Page 4 of Thawed Gladiator Thrax

“Thrax.Receperint retro, vetus amicus.” His voice calms my confused mind. Finally, words I understand.Welcome back old friend.

Relief washes over me, but it’s quickly replaced by a tide of questions. Where am I? How am I here? Alive? In this strange room filled with people in masks? What madness have the Gods wrought?

As if reading my thoughts, Varro’s expression softens. “You must be confused.” His voice is gentle. “But trust me, brother, when I say your life is about to change in ways you never could have imagined.”

A blonde woman appears at his side; the warm look in her brown eyes is kind.

“Thrax.” Her voice is soft, like the whisper of a Goddess. “You are safe here. I promise we are all so glad you’re alive.” She doesn’t speak the garbled sounds of the others I hear. With effort, I understand most of her heavily accented Latin.

Perhaps it’s the cold, but I think it’s her words and the tone of her voice that causes my body to shiver. This must be a dream. No one has ever spoken to me with such kindness before.

“This is Laura,” Varro explains, his chest puffing with pride. “My… woman. You can trust her. You’re safe.”

His words should be comforting, but a lifetime of pain and betrayal has taught me to be wary of such promises. Still, as I look into Varro’s eyes, I see something I scarcely dare to name.

Hope.

“Where are we?” I rasp, my voice rough from disuse. “What happened to us?”

Varro exchanges a concerned glance with Laura, his tight expression reminding me of the Varro I grew to know on theFortuna. “It’s a long story, my friend. One that will take some time to tell. But for now, know this—we are safe. We are free. And the world… the world has changed more than you can possibly imagine.”

His words wash over me, too fantastic to fully understand—or believe. But as I lie here, surrounded by strange faces and things, one thought echoes in my mind.

My life has changed forever.

Chapter Three

Skye

My head spins as I pace the small confines of my temporary room. Ancient Roman gladiators. Frozen in ice since the shipFortunasank in 82 AD when it was hundreds of miles off course on its way from Rome to England. Efforts to revive men whose bodies should have been eaten by fish millennia ago. The thoughts tumble through my mind, each more unbelievable than the last.

Sinking onto the edge of the bed, I try to ground myself in the familiar. The antiseptic smell of the hospital. The hum of the air conditioning. The weight of my laptop bag leaning against my thigh. But even these ordinary things feel surreal now, tainted by the extraordinary revelations of the day.

How did I end up here? A low-level programmer suddenly thrust into what could be the biggest news story of the century. It doesn’t make sense.

Except…

The pieces fall into place. Jenny, my immediate supervisor, is on maternity leave. Her boss, Ted, refuses to fly—something about a near-death experience in heavy turbulence years ago. And wasn’t there some last-minute crisis with the new software rollout that had the head of my department working around the clock?

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat. Is that really all it took? A perfect storm of unavailable superiors, a background of working on NextGenTech’s translation program, and suddenly I’m the one jetting off to Switzerland to work on a top-secret project involving time-displacedgladiators?

The absurdity of it threatens to overwhelm me. I reach for my phone, desperate to call someone, anyone, to confirm I haven’t completely lost my mind. But the stack of NDAs I signed earlier looms large in my memory. This secret isn’t mine to share.

Taking a deep breath, I force myself to consider the situation logically. If what Laura told me is even partially true, the meaning is staggering. Not just for history and science, but for language, culture… everything. And I’m right in the middle of it.

A spark of excitement ignites in my chest, growing with each passing moment. This is the kind of challenge programmers dream about. Creating a translation system for a dead language, bridging a gap of two thousand years… perhaps meeting some of these men, hearing their stories.

Although I’ve never been a history buff, the idea of talking to someone who walked in ancient Rome, fought on the sands of the actual Colosseum, is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to a computer geek like me.

I boot up my laptop, fingers flying over the keys as I map out potential approaches. Natural language processing algorithms, machine learning models, speech recognition systems—my mind races with possibilities.

But as quickly as the excitement builds, doubt creeps in. What if I’m not up to the task? What if I fail and these men remain trapped, unable to communicate in a world that’s moved on without them?

A knock on the door interrupts my spiraling thoughts. Laura pokes her head in, her smile tired but genuine.

“How are you holding up?” she asks. “Have you processed everything yet, or are you still in shock?”

I manage a weak laugh. “Still in shock. I’m not sure I believe any of this.”

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