Free TimeRiders 05 - Gates of Rome by Alex Scarrow

use computers and the Internet better. Maddy assured them there really was a book entitled
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the World Wide Web
, that she wasn’t just being rude.
    ‘Do you know what I think?’ said Sal. ‘This is going to sound like I’m a complete
fakirchana
-head. But …’ She took a breath. ‘I think that tunic might be
Foster’s
!’
    Maddy chewed her lip anxiously. Perhaps this was the right time to share what the old man had told her. Sal was so close to the truth … in a way. Secrets. She hated keeping them, particularly this one. It stank.
    ‘Sal … we need to talk about Liam.’
    Sal looked at her sharply. ‘What? What is it?’
    ‘He’s … well, he’s not who you think he is.’
    Sal looked shaken. ‘What?! What do you mean? Who is he?’
    ‘Let’s go get a coffee. Right now.’
    ‘Maddy! Tell me!’ She looked upset. No.
Frightened
. ‘Who is he!?’
    ‘I need a coffee first.’ Maddy realized she was trembling. Her legs felt like they were set to give way on her and she felt queasy enough to hurl chunks on to the pavement. ‘I need to sit down, Sal. I really need to. I need to gather my thoughts … and I need a freakin’ coffee.’

CHAPTER 14
AD 37, 16 miles north-east of Rome
    He found himself staring up at a cloudless blue sky. A rich, deep blue like the skies one used to see in old images from the beginning of the twenty-first century. Quite different from the perpetual discoloured cloud cover of 2070: the turbulent, sulphurous acid rain clouds, the ever-present smog above cities and refugee shanty towns.
    Quite beautiful.
    Rashim could feel the warmth of the sun on his face. Hear the whisper of a fresh, untainted breeze gently stirring the branches and leaves of trees nearby.
    Is this Heaven?
    He realized that was a pleasing notion. That Project Exodus had gone disastrously wrong, that every translation candidate including himself had died – torn to pieces by extra-dimensional forces – and this … this was the afterlife. His uncle, an imam, had once taken him aside and tried to describe what Allah’s Paradise would be like. It had sounded like this. And he’d scoffed at the man’s faith.
    Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is a God.
    And that pleasant illusion could have lasted a while longer, lying there on his back and enjoying the deep blue above him, if it hadn’t been for the stirring of others all around him. It seemed like they’d managed to do it. They survived the jump.
    With a weary sigh, Rashim slowly lifted himself up on to his elbows and looked around.
    They were right on the flat ground of the receiver station, a field of swaying, olive-coloured grass. In the distance the glint of a gently meandering river and hills beyond that.
    The correct location all right. But he couldn’t see any sign of the four receiver beacons, ten-foot-tall tripods with an equipment platform at the top of each one. Each one marking a corner of ground space the exact same size as the translation grid back in the Cheyenne Mountain facility.
    He got to his feet, hooding his eyes from the sun. No sign of them. Rashim cursed.
    We’ve overshot the snap range.
    ‘Where is this? Where
are
we?’
    Rashim turned to his right. The corporal was standing beside him. ‘Where the hell is this?’
    ‘Where this is, is near Rome. But I’m not sure precisely
when
it is. The receiver station was deployed ahead of us in AD 54,’ Rashim continued, more thinking aloud than answering the corporal’s question. ‘They should be right here, dammit, but I can’t see any of the beacons.’
    ‘ AD 54 …?’ The man rubbed his temples as if trying to push the idea into his head. ‘You mean like the year 54? Like fifty-four years after Jesus Christ?’
    Rashim nodded distractedly. ‘Only this isn’t. I can only guess this is some time before then. We’ve overshot the destination time. This is further back in time.’
    Rashim completed his three-sixty survey. The field was peppered with