Free Ides of March (Time Patrol) by Bob Mayer Page B

to obliterate us and everyone we know, and everyone we love, from existence.
    “We fight against things like the Valkyries and the kraken and double-agents and whatever else is sent against us. We defeated Fireflies and shut Rifts as Nightstalkers. We’ve stopped the folly of man destroying our own world with nuclear weapons.”
    She paused and looked at Eagle to finish, filling Nada’s void.
    He cleared his throat. “We are here because the best of intentions can go horribly awry and the worst of intentions can achieve exactly what it sets out to do. It is often the noblest scientific inquiry that can produce the end of us all. We are here because we are the last defense when the desire to do right turns into a wrong. We are here because mankind advances through trial and error. Because nothing man does is ever perfect. And we are ultimately here because there are things out there, beyond mankind’s current knowledge level, which man must be guarded against until we can understand those things, as we finally understood the Rifts and the Fireflies and our role in that. We must remember this.”
    Moms finished. “Can we all live with that?”
     
     
     

The Missions Phase I
     
     
    Rome, Roman Empire, 44 B.C.
     
     
    MOMS WASN’T THERE AND THEN she was there, but she’d sort of always been there. It was the best way to explain how she arrived, becoming part of her current time and place without fanfare or excitement among those around her. She was in the bubble of this day, not before, and hopefully she wouldn’t be here afterward.
    Moms held a warm liver above her head in supplication, dark blood oozing around her fingers, running down her arms into her armpits.
    She held it until given the order by the only other person in the chamber, an old woman.
    “Put it down, Amata,” the woman said.
    It is 44 B.C. Pharaoh Cleopatra VII (yeah, that one) is hanging out in one of Caesar’s country homes, causing a scandal; Comosicus succeeds Burebista as King of Dacia; duck decoys made of reeds are hidden in a cave in what would later become Lovelock, Nevada. Average life expectancy is thirty, but if a child made it to ten, then add another 37.5, making the expectancy 47.5.
    Moms had blood on her hands.
    Some things change; some don’t.
    Moms put the liver down on a silver tray. The old woman walked around the dais, leaning heavily on a cane.
    She leaned over and poked at the liver with a finger. “See that?”
    “Yes,” Moms lied.
    “Ah!” the old woman hissed. “I told Caesar to beware the Ides. But this? This is different.”
    “Different how, Spurinna?” Moms asked.
    The old woman continued to poke and prod the liver. “Marc Antony. He must do his duty and save mighty Caesar today, since I fear my warning will not be heeded. It is Marc Antony’s destiny. He must be told.” And then she looked up, gazed into Moms’ eyes. “And you are not an Amata.”
    Spurinna snatched the sacrificial knife and held it to Moms’ throat.
    That didn’t take long , Moms thought, noting that the old woman’s hand was shaking and there wasn’t any strength behind the blade. She could disarm the old woman quite easily, as knife to throat counter-move was one of the first things taught in close quarters combat, but Moms wasn’t sure what Spurinna’s angle was and she needed to find out. If she were a Shadow agent, why didn’t she try to cut? If she was a Time Patrol agent, she was being cautious. And if she were what she appeared to be, then what was going on?
    “I am who I am,” Moms said, opting for vague.
    “I told them to send me someone,” Spurinna said. “Someone pure. You are not pure.”
    She had a point there , Moms allowed. “I am supposed to be here. Now.” More vague on top of vague, with a sprinkling of an opening if Spurinna were her contact. And the knife was bothering her, so she moved fast, snatching it out of Spurinna’s hands before the old woman could react.
    Moms twirled the blade. “Good