As soon as the two men stepped onto the street, the outside world hit Lucius like a physical blow. The noise was deafening: the screech of wooden wheels against the uneven stone paving, the shouts of merchants selling oil and grain, and the constant sound of thousands of sandals shuffling through the dust.

  Lucius walked beside Flavio, trying not to trip while his eyes scanned everything around him with a technical voracity. As an engineer, he had studied these structures in books and projections, but seeing them there, imposing and filthy, was a terrifying experience. The insulae, precarious apartment buildings, rose dangerously high, defying gravity with their wooden beams and exposed bricks. The smell was a solid wall of humanity, spices, smoke, and open sewage.

  With every step, the hope that this was a morphine-induced delusion crumbled. The dust entering his eyes stung for real. The sun warming his skin lacked the diffuse, dreamlike quality of dreams; it was hot, relentless, and real. Fear began to settle in his stomach, a cold, tight knot. He was trapped there.

  As they dodged a cart loaded with amphorae, Flavio, who seemed immune to the urban chaos, sighed heavily, shifting from his earlier jovial tone.

  "The gods haven't been kind lately," the big man commented, kicking a loose stone. "I ran into Marcus last night. The poor man was devastated."

  Lucius looked at him, still stunned by the decaying grandeur of the city. "Why?"

  "The plague," Flavio replied in a low voice, making a protective sign with his hand. "It took his mother and younger sister in a matter of days. They say bodies are piling up faster than the gravediggers can work in the lower districts."

  Lucius felt a chill run down his spine, despite the heat. Plague? His modern mind began to spin, cataloging the horrors of antiquity. Was it the Antonine Plague? The Plague of Cyprian? He didn't know what year it was, nor who the emperor was. Yet another layer of mortal danger was added to his new existence. He had no vaccines, no antibiotics. Just this strange and vulnerable body.

  Before he could process the information, the scenery changed. The residential buildings gave way to open, dusty ground where the earth had been torn open to expose the living rock. The sound of pickaxes and hammers striking stone was rhythmic and deafening. They had reached the quarry.

  Barely had they crossed the entrance of the work site when a hoarse and authoritative voice cut through the air.

  "You two! Did you think the day was made for strolling?"

  A short, stout man, wearing a tunic of better quality but stained with white dust, marched toward them. The supervisor's face was red with fury, and he gripped a wax tablet with excessive force.

  "The sun is already high!" the supervisor shouted, pointing at the sky. "Your lateness will be docked. Grab the stretcher and start carrying the blocks from the north sector to the carts. Now!"

  Without waiting for a reply, the man turned his back, shouting orders at another group of slaves and free laborers.

  Flavio just grunted something inaudible and signaled for Lucius to follow him. They walked to a pile of tools where several wooden stretchers were arranged—simple structures composed of two long parallel beams joined by transverse planks, used to transport heavy loads between two men.

  "Let's go, Lucius. The north sector isn't going to clean itself," Flavio said, grabbing the front handles of one of the stretchers.

  Lucius positioned himself at the rear handles. Before them lay a pile of rough limestone rocks, cut irregularly. Flavio began stacking the stones onto the stretcher's wood. One, two, three large stones.

  "That's good, lift!" Flavio commanded.

  Lucius planted his feet on the uneven ground and pulled the handles up. The weight was immediate and brutal. The rough wood bit into the palms of his hands, and his arms, though visibly defined, trembled under the strain. He clenched his teeth and lifted the load but felt a sudden dizziness.

  They took a few stumbling steps. Lucius's body seemed healthy on the outside, free of the tumors and frailty of his previous life, but he felt an intrinsic weakness, as if the fuel powering that biological machine was insufficient. The thin morning porridge wasn't enough energy for such Herculean effort.

  They dumped the stones near the carts and returned for the second trip. On the third load, Lucius stumbled, almost dropping the stretcher. His breathing was ragged, sweat running into his eyes.

  Flavio stopped and set his end down, looking at his companion with a raised eyebrow. A corner smile played on his lips, but there was concern in his eyes.

  "By the gods, Lucius," Flavio said, wiping sweat from his forehead with his forearm. "You look like an old lady today. Did your arms turn into twigs overnight?"

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  Lucius rested his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His heart was beating erratically. He needed an excuse. He couldn't say he wasn't used to manual labor, as the calluses on this body's hands indicated he had been doing this for years.

  "I... I don't know," Lucius murmured, his throat dry. "I'm feeling very ill. My body feels heavy."

  Flavio watched him for a moment, assessing his friend's sudden pallor. The playfulness vanished from his face.

  "You must really be sick," Lucius concluded, straightening up with difficulty.

  Flavio nodded seriously, but looked around to ensure the supervisor wasn't nearby.

  "Listen," Flavio said, lowering his voice. "Breathe deeply. Drink some water when we pass the barrel. But you have to hold on a little longer. I know Selene needs those denarii, and if the supervisor sends you home now, you won't get anything."

  The sun began to dip below the horizon, dyeing the Roman sky in shades of burnt orange and purple, when the sound of pickaxes finally ceased. The silence that followed was filled only by the collective sigh of dozens of exhausted men.

  Lucius and Flavio found a fallen tree trunk, away from the quarry's thickest dust, and sat down heavily. Their bodies were covered in a fine layer of white powder, making them look like unfinished statues. In their hands, they held pieces of rustic, hard bread, bought with a fraction of the coins the supervisor had thrown at them at the end of the shift.

  Flavio bit into the bread ravenously, chewing noisily as he watched the movement of the last workers.

  "I'm seriously thinking about enlisting," Flavio said, wiping crumbs from his beard. "I heard the legions in the north need men. The pay is better, food is guaranteed, and if you survive, you get land. It's better than breaking your back for these crumbs here."

  Lucius chewed slowly, tasting the coarse wheat. The mention of legions triggered an alert in his mind. Wars. He needed to know where he was, or rather, when he was.

  "The legions..." Lucius murmured, trying to sound casual while looking at the horizon. "Sounds tempting. But with a head full of dust, I sometimes lose track of time. Tell me, Flavio, how long has the Emperor worn the purple? Sometimes it feels like yesterday; sometimes it feels like an eternity."

  Flavio looked at him strangely but shrugged.

  "You really hit your head today, didn't you? We are in the second year of the reign of the divine Marcus Aurelius."

  Lucius nodded, hiding the storm raging in his mind. Marcus Aurelius. The name resonated powerfully. He remembered history classes, the books he had read in college out of curiosity. The Philosopher Emperor. The last of the "Good Emperors." If memory served, this placed the year around one hundred and sixty-something AD. He was at the height of the Empire, but also at the beginning of its long decline.

  "Second year..." Lucius repeated, recording the information.

  Flavio swallowed a large piece of bread and turned to his friend.

  "And you? Don't you think about coming with me? You have the build to be a legionary, Lucius. And with that face of someone carrying the weight of the world, maybe you'd do well in military discipline."

  Lucius felt a chill. The Roman army. Forced marches, hand-to-hand combat with swords and spears, infected wounds without antibiotics, surgeries without anesthesia. If cancer had killed him in his time, a simple rusty arrowhead would kill him here.

  "I don't know," he replied cautiously. In his mind, the question was deeper. Why was he there? Had God, or some forgotten deity, given him a second chance? Or was it purgatory? Everything seemed too real, too tactile to be a hallucination. The smell of sweat, the pain in his muscles, the taste of bread. If there was a purpose, it certainly wasn't to die gutted on a Germanic frontier. "It's a difficult decision. But I don't rule out the possibility."

  As they talked, Lucius's eyes wandered over the quarry courtyard. He watched two men struggling to lift a stretcher loaded with smaller stones. They stumbled, the poorly distributed weight straining their spines. It was a brutal waste of energy.

  He frowned. Where were the wheelbarrows? He scanned the site. Four-wheeled carts pulled by oxen, yes. Hand stretchers, yes. Baskets, yes. But no single-wheeled vehicle for individual transport.

  The engineer's mind began to work, gears turning faster than they had all day. The concept was simple. Basic physics. Lever, fulcrum.

  "Flavio," Lucius began, his voice taking on a tone of restrained urgency. "Do you know any carpenters? Someone skilled with wood?"

  Flavio stopped chewing and looked at Lucius with an incredulous expression, as if his friend had just spoken in tongues.

  "By the gods, Lucius! You really are sick," Flavio exclaimed, shaking his head. "Marcus! Our friend I talked about earlier, the one who lost his family to the plague. He's a carpenter. We worked with him building a house last summer. How could you forget that?"

  Lucius cursed mentally. Of course. The grieving friend.

  "Sorry," Lucius said quickly, bringing a hand to his forehead as if in pain. "Fatigue is making me confused. My memory is failing today."

  "It's alright, it happens," Flavio said, relaxing again. "The sun cooks anyone's brains."

  "Do you think he would help with a project?" Lucius asked, leaning forward.

  "Depends," Flavio replied, cleaning his teeth with his tongue. "He's a friend, but life is hard for everyone. I don't know if he'd charge cheaply, even for us. He needs to eat, after all." Flavio narrowed his eyes, curious. "What project is this?"

  Lucius hesitated for a second. How to explain a concept that didn't exist? He needed to simplify.

  "Imagine... a kind of small cart," Lucius began, gesturing with his hands. "But instead of four wheels and oxen, it would have just one wheel, centered in the front. And in the back, two long handles for a man to hold and push."

  Flavio frowned, trying to visualize the contraption.

  "A one-wheeled cart? It would fall over sideways," the Roman retorted, skeptical.

  "Not if the man holds the handles," Lucius explained, drawing an imaginary shape in the air. "The weight of the stone would be on the wheel, not on the man's arms. You'd only need to push and balance, not carry the dead weight like we do with stretchers. One man alone could do the work of two, and with less effort."

  Flavio fell silent for a moment, his mouth slightly open, processing the information. He looked at his own calloused hands and then at the abandoned stretcher nearby.

  "Where did you get this crazy idea?" Flavio asked, still confused but with a glint of interest shining in his eyes.

  "I just... had the idea," Lucius lied, shrugging. "I looked at those men suffering over there and thought there must be an easier way. It's hard carrying stones on the stretcher all day. This would help. It would help a lot."