Chapter 2

J-43 could not believe that things had gone as well as they had. With Marcella out of the picture now, there would be no Nero and the reign of terror that would follow. He would return to his time to see what had transpired now. Knowing those in his time were monitoring him he merely issued the command to return. He closed his eyes knowing when he opened them again; he would be back in the year 30,343. He did not know what he would see, but he knew, just knew that it would be glorious. When he opened his eyes, wonder, amazement and the greatest surprise since he was made.

Nothing had changed, he was right where was before. It was not that he had returned there, he had never even left. Where a human might consider hundreds, if not thousands of reasons and things that might have happened, he immediately knew the reason, he was after-all J-43 the most advanced being ever created. He refined that, in his time he thought, in his time.

Time he knew was like a moving river. A stone cast into it made a splash or two, ripples radiated out then finally subsided but the river had been in-exorable changed, the flow of water continued to flow but it had forever been changed. The larger the stone, the greater the amount of water displaced. The greater the amount of water displaced the greater that the flow of the river was changed. So it was with time.

He knew that in his time, the people, the technology and the time dilator were there no more and things from that point on would never be as they had been before.

This too had been considered, also that J-43's recovery may not be an option, it was one of many things. The result of his actions and the impact of it was only theoretical. No one really knew what the results would be. That he was trapped here did not matter. He was only a robot, what the future would now be was now what mattered.

That things were no longer what they had been was what was important. It was never considered that that new future could be worse than what it was. J-43 would never know. It was just a possibility but was one of those things considered. That his future had been lost, now so was the signal to his master link. As he started to disappear, his last thoughts were if this new future would be better or worse than before, or if anything in that time would remain. He closed his eyes, a smile on his face. Knowing it did not matter, he had done what he was made for. A robot did not have to do anything more than that.

Whatever the future would be, things in Rome were now starting to change too. Marcus, Rasney even the Emperor had been given a new future, that plus an entire legion, the 12th that was equipped with technology that had not been matched in the old version of time in more than 30 centuries.

In Venice 20,000 had been so equipped. Cooks, blacksmiths, grooms, merchants, cavalry, drivers, slingers, bowmen, even the camp followers had stood and fought against the enemy as soldiers. They had succeeded and none had been killed. Another legion, the 10th was now being equipped with the things those support groups had been given. 20,000 fighting troops and now 40,000 support and auxiliary formed these 2 new legions. As many Praetorians as existed were added to them.

One legion would protect Rome and the Emperor, one would become the avengers Rome would send against any enemy. There soon was no enemy who would emerge to challenge them. The mere sight of either legion became enough to make any demand acceptable to the citizenry. In time those demands seemed to be quite reasonable. Given the myths and rumors that abounded about these new legions and the destruction of entire cities that had resisted or attacked them, these offers to join Rome were considered very generous indeed.

For 5 centuries what had been bloody wars before became merely acceptance of the Roman way of life. Roads, baths, running water, hot and cold; and sanitary concerns; were small things but in the year 500 AD, it was unheard of. Those things and a lot more were now common throughout the Empire. Except for those weapons J-43 had equipped the 12th and now used also by the 10th legion; other things had developed quite normally up until 512 A.D...

Success breeds envy and often arrogance. Few even remembered that battle that Marcus and the Princess Rasney had fought. There were some that did however. The 10th and 12th, now manned by carefully selected replacements still did; it was not legend to them. Those tactics, weapons and belief or memory in something that could have only come from the gods would never be forgotten by them. The details of that day were studied by them everyday.

Everything that had been done in that 30th decade had been done for one reason, to change the future and to give hope for a future beyond what they saw ahead. In that 5th century after J-43, the first of many things took place. Instead of the Huns, Vandals or Mongol hordes, Rome, now much larger than it had been before, was to be challenged for dominance by China. What was a huge but a xenophobic society before was now a somewhat recently unified country that was ruled by one emperor. Advances in social, civic as well as many other advances might make Chinese and a Roman way of life appear very similar. It however, was not the same.