Chapter Five

Once again the NeuroTalents executive boardroom was the scene of a late night meeting. This time, however, Mr. Yamashiro, looking somewhat subdued, sat halfway down the table. At the head of the table, in Yamashiro’s usual seat, was an angry man in a black suit and old-fashioned red tie.

“I can’t believe you people screwed up like this,” the man in black said. “Those files are classified!”

“Your people ordered us to keep them available,” Yamashiro protested weakly.

“But not in with the everyday business!” the man in black said. “You could have kept the disks to one side, ready to plug in when we told you to!” He glared for a moment, then said, “Oh, hell, it doesn’t matter any more—the damage is done. I hope you realize that your carelessness may have endangered not only NeuroTalents, but the very existence of the entire parent corporation. This could get us kicked out of the Consortium!”

“I think you’re making too much of this,” Yamashiro replied uneasily.

“I don’t doubt you think that,” the man in black said, his tone flat and deadly. “That opinion is just another example of your incompetence.” He frowned. “I’m afraid that extraordinary measures are called for, Yamashiro—there is simply no longer a place for you in this organization.”

“What?” Yamashiro stared in disbelief.

“Your services are no longer needed, Yamashiro.” The man in black spoke with quiet intensity, more effective than shouting would have been. “You’re fired.”

Yamashiro pushed his chair back and rose unsteadily. “You can’t do this to me,” he said. “I have friends, contacts—I’m a major stockholder! I’ll make trouble for you. I’m not someone you can treat this way.”

“I’m afraid you are. You’re not active in the Party, and this is a political case.” The man in black touched a button on his wrist unit, and two silent men in impeccably tailored suits entered; they had obviously been just outside the door, awaiting their signal. They walked silently down the length of the table and stood behind Yamashiro.

“These gentlemen will be escorting you out of the building,” the man in black explained calmly. “You will not be allowed back. Your personal effects will be sent to you by courier.”

Yamashiro tried to protest as the two silent men seized his arms and led him from the room, but the others all sat utterly motionless, totally ignoring him, until the sound had been cut off by the closing of the heavy conference room doors.

The man in black looked at the woman who had been seated next to Yamashiro. “Ms. Kendall, henceforth you will carry out the duties of the executive director. We can regularize the title later, if you like. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded.

“Good,” the man in black said. “Now let’s see if we can find a solution to this problem.” He turned to the man seated to his left. “I appreciate your coming up, sir, especially considering the short notice you were given.”

The man he addressed nodded. “My pleasure, Mr. Chairman.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the chairman explained to the others, “this is a representative of the Homeland Security Department, knowledgeable in covert activities and a coordinator of the programs NeuroTalents has undertaken in that area. You may refer to him as Mr. Smith.”

Smith nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Of course you all realize that, officially, the Covert Operations Group has no involvement in this affair, any more than any other branch of the federal government or any part of the Democratic-Republican Party does. Officially, those optimization files do not exist, NeuroTalents has no connection with Covert or any other part of Homeland Security, and I am not here. That’s official, and you’d all do well to remember it. However, on a practical level, we must keep on top of this matter.”

The chairman nodded his agreement. He looked at NeuroTalents’ new executive director. “A team of ours has been working with your people. You have a report from them?”

“Ah, yes.” The woman shuffled nervously through pages on her PDA.

The others eyed her expectantly. She cleared her throat and began, “First, the technical failure. It appears that when the system was installed, no one bothered to arrange a maintenance schedule; instead it was left up to the users to judge when to check over the system. It appears…” She hesitated, then continued, “It appears that the users, the technicians running the system, were unaware that any maintenance was called for, ever. The system has been running non-stop, uninspected and unmaintained, for more than six years. It’s a miracle we haven’t had a breakdown before this—or at least, as far as we know we haven’t. Steps are being taken to ensure that regular maintenance will be done from now on.”

She paused, then went on. “The next question is the classified files themselves. The current software uses a single master program to access everything in the system. Until this can be altered, we have removed the files in question from the system. New software is being written that will handle this all in better fashion, requiring human intervention at certain critical points in any non-standard procedure.”

The new executive director took a sip of water as her display brought up the next page of her report. “The next item is the identification of those individuals who were affected by this operation. We were very fortunate; as far as we can determine from the records, only two people were inadvertantly optimized—other clients who were imprinted while the faulty instructions were in place were not found to be suitable subjects for any of the available optimization packages, and the program reset the missing variable accordingly, which allowed it to proceed properly.” She frowned. “The second of the two was Lester Polnovick, who received the Godzilla File. The other, imprinted the day before, was a man named Casper Beech; my people have prepared a report on his optimization.” She handed a document to Smith.

He glanced at it, and his veneer of absolute calm cracked. “Damn!” he muttered.

“What’s wrong?” the Chairman asked.

Smith folded the document and tucked it into an inside pocket. “We’ve got a problem here,” he said. “A real problem. This man was imprinted with the Spartacus File.”

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with all the material involved; is that bad?”

“Very bad. It’s probably the most dangerous of all the files in the series.”

Smith looked at the Chairman as if expecting instant comprehension; irritated, the Chairman glared back and said, “Suppose you explain that a little.”

Smith glanced at the others. “I don’t want to go into explicit detail here,” he said.

“Then don’t. But give us some idea.”

“You’re familiar with the historical Spartacus?” Smith asked.

“You mean the old movie?” the Chairman asked, puzzled. “I think I saw it on video once.”

“No, sir,” Smith said, “I mean the slave who rebelled against ancient Rome and repeatedly defeated vastly superior armies sent against him. He was a superb gladiator, rabble-rouser, and general.” He looked about, but saw only blank faces. He continued, “Well, the Spartacus File is modeled on what we assume his abilities were, and as I said, it’s probably the most dangerous optimization file we’ve ever devised. It was created exclusively for use in nations not friendly to the United States. In a person with the capability of accepting it—and such people are extremely rare; we’ve never yet found a healthy one ourselves—it creates an individual of immense charisma and superb military ability, across the whole range from strategic planning down to personal combat, and with a compulsion to resist authority at all levels and to organize against that authority. The theory was that by programming a single individual in an unfriendly state with the Spartacus File, we could cheaply and easily cause a popular revolt that, even if it failed, would occupy that state to the exclusion of all other activities. Most of the other files are non-compulsive, or compulsive only under certain circumstances—that is, they give the recipient high ability, but they don’t require that those abilities be used. Someone optimized as an assassin, for example, won’t kill people at random—he’ll wait until he’s assigned a target. The Godzilla File is compulsive, but it’s also unsubtle, very much out in the open—it’s intended more as a nuisance than anything else, and without support the optimized individual is easy to dispose of, just as the city police disposed of Polnovick. The Spartacus File, however, is both subtle and compulsive—the recipient is programmed to hide, to work from concealment, and is irresistibly compelled to overthrow whatever government he finds himself subject to. And now an American has been programmed with the file, right here in Philadelphia.” He looked at the Chairman expectantly.

The Chairman looked doubtful. “Philadelphia isn’t some African backwater or ex-Soviet hellhole, you know,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” Smith answered, annoyed, “but there are always malcontents and trouble-makers who can be stirred up—street people, romantic youngsters, intellectuals, people who wouldn’t be satisfied with any government. A man imprinted with the Spartacus File would be able to stir up their discontent very efficiently; even if he fell short of fomenting actual revolution he would almost inevitably trigger rioting, renewed terrorism, and a great deal of other unpleasantness. As I said, it’s a time bomb.”

“Well, then,” the Chairman said reasonably, “we shall have to defuse this bomb.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Smith continued. “We must be careful. This man is now programmed to identify government agents, and to react negatively and often violently to them; he’s conditioned to resist all authority and stir up as much trouble as possible. Remember, everything we knew we put into this; we didn’t want our Spartacus to be stopped. This was our top-of-the-line file.”

“He’s still only one man, and I understand that the optimization was done without the proper preparation, so it may not even be complete; surely he can be stopped.”

“Oh, I think he can be stopped, but it won’t be all that easy. Remember how difficult it’s been to bring down certain terrorists.” Smith considered. “Whatever we do to him, we can’t make any obvious moves to apprehend him—he’d spot it, not to mention that if he’s already started gathering followers we don’t need to make any martyrs. And we’ve got to be sure that whatever we do works the first time. A failed attempt will alert him, and may well trigger more of the Spartacus File—exactly what we want to prevent. And we have to keep it all quiet—if the File’s working the way I was told it would, the man has the capability of winning over mobs, or recruiting individual converts to his cause. As long as he’s alive he’ll be able to turn anything we do to him, however benevolent, into anti-government propaganda—if we give him the chance by drawing attention to him.”

“I’m sure something can be arranged.” The Chairman shrugged.

“Sir,” NeuroTalents’ new executive director asked, “are you saying this man Beech is to be killed?”

“No, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” the Chairman replied. “We can have him taken into custody and neutralized by less drastic means, I’m certain.”

“I’m not,” Smith replied. “Optimization can’t be reversed, you know—nothing short of a lobotomy will get the Spartacus File out of his brain now. I think we probably will need to kill him, just as Ms. Kendall says. And the sooner the better, before he can turn it into a martyrdom.”

The Chairman tapped a pencil on the table, then looked up at Smith. “NeuroTalents doesn’t kill people,” he said.

“Covert does. With the proper authorization.”

“What sort of authorization are you talking about?”

“Executive order. We can get one tonight, if we have to.”

The Chairman glowered. “Let me see that report,” he said, holding out a hand.

Smith hesitated, and then replied, “No, I think we at Covert will handle this ourselves from now on.” He patted the pocket that held the report. “Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Chairman, but NeuroTalents is no longer concerned.”