Time to Go Home

Time travellers retrieve a lost treasure.

It was a crisp winter day in ancient Rome. Liam and I walked through the Forum as we headed towards the Temple of Peace. All around us were stalls with vendors hawking wares from across the Empire. There were wines from Gaul, ivory from Africa, and fine cloth from Egypt. We worked our way through crowds of people bargaining and shouting.

“Okay Jim, we just need to blend in,” Liam subvocalized through our bone induction communicators. “Just do as the Romans do.”

“You’ve been waiting the whole mission to say that, haven’t you?”

“It’s not my fault this is such a perfect setup for that line.”

“Do you think you can curb your comedic tendencies until after we’ve completed the mission?”

“Doubt it.”

I just shook my head. Liam would be Liam, but he was still a good man to have at your back if things got rough. Of course, if we did our jobs right things wouldn’t get rough, but you never knew.

We arrived at the temple and entered with the other supplicants. Like all Roman temples it was an impressive marbled edifice. There were various treasures on display that had been taken from conquered territories. We soon found the one we were after.

“There it is,” I said to Liam. “The menorah from the Second Temple.”

It was displayed on a pedestal in one of the side alcoves. The base was decorated with biblical scenes and rose to the ornately carved seven candelabra.

“Big sucker, isn’t it?” Liam said. “That’s got to be at least a meter tall. How are we supposed to get it out of here in the middle of a fire?”

“Carefully.”

“Yeah, right. So, we just hang around until this fire starts?”

“Pretty much. We just have to make sure we’re not the ones who start it. We don’t need to create any temporal paradoxes.”

“Yeah, that would ruin our day. Over and over again. You know, it’s interesting that they have treasures looted during war in the temple of Peace. Who knew the ancient Romans had such a sense of irony?”

“Does Latin even have a word for irony?”

“I don’t think it does, which is in itself ironic.”

We spent the rest of the day wandering through the temple. We weren’t exactly sure when the fire would start, so we just had to be patient. Evening came and most of the worshipers had left. We secreted ourselves in an alcove to see what developed.

Eventually, we heard what sounded like an argument. We glanced at each other and stole out to see two of the temple priests in a heated discussion. Latin wasn’t my strong suit, but it sounded like one of them was accusing the other of cheating with his wife. The accused shoved the accuser into the wall, and they both began fighting.

“Fighting in the temple of Peace,” Liam said. “Again with the irony.”

It was pretty clear being a temple priest didn’t involve much physical activity, since the fight consisted mainly of wrestling on the ground without much getting done, until they rolled into one of the racks of candles and knocked it over. It fell into a tapestry, which immediately caught fire. They didn’t even notice the flames spreading.

“I believe that’s our cue,” I said.

“I believe you’re right.”

We both raced to the menorah and managed to lift it off the pedestal. It was as heavy as it looked, and we grunted as we headed for the door. We were almost there when one of the acolytes came in and started yelling the Latin equivalent of “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Pyro! Pyro!” I yelled, pointing behind me. He gaped at the spreading flames, then ran out of the temple. We followed as quickly as we could.

It was fairly dark outside, and we were able to get down the temple steps and into one of the side alleys without being spotted. By now smoke was pouring out of the temple and there was shouting and running in the streets. We lugged it further into the alley where we would be out of sight, and we pulled out our retrieval rings.

“Okay,” I said. “I think it’s time to go home.”

“Yes, time to go home, or go home in time, however you want to look at it.”

We each gripped the menorah and activated the rings. There was a flash of light and we were back in the 25th century standing on the retrieval pad.

“Excellent job,” said Frank the mission director as he walked towards us. “You got the item and no anomalies created.”

“It’s what we do,” Liam said as we stepped off the platform. “You know, I’m hungry. What do you think, Italian food?”

“Let’s go with Chinese,” I said. “With a side of irony.”