He heard Greg sniffing and knew the younger man was weeping. He wanted to cry himself and he bit down on his trembling lip. He might be twenty-one and a Marine, but this was something he simply couldn’t wrap his mind around. He’d known he might be sent into harm’s way and had accepted that. He’d received training for that. But going back in time two thousand years? No, he couldn’t wrap his brain around it and he also knew about the incredible violence of this time.
“Guys, there’s a light up ahead,” Dean’s voice was soft and shook.
“Dammit, there’s no way out,” Marco cursed.
“What are we gonna do now?” Greg asked.
“Shit, let me think,” Thad said and stopped. He ran a shaky hand over his face. The men gathered closely around him, though he couldn’t see their faces. He was sure they reflected the same fear and confusion his own face held. They were all younger than him, Dean and Marco only by a few months.
“We’re Marines, we’re warriors and we’ve been trained to fight,” he said and someone grabbed his arm.
“We’re gonna fight our way out of here?” Dean hissed.
“No, we can’t. Let’s find our way to someone, anyone and we say that we’re here to see the gladiators. We came down and we got lost. I can do the talking and maybe we can talk our way out of the Colosseum,” Thad said, his hand crushing his ID card and he felt it bite into the palm of his hand, which was sweaty and cold.
“If we can get out of here, then what?” Marco asked softly.
“I don’t know. I think we’re seriously screwed. I think we’ve gone back in time two thousand years and I don’t know what that means for foreigners,” Thad said.
“I think we should just take it one plan at a time. First, let’s get the hell out of here,” Dean said and there was a grunt of acknowledgement and agreement among them.
“Okay, get rid of your ID cards first and if you have credit cards and photos in your wallets, tear them up. Destroy anything from the future. If we can get back to the future, it can all be replaced. If we stay here, there’s no way to explain it and I sure as shit don’t want to be tortured for answers,” Thad said.
He heard the men around him moving and he squatted and felt the ground. There was dirt and he scraped it aside and put his ID under the dirt and covered it.
“The floor has dirt, see if you can bury your stuff,” he suggested. Standing, he felt inside his other pockets and found money, paper money and coins.
“You guys think we should keep the money?” he asked.
“I don’t think they had paper money during this time. Maybe keep the coins and we bury the paper stuff,” Marco said.
Squatting again, Thad moved the earth and laid out the bills. He smoothed the dirt into place and stood. He wiped at his face, which was damp from fear and stress.
“We ready?” Marco asked and shifted.
“Yeah, but I want to apologize again. I think I fucked us up,” Dean said. There was a heavy silence and then Greg spoke.
“We’re all we have now and if we can’t make it back to our own time, we have to stick together. We all made a choice to come down here and we did. We all screwed up and if we can’t get back, we gotta figure this stuff out,” Greg said softly.
“He’s right, if we can’t find our way out of this, then we’re all we have,” Marco said.
“Okay, did everyone get rid of your future stuff, except for coins?” Thad asked. A soft chorus of yes met his ears. They all moved and began to walk forward. There were more sounds and ahead, they could see people moving about. There were scores of torches that lit the labyrinth below the earth and the sounds of cheers were muffled but penetrated the rocks. The men were slowly moving forward, dread in every line of their bodies. They didn’t speak as Thad led the way.
A man, dressed in pale robes and a deep blue swath of cloth transecting his tunic stopped. He was holding some kind of book or tablet in his arm. He was standing under a torch and seemed to be reading. Their movement must have caught his attention because he paused and looked up and then over at them. The Marines were now roughly twenty feet away from the man.
Thad scrutinized him as the man did the same. He was an older man, though with the flickering light, it was difficult to tell. He had short cropped hair that appeared iron gray and thinning. He was clean shaven and he was broad across the shoulders and had heavy jowls. Thad advanced, the men behind him. His back was ramrod straight; he didn’t want to look like a coward or a slave to this man before him. Something about the man’s bearing and clothing told Thad that he wasn’t a slave, or at least wasn’t a lowly slave.
The man turned his body and he faced Thad and his friends. Though the man was of a good size, Thad and the others were taller, even Dean. They now had his full attention and Thad could now see many slaves behind the older man, working and moving people, equipment and cages with animals. He could hear the squeaking of wood against wood somewhere nearby.
“Who are you and what are you doing
