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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ladybird" data-source="post: 6313105" data-attributes="member: 10689">Episode 2, Chapter 10: On Bugs and BugsLooks like we erased our primary lead. Oops.Edward checks his tether, and discovers that Lucretius hasn't entirely disappeared from history. There was still a poet Lucretius, and he still wrote De Rerum Natura. And, just as the tether had told us before, he disappeared mysteriously in mid-50s BCE. Looks like we know how that mysterious disappearance happened.One thing that is different, according to our tethers, is that one of the passages from De Rerum Natura is missing: "All things, including the species to which you belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms, it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully, endure, at least for a time; those that are not so well suited, die off quickly. But nothing — from our own species, to the planet on which we live, to the sun that lights our day — lasts forever."Apparently we prevented Lucretius from finding out more about evolution.But, as we discover when we look in the chest, Lucretius has already been hopping around in time to do his research. The chest is full of notes. Some are written in Latin, but some are in modern French, and some in modern German. It's hard to puzzle them out, because even though they're written in modern languages, there are no spaces between the words, and no punctuation, just like the Latin writing of Lucretius's home time. Plus, there are lots of complicated equations mixed in. But Michel's knowledge of Science! helps us puzzle it all out. The notes in French are about radioactivity, and refer to the lecturer as 'she'; the notes in German are about relativity, and were taken at a lecture at Princeton University. Looks like Lucretius learned physics from the best: Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. Presumably, if we hadn't stopped him, he would have learned about evolution from Charles Darwin.The tether can't tell us for certain if this handwriting is Lucretius's, because there aren't any known documents in his own handwriting. There was only one known manuscript of De Rerum Natura, and it wasn't recovered until the early 1400s in the German monastery of Fulda. Three copies were made, but then the original was also lost.So…now what? Our main lead has disappeared.Edward remembers that Lucretius mentioned his highly-placed friends. Two were Cicero and Caesar, but the third was someone whose name we didn't otherwise recognize: Titus Memmius. He checks the tether, and discovers that he's the person to whom Lucretius dedicated De Rerum Natura. Titus Memmius is from a very wealthy and prominent family; his older brother married one of Pompey's sisters. Titus Memmius himself was mainly known for his scandalous romantic life - he was one of the notorious Clodia's many affairs."I'd think that we should try to get information out of him by seducing him," Mace muses, "but it doesn't sound like he swings that way."Seduction or not, it might be worth at least talking to Titus Memmius about Lucretius. As his patron, he would remember Lucretius; depending on how close they were, he might remember something more.We find Titus Memmius's house pretty easily, but the steward tells us that Titus hasn't lived in Rome for the last four years. He's retreated to Baiae for his health - there are hot springs there that he hoped would do him good. Edward's good at reading servants - he can tell that the steward is genuinely worried about Memmius, and definitely telling the truth that his master left Rome for his health. "Do you remember the poet Lucretius Carus?" Edward asks. "Titus Memmius was his patron.""Ah, young Lucretius!" the steward says. Which we all think is a very odd way to refer to the 60-something man we just saw. "Titus Memmius supported him when he was very young, just starting out, 15 or 20 years ago. One of many poets for whom he was a patron, but the one he favored the most." Which means that Lucretius should be in his 40s now, but the man we saw looked much older - more evidence that Lucretius has been timetraveling, since he's lived much more time than he should have."If there were other poets, why choose Lucretius over other talented individuals?" Yves wonders.The steward smirks knowingly. "I'm sure I couldn't say."Apparently Lucretius was a hottie.We can't talk to Lucretius or Titus Memmius now, but Henry has other ideas. "I'm tempted to go back 25 years, plant bugs in Lucretius's room, and collect them now." After 25 years, we collect the bugs a few minutes later.We discover that most of Lucretius's time is filled with a) writing, and b) not being there. There are large chunks of time in the last 25 years when Lucretius wasn't at his apartment. He appears, pays his rent, goes away, and comes back looking much older. There aren't a lot of visitors. The most regular one is a heavyset man, about 20 years older than Lucretius, who started visiting 25 years ago - before Lucretius's first timetravel absence - and stopped visiting about 5 years ago. Presumably, that's our man Titus Memmius. Is he a timetraveler, we wonder? Well, he doesn't have anything anachronistic on him as far as we can tell, but our bugs do pick up a few odd things. First, despite our expectations, he doesn't touch Lucretius - if they were ever romantically involved, the relationship is over now. Second, there's a slight odd noise that goes with him - a faint humming/buzzing/whirring sort of sound."I'd like to get the people back at Timewatch to isolate and analyze the noise," says Edward, "but that would take time.""We have time machines!" Yves points out. "We have all the time in the world!""Yes, but we don't have all the chronal stability in the world," says Mace. Jumping back and forth to HM Timewatch HQ so many times would be risky. Fortunately, Mace has a few of the relevant skills himself, so he starts working on the audio analysis.After a few minutes of fiddling with the equipment, Mace manages to isolate the buzzing noise. On its own, it sounds almost like an insect. It starts up every time Titus Memmius speaks, a fraction of a second before we hear the Latin words start, and stops a fraction of a second before the Latin words end - as if there's something translating the buzzing noise into the Latin. "It sounds like a cockroach," Mace decides. "A very large, very loud cockroach." "Titus Memmius is a bug person?" Edward boggles.Also: ew.</blockquote>

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