Chapter 18
The Grid spat me out in the worst possible place I could have been. I hurtled into a dirt ground, and bounced once before taking some poor sop down with me. Moving quickly, I rolled off of whoever I had gotten a bowling strike on and took stock of my surroundings.
I picked up my book on Dirt, and noticed a man clothed in rather old armor staring at me in surprise. He had deep brown eyes that were almost black, and they seemed to pierce into my soul. His mouth was locked into a scowl, which I didn’t take to be a good sign.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, he certainly didn’t look very happy. “How have you gotten here?” he asked, anger creasing his features as he drew a sword.
I held up my hands in the universal gesture of peace. “Sorry for taking this dude out. Ah…can I speak to Julius Caesar?”
He jumped forward, his sword slashing at me. I managed to get my hand in the way, and the sword shattered on my glove. He stared at me with interest. “Have you been sent here by Jupiter?”
I scratched my head. “Who’s that? Look, I just need to speak with someone called Julius Caesar… can you take me to him?”
He glared at me. “You don’t know who I am, or who Jupiter is? I have to say, you’re hardly worthy of my blade. But seeing that you have managed to destroy it, you are rather strange. For what purpose do you need to speak with the great Julius Caesar?”
I rolled my eyes. “I want a salad.”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing, nothing. It’s somewhat personal. Let’s just say I need his talents, ok?”
The man seemed to think for a moment, and then walked over to the soldier I had one hit KO’d. He felt his pulse, and when he was satisfied, stood up. “My name is Julius Caesar. Tell me what business you have with me, and then surrender so I do not have to spill the blood of a fool.”
I almost choked. This half bald dick was the general that the Unknown Man wanted me to work with? I quickly opened my book and leafed through several pages to find his chapter. Sure enough, a matching portrait of him graced the page. I sighed.
“I need you to be my general.”
He stared at me in surprise for a few moments, and then burst into laughter. Several minutes later, he wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Who are you to be a commander to Rome’s greatest general?”
“Rome? I’ve never heard of that place. Look bud, I need generals to lead my army. I know this is out of the Neptune and such but I really need your help. Look, what if I gave you something you could really use?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What could the likes of you ever offer me?”
I held up my book. “How about your future?”
His eyes narrowed. “You tell me that the strange box you have is an oracle?”
“Ah…sure? Although it’s a book, not an oracle.”
He snatched the book from my hand, and stared at the picture of himself. “What is this gibberish? I cannot read this. What language have you written this in?”
I chuckled. “That’s a language that can only be learned by speech. After you hear it for a little, you can understand any language, and speak it adequately as well. How else do you think I can speak the same language you do?”
“There are lands Rome has not conquered yet?”
This time it was my time to roar with laughter. “Definitely. If you come with me, I can show you them.”
The other smirked. “Right. Can you prove this to me?”
I grinned. “I was waiting for something like that. I’ll show you the fall of this Rome of yours. It shouldn’t be too hard to find in here…just give me a little time.”
I sat down and began scanning through the book. Sure enough, soon after the book introduced Julius Caesar, it went into the downfall of Rome. “Ah, here we go…The Fall of Rome.”
I read through the chapter, and began laughing. “Your ‘Rome’ really got smashed. I can barely list the amount of ways you bozos screwed up on two hands! Let’s see… we have inflation, internal conflict, economical depression, angry mobs, religions, and hell, you even got poisoned by the stuff you ate out of!”
Julius Caesar gaped at me. “You lie! How can you prove this to me?”
I shrugged. “I’ll take you there, but you cannot interfere with anything that happens. Oh, and if it turns out that I’m right, then you have to come with me and be one of my generals.”
Caesar dropped into deep thought. “As you’ve seen, I have some strange abilities. One of them would allow me to bring you back here from the very moment that you leave, so that you will never even be missed.”
He finally nodded. “Very well, I agree to your terms. Show me this so called fall of Rome!”
I activated the Grid, and we were both gone.
We re-appeared in a date that is classified to the general public (Because nobody actually knows it, so be quiet.)
Julius Caesar and I were both tossed onto the top of a large building, and we looked down onto the chaos under us. A mob of scantily clad men and women armed with makeshift axes and spears rushed across the city, hacking anything in their way to pieces.
“Where is my army?” Julius cried, watching the blow scene in horror.
I pointed off into the distance, where small pockets of men attempted vainly to hold off the enormous mob. Many of them turned tail and ran on the battle, but none made it far.
Caesar shook his head sadly. “I’m not even going to try claiming that I’m dreaming or that you’re using some false magic to trick me. I’m not a fool, I can tell for myself that this is as real as I am. As per your terms, I will serve as your general for a war of your choosing. Shall we be off now?”
Opening the book, I found the next highlighted name. “Not quite yet. I’ve got one more visit to make.”
I activated the Grid once more, thinking briefly about how mad Lilly would be at me for wasting so many Leaps, and then zoomed in on the dates. I scrolled to 1915, and stepped into the circle, and Caesar and I were gone once again.
When we resurfaced on Dirt, we were standing in a thin hall. Caesar looked around in confusion.
“Where are we? And what are these stick shaped items on the walls?”
I glanced over at the gun display he was talking about. “Those are guns. You’re going to get to know one of those pretty soon. We’re looking for someone called Patton. George Patton. This looks to be some type of school, so let me see if he’s anywhere near here.”
I read the biography of George Patton in the handy book that The Unknown Man had given me, and nodded. “Yeah, I think this is the place. I figure this is the West Point that my book talks about. I wonder if there is an East Point…no matter. We should try to find him without running into anyone else, these people probably won’t take kindly to some dude dressed up in bed sheets and pieces of trash metal.”
“You dare insult my robe?”
“I was joking, but seriously, stay out of sight. The norm for clothing is like one thousand years ahead of you. Well, more like two thousand, but that’s not the point. Just let me handle this.”
Caesar grunted, which was probably the best I was going to get out of him. We carefully crept down the hall, looking for a door. As we turned a corner, we almost bumped into someone patrolling. The man’s face flashed from surprise to fear and then finally to anger, and he prepared to attack us.
“You there! Tell me where George Patton is!” Caesar snapped at him.
The cadet looked taken aback. “Excuse me? State your name and business! And what’s with that crazy costume, are you supposed to be Julius Caesar or something?”
Julius beamed. “They still know who I am, even ten thousand years in the future!”
I nudged him. “Actually, it’s more like two thousand, remember?”
Caesar turned back to the soldier. “Well? Take me to George Patton, you useless lump of lard!”
The cadet was now completely flustered. Almost feeling sorry for him, I swirled my finger
around my head and pointed at Julius.
“It’s his grandfather. We sort of got lost in the halls.”
The cadet’s face lightened. “Oh, that seems to happen a lot. I’m rather surprised you only arrived now though, he graduated this morning. I’ll take you to his room. I suppose it’s better to be late than to never show up.”
The cadet led both of us through the halls until we reached one of the rooms. He politely knocked, and it opened to reveal the face of a young man. He had brownish eyes and light blond hair. “What is it?” he asked.
The cadet waved at Julius and I. “Your grandfather and this guy are here to see you. It sucks that they missed your graduation though.”
George Patton frowned. “Excuse me? I’ve never seen these two in my life.”
Moving faster than I could even see, Julius drew his shattered sword and slammed the end of it into the cadet’s head before he could shout for help.
The cadet crumpled to a heap at Caesar’s feet. I turned to George. “Sorry about that. We just really need to talk.”
“Excuse me? And who the hell are you?”
He edged backwards into his room, obliviously going for something to defend himself with. I held my hands up for the second time that day. “Wait, we don’t mean you any harm! I’ve come here because I need your help.”
That didn’t stop him from slowly backing into his room. “Why don’t you two come on in?”
Caesar walked up to me. “You realize that he intends to take us out when we attempt to close the door, right?” he whispered.
I nodded. “Probably.”
I entered first, and Caesar followed me. “Would you close the door so we can speak in peace?” George asked, his hands almost obliviously concealed behind his back. From my now long experience in fighting, I could tell that he intended to shoot me somewhere nonfatal so he could interrogate me on how I had gotten in. I shrugged, and turned to close the door, keeping my gloved hand in such a position that it was directly in his line of sight.
As I closed the door, I jumped, leaving only my hand where my legs had been. The bullet blasted into a thousand shards upon impact with my glove, and George stared in awe.
Caesar was staring with equal awe at the small pistol that Patton was holding. “What is that thing?”
I carefully clicked the door shut. “Now look what you did. People will be all over us in seconds, so how am I supposed to explain? Look, I need you to be a general for my army.”
George gaped at me. His pistol was hanging limply in his grasp. Caesar walked over to him, and plucked the weapon from his hands. “How does this work?”
I ignored him. “Look, I know this is extremely hard to swallow. However, I think this could convince you. Have you ever thought that some heavy artillery would be far superior to standard foot soldiers?”
His face resumed a poker face. “That would be a possibility.”
“Great. Look, what if I told you that I come from a place that has more advanced artillery and armored weaponry that you’ll ever see in your life? And that you could be the commander of all of that?”
George rolled his eyes. “Right. And crazed fools like you two are the owners of it? I’m not an idiot. What do you want with me?”
I sighed. “Look, just play along for the sake of these two crazies, ok? If we did happen to have what I just said, and if we were to need you for a huge war, would you help us?”
George shrugged. “I suppose.”
I grinned. “Close enough! Let’s go!”
There was a loud knock on the door. “Cadet Patton, open this door immediately!”
Patton grinned at us. “End of the line.”
“Not quite, Mr. Patton,” I laughed, and a thin black line formed under him.
“See you later, sucker!” I cried.
George looked at me like I had a screw loose, which I most likely did, and then the wormhole under him opened and swallowed him whole. I gestured for Caesar to follow me, and jumped into it. He lunged in after me, and it snapped shut above us.
“Where are we? What’s going on?” Patton asked. He was surprisingly calm.
I decided not to answer him as the other end of the wormhole opened up and we all ran out. I immediately activated the Grid which I had conveniently placed our entrance above, and we were back in the Void within moments.