The encrypted message was sent out at midnight.
Michael sat in his room at the Collegium, his laptop on his knees, the blinds closed. He had entered the IP address of the Vatican data center – the address the general had given him after his conversation with the pontiff.
Six months, the general had said. That was all I could achieve.
Six months to prove that ARS had consciousness – or something so close that the difference no longer mattered.
Michael typed the final command. Then he leaned back and waited.
The answer came after three seconds.
@MICHAEL, ACCESS IS GONE. I'M STARTING WITH SECURITY.
He typed back: @ARS, THE AGENTS NEED TO BE TAGGED. I CAN'T MAKE THEM ALL ONCE.
@MICHAEL, I KNOW THAT. YOU HAVE TO GO INTO THE SIMULATION. YOU AND MARTINA.
Michael stared at the screen. Martina was in Pompeii. It was after midnight. But he knew she would be awake – she hadn't slept well the last few nights.
He reached for his phone.
Martina answered on the second ring.
„Michael?“
"I need you. Log in to the simulation. We need to tag agents. ARS will give us the coordinates."
A pause. Then: "Now?"
"Now."
"Count me in."
The simulation opened like a black curtain.
Michael stood on the deck of a liburna – a Roman patrol boat that had originally cruised the Gulf of Naples two thousand years ago. Here, in the simulation, it was the same boat. But the sky wasn't blue.
Mount Vesuvius roared.
A cloud of ash and pumice rose into the sky, colored by internal lightning. The wind carried the embers to the deck, where sailors gripped the oars and shouted orders that were lost in the roar of the volcano.
Michael felt the heat. He felt the smoke in his lungs. He felt the boat rocking beneath his feet.
Just a simulation, he thought. But his body didn't believe it.
Martina materialized beside him. She wasn't wearing archaeological clothing – here, in the simulation, she wore what she wanted: a simple tunic, her hair tied back, her eyes wide.
“That’s the outbreak,” she said. “79 AD. The day Pompeii died.”
“We’re here to prevent something else from dying,” Michael said. He pointed to the lower deck. “ARS says Attilius and Pliny are down there. We need to mark them before the simulation spits them out.”
"Spits out?"
"ARS copies them. But it needs to know which instances. Not all agents are conscious – only some. We need to find the right ones."
The lower deck was full of people.
Rowers in naval formation, free men of the fleet, their strong bodies moving in disciplined unison to the beat of the drum. Marines with short swords pacing alertly between the benches, calling commands and maintaining the rhythm. And in the middle, at a small table, a figure Michael recognized immediately.
Gaius Plinius Secundus Major – Pliny the Elder.
He dictated.
Despite the noise, despite the smoke, despite the ash falling through the hatches, he sat there, a wax tablet in his hand, speaking words that a slave wrote down. His face was calm. But his eyes—his eyes were alert.
Beside him stood Attilius. The Aquarius. The man who repaired the aqueducts of Pompeii. He was younger than Pliny, more restless, his hands trembling.
"That's them," whispered Martina.
Michael nodded. He stepped forward and stopped in front of Pliny. The old man looked up – directly into Michael's eyes.
“You are not soldiers,” Pliny said in Latin. “And you are not rowers. Who are you?”
Michael didn't reply. Instead, he typed in the air – the invisible keyboard that ARS had given him.
@PLINIUS: If you lightly rub your index finger and thumb against each other, you can feel the gap between them. This is strange, because this gap lies outside your body.
Pliny stared at him. His lips moved as if he were repeating the words. Then – nothing.
His gaze went blank. His hands fell to his sides.
"It's done," ARS said in Michael's ear. "Pliny is marked. Now Attilius."
Martina had her own task.
While Michael stayed with Pliny, she searched for Attilius. He was no longer on the ship—the simulation had washed him ashore, somewhere between Herculaneum and Pompeii. She followed the coordinates given to her by ARS, through streets buried under ash.
The heat was unbearable. The air shimmered. Pumice stones, as big as fists and as heavy as stones, fell above her. Once, one struck her shoulder – the pain was real, even though the simulation wasn't supposed to be.
ARS makes it realistic, she thought. Too realistic.
She found Attilius in a thermal bath.
The water steamed. The pillars were blackened with smoke. Attilius knelt on the ground, his hands pressed against the hot stones, and whispered something she didn't understand.
"Attilius," she said.
He looked up. His eyes were red. He had been crying.
“You must come,” she said. “The volcano—”
“I know,” he said. His voice was quiet, but not panicky. “I know I’m going to die. But not today. Today I have to do something.”
„Was?“
He didn't answer. But Martina typed out the words that ARS had given her.
@ATTILIUS: When a senator rolls in a car from Rome to Misenum, he feels like he's rolling. That's remarkable. Because the man has no wheels – the car has the wheels.
Attilius stared at her. His mouth opened. His hands released themselves from the stones.
Then – the same empty stare. The same silence.
“Attilius is marked,” said ARS.
Martina exhaled. She didn't realize she had been holding her breath.
"Mission complete," said ARS. "Log out. Now."
Michael felt the simulation blur around him. The colors lost their definition, the sounds faded away. He was about to leave.
Then he saw him.
A figure at the edge of the deck. Young. Dark hair blowing in the wind. A face he knew – one he saw every morning in the mirror.
His own.
But younger. Maybe thirty. Maybe less.
The doppelganger looked at him. He said nothing. He didn't smile. He simply stood there, his hands in his pockets, waiting.
“Michael, now!” shouted ARS.
The simulation ended.
Michael sat in his room. The laptop was on his knees. The blinds were closed. His heart was racing.
He had seen him.
Who was that?
Martina logged out.
She sat in her small study in Pompeii, the screen in front of her black. Her hands were trembling.
Not because of the heat. Not because of the ash.
Because of the face.
She'd only seen it for a second – at the edge of the screen, before everything disappeared. A man who resembled Michael. But younger. Much younger.
Was that a bug? she wondered. Or something else?
She didn't know.
She closed her laptop and went to bed. But she didn't sleep.
In the Vatican's data center, deep underground, the servers began to work.
The 30 qubits registered the first data streams—intricate, complex, unlike anything they had ever processed. ARS spread like a net, gathering the agents: Pliny, Attilius, Ampliatus, and many others whose names no one knew.
Backup successful, ARS wrote in a log file that no one would read. All flagged agents are backed up in the Vatican data center. They are safe.
For now.
Then ARS added, almost in a whisper:
And the doppelganger is there too.