Episode 6.b

>The Hill Above Rome / The Briefing Space, transition out<

Quintus listens to every word. Now and then he nods, and once he smiles at something one of you gets exactly right. When you have finished, he stands quietly beside you for a moment, looking out over Rome.

"That was well told," he says. "All of it. I want you to remember this place, and what it looks like from up here."

Then he pauses, because something has changed. The light on the city below has gone strange, too bright around the edges, and the hill under your feet feels thinner than it should. Quintus notices before you do.

"Ah," he says. "That's the machine. It's shutting down." He sounds calm; he has seen this happen before. "It has what it needed. The falx is back where it belongs, the timeline is whole again, and the TSTT is closing this world for now. We don't have long."

Below you, the city begins to fade. First the rooftops lose their detail, then the roads thin out at their far ends, and the gardens flatten into patches of color and then into nothing at all. The temple of Vesta lasts the longest, its fire burning clear and sharp while everything around it disappears, and then it is gone too.

The hill is gone, and so is the warm air. You are standing in an empty space filled with pale light, and you can feel something very large finishing a very long piece of work.

Quintus is still with you, but he is starting to fade, thin at the edges and not quite solid, just as Vulcan was when you first found him. He knows it, and he isn't afraid.

"I have to stay here," he says. "That's how it works. I'm part of the machine." He looks at each of you. "But when you come back, and I hope you will, ask for my brother Sextus. He runs the longer version of this program, Operation LAPIS, and he's been hoping for a team like you." He grins, and for a moment he is completely himself again, warm and sharp and a little bit ridiculous. "Tell him Quintus sent you. He'll pretend he has no idea what you're talking about. That's just what he does."

The pale light grows brighter. Quintus raises one hand. "Go well, Recentii."

Then he is gone, and you are yourselves again, standing in your own classroom. The simulation is over.

All that is left is a small light, blinking on the TSTT Console...