“Oooh, I like him,” Anne chirped.
“But this isn’t what I wanted,” Jayla whined, turning to Harold this time. “I’ve been waiting for the other tours for weeks! I even read extra books from the library. It’s not fair!”
“I’m sorry, but Mister Winston said he can only do solo tours right now, and these are their tours,” Harold said solemnly. He glanced at Winston. “And there’s nothing else?”
Don’t do it, Winston told himself. Don’t give them an inch . . .
“What were you excited to see?” Winston asked Jayla, who pinned him with a withering stare. During university, Winston had guest lectured at local schools and faced down dozens of similar looks. Though none had ever been as venomous as Jayla’s currently was. “Maybe something with princesses? Or . . . ponies?”
“The assassination of Julius Caesar and the ascension of Emperor Augustus in the Roman Empire,” Jayla said. She smiled wickedly. “But if there’s also a pony, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Jesus,” Winston breathed. “Seriously?”
“Jayla’s a very good student,” Anne said, giving the girl a side hug.
“All the Time in the World Temporal Travel Company restricts all visits to a minimal hundred-meter lethal radius, and no criminal activity,” Winston said to Harold. He shot Jayla an accusing look. “And since Julius Caesar died—”
“Can we please just go back to Janus Tours?” Jayla wheedled. “I wanted to actually learn something, not be babysat by some loser behind a desk.”
“Jayla!” Anne chided.
Something in the back of Winston’s brain snapped. Maybe it was the denial of an early closing, or the fresh sting of Janus Tours’ third rejection, but Winston wasn’t about to let this kid win. He offered the girl a cold, wide grin.
“So you wanted to see something in ancient Rome?” he asked evenly.
“Or Greece. Or Egypt,” Jayla said. “But since you don’t have anything—”
“Oh, we’ve got something.”
Winston settled himself behind the front desk’s computer screen. He closed out the solo tours—the girl was right, those were for babies—and accessed the All the Time in the World tour library. Hundreds of preplanned excursions, ready to be loaded with captain’s notes and background music. Most were basic tourist fodder: coronations, the premiere of Romeo and Juliet, and general day-in-the-life experiences that were carefully selected for minimal brutality and stink. But if you went back far enough in the catalog, there were some very interesting programs. Excursions that hadn’t been run since time-travel tourism companies realized most of history didn’t make for family fun.
“We don’t want to be any trouble . . .” Anne said.
“No trouble at all,” Winston said, clicking through the drop-down menus. Ancients, Select. Rome, Select. Battles, sea, Select. Searching, searching . . .
A program popped up, and Winston smirked. It was perfect, and it hadn’t been accessed in years. Probably because it was too niche for the common tourist, but if this kid was half as smart as she claimed . . . Winston selected the program, and crossed his fingers as the data loaded.
“We really don’t . . .” Harold said, but bit back his comment as Winston popped from his seat with a triumphant “Yes!” and a boat in the back began to hum loudly.
“How’s your Roman history?” Winston asked Jayla, meeting the girl’s glare with his own.
“Pretty good,” she said. “How’s yours?”
“About a master’s degree, and then some,” he countered.
Winston thought he saw her mouth tick up a little at the corners, but he wasn’t sure.
“So there’s a tour?” Anne asked.
“Yes, ma’am, and you’re in luck,” Winston said, motioning her toward the back. “I found an archived tour that should be very interesting. And you have it all to yourselves!”
The Niña was vibrating in its docking pool, ripples dancing up the boat’s low sides as the engine warmed. Winston unlatched the low door, the swinging metal barely missing Jayla as she leaped on board. Harold and Anne were slower, more cautious, but they, too, eventually settled on a bench in the middle row, each with an arm around the excited girl.
Winston locked the door and settled himself in the captain’s station, his program already locked in. Reina had left the boat’s starter key in the ignition. Winston twisted it as he’d seen Reina do a hundred times, and the entire vessel jerked. Anne shrieked, but transitioned to a nervous giggle as the Niña lifted into the air, a shimmering soap bubble appearing around the boat. Jayla flung herself against the rail to stare down at their hovering, and it took both Harold and Anne’s pleading to bring her back to her seat.
“Welcome aboard the Niña, All the Time in the World Temporal Travel Company’s premiere vessel,” Winston said, the words washing over him from the thousands of times he’d heard Reina and other guides recite their mantras. “My name is Winston, and I’ll be your Sherpa through the sands of time! Please keep all arms, legs, and heads inside the boat. Please do not touch the security sphere, as this keeps us safe in our journeys. No smoking, no vaping, no hallucinogens, no flash photography, no attempting to change the past in any way. Any attempts to meet an ancient will earn an immediate termination of the tour and be cause for a lifelong ban. But if you want to know if you saw any family on this excursion, you can get three dollars off a Geneti-Me-Happy DNA ancestry and heritage package, included with your ticket. Now sit back, relax, and prepare to experience All the Time in the World!”
Winston made a grand show from the back of the boat, pretending to flick dials and spin the steering wheel, but the actual launch only took a single press of a round green button labeled Go. As his thumb depressed the plastic nub, the air around them sizzled hot and bright. Winston watched as electricity webbed across the sphere, turning its surface from translucent to milky white, and bam! His stomach dropped out of his body only to ricochet up through his skull and then settle back among his guts, all in the space of a second. A shriek came up from the middle of the boat, but it wasn’t of panic this time—it was pure delight.
The Niña floated above an ocean, deep blue and rolling beneath a steely sky. Straight ahead, just beyond the mandatory hundred-meter minimum, two fleets of long wooden ships with billowing sails stretched to the horizon. Bodies writhed and roiled across the decks as arrows, stones, and fire crisscrossed the space between the vessels. Shouts and screams could barely be heard above the groans of wood, bending and flexing and snapping as boats crashed and charged with little concern for human life. It was carnage. It was destruction. It was, in the eyes of any twelve-year-old or ancient history major, absolutely awesome.
“The date is September 2. The year, 31 BCE,” Winston said into the boat’s microphone, a handheld device with a permanently tangled cord. “The forces of Rome and Egypt meet on the Ionian Sea, ready to battle for supremacy over the Mediterranean world. This encounter will be forever known as—”
“The Battle of Actium!”
Jayla had once again thrown herself to the railing, her raincoat flapping wide as the winds whipped her puff of dark hair back. She looked over her shoulder, her smile a brilliant shimmer of slightly crooked teeth and unfettered glee.
“Which are Antony’s ships?” she called above the spray.
Winston pointed to the right, where red-and-gold strips of cloth hemmed a hundred sails. To their left, ships emblazoned with the eagle of Rome were bearing down.