or secure—she knew that now.

She turned back to her father’s body servant and asked him again. “Are you sure, Pimus?”

The slave stared straight ahead, his long, thin nose pointed liked a direction finder away from her. “Yes, lady, he is really dead, not just killed in the Game.”

Her heart stuttered, then settled down into the dull thudding rhythm it had maintained ever since her so-called “nuptials” earlier that afternoon. She crossed to the flimsy white draperies blowing in the chill winter breeze.

“Shall I close the window for you, lady?”

“What?” She turned back to the slave. “Oh, no—thank you.” The bracing feel of the cold air on her overheated face seemed all that lay between herself and giving in to utter panic. “Were you with him when it happened?”

“No, lady,” Pimus answered, his spare body stiff. “He insisted I go back that morning because he wanted to be alone to think.”

Alone . . . She leaned against the cool marble of the window facing. It was so ridiculous—a person of such high office never went anywhere alone, not even to the bathroom. Assassins lurked around every corner, just waiting for the chance to murder the Emperor and advance themselves in rank. She shuddered. But no one died for real, not here. Game death meant only a trip to the Underworld, then starting over as a slave.

“That will be all, Pimus,” a strong baritone voice said.

“As you wish, master.” Giving her a final, disapproving look, Pimus glided out of the room.

“I can see that I shall have to be more firm with you from now on.” Quintus Gracchus, her official “husband,” blocked the doorway, scattering the hallway light like a halo behind his back. “From now on, you are to have no visitors unless I authorize them. Is that understood?”

“I don’t want to play anymore.” She stared out the window at the glittering spectacle of Rome lit up at night, and wondered for the hundredth time why the Game computer didn’t respond to her requests. “I want to leave!”

“YOU’VE GOT YOURSELF A FINE KETTLE OF FISH IN THIS ONE, MY BOY!” The loud voice reverberated painfully in the enclosed space.

Startled, Amaelia looked up to see a huge red-bearded face grinning down at her from the ceiling.

“Rather more than a kettle, I’d say.” Gracchus’s bronze armor clinked as he crossed the room and seized her by the arm. “For her, I shall sacrifice a bullock and a pair of spotless white doves—no, a whole roomful of doves to you tomorrow for your intercession with the computer!”

“SCREW THE DOVES,” the face said. “WHAT WE WANT AROUND HERE IS SOME BLOOD!”

“And you shall have it!”

Amaelia shivered at the look of fiery passion on Gracchus’s lean face. “What are you talking about?” She struggled, but his fingers only bit more deeply into her flesh. “Why won’t the computer answer me? I want out!”

His hard gray eyes studied her for a second; then his forefinger traced the line of her jaw all the way back to her ear. She flinched.

“As even a proper Roman maiden such as yourself should know, there are ordinary computer programs and then there are programs such as our divine friend here.” His gaze flickered up at the holo.

“I don’t understand.”

“THERE ARE DAMN WELL GOING TO BE SOME CHANGES AROUND HERE.” The holo’s eyes began to shine with a blinding red light. “OR MY NAME ISN’T MARS!”

* * *

The War Room was an anomaly, combining the authentic look of white marble columns and low divans with high-tech banks of vid-screens that took up most of two walls. Kerickson stopped at the door. Inside, five men in pristine white togas studied a huge electronic map covering the third wall.

“I wouldn’t give you
that
for Carthage!” A stocky, silver-haired man snapped his fingers. “Or for Numibia, either!”

“Since you managed to squander two whole legions last month in that ridiculous attempt on the German border, Catulus, I can’t say I’m surprised.” A younger, chicken-necked man pointed at the map. “Of course, what else can you expect when you pay absolutely no attention to the omens? I saw two eagles roosting on top of the Temple of Mars this morning, and now my legions have advanced twenty miles. That should tell you something.”

“It tells me you’re an idiot.” The silver-haired man sniffed. “Britannia will eat those troops alive. Come next year’s Saturnalia, you’ll be so desperate for points that you’ll be scrubbing the public urinals.”

“An occupation that I’m sure you’re more than familiar with—”

Menae slipped between them and bowed her head respectfully.