Chapter Thirteen

“So just which terrorist organization are you trying to contact?” Mirim asked. “And just how do you plan to do it?”

“Well, I’ve got a list of possibilities on that disk I took from Leonid’s place,” Casper answered, as he studied the road signs and checked them against the car’s map computer. “There’s an underground group called People For Change that sounded promising—they’re sort of semi-legitimate, not entirely a bunch of morons or terrorist loonies. They aren’t believed to have blown anything up for three or four years now, but they’re still active, sending out news releases and the like. And the lawyer who’s represented their people whenever they get caught at something lives here in Princeton—somewhere. Not that I can find the place. I wish Leonid had had a modern computer in this car!”

“He didn’t want to have any computer,” Mirim said. “He only added it because his boss insisted; this car was pre-computer, originally.”

“Figures,” Casper said. Then he spotted the name he wanted. “Yes!” he said, turning the car.

Ten minutes later he pulled up in front of a large brick house and contemplated it for a moment.

The sun was just below the western horizon, the sky a deepening blue; the streetlights came on as Casper thought, and there were already lights on in the house.

“Celia,” he said, “you’re a lawyer—you talk to him. We’ll wait here in the car.”

Cecelia hesitated, then said, “Give me ten bucks, Cas—I may need to give him a token retainer on your behalf, to make what we say privileged communication.”

Casper fished out a bill and handed it to her.

Cecelia accepted it, then climbed out of the car, squeezing awkwardly past Mirim.

“Good to be out of there,” she said, stretching. “That back seat was never meant for human beings.” Then she leaned back in and said, “You two behave yourselves, now.”

“Sure thing,” Casper replied.

“See that you do, or Mommy will spank.”

“I’d like that,” Casper said with a grin.

Cecelia gave a quick, unconvincing laugh, then closed the door and started toward the house.

Mirim snorted. “What does she think we’re going to do out here?”

“I don’t think it’s here and now she’s worried about,” Casper replied. “And I can understand her feelings—you were with me all morning, and you sided with me against Leonid. That’s suspicious enough to justify a friendly warning, isn’t it?”

“No,” Mirim said. “Leonid’s a jerk, and I didn’t really side with you against him anyway, did I? You had the guns; what was I supposed to do?”

“I had the automatic,” Casper said, “but the revolver was lying there on the floor. You could have gotten it while I was using the computer and come up behind me, and ordered me to let Leonid out.”

“Why would I do that?” Mirim asked. “I’m not a Hollywood hero, going around grabbing guns and so on. And besides, he’d have shot you!”

Casper shrugged. “You didn’t do it,” he said. “I don’t think the reasons matter, as far as Celia is concerned; you were choosing me over Leonid, and even if you weren’t interested in me, it was pretty clear after that that whatever there was between you and Leonid was over.”

“Well…” Mirim couldn’t really argue with that. “Well, I’d have to be a moron not to prefer almost anyone to Leonid—I don’t know what I ever saw in him in the first place.”

Casper grinned.

“Bob Schiano,” the man in the rumpled plaid shirt said, holding out a hand.

Smith ignored the hand. “I’m using the name Smith,” he said. “You wrote the Spartacus File?”

Schiano shoved his hand in his jeans pocket. “I put it together,” he said, “but I didn’t write the whole thing, or anywhere near it—it was a team project, and that’s not counting all the previous art we used.”

“Whatever,” Smith said. “You know what’s in it, right?”

“As much as anyone does,” Schiano agreed. “Why? Is someone thinking about using it?”

“Someone is using it,” Smith said.

“Wow,” Schiano said, taking his hands out of his pockets. “Really? Where? I figured they’d call me in to trouble-shoot the installation.”

“There was a screw-up,” Smith said. He glanced at his assistant, and at the two operatives with computers and headsets who served as his link with the outside world. He hesitated, and Schiano misread that.

“They forgot to tell me? Lost my number, or something?”

“No.” Smith sighed. “I mean the installation was a screw-up. We had the program on file at NeuroTalents, so that we could use it on foreign nationals who came in for imprinting as part of our regular aid programs, and the computer glitched.”

Schiano frowned. “Glitched how?”

“It optimized an American with the file. A man named Casper Beech came in for a routine imprint, and a disk-sector failure made the computer feed him the Spartacus File, instead.”

Schiano stared at Smith, then looked around for somewhere to sit. He crossed the room and settled slowly onto a chair, then looked up at Smith again.

“Jesus,” he said. “And he lived through it?”

“Oh, he lived, all right.”

Schiano nodded thoughtfully. “So you want me to help patch him up?”

“No,” Smith said. “We want you to tell us what the hell to do with him.”

“What do you mean? I don’t know anything about the medical end.”

“I’m not worried about the medical end,” Smith said, exasperated. “I’m trying to catch the son of a bitch!”

Schiano’s mouth fell open. “You mean he’s loose? And the File’s working?”

“Yes, damn it!” Smith shouted.

“But…oh, my God, we never found anyone who could take the Spartacus File—I didn’t think there was anyone. I figured we’d tried to put too much into it, and we’d never find a brain that could handle it.”

“Well, the NeuroTalents computer found someone—this man Beech. It didn’t just choose the optimization at random, it picked the file that suited him best out of the entire list.”

“An American?” Schiano asked, incredulous.

“Yes, an American!”

“But…excuse me, sir, but in order to be optimized with that file the way I designed it, the subject would have to have been oppressed almost his entire life—kicked around, abused, tormented, and he’d have to have just taken it. Spartacus was a rebel slave, after all—I structured it so that it would seem as if the subject had finally reached breaking point naturally, after years of mistreatment.”

“So?”

Schiano stammered.

“Look, Bob,” Smith said, “this may be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but there are losers in America, all the same, and this Beech must have been one of them.”

“Yeah, but…”

He stopped. There wasn’t any point in arguing any more about it; if it had happened, it had happened.

But Schiano wondered about it, all the same. The Spartacus File required a person with an incredible and totally unrealized potential, and he had always assumed that that meant a member of the lowest classes in an oppressive society, someone who had never been given any chance at all by virtue of being born into the wrong family.

How could there have been an American who was able to accept it?

“So it’s a long shot,” Smith said. “Even if it is, it’s one that’s come in—this Beech is out there, and we think he’s doing what the Spartacus File has programmed him to do, which is to try to overthrow the government, and we want him stopped.”

“So shoot him,” Schiano said—and even as the words left his lips, he wished he hadn’t said them.

Shoot Spartacus, who only wanted freedom and equality?

Shoot a man who had never done anything wrong except to be the victim of a computer error, a man of amazing potential?

Worst of all, shoot the only living manifestation of Bob Schiano’s masterpiece?

“We tried,” Smith said. “Several times. He dodged a sniper, took out one hit team at his apartment and another on the street, and when we recruited an amateur Beech knew, so our guy wouldn’t be spotted, Beech left the bastard tied up in a closet where our own SWAT team nearly blew the guy away.”

“Oh,” Schiano said. He blinked.

“After that last one, we lost him—he got out about five minutes before we went in after him, and at last report he was headed north on I-95 in an antique Mustang.” Smith leaned over Schiano and pointed angrily. “You wrote that damn program,” Smith said. “You tell us where the hell he’s going!”

Cecelia had gone inside five minutes before, and Mirim was getting nervous.

“What if someone spots the car?” she asked. “Or what if he’s called the police? Or what if Celia turns you in?”

“Celia won’t do that,” Casper said, “but maybe we should stretch our legs a bit.”

Mirim wasn’t so sure about her roommate’s trustworthiness—despite her earlier protests, she knew Cecelia was feeling jealous that Mirim and Casper were spending so much time together, and in that condition a brief malign impulse might get out of hand. Mirim had seen Cecelia get out of hand. She didn’t think Casper had; a non-resident boyfriend didn’t get the same treatment a roommate did.

She didn’t say anything, though; she just climbed out of the car.

Casper got out on the other side, and the two of them stood, looking about at the gathering twilight. They could hear the hum of distant traffic, and the chirping of crickets.

“Peaceful here,” Casper remarked.

“Yes,” Mirim agreed.

The street curved, and there were mature trees everywhere, so they couldn’t see very far; perhaps half a dozen large homes were in sight, each with a few lights on.

“Nice neighborhood,” Casper said.

Mirim made a noise of agreement.

“Shall we walk a little, see how the plutocrats live?” Casper asked.

Mirim nodded.

Together, they strolled down the sidewalk, admiring the houses. The predominant style was English Tudor; the trees were mostly oak.

“How’d you ever get a name like Mirim, anyway?” Casper asked, as he looked up at the trees.

Mirim glanced at him, startled by the question. It was one she was asked frequently, of course, but Casper had never brought the subject up before.

And there was something odd about the way he was looking at the trees, as if he were checking for snipers.

He probably was.

“It was supposed to be Miriam,” she explained, “but it was typoed on the birth registration, and by the time anyone caught it it had gone into the Social Security files as Mirim. It was easier to change what I was called than to convince the government to change anything.”

Casper grimaced.

“Typical,” he said angrily. “We’re supposed to have government of the people, by the people, and for the people here, and you have to change your name to suit the damn government. The government should change to suit you, not the other way around!” He turned around.

They were almost out of sight of the Mustang, and they were out of sight of the lawyer’s house.

“Come on,” he said, “we better get back.”

As they drew near the house they saw the front door open, and Cecelia stepped out. Casper picked up the pace, and Mirim hurried after him.

Cecelia spotted them.

“Oh, there you are!” she said. “Come on, I’ve got a rendezvous set up.”

She headed for the car, and stopped at the door. She looked from Mirim to Casper and back.

“This time, you ride in the back,” she told Mirim.

Schiano looked over his designer’s notes one last time—Smith had arranged for him to retrieve them from government storage, to aid in the pursuit of Beech, and Schiano had happuly accepted without mentioning the highly illegal back-up he had always kept on his PDA at home. He then flipped to the report Smith had given him on Beech’s actions so far.

“That poor son of a bitch,” he said.

“Why?” Smith demanded. He didn’t bother asking who Schiano was talking about.

“Because he’s gotta be incredibly confused,” Schiano replied.

“Why?”

Schiano sighed. “Look,” he said, “the Spartacus File was designed to be used against anti-American governments, right?”

“So?”

“So it’s got values and ideals built into it, something for our Spartacus to be preaching, something for him to replace the anti-American government with if he succeeds. And since we didn’t know exactly which governments we might want to turn a Spartacus loose on, only that they’d be anti-American, the basis for all those values and ideals is right here around us—the good ol’ U.S. of A.” He waved an arm, taking in the entire room. “Our Mr. Beech is now programmed to rebel against any and all authority, and to attempt to overthrow the government—but at the same time, he’s programmed to admire the U.S. and to consider the Constitution the most perfect document ever created. So if he did overthrow the government, what would he replace it with? Exactly the same thing!” He shook his head. “That’d be enough to drive a guy nuts, I’d think.”

Smith stared at him silently for a moment, then said, “Beech doesn’t seem to be having any problem with the idea so far.”

“How do you know?” Schiano asked. “I’ll bet he is.”

“So maybe he is,” Smith said. “Just tell us how to find him.”

Schiano sighed. “Okay,” he said, “it’s simple enough. It’s in the options path right here.” He turned the screen back to his notes, scrolled quickly, and pointed. “He knows you’re after him, right? And that you were on to him before he was able to assemble an organization?”

Smith nodded.

“And you’ve tried to assassinate him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then he’ll go underground, disappear as completely as he can—there’s no point in watching his family or friends; he won’t have any contact at all with his old life until he’s got a secure position to recruit from.”

“We know he’s disappeared,” Smith said. “Where has he disappeared to?”

“Well, he’s got multiple options there,” Schiano answered, looking at the flowchart, “but first choice is to contact any existing rebel groups.”

“Rebel groups?” Smith asked. “Jesus, Schiano, this is Pennsylvania, not some damn banana republic—we don’t have rebels here.”

Schiano hesitated, then shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Second choice is to take shelter in the underclass and start assembling his own organization, working through organized crime and charitable organizations.”

“Where?”

“In the biggest city he can get to, of course,” Schiano said. “The best place to hide is in a crowd, and it’s in the big cities that you find the underclass, and organized crime, and organized charity. In most countries that would be the capital, so Washington would have been a possibility, but you said he was headed north, so he must be going to New York.”

“Unless he doubled back, to throw us off,” Smith said.

“Unless he doubled back,” Schiano agreed. “Which he might have; I deliberately left that random, to make him less predictable. Remember, when I wrote this I was assuming he’d be on our side—I wanted him to succeed.”

“So he’s in either New York or Washington,” Smith said.

“Probably,” Schiano said. “Remember, though, he’s not a computer, and this is an optimization program, not a set of fixed instructions—he’s still got free will.”

“Fuck free will,” Smith said. He turned and stamped away.

As he walked, he marveled to himself at the blind naivete of that stupid programmer. Didn’t he realize the difference between ideals and reality? The Constitution had been increasingly irrelevant for at least a century, and downright dead ever since the Crisis; if Beech really believed in the American dream, he’d find plenty to rebel against.

Behind him, at his workstation, Bob Schiano stared after the departing spymaster.

Smith was an idiot. Didn’t he realize that “rebel groups” didn’t necessarily mean a bunch of yahoos with guns running around in the mountains or jungles? The U.S. was full of rebel groups; they were all over the web. Terrorism wasn’t as bad as a few years back, but there were still terrorists, and weren’t those rebels? The fundies and militia groups had been reduced in the campaigns of the early ‘20s, but did Smith really think they were extinct? And there were groups that hadn’t resorted to violence but were just as rebellious in other ways. Some of them were labelled “subversive organizations,” others were “lunatic fringe,” a few were “cults” or even recognized churches, while others didn’t fit any handy label, but to the Spartacus File they’d all qualify as rebel groups.

And that wasn’t even counting all the little whacko political parties that the Party hadn’t bothered to outlaw. The Spartacus File would see any party that had never been in power or at least held a seat in Congress—which was to say, just about any party except the Democratic-Republicans and the Greens—as either a present rebel group or a potential one.

Of course, Schiano could have pointed out Smith’s error—but why should he? He didn’t have anything against this Casper Beech. And Smith was an asshole.

Besides, Schiano thought, he wanted to see just what the Spartacus File could actually do.