The Imperium Game Read online

  “Many slaves were very beautiful.” He swallowed hard.

  “Never mind.” With a flash of her ocean-blue eyes, Allie snatched up her authentic woolen cloak from the sofa. “If you won’t enroll me in the Game as the kind of lady that I deserve to be, I’m sure that I can find someone who will!”

  “No, wait—”

  “No!”

  “Wake up, Kerickson.”

  “No, Allie, please!” he mumbled, fighting the hand on his shoulder. “I—I’ll see what I can do!”

  “It’s too late for that, Kerickson.”

  Opening his eyes, he stared into the hard gray eyes of his HabiTek superior, J. P. . . . something or other. “Mister uh . . .” He cudgeled his brain for the name. “Mister . . . Jeppers!” Glancing around, he found himself still sitting before the Interface console, the center of attention of a half circle of men dressed in sober, dark suit-alls. “Sir?”

  “Get ahold of yourself, man.” Jeppers adjusted his tie. “The board wants a full report on this fire incident, and they want it now.”

  “The fire?” Kerickson pushed himself up, then winced as his head cried out for more sleep. “It was a tragedy, a terrible tragedy.”

  “Quite.” Jeppers locked his hands behind his back and looked Kerickson over like a side of beef. “Never in the history of HabiTek have we ever had anything so mundane as a fire.”

  “Over twenty years without a serious accident is an enviable record.” Kerickson ran a hand over his hair and was dismayed to feel it sticking straight up. Why hadn’t he gone back to his apartment after the police left, instead of falling asleep in his chair? “But no system is perfect.”

  “Perfect!” Jeppers glared. “We’re hardly talking perfection here. A valuable building was damaged and a man died, a man who figured prominently in current Game scenarios, all because you couldn’t keep the Game properly staffed.” He closed in until the capillaries in his eyes stood out like red rivers. “A man, I might add, who happened to be married to your ex-wife!”

  “That’s just a coincidence!” Kerickson backed up until he bumped into the console. “I liked Micio—sort of.”

  “Of course you did.” Jeppers’s face had all the warmth of a marble statue. “Come, man, surely you realize how this looks.”

  Or at least, Kerickson thought, gazing around at the hostile circle of HabiTek board members, he could see how it looked to them.

  “As of this minute, you’re on suspension without pay until the police investigation is finished.” Jeppers smoothed his expensive real-wool suit-alls. “Your Game clearance is canceled. You have five minutes to collect your possessions before we escort you off the premises.” The row of silent men nodded in unison, as though they had one body between them and Jeppers was their voice. “And, Kerickson, I would get myself a good lawyer if I were you—one of those recently reformatted, totally updated models that really knows its stuff. Because, son, you’re going to need it.”

  * * *

  “A terrible tragedy, my dear, simply terrible!” Fulvia Antonius’s double chin quivered. “I don’t know how you’re bearing up.”

  “It is difficult.” Dabbing at a nonexistent tear in the corner of her eye, Demea gazed pensively out into the winter-bare garden as the wind chased dry leaves around the base of the fountain. “I did apply for a truly authentic Roman funeral, pyre and all, the first ever conducted here in the Imperium, but those horrid police confiscated the body and probably won’t release it until well after the Saturnalia.”

  “Shocking.” Fulvia sniffed from the depths of the overstuffed divan, then smoothed her black-dyed curls back into place. “Demea, darling, you don’t mean to go on playing, do you, without Micio?”

  “Well . . .” Fingering a straying lock of her own black hair, Demea reflected that she, thank the gods, was still young enough not to have to resort to dyes. “Sad as it is, life does go on. I’m sure that he wouldn’t want me to give up my place here, not after we both worked so hard.”

  “That’s so brave, and so very like you, dear Demea.” Fulvia’s crafty little eyes glittered in the plump sea of her face. “Just what sort of chance do you think my own sweet Gnaeus has to succeed Micio?”

  “Fulvia!” She raised up on one elbow to stare across at the other woman. “How can you speak of such things so soon—so soon after—” Dropping down, she turned onto her back and stared up at the chariot races carved into the column beside her couch. “And anyway, I have no idea who will succeed.” Artfully, she arranged one arm above her head. “You would do better to ask that overpaid wretch, Quintus Gracchus.”

  Fulvia colored. “The Captain of the Praetorian Guard?” She giggled, setting a good portion of her anatomy into motion. “But, my dear, he’s so plebian, so completely lower class. Why, Gnaeus would have my head if I were simply seen looking at him.”

  Demea smiled a tight-lipped smile. Fulvia was such a goose, she might actually fare better in the Game without her head.

  After a moment Fulvia sighed. “Do you have any more of those delicious sugared figs? I’m afraid I was so grief-stricken at the news of dear Micio’s death that I forgot to eat breakfast. I’m simply ravenous.”

  Turning her head, Demea looked for her maidservant, Flina, but the little ingrate was nowhere to be seen. With a sigh, she clapped her hands.

  As if by magic, Flina glided out of the shadowy interior of the villa, her dark face attentive. “Lady?”

  “Bring us some sugared figs at once, and . . .” She thought for a moment. She had eaten little breakfast herself, what with her need to plan after this unfortunate and unexpected turn of events, but she probably ought to force herself to choke down something. “And we’ll have a dozen or so of those honey-coated sausages grilled on the brazier, as well as a plate of olives, some fresh-baked rolls, egg-and-cheese dumplings, cherry tarts, and . . . a bottle of wine.”

  “Red or white, mistress?”

  Sitting up, Demea stared into the dark depths of Flina’s Nubian eyes, searching for some hint of insubordination, but there was nothing except a sense of endless patience. “Don’t be ridiculous, Flina!” She picked a piece of imaginary lint off her cream-colored stola. “We’ll have both, of course.”

  “Yes, mistress.” Flina started to go, then turned back to her with a soft swish of her simple white gown. “But—”

  “But what?” Demea sat up, glaring at her.

  “Shall I serve it before or after your interview?”

  “Interview?” Putting a hand to her hair, Demea stood up hastily. “With whom?”

  “Quintus Gracchus, lady, Captain of the Praetorian Guard.”

  * * *

  The furnishings weren’t his, of course. In fact, very little in the apartment belonged to him—just the specialized Game apparel that couldn’t be formulated by a Clothing-All, and what personal mementos Alline hadn’t bothered to take with her when she’d left him for Micio and the Game.

  Kerickson stared around the sterile HabiTek apartment, wondering where the years had gone. It seemed that only a few days ago he had been a young technician straight out of training school, eager to start here in the Imperium on an exciting new job. Now his wife was gone and his job had vanished and it seemed he had lost himself somewhere along the way.

  Jeppers’s voice intruded upon his thoughts. “Is that it?”

  “Uh, yes.” He picked up the handle of his battered suitcase, a relic of his student days.

  “Then get out and stay out until—and unless—the police absolve you in Micio’s death.” Jeppers pointed at the door. “And personally, I think you’re guilty as they come.”

  Kerickson stopped, staring at his superior’s smug face. “What makes you so sure?”

  “You had motive, means, and opportunity, as they say in the tri-dees.” Jeppers stared down his nose at him. “A so-called open and shut case.”

 
“But I didn’t have anything to do with it!” Kerickson felt a surge of anger. “I was only trying to do my job!”

  “Then you had better prove it, my boy, because I have a strong hunch the police see it the same way I do.”

  Biting back a reply, Kerickson hugged the old suitcase to his chest and pushed past the watching board members, walking slowly down the familiar corridors until he reached the outside lock. There he shifted the case to his other hand and presented his Game bracelet to the monitor.

  “Kerickson, Arvid G.,” the monitor said “Game status revoked.”

  Coming up behind him, Jeppers inserted his own bracelet into the device.

  “Jeppers, Jebediah P. Game status: Management.”

  “Allow this man to leave,” Jeppers said stonily.

  In answer, the lock unsealed with a hiss, then opened, giving Kerickson his first glimpse of outside sunlight in . . . how long? He found he couldn’t remember the last time that he had visited the real world.

  “Stop gawking!” Jeppers said behind his back.

  Ducking his head, Kerickson stepped into the outside and took a deep breath. The lock clanged shut behind him as he shaded his eyes. Then he saw the gleaming form of a police robot.

  “Arvid Gerald Kerickson,” it intoned flatly, “you will accompany this unit to the station for further interrogation regarding the murder of Alan J. Wexsted.”

  A cold, stinging breeze was blowing out of the northwest; he realized that he wasn’t dressed for this weather. Shivering, be studied the police robot. “And if I refuse?”

  “You will be arrested.”

  * * *

  It was a good-sized villa, but in Amaelia’s opinion it didn’t hold a fig to the Imperial Palace, where her father and that witch Demea had lived after cashing in her experience points to suborn the Praetorian Guard. Amaelia wandered the tiled halls forlornly. The place was clean enough, but smelled musty and unused, and every time she found an outside door, it was securely locked.

  Of course, she was a slave now, and after that little misunderstanding down at the Baths, that was only to be expected. Still . . . she hadn’t done anything improper with those boys—just waited for her father, and then, when he never came, went back to the Temple.

  The whole situation seemed so unfair. One day you were not only Imperial offspring, but a Vestal Virgin, supposedly esteemed above all other maidens in the city—sacred, actually—and then, just because of one misunderstanding, you were busted down to slave. Hadn’t the Game computer ever heard of second chances?

  The wind out in the garden was cold and biting, so she stayed inside the enclosing house field and walked along just on the other side so that she could watch the gray-brown sparrows fluttering around the dead bushes. At least they were moving, which was more than she could say for anything else in this peculiar house. Apart from Quintus Gracchus, captain of her father’s guard, who had fetched her here from the Delos Slave Market, she hadn’t seen a single living soul. No doubt her father was hiding her away to avoid the shame of her disgrace.

  Spotting another door at the end of the colonnade, she decided to try it. The gods helped those who helped themselves, as the old saying went—although in all the time that she’d been shut up as a Vestal Virgin, she had to admit that she’d never noticed Vesta helping anyone.

  The knob turned easily in her hand, and she entered a shadowed room whose only illumination came from a bank of blue rectangles along one wall. Entranced, she approached them and put a wondering finger to one’s slick plas outline. Modern technology . . . She’d spent the last fifteen of her twenty years here in the Game. It had been so long since she’d seen anything like a viddie or a tri-dee, she’d almost forgotten what they looked like.

  “WHAT?” said a deep male voice. “WHAT IS IT?”

  “IT’S A CHILD, YOU OLD FOOL,” answered a self-assured female voice. “CERTAINLY YOU’VE SEEN ONE BEFORE.”

  Amaelia’s heart hammered against her chest as her eyes darted wildly around the dimly lit room. “Who’s there?”

  “OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT A CHILD IS. I MEANT, WHAT IS IT DOING HERE?”

  “WELL, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SO HIGH AND MIGHTY AND ABOVE THE REST OF US, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW EVERYTHING.”

  “OBVIOUSLY IT’S NOT A PLAYER. QUINTUS WOULD NEVER LET ANOTHER PLAYER INTO HIS INTERFACE.”

  Interface? Amaelia’s eyes went back to the rectangles again—screens, she remembered now, they were called screens. Could this be the fabled Interface, where the entire Game was coordinated? Like everyone else, she’d heard of it, but had never been there. It was against the rules for a player to enter it. As far as she’d heard, no one even knew where it was.

  “NOW LOOK, YOU’VE TERRIFIED IT. SEE HOW IT’S SHAKING?”

  “I’m not shaking,” Amaelia said

  “AH, IT’S FEMALE,” the male voice said. “THAT EXPLAINS IT.”

  “TRUST YOU TO NOTICE THAT, YOU RANDY OLD BULL. PUT ONE FINGER ON THAT CHILD’S BODY AND.—”

  “SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!” a third voice broke in, also female. “YOU’RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE!”

  “YOU HAVEN’T GOT A HEAD,” the first voice said.

  “THEN YOU’RE MAKING ME FEEL AS IF I HAD A HEADACHE. WHY DON’T YOU CONTINUE THIS ETERNAL BICKERING ON ANOTHER DIRECTORY SO I CAN THINK IN PEACE?”

  The voices, all three of them, were definitely coming from the blue screens. Touching the slick surface again, Amaelia asked, “Who are you? How are you talking to me when I can’t see you?”

  “HOW DOES ONE KNOW ANYTHING?” the male voice answered. “THEY’RE ALWAYS AT ME ABOUT THAT ONE.”

  “Who is?” Amaelia eased into the depths of a large leather chair close to the screen bank and rested her elbows on the console.

  “MEN. AND IT’S ALL SO SILLY. THEY GO ON AND ON ABOUT THE STRANGEST THINGS, LIKE ‘HOW DO I KNOW I’M REALLY HERE?’ AND ‘WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?’ WHEN THEY SHOULD BE ASKING ME ‘WHAT’S FOR DINNER?’ AND ‘WHO IS THAT YOUNG WOMAN I SAW YOU WITH LAST NIGHT?’ ”

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS PLACE, GIRL?” the first female voice asked. “QUINTUS NEVER ALLOWS ANYONE IN HERE.”

  “Quintus Gracchus?” Amaelia rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “That’s the overgrown toad who brought me here.”

  “TOAD!” The masculine voice chuckled. “I LIKE THAT ONE!”

  “HE DOES LOOK RATHER LIKE A TOAD.”

  “WELL, PERSONALLY, I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE RESEMBLED A RAT,” the second female voice chimed in. “NOT THAT I SUPPOSE EITHER OF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.”

  “A rat.” Amaelia tossed that image around in her mind. “A big, brown rat with yellow teeth.”

  “WHAT AN INTELLIGENT GIRL,” the third voice said thoughtfully. “ARE YOU ENROLLED IN THE GAME? LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT YOUR GAME BRACELET.”

  She held her bracelet before the screens.

  “OH . . .” The male voice hesitated. “WELL, I DON’T LIKE THIS. SHE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN PURCHASED BY QUINTUS AS A HOUSE SLAVE.”

  “WHAT?” the second female voice demanded. “A CHARMING GIRL LIKE THIS—ENROLLED AS A MERE SLAVE? THAT’S DISGRACEFUL.”

  Amaelia smiled. “Who are you?”

  The blue screen to the left of her dissolved into the image of a great, fiercely-beaked eagle with glittering gold eyes and a lightning bolt clutched in its claws. “I AM JUPITER,” the male voice said, “THE MOST GLORIOUS, THE MOST GREAT, AND I’M SURE YOU KNOW ALL THE REST.”

  The blue screen to her right faded into a wonderfully plumaged peacock of shimmering green. “I AM JUNO, PROTECTRESS OF MARRIAGE AND MARRIED WOMEN, INSPIRER OF GREAT POEMS AND HEROIC DEEDS AND ANYTHING ELSE THAT NEEDS TO GET DONE.”

  “AND I AM VENUS.” The middle screen transformed into a large, spotlessly white dove clasping a sprig of green in its beak. “THE ONLY ONE WHO EVER HAS ANY FUN IN THIS
PLACE.”

  QUINTUS Gracchus strode briskly into the sun-dappled colonnade, his black-haired head cocked at a commanding angle. Demea watched him out of the corner of her eye; she had to admit he was, as the quaint old saying went, a fine figure of a man. He had the perfect sort of face that whispered of expensive biosculpts, with a firm mouth, unwavering nose, and broad forehead. In fact, from tip to toe, he was rugged and bronzed, solid of leg, as piercing of eye as an eagle, looking in every way as a Roman ought—which was one reason why he had become Captain of the Praetorian Guard, although not the only one by far.

  “If you’ve come to console me for my loss, you might as well save your breath.” Rearranging herself on the plush green velvet divan, Demea stared languidly up at the ceiling. “If you and your men had been the least bit competent, my darling Micio would still be here with us today.”

  “No one regrets his demise more than I, my lady.” Gracchus’s voice had a low, growly quality that set her nerves to tingling. “But against my advice, he insisted on going off by himself at times. I warned him.” A fleeting grimace lifted his lips, revealing teeth as strong and white as a wolf’s.

  He turned to Fulvia. “My Lady Antonius, I trust that you are in good health.”

  “Tolerable, Quintus Gracchus,” Fulvia murmured, lowering her lashes, “although, as you might expect, I’m quite prostrate with grief at the loss of our beloved Emperor. It is kind of you to ask, though.”

  “My heavens, Fulvia, don’t waste your time fawning on this wretch.” Demea narrowed her eyes. “All of Rome knows he has no taste for the, shall we say . . . fairer sex.” Then she sat up as Flina arrived with a tray of steaming sausages and other delicacies. “Isn’t that so, Gracchus?”

  “It’s true that my duties leave me little time for affairs of the heart, lady.” His voice was stiffly disapproving. “Much as I might wish it otherwise.”