Lucilla.
The name hung in the suffocating air of the tent, a poison far more potent than the one Perennis had served. Alex's mind, which had been operating with the cold precision of a machine, faltered. His sister. The historical accounts had painted her as ambitious and resentful, a key figure in the first assassination plot against Commodus. He had known, on an academic level, that she would be an enemy. But hearing it confirmed, hearing how she had described him—a simple-minded brute—from the lips of her co-conspirator, made it real. It was a betrayal that cut deeper than any blade.
He left Perennis sobbing on the dirt floor under the watchful, impassive eyes of the Dacian guards. He walked back to his own tent in a daze, the sounds of the camp muted, his thoughts a chaotic storm. He was no longer just fighting a faceless conspiracy. He was fighting his own family. The weight of his isolation, the sheer alienness of his situation, crashed down on him with renewed force.
He ducked inside his tent and went straight to the laptop, the glowing screen a familiar anchor in his turbulent reality. The battery icon was a stark reminder of his limitations: 21%. He had to make this next decision count. It would define his reign before it had even truly begun.
"Lyra," he said, his voice quiet, strained. "He confessed. It's a cabal in the Senate, with my sister at its heart. I have the traitor. Now… what are my options? What would a Roman emperor do?"
"The historical precedent is clear and unambiguous," Lyra's voice responded from the earbud, her tone as steady as a surgeon's hand. "Option A: Public Execution. You would have Perennis publicly tortured to extract the names of his subordinates here on the frontier. Following their confessions, you would execute them all in a brutal, public display—decapitation for the officers, crucifixion for any common soldiers involved. This is known as decimation, and it is the expected, traditional Roman response to treason in the ranks. It demonstrates strength, ruthlessness, and an unwillingness to tolerate dissent."
Alex flinched as if struck. The images her words conjured were horrific. Crucifixion. Torture. He thought of the men he had seen in the camp, men with families, men who had been lied to and manipulated by a charismatic leader. His 21st-century morality, his fundamental belief in due process and humane treatment, recoiled in absolute horror.
"No," he said, shaking his head fiercely. "Absolutely not. I can't… I won't do that. I'm not a butcher. That's the kind of thing the real Commodus would do. I can't become the monster I'm trying to replace."
"Your ethical framework is noted," Lyra said, a flicker of text on the screen indicating she was processing his rejection. "Option B, then: Imprisonment and Formal Trial. You could keep Perennis under guard, transport him back to Rome, and put him on trial before the Senate for treason. This aligns with your modern sensibilities regarding justice and the rule of law."
Alex felt a momentary sense of relief. A trial. That felt right. That felt civilized.
"However," Lyra continued, dashing his hope, "this option carries a 94% probability of catastrophic political failure. It would be perceived as profound weakness by the military, who expect swift, hard justice. More dangerously, his co-conspirators—the very senators who would be his judges—would use the trial to spread chaos and disinformation. They would paint you as a paranoid tyrant arresting loyal men without cause. They would bribe witnesses, stall proceedings, and use the ensuing instability to erode your authority and incite a coup. You would likely not survive to see a verdict."
The reality of his situation closed in on him again. He was trapped. He was caught between a choice he found morally abhorrent and one that was politically suicidal. He was the Emperor of Rome, the most powerful man in the world, and he had no good options.
"So I either have to be a monster or a fool?" Alex muttered, burying his face in his hands. "There has to be another way. There has to be a better solution."
He looked at the laptop screen, at the calm, glowing interface of the AI that had saved his life. "Lyra, you can simulate economies and battles. Simulate this. Run the variables. Find me a third path."
There was a moment of silence, the only sound the faint hum of the laptop's cooling system. Then, Lyra spoke.
"There is a third option," she said. "One that is strategically optimal and maximizes your long-term probability of success. It is, however, morally ambiguous according to your stated ethical parameters."
"Show me," Alex commanded, desperate.
"Option C: Weaponize the Asset."
Alex frowned. "Weaponize him? He's a traitor who just tried to murder me."
"Precisely," Lyra affirmed. "Which means you now own him, completely and irrevocably. His life is in your hands. He is terrified of you, compromised beyond recovery, and he will do anything—anything at all—to survive. Consider the alternatives. A dead Perennis is a martyr to his cause and a fading memory. A living, imprisoned Perennis is a political firestorm. But a living, controlled Perennis… is a tool."
The screen changed, displaying a complex network diagram. A node labeled 'Perennis' sat in the middle, connected by dozens of lines to other nodes: senators, corrupt officials, military informants, spies, underworld contacts.
"This network of corruption and influence that he built to undermine the empire no longer belongs to him," Lyra explained. "It now belongs to you. He becomes your puppet Prefect. Your personal spymaster. Your agent of radical change, operating within the very system he sought to control. He will know who to bribe, who to threaten, who to promote, and who to destroy. He will be the knife you use to carve the cancer out of the Senate, all while maintaining the public illusion of being their ally."
The sheer, Machiavellian brilliance of it was breathtaking. It was a move of incredible cunning, a way to turn his greatest threat into his most potent weapon. It was also deeply, profoundly cynical. To place his trust, the fate of his reforms, in the hands of the very man who had tried to poison him… it felt like a betrayal of his own principles.
"Can I trust him?" Alex asked, voicing his deepest fear. "What's to stop him from betraying me again the second I look away?"
"Fear," Lyra replied instantly. "And self-preservation. You will not be trusting his honor; you will be leveraging his terror. You are no longer the foolish boy he plotted against. You are the omniscient, god-like being who knows his every secret. He will never be certain of what you know or how you know it. That uncertainty will be his leash. Furthermore, you will make it clear that his survival is intrinsically tied to your own. If you fall, he falls. He will protect you with the ferocity of a man protecting himself."
Alex stood and paced the tent, his mind at war. It was a classic ends-versus-means debate. Could he use a man steeped in evil to achieve a greater good? Could he save millions from famine and war by employing the methods of a tyrant in the shadows? He looked at the faces of his family in his mind, the world he was trying to save from temporal paradox. What was the life of one corrupt Roman official compared to that?
He had come to this time hoping to be a good man, a philosopher king like his "father." But Rome wasn't a philosophy classroom. It was a pit of vipers. And to survive, maybe he couldn't be a saint. Maybe he had to become the chief serpent.
He made his decision. A heavy, grim certainty settled over him.
He returned to the storage tent. Perennis was still huddled on the floor, a pathetic, broken figure who looked up with red-rimmed eyes as Alex entered, expecting to be dragged to his execution.
Alex looked down at him, his face an unreadable mask of imperial authority.
"You are a traitor to Rome and a would-be assassin of your emperor," Alex said, his voice as cold as iron. "By law, your life is forfeit. Your name will be stricken from the records, your property seized by the state, your family sold into slavery."
A low, wretched moan escaped Perennis's lips.
"However," Alex continued, letting the word hang in the air, a sliver of impossible light in the darkness. "I have decided… to be merciful. You will live. You will keep your title as Praetorian Prefect. You will keep your properties, your wealth, your honors."
A flicker of stunned, incredulous hope ignited in Perennis's eyes. It was a pardon. A miracle.
"But," Alex said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper that crushed the hope before it could fully form. "Your ambition, your will, your soul… those belong to me now. From this moment on, you are my creature. You will have no thoughts but the ones I give you. You will take no action but the one I command. You will be my eyes and ears in the Senate's darkest corners, my loyal dog. And your very first task… will be to help me utterly and mercilessly dismantle the traitorous network you built."
Perennis stared up at him, the full weight of his sentence crashing down on him. He had not been pardoned. He had been enslaved. He was not condemned to a quick death, but to a long life of absolute, terrified servitude to the boy he had tried to kill. It was a fate far more terrible, and far more complete, than execution.