Chapter Nine

It was raining. Well that made a change, didn’t it? It was always raining in this “Britain”. What’s more, this particular night it was pitch black, foggy, freezing cold and it was raining. Sign up, they said. See the known World, they said. Lucius was a legionary, he’d been called up to the Roman army from his nice family home in Umbria. Where his upbringing had been in sunshine, with red wine, olive groves and dappled shade and warmth, he was now on this fog shrouded island where if it wasn’t raining it was blowing a gale and if the gale stopped blowing long enough the locals would turn up and try and either sell you something, or kill you. To be brutally honest he was sick and fed up with this backward stupid country and the natives who lived here. He couldn’t wait to get back to civilisation – central heating, slaves and people being forced to fight to the death for his entertainment. Now THAT’S civilisation. All these Durotriges seemed to be interested in was farming and fighting him and his colleagues. And so this particular evening, here was Lucius, some miles from Lindinis, in the middle of nowhere, standing as watch outside his cohort’s encampment as the rain hammered down on his helmet. The decurion had shouted at him to keep his eyes peeled for treacherous Britons. Well the decurion needn’t have worried, Lucius would have his revenge for this awful night, next time he ran into some local savages. He’d give ‘em what for, like they did at that last hill fort the other week. Admittedly it was quite small and only a farming community, but it had the capacity to have weapons of mass destruction (OK, pebbles) ready for an attack on unguarded Roman heads within 45 seconds. The World was now a safer place that they had massacred all the old people and sold the rest off into slavery. Lucius wasn’t scared of these barbarians. He was a Roman soldier, armed to the teeth and trained to the highest level in ways of killing and upsetting people in great quantities. Just to re-assure himself, Lucius practiced a couple of half hearted thrusts with his gladius sword at imaginary invaders. He’d like to see the barbarian swines who could get past him!
He blew in his hands to try and instill some warmth and stamped his feet. The wind howled once more round his bare legs and he cursed the day he had been brought to this island. Lucius supposed it was better than some of his colleagues who had ended up in the forests of Germanica with large spears stuck up their bottoms. But no one really spoke about that set back, or any of the other set backs the army ever encountered, the Roman Empire just liked to talk itself up, and so only victories were allowed to be mentioned.
Just at that moment, Lucius heard a noise. A crackling noise, slmost like someone moving through very dry foliage. He knew this couldn’t be true as there was nothing that could possibly be dry in Britain with the weather they were having. There it came again. Lucius drew his gladius from it’s scabbard and his eyes darted around him, but the surrounding darkness merely loomed back at him.
“Who goes there?” He yelled in the deepest, most frightening voice he could muster. He swallowed loudly and re-doubled his grip on the gladius. “Come on! Who’s there?” He shouted. Lucius thought he could make out a glow in the semi distance, a sort of ethereal glow, somewhere near the distant horizon – or was it just two inches from his nose? He just couldn’t tell, but it was getting bigger and the crackling sound was coming through constantly now. He was just about to call for the decurion when there was a loud buzzing sound and a distinct backwards popping noise and two figures suddenly hurtled out of nowhere and bumped into Lucius. One of them was wearing a large white helmet with wires coming out of it, and as they stumbled into Lucius, the white helmet connected heavily with Lucius’ chin and knocked him out cold. Drood looked down at the recumbent figure of the unconscious Roman legionary.
“Oh, nice one Bryan! You’ve managed to make us travel in time, but you’ve twatted a Roman.” Drood reached down and felt Lucius’ pulse, just to make sure he wasn’t dead. Bryan pulled the helmet off his head with some difficulty. Drood had his head back and was drinking in the falling rain, trying to get rid of the inevitable dehydration.
“Bloody hell!” Whispered Bryan, looking around. “We only bloody did it!” He whooped with delight. Drood looked round the darkness, but it was so foggy, wet and miserable you really could not see a thing.
“So where are we?” He looked towards Bryan, who was now similarly drinking in the rain water.
“Hulke” said Bryan, eventually. “Well, I assume that was where you were thinking of when you visualised somewhere in Roman times.” Drood nodded.
“I tried to visualise the green near the Priory which I suppose is this, but…” he gestured vaguely around him, “I’m just not used to seeing it without the Priory being here.” Bryan was looking at some of the readings in the small palm top information unit.
“Do you remember earlier, when we were at my house and you had a look at the Lethbridge book?” He asked of Drood. Drood nodded. “Well this little beauty of a time machine only seems to have picked up on some of the subconscious stuff in your little brain. Remember the first bizarre event at the Priory site mentioned in the Lethbridge book?” Bryan’s eyebrows were beginning their inevitable waggling session.
“Yeah, some legionary got spooked by an apparition and…” Drood’s voice tailed off as he realised what he was saying. His hand moved involuntarily to his mouth. “Shit!” He exclaimed. “Do you mean WE are the apparition that scared the Roman?” Bryan was nodding eagerly and the eyebrows were on full waggle mode.
“Seems inevitable!” he roared with laughter. Drood looked down at the figure of Lucius on the ground.
“Should we help him?” Asked Drood, softly. Bryan took a cursory look down at the Roman.
“Nah! Fuck him. Bloody Romans. Just the ancient world version of Tesco’s really. Don’t matter where you go you’re bound to find some evidence of them and they’re all the bloody same.” He began reading some figures from the information unit under his breath. “To be honest, the way his lot with Vespasian carried on down here I think we’d be right justified if we gave him a proper leathering while he’s down there.” From the darkness there was a bark/cry of something nearby. Possibly only a fox, but it could just as easily have been a wolf. Drood looked round nervously.
“I think I’ve seen enough of Roman Hulke to be honest, Bryan.” He shivered slightly and suddenly realised how cold and wet he was. He looked over at the information unit in Bryan’s hand. “So how do we get back?”
“Good question…” said Bryan, softly. “I’m not entirely sure, but if I put my helmet back on…” he did this as he mentioned it, then went back to intently studying the information unit in his hands. “Yep, we should be due for a chrono-displacement field opening up in the same place any second now…” They stood there in the rain and darkness. Nothing happened. Bryan tapped the information unit. Still nothing happened. Unknown to them, behind them on the wet ground, Lucius started stirring.
“You haven’t got a sodding clue, have you Bryan?” asked Drood bitterly. Bryan shrugged his shoulders.
“Theoretically, the chrono-displacement field should re-open the portal in the exact same spot it occurred in…” Bryan tailed off as he looked in shock over Drood’s shoulder. Drood turned round very slowly. There was Lucius, still obviously groggy from the impact with the helmet, but now upright, swaying slightly and brandishing the gladius sword at them. He shouted something at them in Latin. Drood and Bryan looked at each other and then back at the Roman.
“Please tell me you speak Latin, Bryan” Hissed Drood out of the corner of his mouth. Bryan wracked his brains for a moment.
“Er… Non crapito san janitorum!” He yelled. Lucius looked at them in astonishment. Drood looked back at Bryan.
“What did you just say to him?” He asked. Bryan beamed back at Drood.
“It’s the only bit of Latin I can ever remember. It’s from Carry on Henry where Sid James explains Henry the VIIIth’s motto to Cardinal Wolsley.” Drood groaned.
“So what did you just say?” He repeated urgently.
“Non crapito san janitorum – don’t shit on your own doorstep.” Lucius was looking at them as if they were from another planet, which to be honest they might as well have been.
“We’re confronted by an irate violent Roman and you start quoting Talbot Rothwell scripts at him!” Shouted Drood. “God I wish the bloody chrono thing would fucking open right now…” just at that moment, with a loud crackling sound, the ethereal light spread around Bryan’s shape as the displacement field opened. Bryan offered his hand to Drood.
“Come on! Hurry up!” Drood ran so he was right next to Bryan. Lucius took a slight pace toward them, but the weird light and noise was obviously frightening him. Bryan waved at him and shouted “Arriverderci, Brutus!” and with a loud backward popping sound, Bryan and Drood vanished infront of the legionaries astonished eyes. Lucius stood in the deafening silence, looking toward where the men had been, but of the weird people there was not a hint of any evidence they had ever been there. He looked round himself two or three times, just to make sure they weren’t playing some joke on him. But they had gone.
“Non crapito san janitorum?” He repeated to himself. These Britons were crazy. He could hear the decurion approaching in the gloom. He would explain all to him and seek advice from his many years of service in foreign lands. Within two minutes of starting the story, Lucius was on a charge of being drunk on duty and was given three days field punishment as a consequence. And serves him right.

Chapter Eight

Drood and Bryan had been left on their own for a while now. They gazed out in silence at what Hulke had become. Drood was perched on one of the laboratory stools, Bryan sat cross legged on top of one of the work benches. Polly had brought them some food, mostly sandwiches and fruit, but they weren’t particularly in the mood for eating. She had long since disappeared to a meeting, but had promised to return as soon as she possibly could.
“Look at it…” breathed Bryan, slowly shaking his head. “England’s green and pleasant land.” Drood began resting his chin on his hands, his eyes looking away from the endless urban sprawl of London.
“What I’m worried about is that within the next few months, you and I have to become brilliant scientists, invent all sorts of clever shit and become heroes to these people.” He sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. “I really don’t feel up to doing all that today.” Bryan climbed slowly down from his perch on the work bench and listlessly toyed with the sandwiches for a while, but he soon lost interest and wandered to the back of the laboratory. He tested several walls by waving his hand in front of them, pretty much like Polly had earlier, but none of them seemed to be willing to clear. But then one did…
“’Ere, Drood!” He called. “Come ‘ere and look at this!” Drood sighed and slowly got up.
“What now? Don’t tell me – they’ve put crazy paving over the Amazon rain forest and stone clad the Andes…?” His voice tailed away as he stood next to Bryan and they stared through the window Bryan had just cleared. “Is that what I think it is?” Drood breathed softly. Bryan nodded and even allowed his eyebrows a quick waggle.
“Drood, my dear chap, I rather think it is.” The other side of this wall was another laboratory, but far less cluttered. There were two control consoles to one side, but in the middle was what appeared to be a large shower cubicle. Cables ran from the base of the cubicle to the consoles and, directly over wherever any person wanting a shower would have stood, were dazzlingly white apparently plastic pen nibs, six of them. But these were big pen nibs, at least half a metre long and a good 100cm in diameter. Emblazoned across the front sliding door of the cubicle was the words “Hinchcliffe-Camfield Corporation” and then just below that the words “Chrono-Displacement Model SH101”. Drood and Bryan looked slowly at each other.
“Do you think we should?” Asked Bryan eventually. Drood looked back at the machine in the laboratory for a moment, and then glanced back to Bryan.
“Should what?”
“Get in there. Have a closer look.” Bryan was eager. Drood leant back from the glass and sighed.
“If, and I mean IF we go in there, we are just going to look at it Bryan. We are not going to start randomly pressing buttons, are we? We could end up anywhere.” With this affirmation from Drood, Bryan was straight away trying to find the doorway in. This was no easy feat as all the walls seemed exactly the same with no obvious entry point. “Did you hear me, Bryan?”
“Oh yes!” Said Bryan loudly, moving along the wall and sweeping his hand over each and every inch, trying to find anything that might trigger a door to open. Inevitably, he found it. With an almost heartfelt sigh, a door shape materialised in the seemingly solid wall and then retracted into the ceiling. Drood and Bryan stood in the doorway, gazing across at the machine in the darkened laboratory.
“How do you get any lights on in here?” Whispered Drood. Bryan looked up at the ceiling.
“Computer! Lights!” He called. Drood was about to sneer that this wasn’t Star Trek, when the lights, as if some Lothario was testing his dimmer switch before a big date, glowed up to a reasonable brightness. They both took slightly tentative steps into the room. Drood moved forward and finally found himself close enough to the machine to almost touch it. He reached out a hand, paused for a moment lost in a mixture of thought and awe, before he finally made contact with it with his hand. He moved his fingers up and down the outer shell. It felt disappointingly like a food mixer or a microwave oven.
“How on Earth did we invent this?” He whispered, hoarsely. “How does it even work?”
“It connects to the synapses of your frontal lobes and helps you to focus on the era, date or event you wish to visit with the use of the visualiser circuits.” Bryan seemed remarkably well informed on how this contraption worked.
“How does it connect to your synapses?” Asked Drood, slowly turning round. His eyes soon proved that Bryan had found all the answers.
“With this I guess!” he cried, cheerfully pointing to his head. Bryan was wearing what appeared to be a glitzy hi-tech crash helmet with various strands of fibre optic cables snaking out of the back and leading across to one of the consoles. He was also clutching a thick book entitled “The Hinchcliffe-Camfield Chrono-Displacement SH101 Operators Manual”.
“Bryan! For Christ’s sake take that bloody thing off!” Drood moved sharply towards Bryan, who backed away defensively.
“Hold hard!” Shouted Bryan. “It’s not even turned on! Nothing can happen!” Drood calmed slightly. He would still be happier if Bryan wasn’t wearing the crash helmet.
“Just be careful, alright? Don’t touch anything else.” Drood implored him. Bryan tapped a salutary finger to his forehead and nodded slightly. Unfortunately he didn’t notice the tiny red light flicker on at the back of the helmet as he had tapped the front. Bryan inclined the manual towards Drood.
“It seems pretty simple to operate, if these instructions are to be believed.” He laid the book open on top of the nearest console as Drood leaned in next to him for a closer look. “All you do is make sure the helmet and the booth are fired up, visualize on the exact place and time you want to go to, the Chrono-Displacement circuits select an undisturbed piece of space and time where you wish to go, and enfolds them in a singularity.” Drood looked at his friend wearing the daft helmet.
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked slowly.
“A singularity is, approximately, a place where quantities which are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite. Such quantities include the curvature of space-time or the density of matter. Space and time are eventually distorted enough for the continuum to exist in its whole in one place, and the chrono-displacement can take place.” Bryan reeled this off in a very matter-of-fact voice. There was a long pause as Drood just stared at Bryan.
“How in the name of fuck do you know THAT?” Drood squeaked this most indignantly. Bryan held up the small smooth remote control-looking unit that Polly had been using earlier.
“You would not believe the weird shit Wikipedia has listed in the year 3596…” His eyebrows waggled tremendously. Drood went to snatch the unit from him.
“Did you steal that from Polly?” He shouted. Bryan held it up as high as he could, and seeing as he was a good foot taller than Drood at the best of times, easily fought off any chance Drood had of getting it back.
“I have been leant this by the fair Dr Fielding. I asked her if she had anything I could read before she went off to her meeting. She gave me this.” Bryan lowered the unit as Drood’s attempts to snatch it ceased. Drood was looking flustered now.
“Come on Bryan, lets get out of here before someone comes in and finds us…” He reached up to remove the helmet from Bryan’s head. It was only then he realised the door they had entered this laboratory through had vanished, and they were faced with another long faceless row of a wall. Bryan was trying to pull away from Drood.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he yelped. “Just stop and think for a moment, will you?” Drood stopped momentarily.
“What now?”
“You’re worried about not becoming a great inventor? But we know you DID become a great inventor, because it says so in all their history books. So who is more likely to be wrong?” Bryan looked imploringly at Drood. “Drood-bloody-Hinchcliffe, or the Encyclopaedia Britannica?” Drood sighed dramatically and slumped onto the small stool next to the console.
“OK, but Bryan, how are you and I going to invent all of the things we are supposed to invent and patent, between now and Christmas?” He let out another dramatic sigh for good effect. This dented Bryan’s confidence not one jot. He held up the information unit Polly had lent him.
“We have all the information of when, what, why and how in this little beauty…” he announced, before moving over and stroking the outside of the Chrono-Displacement Unit. “And here we have the ability to make dreams come true…” Bryan lent across and grabbed Drood by the hand, he yanked him into the shower cubicle part of the machine and stepped in next to him. “We decide where and when we need to go, put our minds to it, so to speak…” There was a slight pause. “So, where do you want to go first, Professor Hinchcliffe? VE Day? England winning the World Cup in ’66? Far off into the unimaginable future, or back to Hulke in Roman times!” Bryan was quite a salesman.
“Roman times would be cool…” breathed Drood. “The Roman’s bore the arse off me, but it would be great to see what Hulke was like then. Before the Priory.” Bryan beamed at him, like a teacher who’s particularly dim-witted pupil had just managed to solve a simple bit of artithmetic.
“OK, so you just close your eyes, imagine exactly where you want to go. Visualize it…” Unknown to Bryan, on the console opposite them, lights began snapping on as the system began talking to the helmet on his head. “Visualize it, Drood…! Want it!” There was a sudden deep rumble of power units kicking in, a crackling badly tuned radio sound filled the air, and with an ear-drum pummelling backwards popping noise, in the blink of an eye both Bryan and Drood snapped out of existence.