Machina Tempi

MACHINA TEMPI

“Is it ready?” I had gotten there just in time; they were scheduled to begin testing already.
“Of course it is. I’m glad to see you could make it on time, Vel. Although, not that it really matters anymore, does it? At least for the invention’s sake it shouldn’t.” He seemed pleased. I was happy too; the invention took almost a month to finalize.
“Sonus, we’re going to Rome, right?” Not that I really needed to check, he had his heart set on Rome since he first found out what the project was all about.
“Correct.”
“You always did like Rome.” I wasn’t kidding. Maybe saying he had his heart set on it was an understatement. I could say his was fascinated with it, no wait, obsessed. Then again, so was I in a way. I could only imagine when exactly we’d be going to. Maybe we’d stop by to see it’s founding, or it’s falling. Maybe we’d see Caesar or another emperor, the Senate, the Coliseum, the Pantheon? What, who, when, these were the questions racing through my mind. I’m not sure, but I think I caught myself from salivating over the whole thing in mid-thought. “When exactly are we going to?”
“I want to go to a time during the empire, but not anytime too significant. We wouldn’t want to affect all of history. I was thinking the year one will do quite nicely.”
“One?” I suppose it was a good choice.
“Shall we be off then? I know you studied quite extensively for this. Oh, and don’t ask the year while we’re there. No one will know it’s the first Christian year, not yet. We wouldn’t want to make them suspicious of us. We’ll arrive September 2nd, 1.”
I could feel the director’s eyes on me though I couldn’t see him. He had tried to convince Sonus to stay. He didn’t care about me going though. He had come up with various assignments for Sonus, to busy him. Sonus made it clear though that he was going. All I knew was they had fought over funding for the project.
The lab assistants handed us our togas, authentic to the very last thread, and we stepped inside the machine. We said good-bye to everyone and Sonus started flicking and pushing and pulling on various controls. Personally I didn’t quite understand how the machine worked. Don’t get me wrong, I knew what each button and lever was supposed to do. I just didn’t understand the physics involved, the actual time travel part of the whole mess. All I knew is that a piece of meteorite had been found a little over a month before. It was an unusual substance that affected time somehow. I’d never actually seen it, just heard about it. But it was somewhere, lodged deep within this contraption. It was called Chronogite, though the scientific classification for it was CR-N97. Besides that I knew we had enough for one round trip.
The machine itself was pretty plain looking actually. It was no bigger than a lift and really just looked like a big black metal box. If I didn’t know any better I’d say they just took a real lift and gave it a glossy paint job.
The actual time travel took only a few seconds, but it was a rush to say the least. I couldn’t tell you what it all looked like; there were no windows of any kind on the machine. I knew we had finished traveling, but I waited for Sonus. It seemed like he waited forever to leave the machine, but finally he did. My curiosity had burned thousands of extra seconds into my consciousness for every one that went by during the wait.
The daylight flooded my eyes. It was much brighter out than the dark lab we launched from. It was beautiful here. I must have been noon, the sun was at its zenith and I had almost no shadow. It occurred to me he never said what time of day we’d arrive. I felt a cool breeze blow over me, it felt like fall. I guess we had the September part right. As I looked ahead, I saw before me the Seven Hills of Rome. They stood tall and magnificent, colored in green and marble. I could hear all the people in the city from where I stood. The city ahead was like a screaming giant. I noticed we were near a dirt path leading up to the Palatine hill. I assumed we’d be going there then.
“Beautiful.” Sonus stood and gazed as I did.
“Yeah.” I felt strange about this. I felt no matter what we’d stick out, despite the authentic togas and money we brought with us. Then again, I really wasn’t sure how to feel. “Where to?” I still wasn’t sure where exactly we were headed.
“Juno’s temple. But first we must go into the city and pick up an offering. It may be impossible to get in without one. I know you really wanted to see this, I hope it all turns out to be as great as we planned it to be.” He paused for a moment. “Come, let’s go.”
As we passed through the city I could witness all the live Roman culture. I saw fountains being fed by aqueducts, spewing out and gulping up their fresh waters. I could see togas being bleached and the people being paid for their assistance in the process. Made me glad to know my toga was bleached with Clorox, instead of the traditional way. I saw all the vendors selling their goods and foods, the truly first fast food. Many people from the tenements were flocking to the food vendors to eat. Their homes were too small and dangerous to cook in. The smell was interesting. Though I don’t think I could ever really describe it. I continued to look around. I laughed a little when I saw a sign that read “cave canem,” beware of dog. I don’t know why, it just seemed funny to see such a thing a common custom. Then also to know that most of them didn’t have dogs, they were just using it to scare away robbers and the like.
We reached the heart of the forum, the business district. Here Sonus bought his offering, and something else. It was a peacock feather, one of Juno’s symbols. I wondered why he bought it, did he have something to ask her? Did he think she really existed to hear what he said? This was probably when I first started questioning our trip.
As we approached the temple, I saw a man standing there dressed in a white toga with a purple stripe down the side. He must have a priest in that case. He was average height for our time, making him tall for the time we were in. He had olive skin and short dark hair. He reminded me about my fear of sticking out, but things seemed to be going well for us. He stopped us and talked to us when we reached the door. “Hello, I have not seen you here before. Are you new to this temple?”
“Yes.” I just stood and watched as they talked. “May I ask, this is Juno’s temple, correct?”
“It is.”
“Good, then we are in the right place?”
“May I ask your names? Our temple likes to keep track of its visitors.” Did he think we were suspicious?
“Of course. He is Vel and I am Sonus.”
“Thank you. Oh, forgive me, I am Marcus Tacitus.”
“If I may, I have my offering.” Sonus held it up in his hand for the man to see.
“Please, go ahead. Will Vel also be entering the temple?”
“No.” I wasn’t shocked or anything, but I was sort of curious why Sonus stranded me.
It seemed like Sonus was taking forever. I didn’t mind waiting, but with the priest right there the whole time I felt weird. I was starting to wonder if his shift was going to end before Sonus got back. Finally, though, Sonus came out of the temple. “Sonus…”
“Yes, Vel?”
“What took you so long? What were you doing in there?
“Praying. I’m sorry if I took a long time. Perhaps I lost track of time while I was in there. Right now though we have a message to deliver.” Not that I wasn’t enjoying the experience, but all these errands. Why was he delivering a message anyway, and to whom, and what was it about?
He started heading towards the tenements. I was curios about this, “We’re not affecting all of history are we?”
“No. Just the future, our future I believe. I couldn’t do this in our time, not without the director finding out. I want out, freely. Before it’s too late.” He lost me. “The temple was just a thought of mine. I wanted to see what it was like having your life revolve around the gods. These people know that—maybe even I did. Who knows? We could have done something else I suppose. Would you have me to?” I was still lost. “It’s not where you put your faith exactly, just so long as you put it somewhere.” I was definitely lost.
“To Juno?”
“To you. I went to the temple to pray for luck, for you.”
“To me? Wait, why me?” I was beyond lost at this point.
“I’m handing the project over to you.” It was like turning the map right side up again and suddenly realizing where you are. “It’s taken too much of my time. Time that, even if I wanted to, I could never truly get back. I couldn’t tell you that at the lab, the director would’ve objected flat out. And with us needing to test the machine, well…”
“Right—I get it, I think.”
We spent the rest of the trip in silence, even the launch back to our time. It was the last I ever spoke to him. The whole staff was given vacation time for after the test, so I hadn’t seen Sonus. Two weeks after we got back I went to his house. His son answered the door and told me he had died three days earlier. No one knew how we could continue the project now with Sonus dead. He was the only one who knew how the machine worked; he took that information with him to the grave.
It was in August that I knew. I knew that he had known he was on his way out. How he knew I don’t know. He couldn’t have used the machine. A package had arrived in the mail, that’s how I knew. Inside were two sets of papers. One set was very fragile and written on parchment paper. It looked like an original copy; actually it looked like Sonus’s handwriting. The second set was a copy, the most recent apparently. The first page had instructions about copying the original periodically to ensure a decent version. The second set was also laminated, although it looked like it was laminated when the process was first conceived.
I flipped to the second page. On it were schematics and formulas for the time machine. On the bottom of the last page was Sonus’s signature, though in someone elses handwriting, and the date, 9/2/1. Directly under it were the words machine tempi (time machine) and res secundae (good luck).