Plato's Wager

399 BCE. Athens, Greece.

The pyre is ready. Drenched in oil, swaddled in white cloth, Archelaus’s body lays in stately rest on the funereal platform. Hundreds of Athenians watch in somber silence as a young, bearded man lifts a blazing torch above his head. Blinking back tears, he sets his jaw and lowers the flame.

Mourners wail. The scent of charred oak fills the air, and the breeze carries it beyond the crowds to the banks of the Kifissos River. There sits a tired, ugly old man who wants only to be alone. He lifts a goblet.

“To the next realm,” Socrates whispers. And he drinks.

The sun has yet to reach the horizon. As fire consumes the body, the young man who lit the pyre leaves the funeral behind and joins Socrates by the river. When the young man arrives, Socrates gestures to the patch of earth next to his own.

“Plato,” he says, “what is death?”

Plato scratches his beard. Despite his youth, he shares with Socrates a love of dialogue, a passion for discussion and discovery. He is the only person Socrates wishes to speak with today.

“Death is an ending,” Plato says, “yet not the ending.” He sits down. “It is another stratum on our journey through time.”

Socrates nods. “Profound, yet entirely noncommittal. You listen well.”

“I have an excellent teacher.”

Socrates shifts in his seat. “I’m tired, Plato. My mind is sharp, but my bones are brittle. Archelaus acts as my herald, ushering me toward death, yet I do not want to leave. So here I sit.”

Plato grunts. “I thought you wanted to ask me stuffy questions about morality.”

“I thought you liked stuffy questions about morality.”

“Hence my surprise.” Plato grins, though his grief mutes the expression. “I wonder if we’ll see Archelaus again.”

“In the next realm,” Socrates whispers. Then, louder, “What is time, Plato?”

“A boat,” Plato answers immediately. He picks a fragment of wood from the ground and tosses it into the river, which quickly sweeps it away. “A vessel for our souls, drawn ever forward by the current.”

“You’re confusing perception with experience,” Socrates says. “Space is the river. Time is the current. We are the boats.”

“Answers, Socrates? Since when do you offer answers?”

“Consider this a divergence.” Socrates takes another sip from his goblet. “Courtesy of the wine.”

“Then I will ask for another.” Plato sits upright, his grief overtaken by the inquisitive drive that had intrigued Socrates for nearly a decade now. “What if we could change the current?”

Socrates chuckles. “That is a matter for the gods.”

In response, Plato grabs another broken branch and slides down to the edge of the river. He drops the branch into the water, then picks it up again and tosses it upstream several feet. Both men watch as the wood drifts by. Then Plato turns back to regard his teacher.

“Then we move the boats,” he says.

“And how would you propose accomplishing that?” Socrates asks.

“We don’t have to.” Orange light from the funeral pyre dances in Plato’s eyes. “If it will happen, it has happened. Whoever discovers the secret will not be a boat borne on the waves. He will be an observer on the shore.”

“Clever,” Socrates says, “but meaningless. Empty philosophy.”

“Is there any other kind?”

“Depends on your philosophy.”

Plato grins. “Then I would like to make a wager.”

The ache in Socrates’s bones lessens somewhat. “What wager?”

Plato gestures to the riverbank. “If one of my descendants can find us before sunset, here on the banks of the Kifissos, you will pay me five drachmas.”

“I don’t have five drachmas.”

“One drachma. Something.”

Socrates considers. “Agreed,” he says. “But if one of my descendants finds us first, you will pay me the same.”

“Agreed.” Plato settles onto the ground. Teacher and student watch the sun follow its course beyond the river. Barely an hour remains until sunset. The silence comforts Socrates nearly as much as Plato’s presence.

“How long must we wait, do you think?” Socrates asks.

Plato ponders the question. “Until the time is right,” he concludes.

Socrates rolls his eyes.

A rustling in the grass causes both men to turn their heads.

Behind them stands a woman in a brilliant maroon cloak that flows past her ankles. Her russet, reddish-brown skin appears out of place among the Athenians.

“Pardon me,” she says in fluent Greek, the words flowing easily from her tongue, “are you Plato and Socrates?”

A smirk forms on Plato’s face as he nudges Socrates with his shoulder. They have never met this woman before, but Socrates knows that she could only be one of two people.

His own descendant.

Or Plato’s.

“I am Socrates,” he says, though he’s sure the woman already knows.

She nods, taking a seat next to Plato. “Everleigh,” she says, a name that clearly comes from another language. Another time. “I’m honored to meet you both. Especially you, Great Father.”

Everleigh touches Plato’s hand as she finishes speaking. The younger man’s smirk turns to a full-blown grin as he leaps to his feet, dragging Everleigh with him, and twirls her in a circle. Though Everleigh yelps in surprise, she lets her ecstatic ancestor tow her around the riverbank.

Socrates watches them dance. “Incredible,” he whispers. Somehow, in the distant future, mankind had learned – will learn – to leave the current.

Exhausted and sweating in the summer humidity, Plato and Everleigh collapse into the dirt, giggling like children. Everleigh discards her cloak and tosses it to the side, revealing a black sleeveless tunic and coarse, skintight trousers. Socrates has never seen clothing like it before.

“Did I win?” she asks, eyes gleaming.

Plato turns to Socrates and extends his hand, palm open. Muttering a curse under his breath, Socrates fishes his last drachma from the folds of his tunic. He hands the coin to Plato, who flips it to Everleigh with a wink. Eyes wide, she catches it.

“Is this part of the inheritance?” she asks.

Plato blinks. “What?”

“The promised prize,” Everleigh says. “Please forgive my forwardness, Great Father, but I’ve come a long way to reach you. We were taught that whoever reaches you first will receive a bounty beyond human imagination.”

Plato’s grin remains plastered on his face, but the glance he steals toward Socrates suggests anything but happiness. In contrast, Socrates suddenly feels rather pleased with himself.

“Go on,” he says, gesturing to Everleigh. “Tell the lady what she’s earned.”

Plato scratches his beard, considering how to respond. “Before we discuss your reward,” he says, stretching out the vowels as his brain churns through the possibilities, “I must know how you got here.”

Everleigh digs into her trousers pocket and removes a slim gray block the size of her fist. “The Vessel,” she says, her tone hushed and reverent. “The fulfillment of your dreams, Great Father.”

Socrates makes a mental note to call Plato Great Father at every opportunity for the rest of his life. Perhaps the boy’s head will swell so much, it pops.

“How long does it take?” he asks, cutting off Plato’s next question. “From what great distance in the future did you travel?”

When Everleigh taps the Vessel, it responds with a series of melodic chirps. A pale blue light emanates from its surface, casting shadows on the woman’s face.

“This is 399 BCE, right?” she asks.

“Excuse me?” Plato says.

“I mean, B.C.” Then Everleigh laughs. “Oh, right. You don’t know about Jesus yet.”

“Jesus?” Socrates frowns. “Is that Hebrew?”

“Jesus will be born about four hundred years from now,” Everleigh says. “And I came from the year 2234, so…”

Her fingers patter over the Vessel's face. Plato turns back to Socrates. Two thousand? he mouths.

“Twenty-six hundred years,” Everleigh announces, returning the block to her pocket.

“And what happens in that time?” Plato presses her.

“Um…” Everleigh shrugs. “A lot. You want a summary?"

Plato and Socrates nod in unison.

“Okay.” Everleigh considers the best way to condense two and a half millennia into a single paragraph. “Humanity expands. Empires rise and fall. Wars are fought and lost. We explore the entire globe—”

At the mention of a globe, Plato raises his eyebrows.

“—and form new nations with hundreds of millions of people. Uh…technology improves, obviously. We have machines that can fly and weapons that can obliterate cities. We have spaceships—”

Socrates cuts her off with a wave of his hand. “Young woman, these things matter little to us.”

“I don’t know,” Plato says. “Flying sounds rather interesting.”

“What the Great Father means,” Socrates continues, earning a glare from his student, “is that we want to know how humans think in the future. How do they see the world? How do they see each other?”

“And the Forms,” Plato adds. “Do they believe in truths beyond the physical world?”

Everleigh bites her lip. “Well, everyone sees the world differently. We all have our dogmas and doctrines, but the Forms…Great Father, everyone believes in the Forms.”

Plato punches the air. “I knew it!”

“You did not,” Socrates says.

“But I believed it,” Plato counters, grinning. “Justice, equality, beauty – the things we cannot see that shape our experience. They endure long after I’m dead.”

“Everyone knows your name,” Everleigh says. “You too, Socrates. Your philosophies become the foundation of Western thought.”

“West of what?” Socrates wonders.

Away from the river, Archelaus’s pyre continues to burn.

Everleigh takes Plato’s hand in both of her own. “Your descendants pass on your story,” she whispers, her voice rushed and ecstatic. “We record everything. We carry on your legacy. The bloodline endures, and we labor to make your Vessel a reality.” She holds up the gray block. “Our people succeed.”

She taps a tiny bump on one facet of the block. A glowing outline emerges from the side facing Plato – a single eye, heavy-lidded, piercing, contained within a triangle.

“Illuminati,” she breathes. “Those who depart from the cave. Those who see.”

Plato stares slack-jawed at the strange machine. Socrates takes a surreptitious sip from his goblet, then refills it from the wineskin sitting nearby. Everleigh’s eyes gleam in the dying firelight from the funeral as she waits for Plato’s response.

Finally, the younger man nods, a slight jerk of his head. “Well.” He nods again. “Thank you, Everleigh, for illuminating our future. You may go.”

Everleigh’s face falls. “But…my reward, Great Father?”

“Your reward,” Plato says, clasping Everleigh’s shoulder with a fatherly smile, “is serving the Good. What more could one ask for?”

Everleigh shoves his hand away. “Do you know how hard I worked to get here? How many people I had to—”

A collective gasp from the funeral interrupts her. Murmurs turn to cries of alarm and confusion around the pyre.

Socrates stands, his joints complaining with every movement, and hobbles back to the funeral with Plato and Everleigh close behind.

The crowd parts when they see Socrates. He ignores their stares as he pushes through the gap. Many of these men and women had been his friends, or his students, but accusations of impiety and corruption now taint his reputation. Still, they make a path for him.

Ashes and splinters are all that remain of the pyre. Scraps of sooty cloth, touched by the wind, wave feebly among the blackened bones. Seeing Archelaus’s skeleton sends a pang of sadness through Socrates’s chest.

Then he sees it.

Directly beneath the ribcage sits an ash-stained brick nearly the length of Socrates’s hand. Ignoring the muttered voices of disdain from the crowd, Socrates kneels to pick up the brick. A pair of sharp cracks accentuate his tired joints, but he ignores them, brushing the black coating from his discovery.

It isn’t a brick. It’s a Vessel identical to Everleigh’s, with one exception. Someone etched a word onto one of the block’s facets.

SOCRATES.

“My teacher,” Socrates whispers, reaching down to stroke the skull of the famed philosopher. “My descendant.”

He turns to Plato and Everleigh. The dark-skinned woman appears uncomfortable under the wary gazes of the Athenians. She is a stranger, and they can feel that she does not belong here.

“Socrates?” Plato asks, his voice faint. Then he sees the block in Socrates’s grip. “Is that…”

Socrates reaches for Plato’s hand, and the younger man lifts him to his feet.

“I’d like my drachma back,” Socrates says. “And another, for the wager.”

Everleigh clamps a hand over her pocket, but Plato reaches into his own tunic and removes two coins. He rubs them together, his eyes distant and unfocused.

“I don’t think these were the terms,” he says.

“Before sunset,” Socrates reminds him. “On the banks of the Kifissos. How often did we converse with him by the river?”

“Often enough,” Plato grumbles. He relinquishes the drachmas, then disappears into the crowd.

“You were close,” Socrates says to Everleigh. The woman’s face bears the shock and disappointment of seeing her dreams pounded into dust. “Only a few decades away.”

Plato reemerges from the crowd a moment later. “That box,” he says, pointing to the Vessel in Everleigh’s pocket. “You can use it to return to your own time?”

She nods.

“Then go, with my blessing.” He reaches for her hand, clasping it in his own. Socrates sees a flash of white in Plato’s grip. The younger man stares knowingly into the eyes of his descendant.

The wind shifts. The dying fragrance of charred oak tickles Socrates’s nose. Something tingles at the base of his spine.

Change has come to this world.

The Athenians stand eerily still. Their murmurs and cries have died down, filling the forum with heavy silence. All that remains is Socrates’s own heartbeat, pulsing within his chest, warning him of danger.

“Plato,” he says, his mouth suddenly dry, “a question.”

“Yes, Socrates?”

Socrates clears his throat. “Who are these people around us?”

The faces have changed. When Socrates turns to look, he finds not a single familiar soul. The air of mourning has vanished, replaced by something more taciturn, more sinister.

Beside him, Plato places a gentle hand on his shoulder. With his other hand, he takes the Vessel from Socrates and raises it above his head. He taps the side, revealing the luminescent eye.

“Who am I?” he asks the crowd.

The words come slow, weighty, like a predator slinking through the tall grass.

“Great Father,” they answer.

“Did I not promise you a reward?” Plato yells.

“The world will be ours.”

As one, the crowd kneels. Socrates, Plato, and Everleigh stand in the midst of two hundred strangers. They prostrate themselves toward Plato, whispering in terrible unison.

“Great Father. Great Father. Great Father.”

Everleigh looks to her ancestor, horrified.

“You have your task,” Plato tells her. “Go.”

Every glances at the parchment in her palm, the one Plato had handed her, then nods. She sprints away, heading for the city outskirts, tapping furiously at her Vessel.

Socrates asks the most important question he can imagine. “How?”

“I do not know,” Plato answers, smiling at his teacher. “But they do. And they did what I asked.”

“Which was?”

“To win.” Plato gestures to Archelaus’s bones. “Your descendant went back decades. Why not longer?”

“Twenty-six hundred years,” Socrates guesses.

“It felt appropriate.” Plato shrugs. “Symmetrical. Balanced.”

The implications stagger Socrates’s mind. Changing time on this level – altering the lives of every citizen of Athens, the history of their nation, the entire world – may spell disaster for the human race. He’ll need time to consider the potential fallout.

An Athenian man emerges from the crowd carrying a wineskin. “The poison, Great Father,” he says, proffering it to Plato. “For the Herald.”

Plato glances at Socrates. “I suppose that’s you.”

“You can’t be serious,” Socrates says, taking a step back.

“It’s history.” Plato holds out the wineskin. “I cannot leave the current. To try would be to undo everything I’ve created here. My legacy, returned for me.” Then, to the Athenian: “Do the legends say what happens next?”

The man points to Lycabettus Hill, the highest point of the city. “You go together, Great Father,” he says. “Then the Herald drinks.”

Socrates’s mind goes numb. His feet follow the crowd, unable to resist, unwilling to try. His stomach roils at the thought of that horrible poison seeping into his blood. Plato holds his elbow with a gentle hand, supporting him as he walks.

At the top of Lycabettus Hill, Plato and Socrates regard the future.

The whole of Athens congregates beneath them, thousands upon thousands of people waiting for the arrival of the Great Father and his Herald. When Plato lifts his hand, they release a mighty roar that causes the ground to tremble beneath Socrates’s feet.

A flood of ships pour into the harbor, dozens of strange and wondrous designs from across the known world and beyond.

From the plains surrounding Athens, hordes of pilgrims approach the city. They travel on foot, on horseback, in wheeled carts pulled by oxen, all scrambling to reach the home of their Great Father on this, the Day of Realization.

Enormous mechanical birds flutter and dance their way along the western horizon, arcing in a graceful loop towards the port. They hail from the land that would have become known as the Americas, had Plato not intervened.

As the sun sets, the people light their torches. Millions of lights flicker throughout the city and beyond, casting shadows on the city walls. They usher in a new age.

“I will change things,” Plato whispers. “Their wars, their disagreements. I will put an end to squabbling and lead humanity toward the Good. We will be better than our descendants. But…” He gestures apologetically toward the tainted wineskin.

Socrates knows the rest. No one can know the truth of their wager. The Great Father’s mythology must be maintained. Without a word, he pours the wineskin's contents into his goblet and sniffs it. Hemlock.

“You will be revered,” Plato says, a tear streaming down his cheek. “You are the Herald. You led me here.”

Socrates nods. His choice has been made for him.

“To the next realm,” he says, and he drinks.