Rome In The Sky: Daybreak

CH 1: Like Clockwork

LISBETH

It would've been Earth year 2214, if there had, in fact, been an Earth.

Instead, in the Roman year 115, during Del, a season much like spring, a young woman was in the backseat of a taxi, drumming her fingers on the rough fabric of her knees. It was little more than a square box with a plastic windshield at the front, drawn by horses.

She tapped away, preoccupied. Her eyes scanning ahead of her, a little blue in the gray of them, staring at everything and nothing. Her hair was nearly black, pulled back simply. Pale skin flowed over sharp cheekbones to sallow cheeks. There were edges to her face. They were the marks of stress or years of manual labor, maybe both. She was scrunched up in her seat, clearly tall. Soil stained the knees and elbows of her drab gray clothes.

The air smelled of salt and rain as the world outside rolled by.

The one wide black road ran straight for two hundred miles, making stops at major sites, with small faults cutting out in other directions through which rain would drain from it. The rain swirled out of the city, watering the mud on the moors that lay out in the deep west. Horse cabs fluttered about like bees through the roads.

The city was monotone and uniform, but there were small details that could have gone unnoticed. Little cracks in the walls of the buildings. Discoloration from heat at their corners, and along the streets. Refugees huddled in the alleyways, trying in vain to stay dry beneath the steady rain. Black dots in the gray sky, blackbirds or aircraft, circled around, just as listless as the people going about their status quo routines. All in all, Nautila, the largest city in St. Cove, was a mural of rain and fog.

The people of Nautila did not expect brighter lights than the dim white sun, or louder noises than the weak air horns of taxis. Rarely a shout or the creaking of a wooden tire disrupted the steady level of sound that had settled onto the city. Beneath an overbearing caste imposed on St Cove, everyone had an occupation, assigned them by New America, the superpower, and the Jury, its iron hand. No one dared to step outside the confines, to be different, to make a new way. If they did, the Jury saw them.

A steady oscillating sound began descending onto the city. The roar of an engine and a strong blast of air followed, sending rain and mud exploding outward with centripetal force. The square lit up like a day without clouds and a voice rang out over the din, loud enough to leave ears ringing.

"Lisbeth Ralland-Lennox."

Her eyes darted upward suddenly. It was wrong. Her people called her Liz, not this full name, and why was the voice so loud?

"You are under arrest," followed.

'Ah. They're here. Like clockwork.'

"Hey, stop the cab!" She beat on the backboard of the driver's seat. The man pulled up, but the confused horses didn't stop.

"Stop the damn cab before they do it for you!"

A man that was head and shoulders taller than everyone else in the square stepped in front of the vehicle.

As the horses moved to either side of him, he lifted his right foot to meet the front of the cab. The vehicle's front end collapsed into a mess of splintered wood on impact. It rolled back. The driver lurched forward; the lower half of his body twisted into the front end. Liz's hair had come undone and blinded her.

'I told you they'd do it for you, poor bastard.'

"My name is Lieutenant Knight Dexxor Lute with the Jury Praetor Battalion. You will now exit the vehicle with your hands where I can see them."

Lute took a few steps backward, away from the wreck. He wore an all-gray riot suit with protection enough to stop most bullets. He was at least six and a half feet tall, holding a carbine ready to fire. She always wondered what the Jury may have been doing to make its soldiers so monstrous. The Special Missions Regiment, from which the Praetor hailed, was primarily responsible for subjugating any limit that had opposed them when Liz was just a girl. What the Praetor called 'counter-terror' was just a more palatable term for unsanctioned manhunts.

She remembered.

She remembered how after she awoke from her coma, she had begun to harass them. How the band of ragtag militia would interrupt supply runs and seize classified information from outposts. How later, when the Jury tightened its grip, they would disappear one by one, found later in alcoves and crevices with their skin ashen and their bodies beginning to bloat.

Liz wrestled with the door on her side, trying not to focus on the copper-like smell of the man's blood that made older unwanted images impose themselves into her mind.

"If I must repeat myself, I will assume you are resisting arrest and will use the necessary force to apprehend you, as is required by law, yes?" barked the Praetor.

Upon disengaging the cab door from its lock, Liz's hands went out first.

"Okay okay. Can you see my hands? I'm unarmed."

The rest of her followed, very slowly. Her ears rang. The city spun.

"You will now turn and face the vehicle with your hands above your head. If you run, I will fire on you to prevent your escape, yes?"

She nodded, raising her hands.

There were prickles, like the legs of a spider, crawling up her spine. Her heart thumped against her chest wall, a lump in her throat. Her hands had begun to go clammy.

'That's just your nervous system Liz. A mere instinct of the body. Keep...calm.'

"I will now approach to search your person for any concealed weaponry and place you in handcuffs. If you make any sudden movements, I will assume you are a physical threat to me and will use the necessary force to subdue you, yes?"

A nod again.

Lute patted her down and said in a lower voice, while cuffing her; "Ms. Ralland-Lennox, you're under arrest for racketeering and espionage. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. You will be held and tried at the Supreme Court in New America, St. Nero. Do you understand, and would you like to say anything?"

"I don't know why they sent you. I've done nothing wrong."

The Jury had to protect their secrets.

A silent watcher, she knew many. Information was her only solace: an opportunity for retribution. Her left hand never knew what the right was up to.

She had learned that from them.

So for a while, she would move in and out of places she was not allowed in, and when anyone took a second glance, they merely saw a keeper of sheep with an odd, grave shadow behind their eyes, nothing more.

She was the last vestige of any resistance, evidence that they could be opposed, so she understood why they had come. She only prayed that if things went sour, they would just put one in her head instead of doing something longer and more painful.

"If you are innocent, I believe you'll get the proper justice, but unfortunately, now is not the time or the place," said Lute, in a softer voice.

Liz scoffed internally. She doubted he even knew the meaning of the word.

Two Jury Calvary fast roped from the chopper. They placed a belt around Liz's waist and harnessed her to the line to be drawn up into the noisy flying machine. Shortly after, Lute followed.

The people turned away, averting their eyes and tucking their chins. They saw nothing, heard nothing.

The town resumed its idyllic rhythm.