Midnight in the palace wasn't silent; it was a breathing monster, and they were about to steal one of its teeth.
On the far eastern side of the Palatine Hill, a sudden roar of violence erupted. A brawl, expertly staged, broke out in a tavern frequented by off-duty Praetorian guards. Crixus's Vigiles, disguised as drunken gamblers, overturned tables and threw punches. The chaos was loud, bloody, and precisely calculated to draw the attention of the palace patrols, pulling them away from the western gardens like iron filings to a magnet.
While the shouts and sounds of splintering wood echoed in the distance, Marcus and Marcia slipped out of a small, unguarded postern gate.
The moonlight was dangerously bright, casting long, sharp shadows across the manicured lawns. Marcus was dressed in a simple, dark tunic and cloak, the heavy, angular shape of the laptop hidden in a rough leather satchel slung across his chest. The weight was a constant, terrifying reminder of what he was carrying. He felt like a common thief in his own home.
Marcia was in her element. She moved through the moon-drenched gardens and hidden servant's paths with a silent, feline confidence. This was her world, not the gilded halls, but the shadowed arteries that kept the palace alive. She was their map, their guide, their eyes and ears.
She held up a hand, and he froze. She tilted her head, listening to the night. He heard nothing but the chirping of crickets and the distant shouting from Crixus's diversion. After a long moment, she gave a slight nod and they moved on.
They were halfway to the edge of the palace grounds, nearing the low wall that separated the imperial domain from the city, when they heard it. The crunch of hobnailed sandals on a gravel path.
It was a Praetorian patrol. Two guards with a swinging lantern, their plumed helmets bobbing in the dark. They weren't supposed to be here. The diversion was meant to pull them all away.
Before Marcus could even think, Marcia grabbed his arm and yanked him into a dark alcove behind a thick marble statue of a forgotten nymph. She pressed them both flat against the cold stone, deep in the shadows.
They were chest to chest, so close he could feel the frantic, bird-like beat of her heart against his own ribs. He held his breath, the weight of the satchel feeling like a block of solid lead. He was acutely aware of her scent, of the warmth of her body pressed against his.
The swinging lantern light of the guards swept across the path. Its arc illuminated the face of the marble statue just in front of them, the nymph's serene smile seeming to mock their terror. For a horrifying half-second, the edge of the light brushed against Marcia's wide, frightened eyes before plunging them back into darkness.
"Did you hear something?" one guard asked.
"Probably just a fox," the other grumbled. "Let's go. I don't want to miss all the fun."
Their footsteps crunched past, their idle chatter fading into the night.
Marcus and Marcia didn't move. They waited in the tense, suffocating silence of the alcove for a full minute after the guards were gone. The shared danger, the sheer intimacy of their hiding place, had forged something new between them. A powerful, unspoken bond that went beyond loyalty.
She finally pulled away, her eyes finding his in the dark. Without a word, they continued on.
They reached the Mausoleum of Augustus a few minutes later. It was even more imposing up close, a massive, circular tomb that loomed against the starry sky like a man-made mountain. The air around it was cold and still, heavy with the weight of history and death. A single, aging guard stood watch at the grand, sealed entrance, but he was half-asleep on his feet.
Following Crixus's instructions, they circled to the rear of the colossal structure. There, hidden by overgrown ivy, was a small, forgotten maintenance entrance, its iron-banded door secured by a lock that had long ago rusted through.
Marcus put his shoulder to it. With a low groan of ancient, protesting metal, the door swung inward, opening into a black void.
They slipped inside. The door swung shut behind them, plunging them into absolute darkness and a silence so deep it felt like pressure on his eardrums. The air was stale, tasting of cold stone and dust and centuries of death.
Marcia fumbled with a flint and steel, and after a few tries, a small oil lamp flickered to life, its tiny flame pushing back the immense darkness. They were in a narrow, circular corridor. The walls were bare stone, and the floor was gritty with the dust of ages.
They navigated the maze of corridors, their soft footsteps the only sound. They passed the sealed entrances to the tombs of Augustus, Tiberius, and the other great Julio-Claudian emperors. Marcus felt like a trespasser, a ghost from the future haunting the ghosts of the past.
Finally, they found what they were looking for. A small, unmarked stone door, nearly hidden in the shadows. It wasn't a tomb. It was likely a storage chamber for burial tools, forgotten for decades. The door was unlocked.
Inside, the room was small, no bigger than a closet. It contained a few broken amphorae and a single, empty stone sarcophagus pushed against the far wall. It was perfect.
Marcus slid the heavy satchel from his shoulder. With a reverence that felt both sacrilegious and fitting, he placed the laptop on top of the sarcophagus.
He opened it. The cold, blue glow of the 21st-century screen filled the ancient Roman chamber. The light illuminated Marcia's face, her expression a mixture of awe and fear.
They had done it. They had moved a god into its new temple.
A wave of relief, so powerful it almost made him dizzy, washed over him. He booted the system up, the familiar digital chime echoing strangely in the tomb. "JARVIS," he said, his voice husky. "Run a systems diagnostic."
The screen filled with green text.
SYSTEMS NOMINAL. POWER AT 89%. INTERNAL CHRONOMETER CALIBRATED.
But then, as he was about to close the lid, a single, new line of text appeared at the bottom of the diagnostic report. It was written in stark, blood-red letters.
WARNING: CRITICAL DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED IN MEMORY SECTOR GAMMA.
Marcus's blood ran cold. The relief vanished, replaced by a new, creeping dread. "Corruption?" he asked the empty room. "From what?"
The AI's synthesized voice responded, its calm tone a horrifying contrast to the frantic beating of his own heart. HYPOTHESIS: REPEATED POWER CYCLES FROM UNSTABLE SOLAR INPUT, COMBINED WITH THE PHYSICAL JOLT SUFFERED DURING TRANSPORT, HAVE DEGRADED A NON-ESSENTIAL, LONG-TERM STORAGE FILE.
A non-essential file. He clung to that. It was probably just old project notes from his 21st-century job. Nothing important.
But a feeling of dread coiled in his stomach. He had to know.
"JARVIS," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "What file is corrupted? Identify it."
The AI's synthesized voice was as calm and flat as a tombstone as it read the damaged file name aloud in the echoing silence of the mausoleum.
FILE CORRUPTED: M_HOLT_NEURAL_BACKUP.DAT.