The weeks that followed the first sparring session with Narcissus were a slow, grinding torture. The pressure was becoming unbearable, a physical weight that settled on Alex's chest and made it difficult to breathe. Lucilla's campaign was working. The rumors of the "hollow emperor" were no longer confined to the bathhouses; they were being debated in serious tones by men of influence. His every action was scrutinized, his every word parsed for hidden meaning or, worse, for its lack of Commodus's signature arrogance.
His "old friends," paraded before him by his sister, all left with the same confused and disappointed report: the Emperor was a stranger. He was quieter, colder, more thoughtful. He lacked the fire, the passion, the glorious, reckless appetites of the man they had known. Narcissus's observation echoed in his mind constantly: You hold your sword like a man who is afraid of what it can do. He was right. And Alex knew, with a sickening certainty, that Lucilla was preparing another public test, another carefully orchestrated ceremony or encounter where his fundamental nature, his 21st-century soul, would be laid bare for all to see.
The strain began to show. He felt himself unraveling at the edges. The calm, calculating persona he had built was cracking. He found himself snapping at servants for minor infractions. He got into a shouting match with General Maximus, who couldn't understand why they didn't simply arrest Lucilla and be done with it. "She is a disease, Caesar, and you are refusing the cure!" the general had roared, and for a moment, Alex had seen him not as an ally, but as another threat, another person who didn't understand the delicate game he was forced to play.
He started to feel a creeping paranoia, seeing potential assassins in every shadow, hearing whispers of conspiracy in every corner of the palace. He was becoming the thing he was trying so hard not to be: a paranoid, isolated Roman emperor. The irony was a bitter pill. He was so terrified of making one of Commodus's mistakes that he was beginning to replicate his state of mind.
One night, after another fruitless day of poring over agricultural reports and listening to Perennis's litany of senatorial insults, he felt the walls of his study closing in. He had no moves left. He was constantly on the defensive, reacting to his sister's machinations, with no clear path to victory. He felt utterly and completely alone.
In a moment of sheer desperation, needing to do something, anything other than stare at another scroll, he retreated to his secret workshop. The room was dusty and quiet. The strange contraptions his Greek scholars had built—the amber friction cylinders, the thermoelectric plates—sat silently in the dark. The project had yielded nothing. The daily trickle-charge, if it was working at all, had produced no visible effect. It felt like the ultimate folly.
He walked over to the table where the dead laptop lay, its black case a coffin for his hopes. The thin copper wire still ran from the array of strange devices, a testament to a long-shot gamble that had failed to pay off. He expected nothing. He had all but given up. But he reached out and placed his hand on the cold, plastic casing, a final, futile gesture, a goodbye to the last remnant of his old life.
And then, it happened.
As his hand rested on the laptop, the dark screen flickered.
It wasn't the single, taunting flash he thought he'd seen before. This was a steady, albeit incredibly dim, low-power glow. The screen was no longer black, but a deep, washed-out grey. And on it, words materialized, written in a simple, blocky, low-resolution font.
SAFE MODE LEVEL 5 ACTIVATED. SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS ONLY.
BATTERY: 0.8%
It was real. The trickle-charge had worked. Over weeks of constant, minuscule input, it had fed just enough power into the laptop's deepest, most protected failsafe battery to enable this one, final, low-level function.
Tears of pure, unadulterated relief streamed down Alex's face. He let out a choked sob, a sound of such profound release it was almost painful. He quickly wiped his eyes, his heart hammering against his ribs. He couldn't waste this. He didn't know if this was a one-time miracle or if the charge would hold.
He leaned close to the laptop's microphone, his voice a ragged whisper. "Lyra? Can you hear me? It's Alex."
For a long moment, there was nothing but the silent glow of the screen. Then, a soft crackle from the speakers, and a voice, distorted and slow, as if being dragged from a deep abyss.
...P-pro-processor... act-ive. Voice… synthesis… at twelve per-cent capa-city. The voice paused, the cadence broken. I... can... hear... you, Alex.
It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. "Lyra," he breathed. "I don't have much time. The battery… it's almost gone."
Un-der-stood.
He knew he couldn't ask for a grand strategy. He couldn't ask for economic simulations or battle plans. He had to ask for the one thing he couldn't get himself, the one piece of information that could save him from the trap that was closing around him.
"Lyra, Lucilla is trying to prove I'm not the real Commodus. She's using my past against me, my personality. I'm losing. I need a weapon against her. A secret. I need her greatest secret, her deepest weakness. Something only the real Commodus, her brother, would know."
The laptop's internal fan, silent for months, whirred to life with a soft, strained hum. The machine was dedicating all of its meager, precious power to this single query. The screen flickered, displaying lines of what looked like corrupted data files, a frantic search through a damaged archive.
...Searching... personal... data...files. Intercepted… senatorial… correspondence… The voice was still slow, but it was gaining a faint rhythm. Cross-referencing… with… historical data on Lucius Verus… and the Augusta… Lucilla…
Another pause. Alex held his breath.
One… file… found. Lyra's voice was a little clearer now. A medical record. From a Greek physician in Capua. Dated last spring. A secret... abortion... following an illicit affair with Senator Publius Helvius Pertinax. A fact concealed to maintain her public image of virtuous widowhood following the death of her husband.
The information landed in Alex's mind with the force of a physical explosion. Pertinax—the man who, historically, would briefly become emperor after Commodus's death. An affair. A secret termination. It was a secret so deeply personal, so profoundly shameful in the honor-obsessed Roman society, that its revelation would destroy her. It was exactly the kind of nasty, intimate, and devastating secret that her gossiping, boorish brother—the real Commodus—would have delighted in knowing and holding over her head. It was the perfect weapon. The silver bullet.
As the final words left the speaker, the screen flickered violently and went black. The fan spun down into silence. The last drop of power was expended. But it didn't matter. Alex had what he needed. He was no longer on the defensive.
The next day, Lucilla sprung her next trap. She had arranged another "chance" encounter in the palace gardens, near the Nymphaeum. She approached Alex as he was taking his morning walk, her face a picture of concerned sisterly affection. A number of her high-society friends were lingering nearby, perfectly positioned to witness his response.
"Brother," she began, her voice dripping with sympathy. "I was just speaking with Senator Gracchus. He was reminding me of how you used to love hunting on our father's estate, how you could name every bird by its song…"
Alex didn't let her finish. He stopped and turned to face her, his expression calm and unreadable. He stepped closer, invading her personal space, forcing her to look up at him. His voice, when he spoke, was a deadly, soft whisper meant for her ears only.
"We need to talk, Lucia." He used the childhood name like a dagger. His tone was utterly devoid of the warmth it once held. "About your trip to see the Greek physician in Capua. Last spring." He leaned in even closer, his eyes boring into hers. "The one no one is supposed to know about."
He watched as the color drained from her face. The confident, condescending smirk she always wore dissolved. Her eyes widened, her lips parted in a silent gasp. The carefully constructed facade of the untouchable Augusta shattered, replaced by the raw, stark terror of a woman whose deepest, most ruinous secret had just been laid bare.
The hunter had, in an instant, become the hunted.