Gratus’s chin quivered, and he felt hot tears pool in his eyes. This man was equally his poisoner and benefactor. It sickened even as weak a man as Valerius Gratus that he had come to be in thrall to as cold a master as this. With shaking hand, he dipped a stylus in a pot of ink.
“Say on,” he whispered and placed the quill upon the vellum.
11
Another Time, Another Place
“Blue City, Station One in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to Station One, Blue City.”
The loudspeakers in each car repeated the message again in Gallic and then in high German.
The train was passing through a tunnel bored through the base of the mountains for ten leagues in length. The last tunnel before the Blue City. Samuel sat alone in his seat and looked at his ebon reflection in the glass. He chose the late train because he knew it would be mostly empty. The risk was greater traveling at this time, there was no sheltering anonymity of a crowd and his singularity might call attention to itself. But it also made it easier to spot pursuit, and he knew that there were many assigned to hunt him here.
A book lay open but unread on his knee. The Rise of Cnossus in Empire II. It was a boring tome, but germane to the task at hand. Cnossus was proclaimed emperor in 1583 A.U.C. Born of a Roman father and a Dalmatian mother, the reign of Cnossus and his heirs marked almost three centuries of decline. This dark period led directly to the Third Republic, which remained in place for over a millennium, until it was replaced in a violent coup, followed by a series of military tyrants.
The world was more ordered now. Nationality had been erased in the West. The cities had been renamed using colors to eradicate any sense of heritage or fealty to past associations of race or heritage. The world was now one without the silly contrivances that had held mankind back before the Age of Science.
You became a citizen either by birth or by bribe. And if you were not a citizen, you were nothing. And you would serve in the mines, fields, and factories that remained out of sight and mind of the citizens in their gleaming cities of steel and glass.
Samuel turned from his reflection to see a man watching him. The man was seated ten rows from Samuel on the opposite side of the car’s center aisle. He turned away after holding Samuel’s gaze for a heartbeat. It could be nothing. Samuel studied the man. The watcher was in dark clothing of fine fabric, A crimson collar encircling his throat. A patrician then, an older man with deep creases in his face that told the truth of his age while the black-dyed hair atop his head was little more than a vain attempt to extend his youth.
Despite his age, he appeared to be a hard man. Perhaps he earned his way into his class in the military or the guard. He was certainly not born to it. Samuel could tell that by the large rough hands resting on the man’s knees.
It was either professional or idle interest that made the man concerned with him. Samuel turned away for a moment. When he turned back, the man was watching him once again, boldly appraising Samuel and not caring that his subject was aware of it. It could still be the professional interest that a lawman takes in everyone he sees. And in the nearly empty car, Samuel was naturally a target for appraisal.
Samuel had planned to get off the train at Station Three, closer to his intended target area deep in the heart of the city. But he would alter that and get off at the next stop to see if the hard man followed.
The train emerged from the tunnel and rose toward the starlight of towers at the city center. Tallest of these was the Castra, the stolid block rising eighty stories above the streets and housing the guardsmen who enforced the will of the current tyrant, Hiram Galba. The towers were limned in blue to acknowledge the name of the city in lights. This was the Blue City. In Civitatem Hyacintho. The Castra gleamed darkly with a deeper hue of indigo neon in homage to the uniform of the guard.
The elevated tracks spanned over the low rooftops of plebian homes set in orderly grids about the center. The streets below were dark now. After curfew traffic was restricted to state-approved vehicles only. Samuel regretted his decision to take this later train. Better if he had joined the early morning crush in the Red City the day before in order to arrive here as just another faceless traveler in the mob.
The train slowed as it glided into the shelter of the station. It came to a full stop and set itself down with a metallic rasp as the magnetic field that supported and propelled it was powered down. He waited until the arrival in Station One had been announced a third time before leaping from his seat for the exit furthest from his watcher.
He sensed rather than saw the watcher rise to follow. The few passengers who had gotten off were already making their way to the escalators that would take them down to the street. This was a fully automated station. No officials were in sight. And, thankfully, no guardsmen either. Samuel walked swiftly from the train and crossed the platform to slide his plastic travel pass over the sensor at the exit kiosk.
The kiosk’s speaker beeped. The circular datum screen lit up to inform him that he was exiting in error. His pass was for travel to Station Three, Blue City as his final destination. The bars of the exit kiosk remained closed. He ran the pass over the sensor again. The screen blinked and reiterated its original message. The
