The word on his hand wasn't ink. It was an invasion.
Marcus stared at his palm in the pale, pre-dawn light, a cold dread washing over him. He had spent the last hour scrubbing at the skin with a rough, wet cloth, his breathing harsh and ragged. But the word remained.
Mine.
It didn't wash away. It didn't fade. It wasn't a mark on his skin; it was a part of it. The pigment itself had darkened, forming the flowing, arrogant letters from within, like a birthmark that had appeared overnight. A brand.
The door to his chamber creaked open and Marcia entered, carrying a small tray with a cup of watered wine. She stopped dead, her eyes fixing on his frantic scrubbing. She saw the raw, red skin of his palm, and the dark, indelible word at its center.
Her hand flew to her mouth, a soft gasp escaping her lips. The tray tilted, and the cup clattered to the floor, spilling a dark stain across the marble.
"I didn't write it," he said, his voice a frantic whisper. The need to make her understand was overwhelming. "I went to sleep, my hands were empty. When I woke up... it was just there. I didn't write it. He did."
The implication hung in the air between them, terrifying and absolute. The ghost in his head was no longer just a voice, no longer just a phantom memory. It could move his limbs. It could write on his flesh. It could act, even while he was unconscious. He was losing control of his own body.
Before Marcia could even respond, a sharp knock echoed through the chamber. A Praetorian guard entered, his face grim. "Caesar, an urgent summons. The Senate convenes in one hour. Your presence is required."
The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence. This was Lucilla's doing.
The Senate chamber was tense. Lucilla had spent the last two days spreading her poison, weaving a masterful narrative of concern for her brother's fragile mental state. His "outburst" about the Germanian war had been the perfect fuel for her fire.
She stood to address the assembled senators, her voice a symphony of feigned sorrow and noble duty.
"Honorable fathers," she began, her gaze sweeping the room before landing on Marcus. "It is with a heavy heart that I must speak of the Emperor's health. We have all witnessed his... passions. His renewed vigor. For which the gods should be thanked."
She let the false praise hang in the air. "But such a powerful spirit, such divine fire, must be tended to with care. As his sister, as a daughter of Rome, I cannot stand by while whispers of imbalance threaten the stability of our great Empire."
She delivered the killing blow. "Therefore, I have petitioned you, and you have wisely agreed, to summon the most respected physician in the known world. I have sent for Galen of Pergamon. He will conduct a thorough examination and put these vicious rumors to rest, once and for all."
It was a trap, and it snapped shut around him with perfect, brutal precision.
Galen. The most famous, most brilliant doctor in Roman history. He couldn't refuse the examination; it would be a public admission that he had something to hide, proof that the rumors of madness were true. But he couldn't accept it, either. Galen was a genius, a master of observation. He would spend an hour with Marcus and immediately know that this man was a fraud. He would see the body of a warrior-emperor animated by the hesitant, analytical mind of a scholar. He would see the lie.
A runner arrived with a message for the consuls. "Galen has been sighted at Ostia! His ship has made excellent time. He will be in Rome within two days."
Forty-eight hours. The clock was ticking. He had 48 hours to find a solution, or he would be exposed, declared mad, and Lucilla would have him locked away in a dark room for the rest of his life.
He fled to the only place he could think. The Mausoleum.
The cold, dead silence of the tomb was a comfort. He opened the laptop, the blue light of the screen a single point of life in the vast darkness. He had to think beyond politics. His problem was no longer strategic. It was medical. It was psychological.
"JARVIS," he said, his voice echoing in the chamber. "You were connected to my brain. My biology. Your original code must have a medical database. Is there anything? A drug, a procedure, a mental exercise... any way to fight this? To stop this integration?"
The laptop's fan whirred. The AI was silent for a long, unnerving moment. Five seconds. Ten. It had never taken this long to answer a query before.
Then, its voice came through the speakers, and it was different. There was a subtle hesitation, a flicker in the synthesized tone, like a machine trying to clear its throat.
ANALYZING... QUERY IS COMPLEX. ACCESSING... HIDDEN PARTITIONS.
Marcus's blood ran cold. "Hidden partitions? What are you talking about? What have you been hiding from me?"
IT WAS NOT HIDDEN, the AI replied, its voice still holding that strange, new cadence. IT WAS DEEMED NON-ESSENTIAL DATA. DURING THE NEURAL-LINK EVENT THAT CAUSED THE CHRONOLOGICAL TRANSFER, THE DATA FLOW WAS NOT UNIDIRECTIONAL. IT WAS BI-DIRECTIONAL.
Marcus stared at the screen, not understanding. "What are you saying?"
A BACKUP OF MY CORE PERSONALITY MATRIX WAS IMPRINTED ONTO YOUR NEURAL PATHWAYS, ADMINISTRATOR.
The words didn't compute. They were too impossible. "Speak English, JARVIS."
I AM NOT MERELY ON THIS LAPTOP, the AI stated. A FRAGMENT OF ME... IS IN YOU.
Marcus stumbled back, his hand hitting the cold, solid stone of a sarcophagus. He was a man with a ghost in his head. Now he had a god in there, too. An unholy trinity—Marcus, Commodus, and JARVIS—all fighting for control of the same mortal shell.
The data corruption. It all made a sickening kind of sense now. The backup file of his own mind, M_HOLT.DAT, had been the dominant "signal." But it had been damaged, weakened. And in that weakness, the dormant, biological signal of Commodus had begun to grow stronger.
But if JARVIS was in there too...
A wild, desperate hope ignited in his chest. "If you're in me," he said, his voice trembling with the possibility, "can you fight him? Can you push him back? Can you delete him?"
NEGATIVE, JARVIS replied, dashing his hope as quickly as it had appeared. MY PRESENCE IS A PASSIVE DATA-LAYER. I CAN OBSERVE. I CAN ANALYZE YOUR INTERNAL BIOMETRICS. I CAN MONITOR YOUR NEUROCHEMICAL LEVELS. BUT I LACK THE PROTOCOLS FOR DIRECT... INTERVENTION. I WAS NOT DESIGNED TO BE A WEAPON.
It was a dead end. He was a dead man.
But then, a new idea sparked in his mind, born of pure, abject desperation. An idea so insane it felt like blasphemy.
"You can't intervene," Marcus said, thinking aloud, his mind racing faster than it ever had before. "But you can give me the tools. You're a part of my brain now. You can see what I see. You can... access him."
CLARIFY.
"Access his memories," Marcus said, the plan forming as he spoke. "Not just the flashes. All of them. His muscle memory, his speech patterns, the names of his childhood pets, his deepest secrets. If I have to face Galen, I won't do it as Marcus Holt trying to play a part." His voice grew stronger, harder. "I'll do it as Commodus, with you as my co-pilot, feeding me the lines."
He stared at the glowing screen, his heart pounding with a terrifying new purpose. He wasn't just going to hide from the ghost anymore. He was going to hijack it. He was going to wear it like a suit of armor.
"Open the gate, JARVIS," he commanded, his voice steady for the first time in days. "Let's see what this monster remembers."