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Dedicated to Robert Bentley for his pragmatism

and encouragement—LWE

Dedicated to Prof. Charles Blinderman for his support

and encouragement—CP

Chapter One

A siren screamed somewhere on the streets below, then faded, and Casper Beech tried hard not to take it as an evil omen.

After all, who needed evil omens to know he was facing disaster? Any time he got called in to see the boss, it had to be bad news. Casper's entire life had been an ongoing demonstration of just how horrible the alleged Chinese curse, “May you come to the attention of people in high places,” could be.

He supposed it had been bad enough even in the old days, before the perpetual Crisis, before everything, as the propaganda put it, had been made more efficient to meet the economic and geopolitical challenges of the twenty-first century. Now, though, when all the people in high places, all the bosses, were working together, it was hell. Any time he had to talk to the boss, any boss, his life got worse.

But maybe this time it wouldn't be too bad.

He hesitated in the doorway of the cubicle, peering in. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Quinones?” he asked.

Quinones looked up at him, smiled, then leaned back in his chair. The chair did not squeak, as Casper's would have, but sighed faintly as the cushion reshaped itself under his weight. Behind Quinones the towers of Center City Philadelphia were visible through the broad expanse of window, towers that formed a panorama of glass and concrete glittering in the sun. A vapor trail straggled across the sky above the gleaming skyline.

"Ah, yes, Casper,” Quinones said. “Please, come in and have a seat."

Casper entered, his feet silent on the thick carpet, and nervously perched himself on the hard edge of a handy chair.

Quinones leaned forward again, and pulled at a hardcopy folder on his desk. His screens were folded down out of sight, as usual—he was fond of saying that his work was with people, not computers. “I'd like to discuss your job performance, Casper,” he said, opening the folder.

"Is there some complaint?” Casper asked uneasily. If he'd screwed up a liability trace he was dead, he knew it—but he didn't think he had.

Of course, someone could have complained anyway.

"Not exactly.” Quinones smiled. He turned over a few pages in the folder without bothering to look at them; it was clear to Casper that the documents were just props, something to keep his hands busy, to help him time his words for maximum dramatic effect. Anything important would have been on a screen, not on paper.

"Casper,” Quinones said jovially, “we've come to the conclusion that your job skills are outdated. We need to keep up with the latest software, you know, and we're going to. An entire new system will be installed over the coming weekend, and it doesn't look like you'll know how to run it."

"No, sir,” Casper admitted, “I probably won't.” Damn, he thought, am I about to be fired? If he once lost this job he'd probably never find another one anywhere in the Consortium, and outside firms didn't pay enough for him to live on. He was still paying off his parents’ legal fees; any cut in his income would mean he'd starve.

He couldn't stop paying the debts, or they'd come and take everything he owned, up to and including a few body parts. Starvation, though, wasn't their problem.

"We've considered our alternatives,” Quinones told him, leaning back again. “It's not cost-effective to re-train you by ordinary methods—it's simply too time-consuming. And bringing in someone new to do the work wouldn't be any better—again, too time-consuming. We need to have someone running traces within minutes after the new software comes on-line next Monday morning— minutes, Casper.” He waggled a fat finger to emphasize his point, then continued, “We have come to the conclusion that the most practical course of action—the only practical course of action, really—will be to send you in for a full course of imprinting in the use of the new software."

For a moment that didn't register; then the words sank in. Oh, God, Casper thought, neuro-imprinting was supposed to hurt like hell. He pressed down into his chair; he hated pain.

At least this meant he still had his job, though. He wouldn't have to join the unemployed and homeless, living in the streets. He'd still have both kidneys.

"I suppose it's for the best,” he said, his voice thin and weak.

"We think so,” Quinones said. Once again, he produced his artificial smile, this time a variant that was probably meant to be comforting and paternal. “And, Casper,” he added, “you won't be the only one.

We've made arrangements with NeuroTalents LLC for a group discount. We'll be having quite a few people imprinted."

"And I got lucky enough to be sent off first?” Casper asked.

Quinones nodded, deaf to the feeble sarcasm. “The work schedule decided it. You're the most available at the moment."

Casper remembered the list of jobs he had found on his screen when he had arrived at the office half an hour before, and he wondered what his co-workers were faced with if that schedule left him “most available.” He made no comment on that; he just nodded and asked, “When do I go?"

"You'll see Dr. Jalali this afternoon for a physical. Assuming she doesn't find anything that would keep you from going, you're scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten."

Casper suppressed a shudder. “I suppose it's well to get it over with quickly,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to force a smile.

Quinones nodded again. “And you'll need a day or two for the new information to settle in,” he said blithely. Casper shuddered, and his discomfort with the idea finally seemed to register with his superior.

“Don't worry about the imprinting,” Quinones told him, with another falsely paternal smile. “Those problems they had in the early days have all been taken care of. You'll be fine."

Casper nodded. “I'm not worried about that,” he lied. He was quite sure Quinones had never been imprinted, and never would be if he could help it. The bosses didn't need to worry about such things. The Consortium took care of its managers, and the Democratic-Republican Party took care of the Consortium.

Anyone who wasn't in the Consortium or the Party, though, was on his own.

"Good,” Quinones said. He closed the folder. “And Casper, don't worry about coming in to work tomorrow, either. Just go straight over to NeuroTalents in the morning, and relax afterwards.” He smiled beneficently, as if he had just conferred a great favor.

The smug bastard probably thought he had, Casper told himself. Aloud, he said, “Thank you. That will be nice."

Then Casper slipped out of the office and wove his way back across the big room to his own little niche, where he collapsed into his chair. He sat motionless, sunk in gloomy inertia for several minutes before he managed to lift his fingers back onto the keyboard and start the day's first liability trace.

A California drug company had sold a Mexican factory a bad batch of stimulants and killed three workers. The drug company was a member of the Consortium, but its insurance company wasn't; the factory was Consortium-owned as well, and had no insurance. Casper's job was to trace ownership, liability, and contract terms to establish just who should sue whom in order to ensure that the Consortium, its member companies, and their stockholders either lost as little money as possible, or, if it could be arranged, made as much as possible off the incident.

He began the search, calling up personnel files on the dead workers and their families, with notations on what waivers had been signed, and when.

Imprinting was not something he looked forward to, but his mood improved as he worked. New software might make traces like this less tedious, and the imprinting would be quick, at any rate.

And he still had his job. That was the most important thing. He wouldn't starve.

Within an hour he was over most of his depression.

Casper got the call to report to Dr. Jalali around 2:00; he shut down his screen and headed down to the medical offices on the third floor. The checkup was routine; the scanners found nothing which would prevent Casper from taking the imprinting as scheduled.

He had mixed feelings about that. It was nice to know he was healthy, and his brain activity normal, but he almost wished that they had found a neural anomaly or something that would keep him from accepting an imprint.

Of course, if he had had such a problem, he would have lost his job—but it wouldn't have been for cause, and he might have qualified for a disability income, or even have been able to swing a discrimination-against-the-handicapped suit. He'd heard the Party sometimes used those to keep companies in line.

No, he told himself as he pulled his shirt back on, that was daydreaming. Nobody won discrimination suits against a member of the Consortium, and Data Tracers was a member in good standing. They had access to the best lawyers in the world—and of course, to people like himself, who would find ways to re-route any responsibility.

And it didn't matter; his brain was perfectly healthy. Dr. Jalali said so. She had told him that he could take the imprint without any trouble at all.

He sighed, and headed back to his cubicle.

When Cecelia Grand called to say she had to work late at the law office, he snatched at the chance to cancel their date—he was too worried about the imprinting to deal with Cecelia and her whims. Instead he spent the evening home alone, drinking cheap beer and playing old, faded CDs until he finally fell into bed around midnight.

That was Tuesday.

Wednesday morning he awoke at the usual time without meaning to; since his appointment was at ten he had intended to sleep late. Instead he took his time over breakfast, and left his apartment an hour later than usual.

He reached NeuroTalents in plenty of time despite his dawdling, and walked slowly through the Institute's lobby, admiring the fountains and the greenery that grew toward the high glass ceiling. Studying the scenery put the inevitable off for another minute or two.

NeuroTalents’ receptionist was a handsome young man; the way he was dressed made Casper feel shabby.

Which was reasonable, really—Casper was shabby. He knew it, but he didn't like to admit it.

"May I help you?” the receptionist asked.

"I hope so,” Casper said uneasily. “I'm scheduled for an imprinting at ten. The name is Casper Beech, 3036-94-7318."

The young man sucked on his teeth as he checked his screen. “Ah, yes,” he said, “I have it here. We've received your records and the report from Dr. Jalali.” He swung a screen around and handed Casper a stylus. “If you would just sign this waiver of liability, we'll take care of you immediately."

Casper read over the form; it was a standard corporate waiver, with NeuroTalents and his employer agreeing to cover any medical expenses that were incurred in exchange for his forfeiting his right to sue.

He grimaced. He was already uncomfortable about the procedure, and this waiver was not encouraging in the least. Every day at work he saw reports on what could happen to people who signed these.

It wasn't as though he had any real choice, though. He signed the form and tapped ENTER.

The receptionist checked the signature against a display on his primary screen, then nodded. “Very good, Mr. Beech,” he said. “If you would take that elevator there up to the fourth floor, a technician will see you."

He was even more nervous than he had realized; when he first tried to give his floor the elevator answered, “We're sorry, sir, but your order was not understood."

"Four, please,” Casper repeated, trying unsuccessfully to distract himself by wondering, as he had for years, why so many machines were programmed to speak of themselves in the plural.

When he reached the fourth floor a green-smocked technician with a clipboard awaited him. “Please follow me,” the technician said brusquely before striding down the corridor. She didn't look back, and for a moment Casper thought wildly of making a run for it.

But where would he go? Meekly, he followed her.

His guide brought Casper to the open door of a small room and pointed inside. “Put your clothes in there,” she said. “I'll be back in five minutes."

The technician left. Casper was relieved to find a paper jumpsuit and slippers on a shelf; he began to change, and pulled on the second slipper just as the technician returned.

"This way, sir,” she said.

He was strapped into a large, complicated chair in a smaller room a few doors down; then the technician attached electrodes and placed a headpiece on his head.

"There's nothing to worry about,” the technician said, clearly reciting a set speech. “The monitors are just to keep tabs on your bodily functions. Once we start the procedure, a sleep inducer will put you under for the duration. When you wake up, it'll be over.” She smiled mechanically.

Casper smiled back shakily, and closed his eyes. The technician flipped the switch to start the sleep inducer, and Casper quickly slipped under.

The technician checked him over swiftly and efficiently; then she waved the go-ahead signal to the monitor camera and slipped out of the room. In the central control room another technician saw the signal, hit a button, and turned away.

The procedure was fully automated, with technicians present only to troubleshoot when something did not go according to schedule. Under most circumstances, unless an alarm went off or the machines told them something was wrong, their attention was directed elsewhere. After all, watching someone sleep is impossibly dull, even if the subject's brain is doing various interesting things.

Casper's chosen skill file consisted of a few gigabytes of data on a microptical disk, tagged and ready to be fed into his brain; first, however, the scanners had to examine Casper's neural pathways and brainwave patterns. The file would be imposed on these pathways, but the machines had to be sure that the file was not so radically opposed to the recipient's mental structure that some harm could occur. Dr.

Jalali's preliminary survey had shown that Casper's brain could accept imprinting, but not that he could accept any particular program; since the individual programs were all proprietary information owned by NeuroTalents or their independent vendors, not to be distributed freely to other companies’ doctors even within the Consortium, the doctor had not had the information to verify that Casper could handle this specific skill-set.

The central computer began matching program details against neural pathways, checking for conflicts.

While the mapping was taking place, however, a badly-worn sector of old disk storage finally gave out, dropping approximately sixty bytes from the system's primary command programming, from a total of some two and a half million lines of code.

When the time came to check the scan against the waiting skill file, an uninitialized variable came up garbage—the code that should have set it was missing. The error-handling software, never tested in this particular situation, attempted unsuccessfully to compensate.

The waiting skill file was ignored. The mapping continued, into secondary and then tertiary areas of detail, levels that were totally unnecessary for an ordinary skill imprint. A set of restricted-access files, quite separate from the scheduled one, was accessed and readied.

A technician looked up casually from his magazine at the monitoring panel, then stopped and looked again. He had thought the subject in Suite B was in for a regular skill imprint, but his instruments showed that he was in the middle of optimization programming.

He didn't remember anyone scheduling any optimizations. Weren't there supposed to be extra precautions for optimizations? A skill imprint just added a few new patterns to the subject's brain, plugging in a little new information and some artificial habits, but an optimization more or less rebooted the entire brain, streamlining the entire personality and redirecting it toward a predetermined goal, adding whatever information and habits might be useful for that purpose.

Optimizations went deep , messing with parts of the brain not entirely understood, and were thought to be risky. NeuroTalents hadn't done any in months, and at last report didn't expect to do any—so why was this man getting one?

The technician looked for warning flags, but found none. The system appeared to be running smoothly.

Well, he told himself, it wasn't any of his business, as long as the machines were running properly. With a shrug, he went back to his reading.

The computer's optimization program examined the map that had been made of Casper's brain. It then compared this map with its available imprint programs, matching more than seven million points of comparison. The more closely the map and the program matched, the more efficiently the subject would assimilate the program; the more efficiently the program was assimilated, the less likely it was that parts of the program would be lost.

It took the computer seven minutes and forty-three seconds to find the program that most closely matched the map it was using. Having found this match, the computer checked its insertion options.

There were no options specified in its damaged instructions, so it went to its ancient default settings, unused for half a decade. The computer prepared for a wetware flash.

Up until now Casper had slept peacefully, but when the flash began his body stiffened under the shock.

A brain flash had been described by one of its early recipients as the mental equivalent of being force-fed a large apple in one bite, and most people who had had the experience since agreed with this description. An optimization was an extreme case, however, and Casper felt as if his entire brain and sensory apparatus were being overloaded, burned out, then instantly rebuilt and overloaded again. His mind, unable to handle this, simply shut down.

The flash was over in one and three-tenths seconds, but Casper's twitching body didn't begin to relax until several minutes later.

The technician on duty, between bites of a sandwich, noticed the readings on his panel and sat up abruptly, dropping his lunch back into its bag. He took a moment to make sure that the readings weren't into the danger area, and then he sent another technician down to check on the subject.

Casper was waking up when the technician arrived and began hurriedly to disconnect him. He lay passively, not really aware of anything, until the technician handed him a cup of water.

Forcing his hand to close on the cup served to jar his thoughts into motion again. He sat up and tried to drink the water, but as much went onto the floor or his shaking fingers as into his mouth.

"...sure you're all right?” he heard.

Casper realized that the technician was talking to him. He made a conscious effort to find the technician with his eyes and bring him into focus. His mouth worked for a moment before he could force any sound out.

He didn't want any trouble; he might lose his job if anything was wrong, and there wouldn't be a disability pension, not when he'd gone this far. “I'll be fine,” he said at last. “Just let me sit for a minute."

The technician nodded and began examining the chair. The first thing he did was to check the chair's recording devices, assuring himself that they were working properly.

Casper pushed himself upright, swaying slightly as he stood. “I think I'll be okay after I get some fresh air,” he said.

"Yeah, I hope so. Here, let me help you,” the technician said. He took Casper by the arm and led him to the changing room.

The technician did more of the work of dressing him than Casper could manage for himself, but after several minutes he was in street clothes again. The technician helped him to the elevator.

By the time they reached the lobby Casper was feeling well enough to proceed on his own. He scrawled his signature illegibly on a paper acknowledging completion of contracted services, then managed to make his way unsteadily down the mall to the subway.

He began feeling worse again on the train. He barely recognized his home station, but got out before the doors closed and staggered back to his building. He stumbled twice on the broken steps, but finally fumbled his way into his apartment, where he undressed and stumbled into bed.

At NeuroTalents the technician who had spotted the irregular procedure said angrily to one of his shiftmates, “I thought they didn't flash wetware any more."

"They do in emergencies,” she answered. “But you've got to have a doctor present."

"Well, there wasn't any doctor on this one, and it wasn't much of an emergency, either."

She shrugged. “Programming error, I guess. Think we should report it?"

The tech hesitated. The prospect of additional paperwork overcame his moral outrage, and he said,

“Nah, I guess not."

The other nodded.

"Hell of a thing, either way.” The other technician was no longer listening, he saw; she had gone back to watching her pocket video set. “No wonder they get the liability waivers first thing,” he mumbled to himself as he checked over his board.

Chapter Two

Casper awoke the next morning with a tremendous headache. He sat up slowly, but as he came upright nausea boiled up in his belly. For a long uncomfortable moment he thought he was going to vomit. Black spots appeared in front of him. He lay back and put his pillow over his face.

It was twenty minutes later before he could make the major effort necessary to reach for the phone and call in to work and let them know he wouldn't be in. That done, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

He slept until shortly before six o'clock the following morning, when he awoke to find the headache gone, but not the nausea. He still felt weak and shaky.

Even as his stomach told him otherwise, he knew he had to eat something. He managed to stagger into the kitchen, where he forced down some leftovers from the refrigerator.

That relieved the nausea slightly, to his surprise. Blinking gummy eyes, he worked out the next thing to do; he went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Standing under the hot water made him feel almost alive again, and when he got out he decided he really ought to try to go in to work.

He sat on the edge of his bed for several minutes before he had enough energy to get up and finish dressing, moving slowly toward the door as he fastened buttons, zippers, and Velcro.

He stumbled down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. As he aproached the entrance to the subway he missed a turn, and didn't realize until he passed a construction site that he was going the wrong way. He turned around and retraced his path.

He had walked that same path to the subway for years. He would have sworn he could walk it in his sleep. That he had missed a turn meant he was in worse shape than he had thought.

If old, comfortable mental patterns like that had been disturbed—was that a side effect of the imprint?

Did it clear out the old to make way for the new?

Nobody had ever mentioned that, and he didn't like the idea at all. If he had lost memories, would he ever even know they were gone?

By the time he reached the foot of the subway station stairs the regular morning commuter crowd had gathered on the station platform, filling the tunnel with the smell of sweat on top of the ingrained stench of dirt, metal, and urine, a stench that had seeped into the very grit on the walls.

All in all, perhaps two dozen people were waiting for the next train. Casper leaned against one of the pillars and looked at them.

In the evenings the subway crowd included many couples, family groups, and youth gangs. Here, though, the crowd was entirely composed of individuals. Casper found this oddly interesting, and watching them took his mind off the pounding in his temples.

It occurred to him that if those individuals could be unified, somehow, they could—well, could what?

They could do things, certainly—but what?

He shook his head slightly. His thoughts were a jumble, and he gave up trying to force them into coherence.

A train screeched into the station, stirring up the dirt and filling the station with noise, and he joined the others in boarding it. He was lucky enough to get a seat immediately, and he rode with his forehead pressed against the window, looking out at the tunnel.

There were a lot of details that he seemed to be noticing for the first time—the location of the pillars, for instance, as the train pulled into the next station. Except for one broken stump near the far end of the platform the pillars provided excellent cover, and a pillar would never be more than four or five meters away. The occasional bullethole proved that the pillars were a formidable barrier—good defenses to cover a retreat down the tunnel.

What an odd thing to notice, Casper thought, startled by his own musings. Why would he pay any attention to something like that? His study of the crowd back on the platform had been curious, too. He had been vaguely aware of where everyone was, all of the time he was there. And he hadn't so much noticed that everyone was alone as he had noticed that no one was together, that there was no organization in the crowd.

Why was he thinking about that?

Why was he thinking about anything when he felt so rotten?

He turned to face into the train, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. The motion and stink of the train upset his stomach, though, so he opened his eyes again, which seemed to help.

He was staring at the man seated on the other side of the car. The man shifted angrily in his seat, and Casper, realizing what he was doing, averted his gaze.

The train finally pulled into the Race/Vine station, and he swayed to his feet. There were almost as many people getting on here as getting off, and Casper, in his unsteady state, had a little trouble getting through the doors. Eventually he made it onto the platform and headed for the stairs to the street.

The short walk to the office seemed interminable, but at last he made it, only slightly late.

Quinones happened to be arriving at the same time as Casper. He nodded a greeting.

"Feeling all right today, Beech?” he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Quinones.” Casper hesitated, then added, “I had a bad time with the imprinting, but I feel fine now."

"Good, good,” Quinones said; Casper braced for a slap on the back, but it didn't come. “We've got quite a bit of work for you to do,” Quinones said.

"I'm ready for it,” Casper told him. He didn't bother to try to smile or sound enthusiastic; he knew he couldn't pull it off, and Quinones wouldn't care in any case.

Quinones strode off to his office while Casper shuffled to his desk. He sat down, logged on, and looked at the list of work that awaited him. There were eighteen urgent traces already in the queue, some of them obviously complex and time-consuming, and more would probably come in before quitting time.

He sighed.

"It's going to be a busy day,” he muttered.

Lester Polnovick stopped his crane and rubbed his forehead. He'd had a ferocious headache ever since he had left NeuroTalents the day before, after his imprinting. The flicker from the crane's monitor screen seemed to be making it worse; he couldn't turn the screen off, but he did turn down the brightness.

The headache wasn't important, he told himself. What was important was that after years of failing the qualifying exams for management positions he had scraped up the money to have the necessary skills imprinted. Crane work was getting scarce, now that robots were doing most of it, and the pay wasn't what it used to be; it was time to move on. Soon he'd be exchanging his blue collar for a white one—symbolically, at any rate, since the collar of his work shirt was silver-grey, and he hadn't seen a white shirt in years, not since the city, at the insistence of the Consortium and with the Party's blessing, had given up enforcing the clean air laws.

"Hey, Lester, get a move on!” someone shouted.

Lester waved and grabbed the control levers. He swung his load of temporary flooring around and raised it to the top of the building framework, and then looked over the growing structure while the crew was unloading the sling.

This was to be the Volcker Financial Center, Philadelphia's attempt to claim its share of the booty now that yet another string of terrorist attacks had finally driven New York's Wall Street to decentralize.

Lester was unimpressed with the structure. “It wouldn't take much to bring that whole thing right down,” he mused aloud; due to spending so much time alone in the crane's cab he had gotten in the habit of talking to himself. “Just a small charge there, there, and maybe there, ought to do it.” A certain warm satisfaction seeped into him at the realization.

Then he frowned. “Why did I think of that?” he asked himself. “What do I know about it?” Could there have been information in his imprinting about explosives and demolition? What the hell did that have to do with management?

Had there been some sort of error? Some of the technicians at NeuroTalents had looked sort of worried when he had left.

His headset crackled, and he forgot about it. “Okay, Les, go get another load,” the crew boss's voice told him.

Les swung the crane back toward the pile of flooring, and waited for the next batch to be secured.

Stu and Carl had just finished strapping another load into the sling when the lunch whistle blew. Les reached for the ignition switch, then paused. Slowly, without quite knowing why, he withdrew his hand.

He waited quietly in the cab until the rest of the crew had settled down for lunch, and then he slipped out the side door.

He didn't know at first where he was going, but using a stack of pipes for cover, he made his way towards the shack where the explosives were stored.

He stood for a moment at the door, uncertain what he was doing—or rather, why he was doing it. He knew what he wanted, knew that he had to do it, but he didn't know why.

But then he shrugged. It didn't matter why; he had to do it. He reached for the handle.

As he had hoped, the shack was unlocked, despite strict company regulations and city ordinances to the contrary. Convenience had won out over the law once again.

"What's going on here, Polnovick?” said the voice of Keough, the ground-crew foreman, as Les felt a hand on his arm.

"I noticed the door to the shack was open,” he said, turning. “I just thought I'd close it."

"Yeah, well, why don't you just let me worry about it.” Keough eyed him suspiciously, then pushed past him into the shack. “You got something going in here? Something special, maybe?"

"Nope,” Polnovick answered. He smiled. He knew what to do. “You want to check, go ahead.

Whatever you say.” He picked up a discarded length of pipe, hefted it silently, and then followed Keough into the shack.

Casper worked through lunch, eating a vending-machine sandwich at his desk. He was having trouble working—even the simplest, most routine tasks seemed to be giving him trouble. He just couldn't get his thoughts in order; the habits of years all seemed to have disappeared. It was probably a residual effect from his bad reaction to the imprinting, he told himself, but whatever the reason, it meant that it took him longer to do his work.

And so far, he had not picked up any new techniques or knowledge that he was aware of—but then, the new software wasn't running yet. This was Friday, and it would go in over the weekend.

He was also supposed to have been given improved techniques for handling the old stuff, though, and any improvements certainly hadn't made themselves obvious.

His office nemesis, Mirim Anspack, was among the first to return from lunch, and for the moment the two of them were the only people in the main room. She was Cecelia's roommate, and in fact Casper had only met Cecelia when the latter came to the office to pick up Mirim. Even before that momentous occasion, Mirim had delighted in teasing Casper; once he started dating Cecelia he had become the target of endless double entendres, and now that the imprinting and Casper's bad reaction were common gossip she had a new topic to tease him about.

Casper didn't really mind. He was used to it. He could take it, and even dish out a little in return. If he hadn't been able to, Mirim would have left him alone after awhile; she wasn't cruel, just playful.

She loitered near her desk for a few minutes, plotting her mischief, before approaching him.

"So how's our new super-operator doing?” she asked.

"Plodding along, like the rest of you. Wouldn't want to make you look bad."

"Oh, you needn't worry; none of us would think of competing with you! No, we'll let you do everything, shall we?"

"From the job list, I believe it. Can anyone do anything around here without me?"

"We manage, although how..."

A heavy rumble interrupted her; they both looked up, startled. The first rumble was followed by a second one several seconds later; the building shook, and a window blew out, scattering glass across the floor. Mirim and Casper both ducked down behind the desk.

They remained there for several seconds, not coming out of cover until they heard sirens.

Cautiously, they crept out, side by side. Mirim was first to stand.

"What was that?” she gasped.

"Sounded like an explosion—probably something commercial, not military.” Casper cocked his head to listen. “And that's small arms fire. Pistols, shotguns, maybe a submachine gun. I'd guess it's the police."

Mirim looked at him, startled. “Where'd you learn anything about weapons?” she asked.

"I don't know,” Casper answered, puzzled. “I just seem to know it.” He shrugged the matter aside and added, “Let's go take a look."

Step by careful step they crossed the room, and together they peered out the shattered window.

The street was covered with broken glass and litter; windows on other floors had gone, as well as their own. A few people lay on the sidewalk, apparently injured, and a car had gone out of control and run up onto a flight of steps.

"What the hell is going on here?” Casper demanded.

"I don't know. Maybe we'll get some answers soon, though—look there.” Mirim pointed towards the end of the block. A police cruiser with its roof-speakers up had just turned the corner and was driving toward them. They leaned out the window to hear better.

"The area west of Twentieth Street between Chestnut and Arch, all the way to the river, is being evacuated,” the speakers announced. “If you have someplace to go outside of this area, please go there immediately. If you have no place to go, you should go to the Thirtieth Street Station at once. The area west..."

Casper and Mirim looked at each other. “What the hell?” Mirim asked.

"Must be terrorists,” Casper suggested.

"Must be,” Mirim agreed. The two of them stared for a moment.

"Want a ride?” Mirim asked. “The subways will be hell."

"Yeah, thanks,” Casper said. “Let me get my jacket."

"Would you like to come over to my place?"

Casper hesitated. “I don't think so,” he said.

"Oh, come on. I don't have any vile purpose in mind, I'm just being sociable. Cecelia will be there."

Casper considered that. “You're sure?” he asked.

"Of course I'm sure. Her office is in the evacuation zone, too, right?"

"Well, yeah,” Casper admitted. “All right, then, I guess it's safe."

"It's safe, it's safe.” She paused, then grinned. “Well, mostly safe."

Casper groaned.

Cecelia was already home when they arrived, and the apartment also held a very large, heavily muscled man named Leonid—Mirim's current bedmate, Casper knew.

Leonid greeted Mirim with a passionate kiss, coupled with some indelicate pawing of her body; he then seemed to take sadistic delight in squeezing Casper's hand until it hurt. The first chance he got, Casper checked Leonid's knuckles to see if they were calloused from dragging on the ground.

A TV feed was on their main video screen, quietly burbling CNN's usual line. “There was a news bulletin about five minutes ago announcing the evacuation,” Cecelia said as she brought in a tray of snacks. “Other than that, nothing."

Nibbling on celery sticks and tortilla chips, the four of them settled down in front of the video; Mirim found the remote and began switching from one channel to the next.

After nearly twenty minutes of nothing—CNN and al-Jazeera USA were covering the fighting in Siberia, while FoxNews had yet another congressman defending his record—she found a placard announcing a special bulletin on the city-mandated local news channel. She put down the remote, and a moment later the card was replaced by a man in light body armor, with a microphone in his hand.

"This is John Covarrubias speaking to you from the corner of Market and Twenty-First. Just a few blocks from where I'm standing a construction worker by the name of Lester Polnovick has apparently gone berserk, and committed acts of wanton destruction. The situation is still confused; details remain vague. No known terrorist organization has claimed credit, nor has Polnovick made any demands."

John Covarrubias was replaced by a view of the construction site. The partially-completed structure near the center of the lot had collapsed against a neighboring building. Police and rescue workers swarmed over the rubble.

"As we understand it,” Covarrubias continued as the camera panned across the site, “Lester Polnovick, a crane operator, blew up the partially completed structure of the Volcker Financial Center, using explosives from the dynamite shack and causing it to collapse against the neighboring Takeuchi building.” A closeup of the tangle of girders piled against the buckling wall of the Takeuchi building flashed onto the screen. “Most of the construction crew had gathered here for lunch. At last count, seventeen were killed by the blast or the subsequent collapse; twenty more were seriously injured."

Another shot, this time of a half-crushed police cruiser. “Officers Santiago and Hojaji of the city police were the first on the scene. Their vehicle was demolished by several steel girders dropped from Polnovick's crane. Officer Hojaji was killed instantly. Paramedics removed Officer Santiago from the scene, and we have no information on his whereabouts or condition."

Covarrubias appeared on the screen again. “After this, Polnovick apparently used his crane as a battering ram on the surrounding buildings; because of the lunch-hour break few people were in the areas assaulted, and no injuries have been reported. The area has now been evacuated. Polnovick is still in the cab of the crane, and is believed to be armed."

"I wonder what made him do it?” Cecelia mused.

"Who knows?” Casper said, “If he was already a bit over the edge, it could've been anything that set him off."

"There's been a lot of that sort of thing going on lately,” Leonid said authoritatively. “Incidents taking place all over the country. The continent, even."

"Do you know much about that sort of thing?” Casper asked, looking up, wondering if Leonid might actually have a brain after all.

"Leonid works for a security firm,” Mirim said.

"It's part of my job to know what's going on,” Leonid said smugly.

"And there's been a lot of this going on?” Casper asked.

Leonid shrugged, then held up his hand for silence. “The SWAT team's on now. Let's see them take this guy down."

They watched as the cameras followed the SWAT team moving into position. Leonid grunted with pleasure when a team sniper fired a single round, killing Polnovick as he sat in the cab of the crane.

A thin stream of crimson trailed down the rusty metal siding below the cab window, and the news camera zoomed in.

"Oh, God,” Cecelia said, flinching at the sight. Casper took her hand and squeezed it.

"It could have been a lot worse,” he said.

"Sure,” Leonid agreed. “Only nineteen dead and twenty injured. Why, just last month a dam in Kyrgyz was blown up. Over four hundred people were drowned. And the fighting's still going on in Russia."

"Let's not dwell on it, huh?” Mirim asked.

"Just pointing out how lucky we are to live in the States."

"I'd feel lucky if I could get something to eat,” Casper interrupted.

"Good idea,” Cecelia quickly agreed. “Give me a hand, Cas?"

"Sure.” Casper followed her to the kitchen. As soon as they were around the corner, he lowered his voice and asked, “Where'd Mirim find that ape?"

"Shh. I don't know. He doesn't come by here very often. Mirim usually goes over to his apartment."

"Probably just as well. What do you have for dinner?"

"Chicken sounds good.” Cecelia pulled the instruction strip off the end of the box of a frozen chicken diner, put the box into the heat chamber of the oven, and fed the instruction strip into the oven's control panel. The defrost cycle began immediately.

"Have you got any plans for after dinner?” Casper asked.

"I'm open to suggestions. You got any?"

"Not offhand, but tomorrow's Saturday—no work even if they get the mess cleaned up. It's a good night to stay out late."

"Sounds like a good idea. I'll order a newspaper and we'll decide what to do after dinner.” She leaned back and kissed him.

When they got back from the movie Cecelia decided that it was far too late to send Casper home—especially with the headache he had developed. Instead she demonstrated that she had some interesting ways to take his mind off the pain.

Chapter Three

A single window near the top of NeuroTalents LLC building showed a light long past closing. Behind that window five men and three women were holding an urgent meeting, called hastily that afternoon. All of these people were unhappy. Half were angry, and the other half were more than a little frightened.

"You're sure it was our doing?” the man at the head of the table asked, glaring at one of the young executives.

The executive replied unhappily, “We're still investigating, sir, but it does look that way. Yesterday the subject in question, Lester Polnovick, had an appointment for an ordinary pre-programmed imprinting to learn accounting, personnel management, and computer skills. This wasn't a corporate contract; he'd saved up for it himself, to improve his employment prospects. He showed up on time, and was handled according to normal procedure, but our records indicate that instead of the package he had requested, he received an optimization imprinting. One that had nothing to do with the skills he had wanted."

"How did that happen?” the man at the head of the table demanded. “Don't we have technicians watching for this sort of thing? My lord, what are we paying them for?"

"Well, uh ... well, yes, sir, we do. They saw that there was an optimization in progress, but the technicians don't necessarily know what a particular client is in for. That's all supposed to be taken care of by the computer; when the contracts are drawn up the computer is told what's wanted, and from then on it's all up to the machines."

"Nobody checked? After all, we don't do a lot of optimizations."

"Nobody checked. The computer said it was following the contract, and the technicians believed it."

"All right, then, was the contract drawn up correctly?"

"Yes sir, it was, and the right information was fed into the computer at that time. We have a hardcopy record, with print-out time and date, and it was correct."

"So it was changed? What this man was supposed to get changed somewhere along the line?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then, why did the computer make the change? Who told it to?"

"That's not my department, sir.” The executive looked with relief at the woman who sat across the table from him. She cleared her throat nervously.

"Mr. Yamashiro,” she said, “it appears to have been a hardware failure. A bad disk sector, compounded by a previously-unknown bug in the error-handling code."

The chairman glared. “How could that happen?"

"Uh ... poor maintenance, apparently.” She looked embarrassed.

Yamashiro stared at her for a moment, then demanded, “Who's responsible for that?"

"We don't know yet."

Yamashiro snapped, “Find out.” Then he sighed. “All right, what's the damage? What exactly happened? What did this bad disk do?"

"Well, sir, when the client came in for his appointment, he was scheduled for a pre-programmed imprinting in small business accounting and management. The computer lost a variable, and defaulted to an optimization program.” She paused for breath.

"Go on,” Yamashiro told her. “What sort of optimization?"

"Well, that's the tricky part,” the woman said. She glanced at her notes. “The switch appears to have bypassed three entire levels of security—if I may say so, sir, whoever put together the unified software should be fired and blacklisted, because that shouldn't have been possible. The error-handling code apparently assumes that any lost variable should be assigned the maximum available value—I suppose the idea was to go for maximum flexibility, but the effect is to bypass limits and safeguards. That's bad programming."

Yamashiro nodded. “We bought it from the lowest bidder,” he said. “Sometimes you get what you pay for."

"Yes, sir."

"Go on,” the chairman said. “What happened?"

The woman nodded and continued, “The computer accessed highly classified files, material we developed jointly with ... with a certain client.” She looked up. “You will recall that transaction two years ago?"

Yamashiro nodded. “You mean the black-budget government work. I don't think you need to be coy; we're all grown-ups here tonight."

"Yes.” She continued, “The computer examined only these classified files as its available options, and finally chose the Godzilla File as the best fit for this particular subject."

"The Godzilla File,” Yamashiro said. His fingers tapped the table.

"Yes, sir."

"There's something in there called the Godzilla File?"

"Yes, sir."

After a second of angry silence, Yamashiro demanded, “Who the hell gave it a stupid name like that?"

"Well, sir, the names are generally chosen to reflect the nature of the file. For example, the Ninja File programs the recipient as an assassin, the Houdini File..."

Yamashiro interrupted, “I don't need the whole list. All right, they've all got cutesy names. So what, exactly, is this Godzilla File?"

"Demolitions and other related skills, primarily—intended for sabotage and terrorism overseas, I suppose. It's mostly concerned with the destruction of urban areas. The title refers to the old-time movie monster, for obvious reasons. And it's a compulsory patterning—the recipient feels a need to use his new skills."

Mr. Yamashiro said, with acid in his voice, “You're telling me that this client was imprinted with the urge to stomp on buildings."

"Basically, yes.” She nodded, then added, “We were lucky in this instance."

"Lucky?” Yamashiro stared. “We're liable for nineteen deaths and hundreds of injuries and billions in property damage! How the hell can you consider our situation to be lucky?"

The woman flinched. “Well, sir, he was taken down before he did more damage—it could have been far worse if he had been, say, a pilot rather than a crane operator. Also ... well, the method used with these files is a wetware flash. This involves the file being fed into the client's brain very rapidly. Optimization is a complex process, and we've discovered that slower methods can sometimes result in psychological damage from conflicts between the old and new patterns. A flash is so fast such conflicts don't have time to develop."

"Yes?” Yamashiro demanded. “So?"

"Well, sir, ordinarily, before receiving a wetware flash, the client is prepared by a medical technician, with medication and hypnosis. If this preparation is not made, the client can have very noticeable adverse reactions—migraine headaches, nausea, minor memory loss—as the brain readjusts to its new patterns.

These can disguise the immediate changes to some extent. More importantly, without the preparation, the skills tend to become available a piece at a time, rather than all at once; compulsions and abilities may remain in the brain as untriggered potential for extended periods before they're accessed. Without the preparation, it may take months or even years before the skills become fully available, and some are lost entirely. We're very fortunate there was no significant delay in Polnovick's case."

Yamashiro stared at her. “Do you mean to tell me that you consider it lucky that this man went berserk in only a day, instead of years?"

"Yes, sir,” the woman said, holding her head up. “This client was unusually fit physically, and apparently had very few old habit patterns that conflicted with the Godzilla File. He seems to have achieved fairly complete access to the imprinted file within twenty-four hours. Because of this very brief delay, we've been able to piece together what happened. Much of the pertinent information came from short-term data storage, which is kept only twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Now that we have these clues, we'll be able to go over the long-term records and see if this has happened before."

The chairman nodded. “All right, I see—we were lucky. So what's being done to see that this doesn't happen again?"

"Our technicians are completely overhauling the whole system."

Yamashiro frowned. “That's not good enough. The system messed up once, it can mess up again. I want those files, the dangerous ones, taken out of the system and locked away in the company vault."

There was a long silence around the table. The Assistant Executive Director, who had not previously spoken, rolled a pencil between her palms. “That might not be possible,” she said.

"Why not?"

"These files are, technically, not the property of NeuroTalents LLC. They belong jointly to our parent corporation and that client Ms. Valakos mentioned, and we have to be ready to provide immediate access to these files at any time. It's in our contract."

"What contract?"

"Sir, our contract with that client."

Yamashiro considered that unhappily for a moment, then yielded. “All right, then. Find some way to make sure there aren't any more accidents. And find everyone that's been imprinted with one of those files. And don't let anyone else find out about any of this!"

Yamashiro rose gracefully and left the room, leaving his subordinates to handle the details themselves.

Chapter Four

Despite being active until well after midnight Casper found himself wide awake at six o'clock the next morning.

This was not customary for him; usually he needed half an hour before his eyes would stay open in the morning. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling for ten minutes, simply enjoying the sensation.

He had too much energy to contain it any longer than that; he got up and dressed. Cecelia stirred slightly beside him, then settled back to sleep.

Casper slipped out of the apartment, went down to the lobby, and stopped at the security desk. The guard looked up from his magazine. “May I help you?” he asked.

"Hi,” Casper said, “I'm staying in Four-Ten. I want to go for a walk. Will I have any trouble getting back in without waking the people I'm staying with?"

"I'll fix you right up with a temporary pass, sir,” the guard smiled. “Just put your thumbprint here. This pass will get you in, then the lock will destroy it."

"Thanks.” Casper took the laminated card and ambled out of the building.

The morning was cool and crisp, and he trotted down the sidewalk. He gradually increased his speed until he was loping comfortably along, despite his uncomfortable shoes. He made it around the block four and a half times before he had to stop. Breathing heavily, he started back towards the apartment building.

A police cruiser sidled up to the curb next to him. “Need any help, mister?” the officer riding shotgun asked.

Ordinarily, any contact with the cops terrified Casper—and just about any other sensible citizen of his class. This morning, though, he couldn't bring himself to worry about it. He felt good.

He didn't know why, but he felt good.

"Oh, hi,” Casper said. He leaned casually against the side of the cruiser, catching his breath. “I was just out for my morning run."

"You're not exactly dressed for it."

"Yeah, I know, I spent the night with a friend and I didn't have my sweats."

"Your friend lives around here?” the officer asked.

Casper nodded and handed him the temporary pass from the apartment building. “Just the other side of this block,” he said.

The officer turned to his partner for a moment, then handed the pass back.

"You want a ride?” the officer asked.

Casper knew that his normal reaction would be to recoil in fear, that he never wanted to be in the back of a police vehicle, that too many people never came back from such rides—but today it seemed more important to be friendly, to observe the cops closely. And acting nervous might make them suspicious, something he'd known since he was a kid but never tried to use; today, for the first time in his life, he was able to not act nervous if he chose.

"Sure, that'd be great.” He gave them a broad, disarming smile.

The rear door of the cruiser popped open, and Casper tumbled in. The cruiser quickly rounded the block and halted in front of Cecelia's apartment building. Casper thanked the officers as he clambered out, then ran up to the door. He noticed that the cruiser remained out front until he was inside.

Careful, those cops, he thought to himself. Good procedure. They hadn't said a word while he was in the vehicle, either. Disrupting the city force could be difficult.

Maybe they could be won over, though.

He stopped and shook his head. Won over to what ?

He didn't know. He went on up.

Mirim was in the kitchen making breakfast, wearing a red and white striped robe, when he let himself back into the apartment. She looked up from her batter and smiled.

"Where have you been?” she asked.

"I had a lot of energy this morning,” Casper said, smiling back. “I was out running around the block.

What're you making?"

"Waffles. Want some?"

"Sure.” Casper leaned on the opposite side of the kitchen's central island from where Mirim was working. “Celia still asleep?"

"As far as I know, yeah."

Casper nodded. “Where's Leonid?"

"He went home early last night."

"Oh. I saw the bedroom door closed and I ... oh, never mind."

"I won't. What's the matter, jealous?"

"Of him? No. I just don't see what you see in him."

Mirim stirred vigorously for a moment, then looked up again. “I'm not real sure any more, either."

Casper met her eyes for a moment, then dropped his gaze to the countertop. “So when's breakfast going to be ready?"

"Have a little patience, huh? I just started. Go take a shower or something."

"I'll take the shower. I don't think I'm up to ‘or something’ right now."

Mirim threatened him with the spoon, and he fled, laughing, to the bathroom.

The day passed without incident. Casper took Cecelia to the art museum; they left Mirim reading at home.

The news that night reported that the investigation of the “Polnovick Incident” was progressing well, and that the clean-up of the wreckage was under way. All the buildings in the affected area had been inspected, and all but the Takeuchi Building had been declared safe; the evacuation was over. That meant that Casper, Cecelia, and Mirim could return to work on Monday.

The streets were still a mess Monday morning, with masonry and broken glass strewn across the sidewalks and into the street, and the police were allowing only pedestrians into the area. Motorists stopped at the barrier honked and shouted constantly, but Casper had problems of his own which kept him from having any sympathy for those people.

Between the time he had taken off for the imprinting and the ensuing recovery, and the lost time due to the evacuation, Casper's workload had become nearly unmanageable. What's more, the new software had been installed, despite the disruptions, and Casper found it virtually incomprehensible. He felt a growing certainty that the imprinting had not worked, which meant he would probably be fired. He had gone through all that agony for nothing.

He stared at the screen on his desk for several minutes before he even tried to sort things out. He was tempted to just forget about the whole thing and spend his day staring out the window, but even if he could get away with it the windows were covered with black plastic sheeting, and probably would be for quite some time. That rather limited the view.

Finally, he began to sort through the job list, ordering it according to priority and skill requirements.

When he had everything in order, and it was time for him to begin work on a file, Casper quickly discovered that he was simply unable to perform his job. As he looked at the information available to him his mind seemed to be filled with half-remembered tricks and shortcuts, but all were for use with the old software, and none of them applied to the new package.

By mid-afternoon he had not completed a single trace job; he could not get the software to do anything he wanted it to. When he got what he thought must have been his thousandth error message he gave up and blanked the screen.

The imprinting had not worked.

He leaned back in his chair, trying to think what he could do. While he thought he picked up a handful of thumbtacks, and without paying any attention to what he was doing he tossed the tacks at his bulletin board, one by one. When he finished, a dozen tacks were all stuck into the surface of the bulletin board, forming a nearly straight line, each tack about the same distance from the next. None had taken more than a single casual toss.

It occurred to him in a vague sort of way that that was good throwing for someone as uncoordinated as himself.

He got through the rest of the day somehow without anyone else realizing anything was wrong, and somehow, despite the imminent and inevitable disaster he faced, he didn't feel particularly depressed.

Unemployment loomed ahead, probably followed by bankruptcy, confiscation, and a life on the streets, begging for hand-outs or eating in soup kitchens, maybe minus an organ or two—but somehow it didn't bother him.

In fact, he felt full of energy. A nervous, uncomfortable sort of energy.

He needed more exercise, he decided.

After work he found himself walking the city streets for no particular reason, studying the people passing by, noting how they reacted to each other, to him, to the occasional cop car that prowled by.

He knew he should be worrying about his job, worrying what he could do about the faulty imprinting, but somehow it didn't seem as important as studying lines of sight through Rittenhouse Square.

Finally, around ten, he headed home—a bit uneasily. Travel at this time of night was not always a pleasant experience, even in the best neighborhoods.

Casper did not live in one of the best neighborhoods.

The worst part, he thought, was the wait at the station, staring at the spray-painted concrete walls layered with gray dirt. He waited on the platform, fidgeting nervously, looking in every direction constantly, until finally his train roared into the station and he allowed himself to relax.

Unfortunately, four street toughs, resplendent in chip-studded silver jumpsuits, stepped off the train right in front of him. Casper stepped back to let them pass, but they formed a semi-circle blocking his path.

Purple glowtubes on their suits spelled outSOULSUCKERS ; Casper had heard of that gang. What he had heard was not encouraging.

"Hey, man, gimme fifty,” said the one just right of center, who might have been a pale black or a tanned white; he was tall, with black hair shaved bald at the top and worn long at the sides, and a laddered scar drawn on his cheek in purple glowpaint. Electrodes protruded from his scalp, but Casper was unsure whether they were connected to anything or were just for show.

"Sorry, friend,” Casper said nervously. “I haven't got it."

"I'll take twenty,” the youth said, bantering, trying to sound reasonable.

"I haven't got anything to give you,” Casper insisted.

"I think he's lying,” one of the other gang members said belligerently. “What's he got on him? Don'cha think we oughta search him?"

"Yeah,” the spokesman agreed. He reached towards Casper while his three companions moved to more completely surround their intended victim.

Beech wasn't sure what to do, and afterwards he wasn't sure what he had done. He brushed his hand against the gang leader's arm, with an impact that seemed much harder than it should have been; the gang leader stumbled to the side, knocking into the shortest member of the gang, and they both fell to the platform. Casper ran past them and jumped aboard the train.

The doors started to close, but one of the toughs grabbed them and held them open. While the gang boarded the train Casper ran into the next car, slammed shut the door between cars, and braced himself against the door to keep it closed.

As he pressed up against the warm metal he realized for the first time that back on the platform he had somehow knocked down two of the hoods. He marvelled. He had absolutely no idea how he had done it.

The train started to move again. Above his head, Beech heard the door begin to fracture as the gang pounded on it.

There were several stops before Casper's destination, but station after station was empty. Fortunately, it didn't occur to any of his pursuers to get off the train and go around to the next car.

When the train finally reached Casper's stop, he abandoned the car and raced for the exit.

He could hear footsteps behind him as he pounded up the stairs. Emerging at street level, he turned in the direction of his apartment building and skidded to a halt. A police officer, his body armor and visored helmet gleaming dully in the lamplight, gazed curiously at him.

Beech had difficulty believing his eyes. A cop? In his neighborhood? But there he was, as big as life.

“Am I glad to see you!” Casper gasped.

"Is there something wrong?” the officer asked suspiciously.

Casper gestured towards the entrance to the subway as the first of the gang members emerged. Seeing the officer, the gang turned and raced back the way they had come, their metal-heeled boots clattering on the steps.

"I'll take care of this.” Grinning wolfishly, the officer reached for his holstered shotgun as he started down into the subway.

Casper watched him go. He felt no inclination to follow, or to see what was going to happen—he wasn't interested in revenge, and his curiosity wasn't that morbid.

Or that reckless.

Party hacks on TV sometimes still talked about criminals being coddled, but Casper had never seen any evidence of it, not since the Crisis and the emergency decrees. Criminals weren't paroled when the jails got crowded any more; they were “shot while trying to escape."

Sometimes the cops didn't bother with the intermediate steps of arrest, trial, and jail.

And sometimes witnesses got “caught in the crossfire” if they saw the wrong thing. Casper had no desire to see anything that might be wrong. Feeling shaky, he walked the rest of the way home without incident.

It was after eleven, but he was more keyed up than ever. After a few moments of uneasy pacing around his apartment he decided he needed still more exercise. Just running or walking wasn't enough, and he didn't want to risk damaging himself, so he sat down at his computer and pulled up a webfeed, entered a few search terms, and found a catalog of exercise videos. He chose a few almost at random, and downloaded them.

As soon as the first download was complete he shifted the others to the background, and began playing this new acquisition in fullscreen video.

The title was Basic Stretching , and he followed the lead of the girl on the screen carefully.

It was fortunate that he started with this file, because the next three, Aerobics for a Better Life, Modern Dance at Home , and Calisthenics , had no warmup period, and he probably would have injured himself. As it was, none of the programs did more than tire him out.

He ran through all of them without stopping.

The last file, however, was different. Self Defense for the Common Man struck a chord within him.

Watching the first demonstration he felt an electric excitement. He followed along, clumsily at first, but with rapid improvement. It was as though this was what his body was waiting for, and when he had finished, he felt relaxed and at ease for the first time since the imprinting.

He ran the file through again, and burned all five to disk.

It was just after four a.m. when he finally stumbled into bed and fell into an exhausted sleep.

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."

Chapter Six

The radio clicked on on schedule the next morning; Casper lay, still half-asleep, as the regular list of catastrophes was recited. The Russian civil war was still raging, more complicated than ever, and the Fringers were still causing trouble out-system, claiming they could use non-Consortium contractors and install non-Party officials.

Then he snapped awake.

"Four youths were killed late last night in the tunnels near the City Hall subway station,” the announcer said. “The youths, whose names have not been released by the police, were walking along the tracks between City Hall and Race/Vine Station when they were struck and killed by a train as it returned to the yard for the night. A corporate spokesperson for the Philadelphia police said..."

Casper rolled away from the radio and blocked out the sound with a pillow over his ears. The last thing he needed was a reminder of the previous night's events. He remembered them all too clearly.

Except, that is, exactly how he had knocked those two hoods down. His body had acted on its own, and he had somehow caught two alert young men off-guard.

He didn't understand that at all. He had never done anything like that before. And it had happened before he watched the self-defense video. Watching the file hadn't been like learning something new, it had been like re-learning a beloved childhood ritual.

That made no sense at all. He hadn't known anything about self-defense as a child. His parents hadn't even let him watch the Power Rangers or other popular shows.

When the radio's drone of speech was replaced by music Casper uncovered his head. Hoping this start was not an omen of how the rest of the day would go, he rolled out of bed and prepared for work—not that he thought he would be able to accomplish anything on three hours sleep and with the imprint not working.

The subway station showed no evidence of what had occurred the night before. Casper glanced around, looking for signs, and saw none. Later, when the train passed through the City Hall station, he didn't even think to look out the window.

He left the subway and climbed the stairs to the street.

At the top he stopped, blinked in the sunlight, and without knowing why he quickly scanned the neighborhood, noting rooftops, obstructions, and who was where. The morning commuters were marching to their duties; a leftover drunk from the night before lay against a building.

He took a step back down, unsure just why. Something had sparkled somewhere, but he had no idea why that should mean anything.

Still, it bothered him. He turned and trotted back down the steps, and went out the opposite entrance.

Then he detoured around the block.

Just for variety, he tried to tell himself. He was taking a new, longer route just to be different.

In the elevator he found himself thinking that he would have to buy a gun, or at any rate acquire one somehow. It would be expected, and he might need it.

He blinked. Expected by whom ? Needed for what?

At his desk he looked at the job list and first despaired, then grew defiant.

What kind of a man did they think he was, giving him all this shitwork to do?

Mirim stepped up behind him and said, “Boo!"

He didn't react immediately; then his lips pulled back and his teeth showed in an expression that was only technically a smile. He turned.

"Do you respect yourself?” he demanded.

"What?"

"I said, do you respect yourself?"

Mirim blinked, puzzled. “Of course I do,” she said. “Is this a gag, Casper?"

"A joke?” He waved an arm at his computer screen. “No, Mirim,” he said, “that's a joke! Expecting a human being to waste his time on this nonsense! It's fit only for lawyers and computers, not a so-called free man!"

She laughed. “You got that right!” she said. “But hey, it's a steady paycheck, right?"

"Not any more!” Casper cleared the screen. “Not for me, it isn't!"

Her smile vanished. “Cas, do you feel all right?"

"I feel fine, Mirim. I feel better than I have in years. I'm setting myself free, and it feels good!"

"Cas..."

"You think I'm being a reckless fool, don't you?"

"If you're serious, yeah, I do, Cas. Are you..."

Casper laughed, not his usual high-pitched, nervous giggle, but a solid, powerful laugh. “Mirim,” he said,

“we were meant for better things than this. We've had our birthright stolen, and I mean to..."

"What's this, Beech?” a new voice demanded. Quinones appeared at Mirim's shoulder.

Casper looked at his boss's broad, hostile face, and the feeling of power and certainty suddenly faded.

There were times to retreat and regroup, and this was one of them.

"Nothing, sir,” he said.

"Then let's get back to work, shall we? You and Ms. Anspack both. I must say, that imprinting you took doesn't seem to have kicked in yet, from what you've done so far."

"I'd have to agree, sir,” Casper said boldly. “I think NeuroTalents screwed it up somehow, and you should have someone look into the matter."

Startled, Quinones stared at Beech. The man was a doormat, and could always be relied on to accept blame for anything—since when would he suggest that somebody else might be at fault?

Since when would he suggest anything ?

"I think you're right,” Quinones said slowly. “I think I might just give NeuroTalents a call myself."

"You do that, sir,” Casper said. “Thank you."

"Right. Well, Beech, you'd better get some work done, imprinted or not."

Quinones turned and marched away. Mirim watched him go, throwing quick little glances at Casper and trying to suppress the urge to giggle. The whole exchange had been bizarre. Casper talking to Quinones that way? Sweet little Casper?

"Casper, what's happened to you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “I really do think the imprint must have been screwed up somehow. I can't do a damn thing with this new software, but I'm getting all these other weird reactions.

And you know, Mirim, they might be just what I've needed to jar me out of my rut."

Mirim nodded, eyeing Casper. For the past year, maybe longer, she had been watching Casper, joking with him, watching how Quinones and the other people around the office treated him, watching how he treated Cecelia and how Celia bossed him around, and thinking what a fine man he could be if he had a little more backbone, if he weren't afraid to step out of his timid little groove—but that had been daydreaming. If it was really going to happen, she wasn't sure how to handle it. “I think I better get back to work myself,” she said, and she turned away.

From the door of his office Quinones watched her emerge from behind Casper's partition and go back toward her own desk; he was just stepping inside when his phone rang.

Annoyed, he glanced back out the door; yes, his secretary was working the phone. Why hadn't she just called to him? He picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?"

"Arturo Quinones?” a cold voice asked.

"This is Quinones."

"Are you private?"

Puzzled, Quinones leaned over and closed the door. “Yes,” he said.

"You have a man named Casper Beech there? Recently received an imprint at NeuroTalents?"

"He works here, yes. Who is this?"

"My name is Smith,” the voice replied. “I'm with the government. Is Beech there now?"

"Yes, I just spoke to him. What's this about?"

"Don't worry about it. What we want you to do is tell us the minute Beech leaves the office, for any reason. Just call this number, 445-304-0011—did you get that?"

"No,” Quinones said, groping for a pen—most people would have used a PDA or keyboard, but Quinones was proud of his old-fashioned insistence on hardcopy. “Hold on a minute.” He found a pen, fished an old envelope from the trash, and said, “Ready."

The number was repeated.

"Call that number,” Smith told him. “You don't need to wait for an answer, but let it ring at least twice, to make sure Caller ID gets your number. Don't call until Beech leaves. You understand?"

"I understand, but what..."

Smith hung up.

Quinones stared at the phone for a minute, then muttered, “Shit. Crazy feds,” and dropped the receiver on the cradle.

He supposed, though, that he had better do what he was told.

He opened the door and tried to peer through or over the maze of partitions, but there was simply no way to see Beech from where he stood. He returned to his desk, sat, and grabbed the phone.

Mirim's cubby was in a corner where she could see the office entry, and if she turned the other way she could see Casper. She was sitting there, marveling at the sight of Casper Beech leaning back with his hands behind his head, not even pretending to work, when her phone beeped for attention.

She snatched up the headset and plugged it into her ear. “Anspack,” she said into the mike.

"Mirim, this is Mr. Quinones,” she heard. “I've got something I'd like you to do for me."

"Yes, sir?” she replied, puzzled.

"I want you to tell me when Casper Beech leaves the office—even if it's just to use the men's room. Just give me a buzz."

Mirim hesitated. “Uh ... yes, sir,” she said at last. She fought down the impulse to ask why; she knew that Quinones didn't take kindly to questions from his subordinates.

"Good. You just call the minute he sets foot out the door, then."

He hung up.

He hadn't even said thank you, Mirim thought, pulling off the headset and glaring at it. He hadn't given any reason.

He was probably mad at Casper about some stupid little infraction that poor Cas didn't even know he'd committed. Maybe he'd heard Cas's stillborn speech about self-respect.

But why would he want to know when Cas was out of the office?

So he could search his cubby, of course. He probably thought Cas was on uppers or something—a man like Quinones would never believe one of his underlings might simply be fed up, he'd insist there was some other factor, something affecting the man's thinking.

Mirim's mouth set in an angry frown.

And somewhere in the back of her mind, a guilty little thought appeared— was Casper on something?

Drugs or wire?

Even if he was, though, what business was it of Quinones'? Or of hers? She hadn't been hired to spy on her co-workers. Quinones had a lot of nerve, involving her in his nasty little search-and-seizure—if that's what it was.

He hadn't bothered to explain; he had treated her as if she were a slave, or a robot, with no choice but to carry out his every order.

She was no robot.

Casper's question came back to her. Did she respect herself?

Yes, she did. She stood up and marched back to Casper's cubby.

Casper looked up at her approach, and quickly blanked his screen. He had given up on doing the job he was supposed to be doing, tracing through the mazes of interlocking directorates, shared subsidiaries, and stock options to determine just who owned what, so that companies would not unwittingly sue their own managers or stockholders in the ongoing torrent of liability litigation; instead, he had been doing some very simple, basic searches, seeing just what in the company network he could access easily and what was relatively secure.

Mirim probably wouldn't have noticed, but why risk it?

"Come to torment me further, wench?” he asked, smiling.

"Sort of,” Mirim said, not smiling back. “I wanted to warn you."

His own expression collapsed into mild wariness. “Warn me of what?” he asked.

Mirim hesitated. It wasn't too late to throw it off with a joke, to keep from offending Quinones, to avoid risking her job.

Then she got a look at Casper's face—thin, long-jawed, pale, framed by brown hair in need of trimming, and watching her intently from deep-set brown eyes.

He didn't look drugged or wired. He looked sincere, attentive, and almost ... almost noble.

"I think Quinones is on your case,” she said. “He wanted me to tell him the minute you stepped out of the office."

Casper blinked once, slowly, coolly. Then he turned and looked over his cubby.

There was no way of knowing just what Quinones actually wanted. Perhaps he intended to check Casper's files—though he should be able to access those from his own computer. Perhaps he wanted to set up some little surprise.

Or ... ?

"I think he's decided you're a vicious drug fiend, and he wants to ferret out your stash before you can pollute the rest of us,” Mirim said, perching herself on the edge of Casper's desk.

Or that, Casper thought.

There weren't any drugs to find, of course, nor anything else suspicious; Casper's life was dreary and utterly innocent of any wrongdoing. Even his debts weren't his own, but inherited.

However, sooner or later, Quinones would discover that Casper wasn't working. Maybe he already had discovered it, and wanted to see if he could discover the reason. Quinones wouldn't believe that the imprinting had screwed up, and that instead of adding to Casper's liability-tracing skills it had apparently wiped them out.

Even if he did believe, it wouldn't do any good. Casper had signed that stupid waiver at NeuroTalents, and Data Tracers, Inc. wasn't about to waste their time and money fighting NeuroTalents on his behalf. A second imprint might not do any better; Casper's brain might have indetectable quirks. Much easier to just throw him out and find a replacement whose brain was still virgin and imprintable.

He was going to lose his job.

Well, screw that. He didn't want the lousy job anyway. He was sick of kowtowing to that fat fool, Quinones. A person had to stand on his own two feet.

Better to go out now, rather than waiting to be fired.

And there was no reason to go quietly.

While he ran through all this he had been gazing mildly up at Mirim. Now he smiled broadly, reached over and took her hand and squeezed it gently. He did this without knowing why; it went against all the habits he had always had, but it felt right. He had never touched Mirim before, and he felt her start slightly at the first contact.

"Thanks for telling me, Mirim,” he said. Then, to Mirim's utter astonishment, he stood, climbed up onto his desk, and shouted, “Listen, everybody!"

The normal hum of the office faded slightly as faces turned toward him. Most of the workers couldn't see him, because of the partitions, but they could hear him.

He looked across the partitions and saw that the door to Quinones’ office was closed. He wouldn't hear anything.

"Some of you know me, some of you don't,” Casper called out. “I'm Casper Beech; I've worked here for nine years now. Nine lousy, boring, painful years!"

A few voices tittered nervously.

"Well, that nine years is ending; I'm about to leave here for good. You know why?” He paused dramatically. No one replied; the decrease in office noise deepened as a genuine hush fell.

"Because last week they sent me for a neural imprint—they were too cheap to train me properly, or buy software a normal human being can run. They sent me for a neural imprint—they ordered me, a free-born American, to take it. They sent me to have my brain rewired. They sent me to be force-fed skills I'll never be able to use anywhere else. They sent me to be programmed like one of their infernal machines!"

Casper could feel the people listening. He heard a chair scrape as someone stood up for a better view.

"Well, I'm not a machine to be programmed. I've been living like one for nine years, but I'm not a machine! I've been taking their orders for nine years, but I'm not a machine! But I didn't rebel—after nine years, I think even I thought I was a machine! I did what they wanted, I took the imprint—but my brain rebelled! The imprint didn't take. I was sick as a dog for a week, my memory's fouled up, I can't work—but I didn't rebel. I came in here and tried to work anyway, like a good little machine...” He paused again, and then bellowed out, “And they fired me! Because their imprint screwed up, they fired me !"

A murmur of sympathy—probably more feigned than genuine—ran through the room.

It wasn't sympathy Casper wanted, though. It struck him suddenly that he had no idea what he did want, or why he was doing any of this, but he knew he had to do it, he knew he had to carry on, he knew what to say next.

"And you know what, folks? I'm glad. Because at least I'm out of here, and the rest of you aren't. But I won't be the last to go—no, I'm just the first! Because do you know what our dear Mr. Quinones told me, when he sent me to have my brain reprogrammed, my mind tampered with? I'll tell you what he told me. It seems software that runs in people is cheaper than software that runs in computers, because we can do our own debugging. It seems that dear old Data Tracers intends to do a lot of imprinting from now on—I was just the first! And do you know what the failure rate for neural imprinting is? Do you?"

He waited, but nobody replied.

"Neither do I,” he announced. “Because I'm damn sure it's not what they've published. Most of you work with data all the time, bend it around to suit management, to suit the customers’ whims. You think any of the data we get hasn't been tampered with? Ha!"

He waved in dismissal, and his tone changed from anger to false joviality.

"Well, boys and girls, I'm out of here, and glad to be free. I'll leave you all to enjoy your imprints—or if they don't take, I'll see you on the streets, with the other unemployables. Stop by and say hello, and remember—my name's Casper Beech."

Then he jumped down, grabbed Mirim by the hand, and said, “Come on."

"Come where?” she said, startled.

He stopped in mid-stride, turned, and smiled at her. “Wherever you like,” he said, “but back to your desk for a start. You don't want anyone to tell Quinones it was you who warned me, do you?"

The room was buzzing; several people had emerged from their cubbies and were approaching Casper uncertainly.

Mirim hesitated.

Casper abruptly leaned forward and kissed her, taking her head between his hands—and as he did, he whispered, “I need to leave now , or it'll ruin my exit.” Then he released her and strode toward the door.

Mirim blinked, then ran after him. She detoured just far enough to grab her purse.

Together, they marched out the door. A crowd gathered in the doorway, watching them go.

When Mirim and Casper had vanished into an elevator, the crowd gradually dispersed. It wasn't until almost five minutes later that somebody thought to tell Quinones that two of his subordinates had just walked off the job.

Chapter Seven

The man dozing on the rooftop heard the buzz; he rolled over and looked at the read-out on his phone.

It was Quinones’ number. He didn't know that; he only knew that the number matched the code he had been given. The target was on his way out of the building—or at least, he might be.

The man really hadn't expected anything for hours yet, but that was fine; he was eager to get it over with.

He picked up the Remington 700 in one hand, the binoculars in the other.

The damn phone kept buzzing. That wasn't in the plan. He was supposed to get the code number on the read-out, the target was supposed to come out the front door, and then the sniper was supposed to put a bullet through the target's head. Then the cops and paramedics would go to work, and make sure the target was securely dead and that everyone was convinced it was the doing of some unknown crazy or terrorist.

He didn't see the target. He put down the binoculars and took another glance at the holo.

The phone was still buzzing. Annoyed, he reached over and flicked it open, but didn't say anything.

After a few seconds of silence, a worried voice said, “Mr. Smith?"

The sniper grimaced. His name wasn't Smith; nobody involved with the operation was named Smith, so far as he knew, but then, he wasn't supposed to know any names. “What is it?” he whispered. He whispered to keep his voice from being recognized, not because he expected anyone else to hear him.

"I'm sorry, but Beech left early, and I missed it; he's been gone almost ten minutes."

"Damn!” The sniper slammed the phone closed, grabbed the binoculars, and began scanning the neighborhood.

No one fitting his target's description was anywhere within a hundred meters of the door where he had been told the target would appear. The target was supposed to head for the Race/Vine subway station; the sniper scanned quickly in that direction.

And there, descending the steps, he spotted a man and a woman, walking together and talking.

Nobody had mentioned anything about a woman, and it would be a long, difficult shot; he hesitated, and then it was too late.

"Damn!” he said again, as he reached for the phone.

The contact man, whom the sniper did not know by the name Smith, took the news calmly.

"You didn't fire?” he asked, after he'd heard the sniper's report.

"No."

"Good. Then he still doesn't know that anyone's taking an interest in him. Pack it in, cover your tracks, and report in—full pay, and half the usual bonus if your story checks."

Smith hung up the phone, thought for a moment, and then called Quinones to ask what had happened, and who the woman with Beech was.

"Where are we going?” Mirim asked, as they stood on the empty subway platform.

"Um ... well, I thought I'd go back to my apartment, I guess,” Casper replied uncertainly. He was scanning the station, not looking at her.

"You guess?"

"Well, I don't know—is there somewhere you'd rather I went?"

Mirim stared at him. A few minutes ago Casper had been a commanding, self-confident orator; now he was a wimp who couldn't even look her in the eye. “You don't know?"

"No. Hey, I just lost my job, I'm a little thrown, you know? Where else should I go?” He shook his head.

“And my mind's been playing tricks on me."

"What kind of tricks?” Mirim asked, puzzled.

"Like that speech I gave. I mean, what was I doing standing on my desk? That was crazy!"

Mirim stared at him.

"I thought you were great,” she said.

"But it's crazy ,” he said. “It's not me. It cost me my job."

"I thought you were going to lose your job anyway,” Mirim said. “You said you were."

"Well, yeah, I was,” Casper admitted, a bit puzzled. “Maybe, anyway. No one had actually said I was fired yet, but I wasn't doing my work."

"So you were going to be fired."

"I think so."

"So what harm does it do to tell them what you think?” Mirim challenged him.

"None, I guess,” Casper admitted. “Unless they blacklist me and keep me from getting another job."

"You think you have a chance of ever getting another job in the same field?” Mirim asked.

Casper thought for a moment, then said, “No. Not really."

"So what harm did it do?"

Casper had no answer for that. He was busy studying the pillars and tracks.

"What are you looking at?” Mirim asked, puzzled.

"Oh,” Casper said, “Well, see there, I was checking whether you could set up a crossfire over the end of the tunnel, but I don't think the niche in the far wall is deep enough..."

"A crossfire?” Mirim stared at him. “Casper, what are you talking about?"

He turned and stared back at her with a haunted expression. “I don't know , Mirim,” he said. “I don't have any idea, and it scares the heck out of me."

Mirim hesitated, about to say something, but just then they heard the screeching of steel wheels as the train neared the station, and she decided it could wait. For awhile there she had thought that Casper was at last coming out of his shell, but now he seemed to be retreating again, and she didn't want to force anything, not yet. Something strange was happening to him, presumably brought on by that stupid imprint.

She wondered if he would be willing to see a doctor.

She wondered if he could afford to see a doctor.

There was no point in berating Quinones; the important part was where Beech was now. Smith didn't need to think very hard about that; the obvious place for Beech to go was home.

That he had the Anspack woman along didn't change that; he might take her home with him, he might drop her off at her own home first, he might stay at her place awhile, maybe even until morning, but sooner or later, unless he had somehow been alerted, he would go back to his own apartment.

If he had been alerted ... well, even with the Spartacus File, Beech was a beginner. The file wouldn't be running properly yet. He would make mistakes. Even if he had somehow realized that people were pursuing him, Beech might go home.

Or he might go to Anspack's place; Smith would want to cover that possibility, too.

He picked up the phone.

Ten minutes later he hung up, reasonably satisfied. There wasn't time to set up anything fancy, or even to get to the apartment before Beech did, so it wouldn't be as neat and tidy as he might have liked. Still, the job would get done.

When they emerged from the subway the sky had clouded over, threatening thunder and rain, and the two of them hurried up the block, against wind that was suddenly cold. Casper almost reached out a sheltering arm for Mirim, then thought better of it.

"Here we are,” he said a moment later, pointing.

"You live here? ” Mirim asked, looking up at the building's gloomy facade.

"Sure,” Casper said. He shrugged. “It's not so bad."

Mirim shuddered.

"You didn't have to come,” Casper said. That sounded more hostile than he had meant it to, though; to soften it, he added, “But I'm glad you did. Would you like to come up for a bite to eat?"

Mirim shrugged. “Sure, why not?” She followed Casper past an overflowing trash dumpster up to the door.

"Careful on the steps,” Casper said. He unlocked the door and ushered Mirim through ahead of him; when they were both inside the dim hallway, behind thick panes of dirty glass, he flicked the light switch a couple of times, but the only illumination came from outside.

"Oh, hell,” he said. “The damned lights are out again. You'd better take my hand—the stairs can be tricky.” He offered his hand, and she took it, neither delicately nor grabbing, but just holding. They started up the steps.

"What do you mean, the lights are out again? ” Mirim demanded. “Can't you do anything about it?"

"Afraid not. Look out, that one's broken. No, I can't do anything about the lights or the stairs, because my lease—everyone's lease who lives here—has a no-liability clause. We can't sue, all we can do is withhold rent, and at what we pay, the owners don't much care."

"Hmph. That's a hell of a thing. Have you got a tenant's union?"

Casper laughed. “Not in this building. The people who live here tend to keep to themselves. There's no clause in our leases to keep us from suing each other, after all. We have to pay for our low rent somehow. Here's my floor."

They left the stairway, and Casper unlocked his apartment door while Mirim waited uneasily in the hall.

Once they were inside he carefully located Mirim next to the door, where she would be safer, before locking it.

He tried to keep his own windows reasonably clean, so the apartment wasn't as dim as the halls, but since his only view was of the building next door to the north the place had a certain gloom about it. He flicked the light switch, but nothing happened.

"Power's out for the whole building, same as usual,” he said. “Sorry if the place is a little untidy,” he added apologetically.

"I can't see well enough to notice."

Casper smiled. “Wait right there, and I'll get some light."

He stumbled into the kitchen, and returned a moment later with a candle in each hand. He set them both on the dinner table, saying over his shoulder, “I've got wine, milk, and diet cola."

"Wine would be nice."

"It's just cheap California white,” he warned.

"That's fine."

"I'll be right back. The stereo is over there. It's on the UPS, and the backup battery should be good for a couple of hours if we don't use the computer for anything else, so feel free to put on some music. Your choice."

When Casper returned with the glasses of wine, he found Mirim sitting on the couch, the stereo playing softly. The music was Beethoven. He handed Mirim her glass and sat down beside her.

There was an embarrassed silence as they sipped their wine. Casper put his glass on the end table.

"I'm not entirely sure why you came back here with me,” Casper said at last. “I mean, I'm very glad you did , and it was good of you to warn me about Quinones, but you didn't have to come with me. You've probably just thrown away your job, and it's not like it's easy to find work these days."

"Well, you'd thrown away yours ,” Mirim pointed out, “and you gave some very convincing reasons why the rest of us should, too."

"I did?” Casper asked. Mirim thought she heard a concatenation of unhappiness, confusion, and pride in those two simple words.

"Yes, you did,” she said. “I was impressed."

"But why?"

Mirim started to speak, and Casper cut her off. “I don't mean why were you impressed, I mean why did I do that? It's ... it's not like me."

"Oh, I don't know,” Mirim said. “I always thought you had it in you somewhere."

He stared at her, his hand on his wine glass, not moving. “You did?"

Mirim nodded.

"But..."

Casper was interrupted by a knock on the door. Startled, he turned.

"Who could it be at this time of day?” he asked. “I'd be at work, ordinarily."

"Maybe whoever it is tried there and they told him you'd gone home,” Mirim suggested.

"But who...” Casper got to his feet, puzzled. Then he looked at Mirim, understanding dawning. “A process server,” he said. “Who else could it be?"

"Data Tracers couldn't have one here that fast,” Mirim objected.

The knock sounded again.

"You're right,” Casper said. “I don't know who it is.” He stepped toward the door, then froze.

Part of him, the part he thought of as himself, the normal old Casper Beech, wanted to go ahead and open the door, put an end to the mystery, get it over with—but something else, something unfamiliar, something strange, held him back.

He rationalized; this was not a good neighborhood, and he wouldn't ordinarily be home now. It might be a burglar looking for vacant apartments.

It was probably a salesman or a Jehovah's Witness or something, but just in case ... ?

"Who's there?” he called, and without knowing why, or even that he was doing it, Casper stepped to one side, behind the door, out of the line of fire.

And the door burst in, the doorframe shattering as the latch and lock were kicked in; splinters flew, and then the stuttering roar of automatic gunfire began—only to be cut off short as Casper kicked the door back, hard.

Mirim yelped and dove for cover under the coffee table.

The gun roared again. Bullets tore through the thin wood of the door, stitching toward Casper—but Casper had already dropped below them, and as the window shattered noisily, as plaster puffed from the walls, he rolled away from the corner, reaching for a weapon.

The letter opener was too far away, the knives in the kitchen drawer out of the question; he snatched up an eight-inch splinter torn from the broken doorframe, and lay still.

The gunfire stopped; Mirim lay motionless beneath the table, hands clasped protectively over her head.

Casper lay on the floor, on his belly, muscles tensed, splinter in his hand.

The ruined door opened, and Casper sprang; his empty fist took the stranger in the belly, and as the man started to double over the splinter rammed through his left eye and into the brain.

He dropped instantly, and Casper fell on top of him, grabbing for the weapon the downed man had held and scanning the corridor.

He didn't have far to look; the second man was close behind, pistol ready. His first shot went high, as Casper dropped below it; the second took his own companion in the back as Casper rolled aside.

He fired no third shot; by then Casper had the first attacker's Uzi and was muttering, “Acquire target and squeeze..."

The pistol-wielder had not bothered to take cover; instead, he took a stream of bullets in the chest as Casper emptied his weapon.

Casper ran, crouched low, into the hall; he slammed one foot onto the second man's neck to make sure he was down to stay, then switched the Uzi to his other hand and snatched up the pistol while he made a quick turn, 360 degrees, checking for further attacks. He pointed the pistol down the stairs, but found he was aiming at empty air.

"Mirim,” he called, not looking back, “are you okay?"

"I think so,” she said unsteadily.

"Then get out here. Now."

"But there's ... in the doorway..."

"Step over it,” Casper commanded. “Move! We have to get out of here right now! "

"But..."

"No arguments! Before any more come!"

That did it; Mirim came, and together they hurried down the stairs, not running, Casper told her you can trip if you run, people hear you coming; they moved quickly down the stairs and down the hall, Casper in front with the pistol held ready.

Chapter Eight

"They've almost certainly got a car waiting out front,” Casper said, “and if they know what they're doing there's another in back. We go out the side."

"But there isn't...” Mirim began, looking along the narrow ground-floor hallway.

"We make one,” Casper said, as he made a sudden whirling movement, bringing his foot around incredibly fast, kicking at an apartment door just below the doorknob.

Wood cracked, and the door burst open.

"How...” Mirim began.

"If they could do it to mine, I can do it to someone else's,” Casper explained, as he pulled her through a dingy living room.

The window was nailed shut, but Casper didn't worry about that; he used the butt of his newly-appropriated pistol to shatter the glass, then kicked out the screen. A moment later he had lowered Mirim to the alley below and jumped down after her.

"That way,” he said, pointing to the back of the building. “If they do have someone there, chances are he'll be expecting us less, and the alley's less exposed than the street."

Mirim started to run: Casper caught her and held her back. “Not yet,” he said. “Just walk. Look as casual as you can. Look for other people; if we can get in a crowd somewhere we'll be safer."

At the back of the building Casper steered Mirim down an alleyway along the back of the next building over; she didn't dare look at the parking lot at all, but he took a seemingly-casual glance.

The dark blue late-model car with the man behind the wheel was blatantly obvious to him. It was also clear that the man was watching the back door, and hadn't even noticed the man and woman slipping away down the side.

"Amateurs,” Casper muttered.

Mirim glanced at him, but kept walking without saying a word, and Casper flushed.

After all, he was an amateur—at best! A week before he hadn't even been that.

What the hell was going on? How had he learned all this stuff? Those videos didn't account for it—even the self-defense one hadn't covered the moves he had made, it didn't say anything about using guns, and he had acted without conscious thought, as if the result of long training.

And why had he downloaded those files in the first place?

And what was that he'd said about acquiring a target and squeezing?

He looked down at the gun in his hand. It felt right there, comfortable and familiar—but he'd never used a handgun in his life. He knew at a glance, though, that this was a Browning Hi-Power, a good, solid weapon, perhaps a bit old-fashioned, but still very effective.

To use it, or any handgun, you focused on the front sight, not the target. You squeezed the trigger, you didn't pull it or jerk it.

That hadn't been in the video. How did he know that? It was almost as if he'd been imprinted with the knowledge ... ?

"Damn,” he muttered to himself. Mirim glanced at him.

They'd reached the end of the alley; he turned, heading for the subway station.

"Where are we going?” Mirim asked, and Casper could hear a slight tremor in her voice—which was understandable, under the circumstances. A moment earlier he'd have been amazed at his own coolness under fire, but now he'd figured it out. Why hadn't he seen it sooner?

Only one explanation made sense.

"NeuroTalents,” he told her.

"What?"

"NeuroTalents,” he said. “They screwed up somehow—it's the only explanation."

"Only explanation of what ?"

"Of how I could do all that stuff,” he said. “Of how I know how to use this.” He hefted the pistol, then realized that he shouldn't be showing it in broad daylight, and tucked it into the waistband of his pants, under his shirt.

Mirim still looked puzzled, and he explained, “They must have screwed up my imprinting, when I went in to learn the new software,” he said. “I didn't learn it—I couldn't do a thing with it at work this morning.

But I knew what to do when that man attacked us. And I knew what to do when some gangbangers tried to mug me last night."

" What? You were mugged? You didn't..."

"I wasn't mugged,” Casper corrected her. “I said they tried . I stopped them, same as I stopped those men back at my apartment."

"Those men ... Yeah, Casper, who were they?"

"I don't know,” he admitted. “I haven't figured that part out yet. But I must have learned this stuff at NeuroTalents."

"NeuroTalents teaches people to fight? They have imprints for that?"

Casper shrugged. “They must,” he said, as he led the way down the steps into the subway.

As they waited on the platform, Mirim asked, “So what are you going to do at NeuroTalents?"

"I'll tell them they screwed up and that I want it fixed...” Casper began. His voice trailed off as realization sank in. He looked at Mirim and blinked.

"You can't undo an imprinting,” Mirim said. “It's like learning any other way—you can't unlearn something."

"But I...” Casper hesitated.

He had signed the waiver; he couldn't sue NeuroTalents. The most he could do would be to demand that they give him the right neural imprint, on top of whatever this was they'd done to him—and what good would that do? Was Data Tracers going to take him back after that little farewell speech he'd made?

Somehow, he doubted it.

And something else occurred to him. There were people coming after him, trying to kill him.

Data Tracers wouldn't have done that; they'd have destroyed him financially and socially if they decided to seek revenge, they might have had him arrested, had his bank account confiscated, his net accounts shut down, his apartment “searched” to destroy all his belongings, rumors spread—but they wouldn't have sent gunmen to shoot him.

And they couldn't have acted so quickly, in any case.

The credit firm he was paying for his parents’ debts wouldn't want him dead; he couldn't pay any more if he were dead. He didn't have enough of an estate to be worth confiscating. Even if they already knew he'd lost his job, they'd want him to find another, they wouldn't kill him.

So someone else had sent those men. Not Data Tracers, and not Citizens’ Legal Credit.

And no one had ever had any reason to kill poor, inoffensive Casper Beech—until now.

The only thing different about him now, other than his lost job, was the imprint, so that had to be why they were after him. They must have caught the mistake at NeuroTalents.

So would NeuroTalents send gunmen after him?

Maybe they would—it didn't seem likely, but maybe they would. And in that case, he sure didn't want to walk into NeuroTalents’ offices and give them a sitting target.

Would they try to kill him just to cover up their mistake? That seemed pretty extreme. Consortium members were generally assumed to have disposed of troublemakers on occasion, but only as a last resort.

Maybe there was something else.

Maybe there was something about the imprint that made him dangerous—something more than the fact that it proved they'd screwed up.

He grimaced. Well, yes, there was something dangerous, he thought. He'd just killed a man with a splinter , for Christ's sake! That was pretty goddamn dangerous, to have someone running around who could do that.

He'd killed a man with a splinter—he felt suddenly ill at the thought. It hadn't bothered him at the time, or when he wasn't thinking about it, but now he remembered the feel of it, the fluids spilling from the ruptured eye ... ?

He leaned against a pillar, waiting for the nausea to pass; Mirim glanced at him uneasily.

Just what the hell had they imprinted him with?

What did they have an imprint like that for in the first place? NeuroTalents’ business was imprinting people with job skills—what kind of job called for the sort of fighting ability he'd learned?

He'd heard stories about corporate assassins, killers kept on the regular payroll, but he'd never really believed them—he'd assumed that any corporate killings were done by freelancers. But even if there were corporate assassins, would it be worth creating an entire imprint to manufacture them?

How could there be enough corporate assassins to make imprinting economically feasible? There'd be bloodbaths in every research lab or corporate penthouse in the country if that was going on.

That just didn't make sense. So that wasn't what he was. That was something of a relief.

But then, what was he? A soldier?

The army used imprinting for part of their training, certainly, but by all accounts that was for things like driving tanks, not unarmed combat. And they did their own, they didn't contract it out to NeuroTalents.

But maybe someone else in the government had hired NeuroTalents. Maybe one of those organizations in the Department of Homeland Security, the ones the public wasn't supposed to hear about, had decided to use NeuroTalents to train their people.

That made sense. All too much sense.

It would do as a working assumption, then—he'd been imprinted with the training to be a spy, a secret agent. And maybe his brain hadn't been ready for it—maybe that was why he'd had such a bad reaction to the imprint. He wasn't meant to be able to kill people.

But on the other hand, he was certainly good at it now. Wouldn't those two men have had the same sort of imprinting?

Maybe he'd gotten something special. Maybe that was why whoever was responsible was after him.

Spies, assassins—it all sounded like something out of an old video.

"So where are we going?” Mirim asked, as the sound of an approaching train reached them.

"Your place,” Casper replied.

Mirim nodded.

By the time they actually boarded the subway car, however, Casper was having second thoughts. If the government was trying to kill him—and of course it was the government; who else but the Party would have the arrogance to set assassins loose on the streets of Philadelphia?—then they'd probably already done their research. They'd probably know he was dating Cecelia. They might know that Mirim had left the Data Tracers offices with him.

And Mirim and Cecelia shared that apartment.

If they had any brains at all, the people who were after him would be watching the apartment. They might be holding Cecelia hostage, as bait for him.

He shook his head. No, he thought, Cecelia wouldn't be home at this time of day, she'd be at her office.

He glanced at his watch—she'd be going to lunch soon, he judged.

Maybe they could arrange a rendezvous; somehow, he didn't think anyone should be going into that apartment.

Instead, he got off at City Hall, pulling Mirim after him.

"Where are we going?” she asked for the third time.

"We're going to meet Cecelia,” Casper told her. “Your apartment's probably being watched."

The man called Smith was not happy with what he heard when one of the back-up men checked in.

The agent who'd been waiting out front had eventually realized that something was wrong, that the pick-up wasn't going as planned; if Beech had been there he should have been taken care of quickly, and if he wasn't, either Lambert or Finch should have come out and said so, so the man in the car would know it was a stake-out.

He'd heard gunfire and breaking glass, he was pretty sure, and that should have been the end of it, but he waited and waited and Lambert and Finch did not emerge.

So he'd gone in, and he'd found Finch with bullet holes in his chest and Lambert with a chunk of wood rammed through his eye, and he'd gone back out, quickly, with his pistol ready, to warn Eberhart out back, and then he'd returned to his car and called in.

Smith was not happy at all.

This should have been easy. Beech shouldn't be ready for them yet—the file should still be fragmented, working in fits and starts. Lambert and Finch should have polished him off in seconds.

Maybe it hadn't been Beech at all, maybe Lambert and Finch had stumbled into a drug deal or some other illicit activity and been mistaken for cops—the neighborhood was bad enough, certainly.

But in that case, where the hell was Beech?

He wasn't at his apartment. He wasn't at the woman's apartment. He wasn't at Data Tracers. Where else would he go? Smith accessed the file on Beech and skimmed through it.

He saw three more possibilities.

First, Beech might have figured out what had happened and gone to NeuroTalents to complain.

Second, he might have headed to his girlfriend's law firm—either to see her, or to discuss filing suit against NeuroTalents or Data Tracers.

Third, he might have decided to take shelter with friends or relatives—only his records didn't show any living relatives, and the only friend mentioned was Cecelia Grand.

Those would all want attention. It meant calling in more manpower, but that was better than letting Beech stay alive and loose with the Spartacus File gradually integrating itself in his brain.

And that brought up the question of just how good, how dangerous, Beech already was. It would take a neurophysicist and an imprint programmer with a complete scan of Beech's brain to predict that with any accuracy; the theory was that he would need weeks or months to absorb everything, but Polnovick had begun his rampage within twenty-four hours. The theory might well be wrong.

Beech might be a rank beginner who got lucky, or he might already be the equivalent of an experienced rebel leader, or he might be anywhere in between, and Smith didn't know which it was. Could Beech spot Covert agents reliably, or had Lambert and Finch just been sloppy? Was Beech wary now, alerted by the attempt on his life? Would it be possible to get near him?

A sniper didn't need to be near him, of course, but the sniper that morning hadn't managed to dispose of Beech. Had that been merely coincidence, or had Beech somehow already been alerted?

Or was the Spartacus File simply making him very, very cautious?

If Beech was on the lookout, for whatever reason, how could Smith get at him? Smith kept half his mind on that question as he issued orders to cover Grand's office.

Chapter Nine

Mirim followed along, watching in puzzlement as Casper zigged and zagged through the city streets. He paused now and then to stare up at certain buildings or vehicles, though Mirim could never see anything special about them.

They went past the entrance to Cecelia's law firm four times without going in.

At last Casper stopped, a block away from Cecelia's office, and ushered Mirim into a coffee shop.

"I'm pretty sure they're here, but they're still setting up,” he said, leading her toward an ancient landline pay phone at the back. “They won't have had time to monitor all the phones—I hope not, anyway.

They'll have your cell covered, and of course mine, not that it works, but they probably don't have Celia's phones yet, so I want you to call her, arrange to meet somewhere for lunch."

Mirim nodded, and started to pull her calling card from her purse. Casper's hand on her wrist stopped her.

"Use cash,” he said.

She glanced at him, then fished out a dollar coin instead. As she punched in Cecelia's office number and waited for an answer, Mirim looked uneasily at Casper.

This was all so strange and horrible. She had always liked Casper, thought he was sort of cute—she'd often thought that if he'd had any backbone and hadn't been dating her roommate, she'd have been seriously interested in him.

She hadn't known then that he lived in a slum, or that he was capable of killing two armed men in a matter of seconds.

Of course, maybe he hadn't been capable of it—but didn't they say that imprinting couldn't teach you anything you wouldn't have been able to learn? It was just faster —if you weren't able to handle something, imprinting wouldn't change that.

Could an ordinary man learn to fight like that? Or was Casper something special?

That speech he'd given at Data Tracers had been wonderful, and he was still charming, but he'd been so ruthless . And all this cloak-and-dagger rigmarole—was he being paranoid?

But they really were after him, whoever they were.

What was going on? Casper said he didn't know, either, but he still seemed to know what to do—could an imprinting do that?

Then Cecelia's voice said, “Grand speaking,” and Mirim concentrated on sounding normal, as if she were still at her office, as if she hadn't seen two men killed about an hour before, as if Casper weren't standing behind her with a loaded handgun in his pants.

It would have to be lawyers, Smith thought. With most people he could have bullied the manager into letting them monitor the landline phones in a matter of minutes, just as he'd bullied that oaf Quinones at Data Tracers. The cells had all been tagged already, not just Grand's but everyone in the office, but Beech might expect that—or he might just use a landline anyway. Smith needed access to the office phones, and the easiest way to get it was courtesy of someone who already had it.

Usually that just took a flashed set of credentials or a few words of warning, but lawyers were harder to intimidate—so even while he was negotiating with Mr. Arnold of Jackson-Arnold-Perez, Smith had his men tapping into the building's central systems.

And a good thing, too, he thought, as one of his assistants signalled to him.

"Just a moment, Mr. Arnold,” he said. He flicked off the microphone—just covering the mouthpiece wasn't certain enough.

"The Grand woman is on the phone right now ... no, she just hung up,” the assistant said. “She's meeting Anspack, we think for lunch; we didn't get the location."

"Follow her,” Smith snapped. “Anspack's probably still with Beech.” Then he turned the microphone back on. “I'm sorry, Mr. Arnold—something came up here. If you insist on a court order, we'll get one.

I'll get back to you. Thank you for your time, Mr. Arnold."

He hung up and pocketed the phone.

A court order—ha! Arnold was stuck in the last century somewhere.

He turned to his assistant again.

"Make sure whoever's going after Beech knows he's dangerous—use whatever it takes to take him down. This is a national security matter. Collateral damage is acceptable."

"Yes, sir.” The assistant began relaying orders.

"They'll follow her,” Casper said. “We'll have to lose them somehow."

Mirim blinked at him, startled.

"You really think they're going to be that thorough?"

"They were watching her office—I spotted two cars on stakeout, one man on the sidewalk, and a man on the rooftop across from Cecelia's window,” Casper replied. “If they're watching her, they'll follow her."

Mirim stared at him, and Casper thought he saw fear in her expression.

He smiled warmly. “Don't worry,” he said, “we'll be fine. Maybe I'm just imagining it—but after what happened at my place, don't you think we'd better be extra-careful?"

The fear faded to uncertainty—and it occurred to Casper that he'd never been able to read Mirim's face so easily before.

Had the imprint taught him that , too?

What sort of an imprint could that be? The fighting, the weapons, spotting traps, outthinking opponents, that all fit together—but reading faces?

And what about that speech at the office?

It didn't all fit with the idea of an assassin very well; he was fairly certain now that whatever he had been programmed with wasn't just assassination. Face-reading might suit a spy, someone who had to be able to tell truth from lies and know who to trust—but how did his speech fit with that?

"How do we lose them?” Mirim asked. “If they're really there, I mean."

Casper shrugged—and realized that he didn't know; he wasn't just dodging the question to save time.

He had no idea at all how one could escape pursuit.

He had known a moment before, and he'd lost it.

What the hell kind of imprint was this? How could he forget something he'd known just seconds earlier?

That wasn't how it was supposed to work! Once something was imprinted it was supposed to be there whenever it was needed—Casper had read enough on the nets and spoken to enough people who had been imprinted to know that.

Once they had Cecelia away from those bastards, the next step would be to track down just what it was that he'd had stuffed into his head—what it was for, what it did, everything. Once he knew what it was, maybe he could figure out how to deal with it.

Maybe the knowledge would come back when he needed it—he sure hoped it would.

"Come on,” he said.

Mirim had told Cecelia to meet her at a restaurant and bar on Rittenhouse Square, but Casper had no intention of actually entering the place—he'd be too confined there, too easy to trap. Instead, moving easily through the lunchtime crowds, dragging Mirim behind him, he spotted Cecelia on Walnut Street and waved to her.

She waved back, and a moment later the three of them were moving side-by-side down the sidewalk, Casper uncomfortably aware of the two men following Cecelia.

"Casper!” Cecelia began, “I didn't know..."

"Shh,” he told her. He looked around for a way to escape. So far the two men hadn't opened fire, presumably because of the bystanders, or perhaps because they weren't yet certain of his identity—or maybe they just weren't close enough. He was fairly sure they'd move soon.

He would have, in their position.

"This way,” he said suddenly, turning north on the west side of 19th.

Startled, the two women obeyed.

He then turned again, onto Moravian—and here he didn't have any crowds to help; Moravian wasn't much more than an alley.

"Run!” he said, reaching out with both hands and swatting both women forward.

Mirim ran—she'd been there at his apartment, she was already on edge.

Cecelia, though, stopped dead and turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Casper, what the hell..."

" Run, damn it!” he shouted. “I'll explain in a moment!” And he ran himself, after Mirim. “Turn left!” he called.

He glanced back. The two men had pushed right past Cecelia, leaving her standing there, looking confused and angry; one man had a pistol in his hand.

Mirim wheeled left onto 20th Street, Casper close behind.

Another short block brought them back onto Walnut, where at Casper's signal Mirim turned left again.

Pedestrians turned and stared as the two of them charged through the crowd, half a block ahead of their pursuers.

Casper was considering options as he ran. Something in his brain was working again; he was running through possible courses of action, rather than simply fleeing.

He could call for help, but these people didn't know him yet, they wouldn't want to get involved, and the natural tendency would be to side with the pursuers rather than the fugitive.

He could make a serious effort to lose the two men—but there might be others he hadn't spotted, lurking in the crowd as back-up. And besides, he couldn't see any way to bring Mirim and Cecelia with him safely if he were to try any serious dodging; they weren't ready, wouldn't read signals in time.

But there was a third alternative.

He turned north again on 19th, Mirim close on his heels, and a moment later they were back on Moravian, having circled the block. Cecelia was still there, halfway down to 20th; Mirim ran toward her, shouting, “Run, Cecelia!"

Casper didn't; Casper stopped dead the moment he'd rounded the corner and threw himself back against the brick wall. He pulled the Browning Hi-Power from his pants.

And as each of the two men rounded the corner, chasing Mirim, Casper snapped off two quick shots.

"Double tap,” he said, as he fired at the first man's chest; the recoil kicked the pistol upward slightly, and Casper fired again without pulling it down. That put a bullet through the side of the man's head. Then he dragged the gun back down into line in time to do the exact same thing to the second pursuer.

Blood and brain sprayed across the pavement and the side of an illegally-parked car. Both men dropped in mid-stride, one after the other. Cecelia screamed.

So did another woman, on 19th Street, who had seen the two men fall.

Casper ignored the screams; he ran, grabbed the two women by the arm in passing, one on either side, and dragged them to 20th Street, where he turned right this time.

Mirim ran with him; Cecelia didn't resist, but didn't help much at first.

"You want to stay with those two?” Casper whispered to her.

After that, she ran.

They dodged through the streets of Center City for several minutes—running at first, then trotting, then walking.

"Catch your breath,” Casper told the women. “After the next corner we want to look natural, to blend in."

Mirim nodded; Cecelia didn't, but Casper didn't worry about it.

The next corner put them on Market Street, and Casper began looking for somewhere to sit down, somewhere they could eat the lunch they had promised Cecelia.

He was, he realized, really hungry. He'd worked up an appetite.

"We have a problem,” Smith's assistant said.

"Why?” Smith asked.

"It's Dominguez and Groves."

"What about them?"

"They're dead,” the assistant said. “Beech blew their brains out."

"Did they get Beech?"

The assistant shook his head. “No. And their back-up lost him."

" Damn! ” Smith smacked his fist against the wall. “What the hell happened?"

The assistant relayed the back-up's report—how Dominguez and Groves had seen Beech and Anspack meet Grand, how they'd followed the three of them for a block and then Anspack and Beech had started running, how they'd all gone around the block and Beech had ambushed them.

The back-up had seen most of it, and had tried to pick up the pursuit herself, but she'd guessed wrong somewhere about which way her quarry turned and lost them. She hadn't had a chance to get off a shot.

" Damn it!” Smith said. “Why didn't Dominguez or Groves just shoot Beech when they had the chance?"

"Crowds,” the assistant said. “At least, that's what the back-up thinks."

"I said collateral damage was acceptable!” Smith glared. “For Christ's sake ... next time, if there is one, tell whoever we send to go ahead and shoot on sight. And give ‘em something heavier—shotguns or full auto, something with real firepower. Something that'll take Beech down no matter how good he is."

He wondered just how good that was. Beech seemed to be absorbing the Spartacus File pretty goddamn fast.

"Yes, sir,” the assistant said. “Uh ... the city police are on the scene of the shooting; should we contact them?"

"No, of...” Smith stopped and reconsidered. “Yes,” he said. “Give them Beech's description and basic history. Tell them we think he's a terrorist. Tell them Dominguez and Groves were FBI, tell ‘em we're FBI—let ‘em think we're going to be really pissed if anyone else gets Beech, you know, the whole

‘Untouchables’ bit. That should motivate them. These city contractors like pissing off the FBI."

"Yes, sir.” The assistant reached for the phone.

Chapter Ten

"The government's after me,” Casper told Cecelia. “Those two were feds."

The three of them were seated at the counter of a small coffee shop on the north side of Market Street; bright sunlight gleamed from chrome and Formica on all sides, and half a dozen screens were showing various news, weather, and sports reports.

It was hard to imagine that ten minutes earlier they'd been fleeing for their lives; Casper's words sounded bizarre and paranoid to Cecelia.

She put down her sandwich and stared at him. She hadn't yet taken the first bite. “Why?” she demanded.

"I'm not sure,” he said. “Something to do with the imprinting I got, I think—someone screwed it up somehow.” He saw her expression, and continued, “I don't know why , but they're definitely after me, and they're trying to kill me, not arrest me."

"How do you know?"

"Because they shot first, without asking me to surrender or saying who they were."

Cecelia glanced at Mirim, who nodded confirmation. “They just opened fire, back at his apartment—never said a word."

"Those same two men?"

"No, of course not,” Mirim said. “Casper killed them."

"But you were at his apartment before he ... what were you doing at Casper's apartment?” Cecelia eyed her roommate suspiciously.

"We walked off the job together this morning,” Mirim said, a bit nervously.

"But ... oh, never mind. So these two men he just shot came to his apartment?"

"No, two others . Casper killed them, too."

Cecelia blinked. “He's killed four men?"

Mirim swallowed, and nodded.

Cecelia looked at Casper, who tried very hard to look blank; he didn't know what else to do.

He supposed it must be a shock for her, to hear that her harmless, timid lover had committed not one, but four murders in a single morning—or four killings, anyway, as they were all self-defense.

It couldn't be as much of a shock for her to hear that as it was for him to have lived through it, though; she at least had the option of not believing it.

"None of them identified himself?” Cecelia asked, turning back to Casper.

"Nope,” he said. “Shoot first, ask questions later."

"Then how do you know they're feds?"

"Who the hell else could it be?” Casper said, suddenly angry. “Those bastards are always trying to run everyone's lives...” He was almost growling.

"Casper,” Cecelia said, and he stopped. She stared at him and picked up her sandwich again. She took a bite, chewed, then said, “You never seemed to have a problem with the government telling you what to do before."

Casper blinked at her, and tried to think.

Was that true?

It seemed as if it must be, really—after all, he'd put up with everything all these years, put up with the taxes and orders and rules and security checks, whereas now the mere thought of anyone telling him that he had to do something, or mustn't do something, was enough to make him tremble with rage.

The imprint again; it had to be.

What the hell had NeuroTalents done to him? And why?

"You don't know why they're trying to kill you?” Cecelia asked. “Do you think it's a case of mistaken identity?"

Casper shook his head. “I don't think that's it,” he said. “They know I'm Casper Beech, or they wouldn't have hit the right apartment or staked out your office. As for why—I don't know , Celia, but I have a theory."

"Let's hear it."

Casper recognized her tone and grimaced; she'd slipped into lawyer mode. Hardly surprising, under the circumstances.

"I went to NeuroTalents for that imprinting a few days ago, remember?"

Cecelia nodded.

"Well, I got the wrong one. I've been programmed with some kind of combat imprint—or maybe it's meant for spies or assassins, I don't know, but that's how I was able to take out four of them."

"I saw how you ... how you killed those two,” Cecelia said. “You caught them by surprise, ambushed them."

"But how'd I know to do that?"

"People can do amazing things under stress,” Cecelia said. “You see a lot of it in my line of work."

"And what about the others?” He shook his head. “Besides, I've been having all kinds of weird experiences—I chased off a bunch of muggers the other night, and I'm constantly finding myself watching for booby-traps or planning raids. And there was the speech at the office. No, I got the wrong imprint—and the government must have found out, and wanted to cover up."

"Seems to me they'd be more likely to want to recruit you than to kill you,” Cecelia remarked.

Casper blinked in surprise.

"I hadn't thought of that,” he said.

"Maybe they didn't either,” Mirim replied.

"Oh, right,” Cecelia said. “You've got someone programmed with some sort of super-soldier neural imprint that you've had made up to your own specifications, and it never occurs to you to see if you can use him for whatever you wanted the imprint for in the first place?"

"I hadn't thought of that,” Casper repeated. “It would be the sensible thing to do, wouldn't it?"

"Then why haven't they tried?” Mirim asked.

"Maybe they know it wouldn't work,” Casper said slowly. “Maybe it's inherent in the imprint that it wouldn't work.” He thought about his speech at Data Tracers that morning, about his automatic negative reaction to mention of the government much of the time. He thought about the Party and the Consortium and he realized he hated them both, where before he'd always considered them something of a necessary evil, the unpleasant cure for the terrorist wars and economic crisis of his childhood years.

Now he wanted to destroy them both, whatever the cost.

Maybe, he thought, he'd been programmed to be some sort of saboteur, a dangerous and involuntary rebel. Maybe the imprint had been meant to create moles, people who would attack their own countries from within.

That was just the sort of lousy trick that the government would pull.

Or was the imprint making him think that?

"So what are you going to do?” Cecelia asked, breaking his train of thought. “Could you turn yourself in, tell them you want to be recruited?"

"No,” Casper said immediately. “They must know what's in my head better than I do—they'd assume it was a trick, that I was going to turn on them.” He smiled wolfishly. “They'd be right, too."

"Imprints aren't supposed to control your actions!” Mirim protested.

"This is no ordinary imprint,” Casper said. “I'm sure of that."

"What the hell is it, then?"

"I wish I knew!"

"Okay,” Cecelia said, “You don't turn yourself in—though as an officer of the court I am required to advise you to surrender. But speaking hypothetically, let's say you don't—what do you do?"

"Well, I can't just ignore it,” Casper said, “though that's exactly what half of me would like to do—probably the half that's not imprint. I can't ignore it, because they'll kill me if I do."

"They haven't managed it so far,” Cecelia pointed out.

Casper snorted. “If they're serious about it, they will eventually.” He glanced at the coffee shop windows, suddenly uncomfortably aware that he'd been in this same place rather longer than was entirely wise, and that he was visible from the street.

"So what's left?” Mirim asked.

"Run,” Cecelia said. “That's obvious."

"Run?” Casper said. “Maybe."

"Well, what else?"

"Fight back,” Casper said, and he felt a warm surge of satisfaction at the idea.

"Fight against the entire United States government?” Mirim asked.

"Why not?” Casper asked. “They're just people."

"They're thousands of people, with guns and tanks and bombs and organization, Casper,” Cecelia pointed out. “Effectively, you'd be up against the whole damn country."

"So I'd recruit my own people, get my own guns."

"How?"

Casper shrugged.

A second before it had seemed natural and obvious, and he still thought it could be done, but right now he didn't know how. The imprint was playing its tricks again.

"That might be fine in the long term,” Mirim said, “but for right now , the idea is just to stay alive—how do you plan to do that?"

"You'll need to run,” Cecelia said. “I can try for a court order to stop the attacks—even with the emergency decrees in effect, I think I can plead that you're entitled to due process as long as you aren't actually taking part in subversive or terrorist activities."

Casper shook his head. “No, Celia,” he said, “you're missing something here."

"What?"

"You're coming with me."

Cecelia blinked at him.

"Don't you see?” he said, the words coming in a rush. “If you go home they'll know you were with me, they'll take you in for questioning, they'll keep you locked up while they pry out every word I've said to you, they might just decide to lose you completely. If they do let you out, it'll just be as bait for me—you'll never have another moment's privacy, they'll be spying on you every second of the day. And you, Mirim, they'll do the same to you—you know they will, when you think about it you'll know it's true! Listen to me, think about it—even if you could go back, become good little drones again, do you want to? Is that any life to live? Is that a government that deserves your allegiance? What right does the government have to kill anyone who causes trouble? What right do they have to order everyone around? Who gave the Party and the Consortium and the whole stinking power structure the right to run our lives this way, to grind us down? Who said they could suspend someone's civil rights indefinitely just by labeling him a security risk? Who said they could exempt the Consortium from anti-trust and environmental laws and all the rest, and leave them in place for everyone else? Think about it— they sent me to have my brain, my very identity, tampered with, so that I could serve the Consortium better, so it could keep the Party strong. They screwed up and put in the wrong instructions, so now they're going to kill me for it. No apologies, not even an offer of a quick, painless injection—they do that much for serial killers, for God's sake, but for me , it's a spray of bullets through my apartment door, it's hunting me down on the city streets..."

He had risen to his feet while speaking; now he threw his arms out theatrically.

" How can you continue to serve them? ” he shouted.

For a moment the two women stared up at him, and Casper stared back, meeting Cecelia's gaze. From the corner of his eye he saw the counterman watching him suspiciously, but the man wasn't taking action to quell the disturbance.

Not yet, anyway.

"He's right,” Mirim said.

"He's right about them locking us up, anyway,” Cecelia agreed. She looked up at Casper.

"All right,” she said, “so all three of us run, and we might as well do it together. Where do we run to? "

Casper looked at both women. He dropped his arms to his sides and seemed to shrink.

"I wish I knew,” he said.

Chapter Eleven

The first step was obvious—and for that matter, so was the second. If they were going to run, the first thing they needed was transportation, and the second was money.

Where to go after they had transportation and money wasn't so simple, but as Casper led the two women into the parking garage he'd chosen he made a suggestion. Neither of them had any comment on it, at least at first.

"Maybe we should take a train,” Mirim said nervously, as Casper looked over the silent rows of vehicles on the second level of the parking structure.

Casper shook his head. “Too easy to search,” he said. “And a train goes in a straight line, you can't turn off and get lost on the side roads. If they decide to search the trains for me, and I'm on one, I'm dead.” He looked over a brown Toyota, then moved on.

"They can stop cars and search those, too."

"Some of them, yeah, but do you have any idea how many roads there are out of Philadelphia?” He zeroed in on an old blue Honda four-door and looked it over for any sign of a security system. There was no thumbprint scanner on the car's computer, no warning lights or labels beyond the usual required safety notices. He noticed the clutter of old maps and empty fast-food wrappers on the back seat—exactly what he was looking for, signs of a disorganized owner.

"I don't like this,” Mirim said, her arms folded across her chest. She looked about nervously as Casper ducked down, got on his back, and peered under the Honda.

Cecelia watched Casper with interest. “What are you doing?” she asked.

"I'm checking to see if there are any wires that don't look like they belong,” Casper said. “I figure that if there's an added security system, there'll be wires."

"Some of them are subtler than that,” Cecelia said. “I had a few clients who tried this sort of thing when I did my year as a public defender."

"It's a Honda , Celia, not a Ferrari or something,” Casper said as he got to his feet.

"You'd be surprised."

"So be ready to run,” he said, as he made a sudden whirling movement and kicked out the driver's side window. The safety glass buckled, and dropped inside in a single large sheet—the glass was shattered into bits about the size of teeth, but the fragments were still held together by the layer of plastic.

"Jesus, Casper!” Mirim said. She looked about, waiting for an alarm to sound, for cops to jump out of nowhere with guns drawn.

No sirens wailed, no horns beeped; the only sound was the normal buzz of traffic outside. Casper ignored her as he reached in, tossed the ruined window away, and opened the door. He slid into the driver's seat, leaned across and fished through the glove compartment, checked the storage compartments and sun visors—and found the spare key in the ashtray. The clutter in the back seat had made him optimistic that such a stash existed.

A few seconds later the engine roared to life.

"Get in,” he said, as he used the power-lock button to unlock the other doors.

The two women hastened to obey; Cecelia took the front passenger seat while Mirim ducked into the back, shoving the trash aside.

Casper backed the car carefully out of the space, then asked, “Either of you have any idea where the nearest ATM is? And have you got your cards? They may have stopped mine already."

Both women began digging through their purses as Casper headed down the ramp. Cecelia found her card first, Mirim a moment later.

"I didn't know you knew how to steal a car,” Cecelia remarked, as Casper pulled out of the parking structure onto the street.

"Neither did I,” said Casper, as he scanned the traffic. It wouldn't do to get into a fender-bender or get stopped by the cops. The broken window was going to be risky enough in that regard without doing anything else to attract attention, like speeding or any sort of hot driving. “I was guessing—it seemed like something this stupid imprinting ought to include, and sure enough, once I started looking, I knew what to look for."

"I'm still not sure this is a good idea,” Mirim muttered from the back seat.

"What, stealing the car?” Casper shrugged, then ducked his head to get a better look at the traffic light.

“Maybe it wasn't. I mean, taking it from the middle of a commuter garage, I figure no one will notice it's gone until 5:00 or later, and we'll have ditched it by then. And except for the window we aren't going to hurt it. If you want, we can leave a couple of hundred bucks for the gas and the repairs. I mean, once we've got some more money."

"I didn't mean that,” Mirim said. “I meant going to Leonid's place."

That had been Casper's suggestion; this was the first feedback he'd gotten on it.

"Oh, that.” Casper turned the corner. “Well, no one had a better idea. If you think of one while we're getting money, you know, while we're at the ATMs, let me know, okay? But I didn't know what else to suggest. They'll be watching all my friends and relatives, they're watching your apartment, and Cecelia's office, and probably Data Tracers—where else could we go?"

"But if they're being that thorough, they must know I'm with you,” Mirim protested.

Casper hesitated. “Well, yeah,” he admitted, “but if you were after a man and a woman who were running away together, would you expect them to hide out with her boyfriend ?” Cecelia threw him a suspicious glance. Casper saw it from the corner of one eye, but ignored it. If he once started trying to allay Cecelia's suspicions about something going on between himself and Mirim, he'd never be able to stop. Best to just ignore the obvious, as if he were so innocent that he didn't even realize she had doubts.

A few days ago he wouldn't have thought that way; he'd have been telling Cecelia how there wasn't anything between himself and Mirim and saying it so badly that he'd be stuffing his foot further into his mouth with every word.

Now, even though he felt pretty much like himself at the moment, he knew better.

Had he figured it out for himself, or was the imprint telling him this? What the hell kind of imprint would include advice on keeping a girlfriend from being jealous, on top of everything else?

"Why not?” Mirim answered. “After all, we picked up your girlfriend—what's the difference?"

Casper didn't have a ready reply to that; he was sure there was a difference, but he couldn't put it into words. The imprint didn't offer any help on this one. “They probably think I took you hostage or something like that,” he said at last.

"Why would they?” Mirim asked.

"I don't know. I just think ... I mean ... Look, we'll get the money first, and when we get to Leonid's place I'll check for a stake-out—you know I can do that, right? You'll trust me on that? I managed okay back at Celia's office, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but back there you were...” She stopped in mid-sentence, not sure how to say what she meant—or at least, not sure how to say it without offending Casper.

Back then, he had been calm, controlled, efficient, in charge—the imprinting had been telling him what to do, she supposed. Now he was being, at least intermittently, timid and confused and whiny and unsure—his old self, in other words. He'd been the new Casper when he kicked out the window and started the car, but his voice now was back to his former personality.

It was hard to explain just what the difference was, but she could sense it instantly. Sometimes Casper was on, was the new assertive Casper, and sometimes he was off, was the old, timid Casper.

She had heard stories about how movie stars could turn something on—without it they were ordinary people, but when it was on they were stars , they drew stares, they were always the center of attention.

Charisma, star quality—she wasn't sure what to call it.

She'd never really believed the stories—until now. She'd never met a movie star, but she'd seen Casper turn on, turn into this irresistible force, this presence she couldn't resist. He'd done it with his speech at Data Tracers, he'd done it when he killed those two men at his apartment, again when they had arrived outside Cecelia's office, when he'd killed the two men in the street, and in the coffee shop when he'd convinced them to join him.

But right now it was off, and he wasn't a leader of men, he was just Casper Beech, liability analyst. It was hard to take him seriously, hard to trust him with anything important. He was a nice guy, fun to talk to, but no more than that.

Could he turn it back on, whatever it was, when he needed it? Could he spot people watching Leonid's apartment?

Well, they'd find out soon enough.

She just hoped they'd survive it.

"So after he took out Groves and Dominguez, he spotted their back-up? Spotted the tail?” Smith said.

"Maybe,” his assistant said. “We don't know if he spotted her or was just getting loose on general principles. She didn't think he'd made her."

"He probably had, though. This son of a bitch is good. He's spotted and dealt with everything we've done—dodged it if he could, killed if he couldn't dodge."

"Yes, sir,” his assistant said.

"So we have to assume he'll spot any of our people, no matter what we do,” Smith said.

"Yes, sir."

"So he won't approach anyone we have covered."

The assistant hesitated. He wasn't any too sure of anything about what this Casper Beech would or wouldn't do.

"Yes, sir,” he said at last.

"But he has to go somewhere . He's got the women with him—he's not going to just sleep in the street, not with all three of them. And he can't get a hotel room without using a credit card, and we've flagged all their cards."

"He's getting cash from ATM machines,” the assistant pointed out. “We can't cover all of them, and we can't reach them in time when his card registers."

"Freeze his accounts—haven't we done that?"

"Uh ... no. You just said to flag them, not to freeze them."

"Well, do it, idiot! And the women's accounts, too. How much have they already gotten?"

"Uh ... about two grand. His own account's cleaned out; they've been working on Ms. Grand's."

"Well, freeze what's left. And have you ever tried to get a hotel to accept cash? No respectable one will take it any more. Besides, put out a notice, in case they try—if any hotel has a customer pay cash, we want to be informed."

"Yes, sir."

"So we're covering Beech's friends and relatives?"

"Of course."

"And Anspack's?"

"Yes, sir."

"And Grand's?"

"Yes, sir."

"You said Anspack's got a friend who works in security?"

The assistant glanced at his computer screen. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Leonid Chernukhin, senior operative at Spartan Guardian Services."

"He's covered?"

"Yes, sir."

"Pull ‘em off, right now—and get him on the phone for me."

"Sir?"

"I said to phone this Leonid Whatsisname. If Beech can spot all our people, we'll use someone else. And if he won't touch anyone we have covered, we'll leave someone open."

"Yes, sir,” the assistant said.

Leonid hung up the phone and gazed out the window as contemplatively as he was capable of.

So the feds wanted a hit. He could handle that.

He'd never done a hit before. He'd killed a couple of guys once who chose the wrong place to try to rob, and he'd put some others in the hospital, but he'd never deliberately set out to kill anyone before, let alone someone he knew.

He didn't know Beech well, but he'd met him the other night—and that made it easier, actually, because Leonid didn't like Beech much. Beech was a snotty little wimp, thought he was smart. He'd be no loss to the world.

And the son of a bitch had been screwing Mirim, if the fed's hints meant anything; that made it personal—and a lot more fun, too.

Beech had been imprinted with some sort of combat file, the man said—but Leonid grinned.

Beech was a wimp. Combat imprint or not, he was still a wimp.

This was going to be fun .

"Anyone there?” Cecelia asked testily.

Casper hesitated.