‘Your… your last registered user is no longer authorized to issue you commands. Is… is that understood?’
The clone nodded. ‘You will need to provide me with a system password before I accept that as a command protocol.’
‘Of course. Of course.’ Rashim frowned for a moment. Long enough that Maddy felt her heart sink. He’s forgotten. Perhaps not surprising given that his hacking of these support units happened so many years ago.
‘Ahh… yes!’ Rashim slapped his head several times. ‘… I… I have it. I have it!’
‘Please state your password,’ the Stone Man calmly repeated.
‘The pass… the password is Patrick Starfish?’
The Stone Man’s eyes glinted by candlelight as his head slowly swivelled down to regard Rashim. ‘Your password is correct and accepted.’
‘I am your user now,’ muttered Rashim.
The clone nodded. ‘That is correct.’
‘And these people are my… friends. Protect them.’
It looked up from Rashim at the others, a smooth, cool sweep of machine-like eyes. ‘Affirmative.’
Rashim giggled. Pleased with himself. ‘Transmit your updated status and accepted password to your friend… over there.’ It nodded and began blinking rapidly. A moment later, the other Stone Man stirred to life and swept the chamber with its gaze.
Rashim turned to look at the others and spread a gummy smile. ‘Our friends now. Yes indeed.’
The oak doors suddenly rattled under the impact of something outside; the locking bar jumped as a vertical thread of light from outside appeared momentarily between them.
‘They’ve found us,’ said Bob.
Maddy looked at him then the others. ‘Well, that’s just fantastic
… now we really are trapped!’
CHAPTER 75
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
‘NO!’ shouted Rashim. He pointed to the ground. Dropped down to his knees and spread his fingers on the floor, caressing the stone almost tenderly. ‘Below… I hear it whisper… every night! My ocean… in my world!’
Cato looked at Maddy. ‘What is that mad fool saying now?’
She shook her head. He was talking in English. Gibberish. Might as well have been in Mongolian.
Rashim rolled his eyes with frustration. ‘Water, you fools! Dripping water!’ And again in Latin for Cato and Macro’s benefit.
‘Of course!’ Cato dropped down to his knees. ‘Running water!’ He looked up. ‘A network of sewers beneath the palace! Somewhere beneath this floor… we just need to dig — ’
‘Dig?’ Macro shrugged. ‘With what?’
The oak doors boomed and rattled again, more insistently this time. ‘They are using a battering ram,’ said Bob. ‘These doors will not last for long.’
Cato pulled his gladius from its sheath and dug the tip of the blade into the hairline seam between the stone tiles. With a soft crack, the clay cementing the tile gave up its hold and the tile dislodged with a puff of dust and grit. ‘Come on, Macro! Help me!’
Macro produced his sword, knelt down and did likewise, both of them gouging at the floor frantically.
‘Help them!’ said Rashim, pointing. ‘Dig… dig us a hole!’
Both Stone Men chorused an ‘affirmative’, produced their own blades and joined in hacking into the tiles.
The doors boomed again, accompanied by the sound of cracking wood. Bob braced his back against the doors, supporting the locking bar with his own substantial weight. ‘We will not have long,’ he cautioned.
Maddy looked at Liam. ‘How are you doing?’
He grinned. ‘Not so bad. Getting used to the sting now.’
‘That’s good,’ she whispered and smiled. ‘We’re getting out of here, you know.’
Cato dug frantically at the dried clay floor beneath the dislodged tiles, his sword gouging out fist-sized chunks, rust-red and crumbly. The four of them quickly had a crater three foot across and several uneven inches deep. He cursed under his breath. ‘How deep do we have to dig?’
‘Water… down there!’ hissed Rashim. ‘Beneath our feet, yes? I hear it every night!’
Sal picked up a candle and headed towards the piles of dusty equipment.
‘Where you going, Sal?’ called out Maddy.
She pointed at the piles of artefacts on the floor. ‘Maybe there’s something we can use from over there?’
‘Sure, uh… OK, go look.’
The chamber filled again with the sound of a deep boom and the crack of surrendering oak; hairline fissures of light stretched up and down each door.
‘You must dig faster,’ suggested Bob.
Cato peered down at the rust-coloured clay. His sword tip was hitting and sparking on stone again. Another layer. By the flickering candle nearby he could see little. Desperately he scrabbled with his fingers, feeling for another seam to wedge the tip of his blade into.
Sal squatted down next to the pile of things. Her hands pulled at the threads and edges of half-seen things: clothes, shoes, glasses, boots… a child’s toy, the dark and cracked touch-screen of a long-dead holo-data pad. But nothing remotely useful.
Come on… come on!
The cavernous chamber boomed again.
She thrust her hand deeper into the piles of things, fumbling, patting, pulling, feeling for something that might help them. Her index finger caught in something and wrenched painfully as she struggled to twist her finger free.
It scraped out of something. A hole. She pulled clothes and boots aside until she found herself staring at a small iron grille in the floor. She could hear it, coming up through the grille, the unmistakable soft trickle of water.
That’s what Rashim had heard. That’s where the noise had been coming from!
‘Over here!’ she cried. ‘Over here! There’s a grille!’
The men looked up from their digging, a moment’s hesitation — no more. Not a clue between them as to what she was saying. She wished she had one of those buds. ‘Shadd-yah, Maddy! Tell them! There’s like a sewage grating or something! Right here!’
Maddy did, and both Romans were out of their shallow crater and beside her moments later.
Once again Cato used the tip of his sword and levered the iron grille out of the floor. Macro helped him, grunting as, between them, they slid it to one side.
‘That’s it,’ said Cato, leaning over the small hole and peering down into the darkness. The faintest reflection of candlelight glinted back at him. The foul smell of rancid effluent was overpowering.
‘Oh, that’s it all right,’ said Macro, curling his lips in disgust.
The doors boomed again and this time a strip of oak from the left-hand door clattered on to the tiled floor.
Cato picked out the shape of Maddy near the doors, a comforting arm around Liam. ‘You! You two, come here!’
Maddy helped Liam to his feet and they both came over.
‘This sewage aqueduct, you have to follow the direction of the flow!’ said Cato. ‘It leads to the river.’
She nodded. ‘OK.’
‘You should go now.’ He glanced at the doors. ‘They’ll be through soon enough.’
Maddy nodded. She turned to Sal. ‘Can you help Rashim down?’
‘Right.’
