Twice Loved at Armageddon

Twice Loved at Armageddon, Part XIV

While their wives are enjoying their time in the city of Rome, Flavius at last confronts Scott over where he really comes from.  Although he is awed by the startling things Scott has to tell him about time and the future, Flavius praises him for his unselfish love for Farah. 

Chapter Twenty-Four 

   Back at the villa, Flavius and Scott had concluded their preliminary business on another project involving a hot-air balloon.  Scott said, “Using materials already on hand, your observers can sit in a gondola high above the battlefield and see over hills for hidden soldiers.  The total weight of the hot air, the bag, and passengers in the gondola is less than the same volume of air around it.  It’s like a piece of wood floating in water.  Only after the air cools off after a few minutes will the balloon come down.  By that time your generals have all the information they need.”

   Flavius looked at Scott in amazement.  Then he said, “I have a more important question to ask you.  It is far more important than your knowledge and faithfulness to Rome.”  Scott nodded for Flavius to continue.

   Flavius’s tone changed to one of seriousness.  He asked, “Who are you really, and where do you come from?”

   Scott responded with resignation that this time he wasn’t going to get by with partial answers.  He replied, “My dear Flavius, are you no longer satisfied that I once lived across the great waters west of Gaul?”

  “No,” he said with a new sense of purpose.  “Our finest craftsmen cannot duplicate the metal in your weapon.  Nor the quality of its projectiles or propellant.  Even if we could, we could never make enough.  But you know so much more.  Are you from Olympus or another world?”

    Scott asked, “Or from a future time?”  Flavius looked more puzzled.

   Scott looked up with a smile of confession.  “As I explained to Farah before our marriage, I am indeed of this world.  Romulus was of this world, and so was Caesar.”

   Flavius answered, “But they lived during past history.  But this is the present.”

   “Do you believe there is a future history?”

   “Yes, there is a future history, but how can we know what will happen?”

   “It’s time for me to tell you everything as best I can.”  Scott looked at Flavius’s hand.   “Isn’t that your signet ring?”

   “Tiberius gave it to identify me.  Everyone knows me by my sign.”

   Scott showed Flavius his driver’s license.  “Just as your ring identifies you, this image of me on a substance unknown to you shows who I am and when I was born.”

    Scott then brought out the timeline he had shown to Farah earlier. There he had important events of three thousand years described and plotted according to the years they occur.  Flavius had little trouble understanding the Gregorian Calendar, which replaced the Julian Calendar of his own day. 

     Flavius paused as if in meditation. “So are you saying that time is a place on a line of historical events, just as a city is a place on a map? How did you get here?”

     “There is no craft to sail among the centuries as among the cities of Mare Nostrum.  Some power brought me here.”

     Scot then explained how he fell in love with Farah in his century.  There she was a confident, take-charge genius.  In cooperation with Israel’s Department of Antiquities, she was in charge of her university’s archaeological department.  He was subordinate to her in the year 2012.