"I don't think so,” he said.

He'd driven the stolen car around the block twice now, and hadn't seen anyone suspicious—but it didn't look right, somehow, and he wasn't sure whether the stupid unpredictable imprint was working properly.

But he couldn't see anyone, and where else were they going to go? No respectable hotel would take them unless they used their charge cards, and even if the cards had still been good—which they weren't, as they knew from the last ATM they'd hit—they'd have been like waving a red flag for the government to see.

Besides, Cecelia was suspicious that something was going on between him and Mirim, he knew she was suspicious despite his innocent act, and if Mirim's lover was around maybe she'd realize there wasn't.

Not that Casper was sure he'd mind if there was something going on.

He pulled the car into the lot and turned off the ignition. “Come on,” he said.

No one shot at them as they left the car and entered the building; no one followed them, or came anywhere near them. Some kids were playing a game a block or so down the sidewalk, and a woman was walking a dog, but that was all. It was almost 4:00; rush hour had started back in Center City and would be reaching this neighborhood soon, but right now everything was quiet.

Casper still didn't like it.

Mirim led the way and rang the bell, Casper and Cecelia hanging back. Casper could hear a TV going in one of the other apartments.

The door opened, and Casper tensed, but it was only Leonid, in jeans and tank top.

"Hi,” he said. “What's up?"

His tone didn't sound right to Casper—and what was he doing home at this hour, anyway?

Well, security people didn't all work the day shift, Casper told himself, and he was probably just being paranoid.

"May we come in?” Mirim asked.

"Um ... sure,” Leonid said, stepping aside.

Mirim turned and beckoned to the others, and the three of them trooped into Leonid's apartment.

"What's going on?” Leonid asked, as he closed the door behind them. “Why aren't you guys at the office?” He looked from one to the other—but something made Casper think he was acting.

"Someone's trying to kill Casper,” Mirim said.

Leonid glanced quickly at Casper, then back at Mirim. “Who?” he asked.

That wasn't right, Casper thought; he should have said “What?” rather than “Who?"

"We don't know,” Mirim said.

Casper didn't contradict her, but he watched Leonid's expression closely. He thought he saw Leonid's lips twitch slightly, as if he were thinking, “Yeah, sure you don't."

Paranoia, he told himself. Yes, someone was after him, but that didn't mean everyone was.

But something was clicking away in his head. Leonid worked in security, he was known to be acquainted with Mirim, the feds knew Mirim was with Casper.

"Tell me about it,” Leonid said.

"Two men broke down his apartment door,” Mirim said. “He managed to get away out a window, and came back to Center City to talk to Celia and me, and when we were on our way to lunch two more men came after us with guns."

Leonid turned to Casper. “Men with guns?"

Casper nodded.

"You don't know who they were?"

Casper shook his head. “Not for sure,” he said. “I think it has something to do with the imprint I got from NeuroTalents last week, though. For Data Tracers."

"Shit. Any chance they followed you here?"

Casper shook his head.

"No,” he said.

"You seem pretty definite about that."

Casper shrugged. “I'm sure,” he said.

"So why'd you come here?"

"They were watching Celia's apartment and office."

"So you came to me for help?"

"Well, if there's anything you can do...” Mirim said.

Leonid considered.

Mirim thought he was thinking over Casper's situation, but what he was actually thinking about was whether he should take out Mirim, too, and say it was an accident. The bitch was lying—the Covert contact had said she was at Beech's apartment, not in Center City with her roommate. She was lying because she'd been fucking Beech. And she hadn't mentioned that Beech actually managed to kill two of his pursuers—Covert had told him that.

If she was lying for Beech like this, she was never going to be any good to him, to Leonid, again. And she'd be a witness, a witness with a grudge.

The other woman would be a witness, too, but that was no big deal—she was a lawyer, Covert could get her to stay quiet. Lawyers could be bought or intimidated.

Besides, she looked nervous. She'd probably be glad to be rid of Beech, to not be mixed up with him any more.

The first bullet for Beech, then, but the second for Mirim.

"You know, I have access to a lot of information on criminals,” he said. “Part of my work, y'know—I'm on the closed law enforcement nets, got access to all the secure sites. Maybe I could find out something about this. You three wait here."

He turned, and ambled down the passageway into the bedroom, and the instant he was sure he was out of sight he headed directly to the drawer where he kept his .357.

In the living room Casper watched Leonid go, and then, without consciously thinking about it, moved swiftly across the room and took up a position beside the entrance to the little corridor, his back to the wall. He drew the Browning and checked the magazine.

Nine rounds left.

He rammed the clip back into place, chambered a round ... ?

"Casper, what the hell do you think you're doing?” Celia asked. She had her hands on her hips, and was glaring at him.

He held a finger to his lips. Then he pointed toward the front window.

Cecelia blinked, and turned to see what he was pointing at.

"I don't...” she began.

He said, “Shhh!” and pointed again, more urgently.

As Leonid came down the passage, his revolver in the hand behind his back, he noticed both women staring toward the far end of the room.

That must be where Beech was, down by the window.

He stepped out into the living room and started to bring the pistol around ... ?

And Casper stepped up right beside him, the Browning ready in his hand, catching Leonid totally off-guard. Casper pointed the weapon at Leonid's chest.

"Drop the gun,” Casper said.

Leonid could see that the safety was off on Beech's 9mm, that Casper's hand was steady, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Beech was smaller than he was, a nebbish, a nothing—but he had the gun in his hand pointed at Leonid's heart, and Covert said he'd had a military imprint of some kind. He knew how to use a gun, knew how to fight, knew how to kill.

And when Leonid saw the look in Beech's eyes, any doubt he'd had that Beech would shoot vanished.

Maybe Beech wasn't quite such a wimp after all.

"Shit,” Leonid said. He tossed his .357 away and raised his hands.

Chapter Twelve

Leonid glanced at the women—and Casper, he noticed, didn't; Beech's gaze never wavered.

Mirim and Cecelia were staring, shocked.

"Casper, what the hell...” Cecelia began, but Mirim shushed her.

Leonid took his cue from that.

"So this is a scam?” he said. “You planning to clean me out?"

"Just defending myself,” Casper replied, and his voice was calm, confident, commanding. “You came out with a gun, you work in security, this place is the only place we might have gone that's not under surveillance—I think that it's a set-up. I think they should have been watching here, and they weren't because they wanted me here. I think that you got a call telling you that I'm some kind of dangerous fugitive."

"Hey, you said you were a fugitive!” Leonid protested. “I shouldn't try to protect myself?"

"Maybe I'm being a little over-cautious,” Casper conceded. “So explain why you came out with a gun."

"Well, I thought maybe you were holding the girls hostage,” Leonid bluffed. “I was going to get the drop on you, and ask them what was really going on, why the feds are after you."

Casper smiled, a smile that Leonid really didn't like at all. “Who said it was the feds?” he countered.

Leonid's mouth opened, then closed.

Cecelia's expression changed from angry confusion to outrage, and her gaze shifted from Casper to Leonid. Mirim took a step back, looking wary.

"You said it was,” Leonid said. “You told me the government was after you."

"No, I didn't,” Casper replied. “I was very careful about that. I did my best to make it sound like either organized crime or corporate espionage. You said yourself you were going to check on criminals."

"Yeah, but...” Leonid stopped in mid-sentence. What more could he say? He was caught.

"So the feds did call?” Casper asked. “Did they tell you why they want me dead?"

"Not really,” Leonid admitted. “Something about you being a terrorist."

"You believe that?"

"No."

"But you were going to kill me anyway?"

Leonid shrugged. “The feds asked me to. I'm going to argue with them?"

"Who was it called? FBI?"

Leonid shook his head.

Beech waited, but Leonid didn't answer further.

"You probably know I don't want to kill you,” Casper said. “Not only do I not want to kill anybody, you can still be useful to me, and you know it. I wouldn't mind shooting you in the leg, though, and do you really want me to do that? I'd try to break the bone if I did, and that could be messy."

"Covert Operations Group,” Leonid said.

Casper gestured at the women with the hand that wasn't holding the Browning.

"I never heard of them,” Mirim said.

"I have,” Cecelia said. “When they eliminated all those conflicting agencies at the beginning of the century, after they set up Homeland Security, they put all the above-ground ones in the FBI, and all the secret ones in Covert.” She frowned. “But I thought they were like the old CIA, not supposed to operate in the U.S. in peacetime."

"They make exceptions,” Leonid said.

"So that's who's after me?” Beech asked.

Leonid nodded.

"Why?"

"I don't know.” He didn't bother to swear to it, or try to explain—he didn't think it would make any difference to Beech.

How could he have ever considered this guy a wimp? Beech hadn't made a mistake, hadn't wavered—and his eyes ... ?

Casper nodded.

"Let's see if we can find out,” he said.

"You want me to call them?” Leonid asked.

"No. Too easy for you to warn them I'm here—hell, just calling might be enough to let them know. But you said you're on the law enforcement nets? Was that just an excuse to get your gun, or is it true?"

"It's true."

"Maybe we can do something with that."

"What the hell is taking so long?” Smith demanded. “Why hasn't Chernukhin called in to confirm the kill?

We know Beech went in, right?"

"The lobby security camera shows him going in, yes, sir."

"So what the hell happened?"

"I don't know, sir."

Smith reached a decision. “Call Chernukhin,” he said. “Find out what happened. If he doesn't answer, we'll know Beech killed him."

Mirim and Cecelia watched as Casper navigated the net on Leonid's computer. This was similar to the sort of work he'd done at Data Tracers, and he didn't need any imprint to tackle something as simple as a standard web search, even on a specialized closed network.

He'd had Leonid boot up the system, but not much more than that—it would be too easy to slip in some sort of signal. Once the browser was up and running, and Casper had satisfied himself that Leonid, like almost every user, had the system set up to remember all the necessary passwords, he had wrapped Leonid up in bedsheets, tied him with electrical cords, and shoved him in the bedroom closet.

Casper had grinned wryly at discovering that the log-ons were completely automatic. Everyone did that, of course—who wanted to carry around a list of passwords in his head? And ordinarily, no one else would be using one's own personal home computer—most people had all manner of private business on their systems, and never worried about what might happen if someone got access to them.

For someone who worked in security, though, it was sloppy and careless.

Convenient, though; Casper was able to search through the law nets for his own name, to track back any mentions he found, and to cross-reference them.

He had already done exactly that, and had moved on to other things, when a phone rang.

Casper glanced up from the screen.

Leonid thumped against the closet door, but the others paid no attention to the pounding as they looked at one another.

"I could answer it,” Mirim said. “I've been here before, after all."

Casper considered that, then shook his head. “No,” he said, “Leonid stepped out for awhile. Let his voicemail get it.” He tapped a few keys. “And I'd say that's our cue to get the hell out of here, while we still can—if that's Covert calling to check up, no answer will mean trouble.” He logged off, then popped out a disk and pocketed it. “Come on,” he said.

"Where?” Cecelia asked. “I thought we came here because we didn't have anywhere else to go."

Casper tapped the pocket with the disk. “I've learned a few things,” he said. “I think we can find somewhere better now."

Cecelia seemed inclined to argue, but Mirim took her by the arm.

"Come on,” she said, “let's get out of here. Leonid's going to be really pissed when he gets free."

Cecelia glanced at the closet, then shrugged.

The phone rang again and again as Casper, Mirim, and Cecelia gathered up their belongings—and some of Leonid's—and departed.

Behind them, Leonid kicked viciously and pointlessly against the closet door.

"There's no answer,” Smith's assistant said. “How do you want it handled?"

Smith growled.

"I want a fucking SWAT team, is what I want,” he said. “I want them to go in there and get that son of a Beech bitch ... I mean, son of a bitch Beech. And I don't care who gets in the way—if they take out Anspack or Grand or Chernukhin or half a dozen innocent bystanders it's just fine with me!"

"Yes, sir.” The assistant turned away.

"And when you've got that started,” Smith called after him, “I want you to find me the asshole who wrote this goddamned Spartacus File in the first place, and get him in here! I want to know just what the hell is in it, in case this Beech gets away again!"

"Yes, sir."

"So where are we going?” Mirim asked.

She was riding shotgun in Leonid's antique Mustang—Casper had wanted to have something intact, with all its windows and the keys and remote, in case he got stopped for speeding. It wouldn't be safe for very long, of course—there'd be an APB on it as soon as Covert's people got Leonid out of the closet, if not sooner, and it was a very distinctive vehicle.

But it was fast and handy and Casper hoped he wouldn't need it for long.

"New Jersey,” Casper said, his eyes locked on the highway.

He had been very much in his high-intensity mode ever since disarming Leonid, and Mirim was getting tired of it. It was wearing, being around Casper when he was “on.” Besides, since they were headed northeast on I-95 and the Delaware River was maybe a mile ahead, it was not exactly surprising information that they would be crossing it.

"Where in New Jersey?” she demanded. “Stopping in Jersey, or just passing through?"

"Stopping,” Casper said.

"Casper, would you mind being a bit more informative?"

Casper glanced at her and smiled crookedly; his ferocious intensity vanished.

"Sorry,” he said, in a voice that had neither the tight, hard command of the fighter, nor the rich tones of the orator, nor the uncertain quaver of the old Casper, but a warm confidence. “I haven't exactly been talkative, have I? I think I was afraid we might be separated, and if that happened and you were captured, the less you knew the better. But that isn't fair, is it?"

"No, it isn't,” Mirim said, somewhat mollified.

"Well, it's like this,” Casper explained. “This Covert Operations Group has posted warnings all over the nets that I'm a dangerous terrorist in possession of stolen software of theirs, which fits the old definition of a good lie, because it's pretty damn close to the truth—I can't deny being dangerous when I've killed four men in a single day, and I do have Covert's software in my head, even if I didn't want it there. So every law enforcement agency in North America knows that Covert's labeled me as such, right?"

"I guess,” Mirim said.

"If they read the nets, they know,” Casper said. “And of course they read the nets."

"Okay, so?"

"So, who else would read the law nets?"

Cecelia, resting as well as she could in the cramped back seat, suddenly leaned forward.

"Casper...” she said warningly.

Mirim glanced at her, then back at Casper. “I don't get it,” she said.

"Well, think about it, Mirim,” he said. “Who else would want to know everything that's going on in the world of cops and robbers, besides the cops?"

"The robbers,” Mirim replied automatically. “But I still don't ... oh, no."

Casper grinned. “Now you've got it,” he said. “Every cop in the country thinks I'm a dangerous terrorist in possession of government secrets—and so does every terrorist organization with half a brain. And they won't want to kill me—they'll want to recruit me!"

Chapter Thirteen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Casper fished out a bill and handed it to her.

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

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

"Sure thing,” Casper replied.

"See that you do, or Mommy will spank."

"I'd like that,” Casper said with a grin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Casper grinned.

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

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

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

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

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

"Someone is using it,” Smith said.

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

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

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

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

Schiano frowned. “Glitched how?"

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

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

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

"Oh, he lived, all right."

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

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

"What do you mean? I don't know anything about the medical end."

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

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

"Yes, damn it!” Smith shouted.

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

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

"An American? ” Schiano asked, incredulous.

"Yes, an American!"

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

"So?"

Schiano stammered.

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

"Yeah, but..."

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

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

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

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

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

Shoot Spartacus, who only wanted freedom and equality?

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

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

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

"Oh,” Schiano said. He blinked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Casper got out on the other side, and the two of them stood, looking about at the gathering twilight.

They could hear the hum of distant traffic, and the chirping of crickets.

"Peaceful here,” Casper remarked.

"Yes,” Mirim agreed.

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

"Nice neighborhood,” Casper said.

Mirim made a noise of agreement.

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

Mirim nodded.

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

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

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

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

He probably was.

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

Casper grimaced.

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

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

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

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

Cecelia spotted them.

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

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

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

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

"That poor son of a bitch,” he said.

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

"Because he's gotta be incredibly confused,” Schiano replied.

"Why?"

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

"So?"

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

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

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

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

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

Smith nodded.

"And you've tried to assassinate him?"

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

" Where? "

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

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

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

"So he's in either New York or Washington,” Smith said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter Fourteen

The van pulled up beside them, and a flashlight shone in Casper's face; he blinked, but resisted the temptation to shield his eyes.

The light moved on to Cecelia, then to Mirim, then went out.

"I don't believe I'm really doing this,” Mirim muttered from the back seat. “I mean, why am I sitting here in a deserted parking lot in the middle of New Jersey meeting a bunch of crackpot revolutionaries?"

"Because the government is trying to kill me to cover up their own mistake,” Casper said, “and you've got the guts and the morals to join me in trying to stop them."

"Christ, Cas, you sound like a video hero,” Cecelia replied.

The van door slammed; a thin young man in black, wearing a black ski mask, had climbed out. He came over to the Mustang; Casper rolled down the window.

"You're Beech?” the man in black asked. He did not bend down to bring his face closer; that, Casper knew, would make him too easy to grab.

"Yes,” Casper said.

"Which one's the lawyer?"

Casper jerked a thumb at Cecelia. “Ms. Grand,” he said.

"And the other? The phone call wasn't real clear."

"Her name's Mirim Anspack,” Casper said. “She's just a friend who got caught in the crossfire."

The man in black considered that.

"I'll vouch for her,” Beech said. “If that's worth anything."

"It isn't,” the man in black said. He looked around at the empty parking lot—a church lot on a Tuesday night. The van and the Mustang were the only vehicles in sight.

"Get out of the car,” he said.

Casper obeyed promptly. Cecelia and Mirim were slower, but eventually all three were standing.

"You armed?"

Casper nodded.

The man in black held out a hand, and Casper handed over the Browning 9mm—the .357 was in the glove compartment.

"I'd like it back later,” Casper said.

The man didn't answer. “What about the car?” he asked.

"Hotter than hell, I'm afraid,” Casper replied. “I took it off a man who tried to kill us this afternoon. I'd suggest running it up to New York and ditching it somewhere in the city."

"Leave the keys,” the man said.

"They're in the ignition."

"Get in the van.” He opened the back door of the vehicle.

"Casper, are you sure about this?” Mirim asked.

"Get in the van,” Casper said.

Reluctantly, Mirim got in the van.

Casper was fairly certain that at least half the subsequent twenty-minute drive was just misdirection and doubling back, but he didn't try to keep track. He had no intention of escaping from these people.

He'd been doing some thinking on the way here. He couldn't just hide out until the heat blew over, not after killing four feds; the heat wasn't going to blow over, ever. And he couldn't lose himself forever and create a new identity—his fingerprints and voiceprint and retinal patterns were on file, and sooner or later he'd be spotted somehow, his voice recognized on a random phone check or his style spotted on the nets.

Not to mention that he'd have to open new online accounts, and a standard background check might nail him.

So he didn't intend to hide; he intended to take the offensive, and he couldn't do that alone. These people he was meeting weren't just a temporary refuge; they were his hope for the future.

He intended to recruit them.

Bob Schiano gulped his personal caffeine-sugar mix and studied the screen.

Smith wanted him to locate Beech so that Covert could kill him, and Schiano was indeed doing his best to locate Beech, but he wasn't at all sure about this killing stuff.

It wasn't that anything in Beech's file from before the optimization made him sound especially appealing; he'd been a corporate nonentity, working at a dead-end job for an obscure member of the Consortium, with nothing of particular interest in his background. He was an orphan who had inherited his parents’

massive debts—they'd lived just long enough to be covered by the revised bankruptcy laws and Enhanced Creditor Recovery Act, so that half Beech's after-tax income went toward paying the interest on their decades-old medical and legal bills. His work performance evaluations were inconsistent—his superiors consistently rated him as “marginal,” while the actual productivity figures were well above average, and Schiano knew that that meant he was a loser, a scapegoat, someone his bosses felt free to dump on.

There were no files on his personal life—no one had cared about him enough to start one, he'd always managed to stay out of any government aid programs that would have called for evaluation of his mental or social state, and he'd never had the money for any sort of private therapy. Schiano noticed, though, that Beech had never married and had no acknowledged offspring, and had never been named in any divorce action or custodial suit. Apparently he wasn't much of a success with women, either—though he hadn't struck out completely, since he did have this lawyer, Cecelia Grand, he was seeing.

Grand had a much juicier file—lawyers got a lot more attention than liability analysts—but Schiano doubted any of it mattered. Beech wouldn't be taking Grand's advice; he'd be doing what he, in his optimized state, thought best, and he'd be taking along whoever he wanted.

Beech didn't own a car—he had once, but lost it in an insurance scam.

In fact, Beech had been dragged into court an average of once every sixteen months for his entire adult life on one petty complaint or another, and had always either lost or settled out of court, though Schiano could see no evidence that he'd ever actually been at fault.

The man was a complete and classic loser, beaten down by fortune and society, with no known talents beyond some minor skill with computers and, according to interviews with his co-workers, a decent sense of humor.

But then had come the imprint session and the subsequent optimization. For a few days nothing had changed—he'd called in sick, but that was about it.

And then Tuesday he had killed four trained assassins and escaped a government dragnet, taking along two women; he had used another assassin's own computer to get onto the net.

That last was something Smith didn't seem to have paid any attention to, but Schiano did. Beech hadn't just tied up Leonid Chernukhin and fled—or easier still, shot him and fled. Instead Beech had spent precious time on the computer, even though, from Chernukhin's account, Beech knew that Covert was after him.

He must have been after something important to him, and Schiano could guess what it was. He'd told Smith that Beech's first choice would be contacting an existing rebel organization, and Smith had dismissed the idea, but Schiano had gone through the access log for Chernukhin's machine—getting through Leonid's cheap firewall had been absurdly easy.

He couldn't tell exactly what Beech had and hadn't read, since he'd had the sense to dump the cache and erase the user log, but it certainly looked as if he'd gone through the latest information on subversives and terrorist groups.

And after that he'd headed north out of Philadelphia.

Schiano guessed that he did, indeed, plan to contact some rebel organization, somewhere in New York or New Jersey—and take it over.

That was very interesting indeed.

Schiano had never intended the File for use in any country as big and complex as the United States, and he was fascinated watching it in action.

Smith wanted Beech killed before he could do anything—but Schiano, who had compiled the Spartacus File, wanted to see how far Beech could get, and what, if anything, he'd do about the apparent conflict in his programming between pro-Americanism and the need to overthrow the government.

Schiano was beginning to suspect it wasn't that much of a conflict, actually. After all, sending asssassins after him hardly reflected the highest ideals of American society, or any great respect for Constitutional rights.

Not that he'd ever say anything like that to Smith. If Smith had any ideals, Schiano doubted they resembled anything in the Constitution. The entire Covert Operations Group didn't much resemble anything in the Constitution.

And Schiano already had a sneaking admiration for anyone who could elude Covert this long. Beech might have been a loser, but he also had the potential to be a new Spartacus.

Of course, Spartacus wound up crucified.

Schiano took another gulp of mix and wondered whether Beech knew what had happened to him.

And whether someone should tell him.

"So you're Casper Beech,” the redheaded man said.

"Sure am,” Casper agreed.

"The word on the net is that you stole some fancy government files. Are you trying to sell them? Because if that's it, why did you come to us, rather than the Iranians or the Germans? They've got a lot more money."

"You believe what the government says on the nets?” Casper asked.

The redheaded man smiled. “No,” he said. “So suppose you tell me why they're really after you—if they are, and this isn't all a sting of some kind."

"Suppose you tell me first who all you people are, and how I'm supposed to be sure this isn't all a government trap,” Casper replied.

The redhead glanced at his companions—two women and three men, seated around a battered kitchen table. One of them had been the man in the ski mask who picked up Casper, Mirim, and Cecelia; another had driven the van, and one of the women had been aboard, as well.

"We are the executive committee of People for Change,” the redhead said. “We are dedicated to the overthrow of the corrupt rule of corporate America and its political lackeys, and the destruction of the military-industrial complex."

"I didn't ask for a speech,” Casper snapped. “How am I to know I can trust you?"

The redheaded man frowned at him for a second; then the woman who had not been in the van interjected, “You aren't. We can't test your statements, you can't test ours, so either we can agree not to trust each other and we can take you out and dump you somewhere, or we can get on with it."

Casper grinned. “Fair enough,” he said. “Just wanted to make sure we understood each other."

The redheaded man threw the woman an angry glance.

"Fact is,” Casper said, “I didn't deliberately steal anything from the government. I just went in for a neural imprinting, and they screwed up and gave me the wrong one—some kind of secret government imprint."

" What kind of secret government imprint?” the redhead demanded.

"I don't know yet,” Casper said, shrugging. “All I know is that it's important enough that they tried to kill me, and the imprint was good enough that they couldn't do it. I survived at least three attempts in a single day."

The members of the executive committee glanced at one another.

"I don't know,” said the man who had driven the van. “Sounds pretty unlikely."

Casper shrugged. “If I were lying, wouldn't I have come up with something more convincing?"

"Oh, Christ,” muttered a bearded man. “Not that old argument again—that we have to trust anything that sounds stupid because the feds know better!"

"Good point,” Casper said. “Yeah, I'm sure the feds can be stupid, or sometimes they can be smart enough to look stupid. I withdraw my question; instead, I'll just say that I know I'm telling the truth, but I don't have any simple way of proving it to you."

"So suppose it's true,” the redheaded man said. “You got this top secret imprint, and the government decided to kill you, because you can't erase an imprint any other way, and you managed to survive three tries at killing you. Okay, fine. But what are you doing here ? What do you want from us?"

"I want to stay alive,” Casper replied. “I want a place to hide, for now. And I'm not interested in betraying my country to the Iranians or the Germans or anyone else; I wanted to find Americans who would be willing to protect me from the feds."

"And what's in it for us?"

Casper smiled. “I could get idealistic and argue that my enemy's enemy is my friend, and all foes of the oppressive machinery of the oligarchy should join in common cause, but you know that's bullshit. Instead, I'll just point out that the government must think whatever they put in my head is dangerous to them, or they wouldn't be so eager to destroy it—and if they're right, and it is dangerous to them, then you people want it on your side."

"And suppose,” the bearded man said, “that this is all a trick, that what they actually imprinted you with is instructions to betray us, that the attempts to kill you were faked, and that you honestly don't know this, but it's true, and at the right time you'll turn on us."

Casper smiled. “Could be,” he said, “but I didn't just escape from those feds—I killed four of them. And the word's on the net that I'm to be shot on sight. Isn't that a bit drastic, just to get at you folks?"

They didn't like that one; Casper could see it in their expressions; the bearded man in particular looked annoyed. Casper had thrown their own ineffectuality and insignificance in their faces. They'd like to believe that yes, they were important enough that it would be worth the lives of four G-men to infiltrate their organization.

They had to recognize the truth, though.

"We'll want to check you out, verify as much of your story as we can,” the redhead said.

Casper shrugged. “Of course,” he said. “I'm in no hurry; as long as I'm safe for the moment, whatever you want is fine."

The redheaded man considered, then gestured. “Tasha will show you to your room,” he said. “We'll let you know."

The shorter, plumper woman, who had guarded them in the van, led the way out of the crowded kitchen and up the stairs of the old house, and Casper followed cheerfully.

Tasha, they called her. A revolutionary named Tasha ought to be tall and thin and seductive, with straight black hair and a beret; this woman was about five-one and fat, wearing jeans and a baggy black sweatshirt and with frizzy blonde hair that could use washing.

Casper liked that. This Tasha was real, not just a Hollywood stereotype. People For Change was real.

They were real Americans, fighting against the corrupt power structure.

Maybe they didn't look like much, but according to the reports on them they had taken credit for blowing up a precinct station in New York four years ago, saying the police had been torturing suspects there, and they had killed a cop in the process. They apparently weren't as ineffectual as they appeared.

They weren't exactly friendly yet, but they hadn't just shot him, either. They hadn't even questioned Mirim or Cecelia—he wondered how long it would be before they noticed that little oversight.

It was a perfectly satisfactory start.

He wished he had a better idea just what he was starting; the thing in his head hadn't told him that yet.

But he could guess.

Chapter Fifteen

"I can't believe this,” Smith said. “We've been searching the streets for a week, and we haven't found a trace of Beech!"

Schiano shrugged. “New York's a big city,” he said.

"Not that big,” Smith retorted. “You sure about what you told me?"

"Sure I'm sure,” Schiano said. “First choice in his situation is to link up with rebels; second choice is to go to ground among the poor and make connections with the organizations poor people deal with—charities and organized crime."

"You're sure?"

"I wrote it, didn't I?"

"So they tell me. You don't seem terribly eager to prove it by helping us stop this son of a bitch, though."

"I'm not in any hurry,” Schiano said with a shrug. “Not so long as you're paying me a thousand bucks an hour."

"You might want to earn some of that!"

"I've tried."

Smith glared at Schiano.

Schiano looked back calmly.

He wasn't bothered by Smith's anger; Smith was an asshole. Schiano kept telling him that first choice was to join with some group trying to do what Beech was programmed to do, that is, to overthrow the government, and Smith kept missing it.

He had, at one point, asked whether Beech would sell out to some foreign power, and Schiano had told him no, which was quite true—that option was specifically avoided in the Spartacus File because it would lead to too many potential complications if the optimized agent went looking for outside allies. Covert had wanted their Spartacus to run an entirely home-grown operation, so no one could complain about international meddling.

But Smith still hadn't hit on the idea of terrorists or subversive organizations. It was really quite an amazing blind spot. To Smith, Schiano had long since realized, those weren't rebels—those were nuts.

Dangerous criminal nuts. Rebels were something else, something the U.S. didn't have.

Schiano had to struggle sometimes to keep from giggling at Smith's absurdity.

"Okay,” Smith said, “so we haven't been able to find Beech directly; we've just wound up with a bunch of dead derelicts and complaints from human rights groups. You say he'll try to link up with organized crime?"

Schiano considered that.

Technically, a lot of the subversive organizations qualified as organized crime; certainly, any that had ever used terrorism did, and plotting to overthrow the government was conspiracy to commit treason, wasn't it?

"Yeah,” Schiano said. “He's probably already contacted someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know,” Schiano said. “What do I know about organized crime? I'm just a computer jock."

That was the closest to an outright lie that Schiano had come yet in his dealings with Smith, because while he didn't actually know , for the last day or two he'd begun to suspect just who Beech had joined up with. There were messages on the net—messages asking readers if they were unhappy with the way the country was run.

That was hardly anything new, but the wording of these particular messages sounded eerily familiar to Schiano.

If Smith phrased his questions properly, Schiano would have to admit that he was pretty sure Casper Beech had linked up with a group of suspected terrorists called People For Change.

But so far, Smith hadn't phrased his questions correctly.

And Schiano was unhappy with the way the country was run—especially the piece of it Smith was running.

Giving up a thousand dollars an hour to join a bunch of crazy revolutionaries was a bit more than he was ready to do—but he was thinking about it.

"I don't understand what you're doing,” the redheaded man—Colby, the other members of PFC usually called him, though he also seemed to answer to “Rob” or “Perkins"—said as he leaned over Casper's shoulder and looked at the computer screen. He was tall enough that he had to stoop slightly to see the display.

"Several things,” Casper said, still tapping keys.

"Name one,” Colby said, straightening up.

"Well, first off,” Casper said, hitting ENTER and leaning back, “I'm trying to raise the general level of discontent. While it's true that you don't need to have the backing of the majority in order to win a revolution, you do have to know that the general population isn't going to come out in support of the old regime. There are going to be hardships and displacements in any change of government, and you want to make sure that the people don't consider them an intolerable price to pay, or you get a counter-revolution."

Colby considered that.

"I thought you just wanted to stay alive,” he said.

"That's right,” Casper said. “And the best way to do that is to make sure the government that's trying to kill me hasn't got the power to do so."

"So you seriously plan to overthrow the Party?"

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"That woman you brought with you says she can keep you alive by making you a cause celebre ."

"Celia?” Casper blinked. “She's probably right."

"Then why bother with the rest of this?"

Casper suddenly looked blank.

"I don't know,” he admitted. He looked back at the computer screen in puzzlement.

"You said you had several reasons for this stuff."

"Yeah,” Casper said, still puzzled. “I'm trying to gauge the depth of existing resentment, and to make indirect contacts with any organizations that can be recruited to help us."

"All in service to the revolution?"

"I guess so."

"I think you're wasting your time."

Casper looked up. “Oh?"

Colby nodded. “I've studied Mao and Lenin and the rest—maybe you think they were wrong about how to run a government once they'd succeeded, we don't have to agree on that, I don't necessarily agree with them myself, but you'll admit they understood how to stage a revolution, won't you?"

"I suppose so,” Casper said—not so much because he agreed, since he had not actually read Mao and Lenin, as to see where Colby was leading.

"Well, they agree, and anyone can see, that the peasants—the common people, they don't need to literally be peasants—will obey whoever is in power; as Mao put it, the masses need not be educated in the new thought until after the revolution. If you seize the centers of power, the existing power structure will yield."

"Uh huh. Sure. Seize the centers of power. And how are you planning to do that?"

Colby frowned. “We do need a solid cadre, ready to die for the cause, before we can take control of the communications and command centers. But you don't recruit true revolutionaries by posting frivolous complaints about government abuse; everyone knows the government is corrupt."

"Oh, I see—and you've been able to recruit these loyal troops we need? Like Ed, the guy the rest of you watch nervously because he blew up that cop four years ago? Or wasn't I supposed to notice that?"

Colby stared angrily at him.

"Look,” Casper explained, “you're right that I'm not going to suddenly convert anyone; I'm mostly just planting seeds that may or may not yield something later. But I'm also providing encouragement for anyone who's already on our side to join us."

Colby considered that, then changed the subject.

"And if you succeed,” he said, “you plan to replace the corrupt so-called Party with true representives of the people, and redistribute the stolen wealth of the capitalists to the workers?"

Casper stared up at him.

"Jesus,” he said, “what rock did you crawl out from under? No, I'm not going to do anything like that! I want a proper, democratically-elected government, and a free-market economy—I'm an American , for heaven's sake!"

"Isn't that what we have now ?” Colby asked sardonically.

Casper blinked.

Colby waited for a reply, but Casper could not come up with anything to say, and at last Colby snorted in disgust and turned away.

Casper watched him go.

And finally, the words came to him, too late to be spoken aloud.

No, they didn't have a democratically-elected government, they had a one-party state. Even in the primaries, when there were primaries, the only choices the voters were offered had been selected for them from the class of professional politicians by other professional politicians. And they didn't have a free market economy because the Consortium and the other government-granted monopolies had, with the help of the Party politicians, taken over the marketplace and rearranged it to suit themselves.

But was that enough to justify a revolution? The politicians had been elected; even if people weren't happy with them, they'd voted for them. The two old parties had been merged into the Party to deal with the Crisis, and the Party had done what it promised. The Crisis was over, but the people still voted for the Party; the Greens held a few West Coast seats in Congress, but not enough to matter, while the Libertarians and Socialist Workers and the rest couldn't get more than one or two percent of the vote.

And that meant that those people were hardly likely to march in the streets in protest, let alone take up arms and assault the power stations and communications centers.

Casper frowned.

There was something wrong here. There was something in his thinking that didn't match the real world.

If it was his thinking, at all.

He'd never really hated the Party before; he'd considered it a sort of necessary, or at least inevitable, evil. A divided, two-party government had been inefficient and wasteful, unsuited to the complex modern world, and had brought on the Crisis, when the American economy virtually collapsed—that's what the propaganda always said, and most of the American people believed it. George Washington's warning against political parties was a favorite theme in Party literature, and the countries of eastern Europe, with their dozens of parties and unstable coalition governments, were held up as bad examples—better by far, the Party said, to have one organization providing the candidates. And everyone agreed that the little parties, with their extremist views, were all just eccentrics and crazies, relics of an earlier era. No one wanted them in power. The Greens were useful as a prod, but nobody wanted a Green government.

Casper had always gone along without really thinking about it. He'd been too busy with his own problems to care about politics.

But now he was thinking about it. He thought about it constantly. He was obsessed with politics, with strategies and tactics, with theories of government and constitutional rights, all of it stuff that had never concerned him before.

This wasn't anything a spy would need, let alone an assassin—but it wasn't, Casper realized, his own thinking at all.

Just what had NeuroTalents put in his head?

Chapter Sixteen

"If you look at history,” Casper said, “you'll see that a revolution can only succeed if the military either supports it or remains neutral. The final Soviet coup failed because the military came out for Yeltsin; Napoleon succeeded where Robespierre failed because he had the army behind him."

"You think you can subvert the military, then?” Colby asked. He, Casper, and Ed, the bearded member of PFC, were seated around the kitchen table, talking.

Casper considered that question for a long moment, then admitted, “Probably not. Not as it's presently constituted."

"Then how can you expect to win?” Ed demanded. “Maybe now you're beginning to see why we've used terrorism—there isn't much hope in historical models, but we have to do something ."

"But it won't work,” Casper insisted. “Terrorists can't overthrow a government. The only times terrorism has been at all successful have been in driving out an occupying army, by making it too expensive to stay; that's not the situation here. An occupying army has somewhere else to go home to; the Democratic-Republican Party doesn't."

"We know it doesn't work,” Colby said, glaring at Ed. “That's why we stopped. But what other choice do we have?"

"You have to take the long view,” Casper replied. “Build up discontent, use non-violent civil disobedience, force the government to crack down—that makes the people in power appear as oppressors."

"They are oppressors."

"Of course, but you have to make them look the part."

"Which is what you're doing,” Ed said. “Well, I don't have your patience.” He stood up.

Casper watched as Ed walked away, then turned to Colby, who shrugged and sat silently in his chair.

Casper was thinking over what he had just said to Ed, and trying to match it against reality—the reality of the history of the United States.

Since 1865, no revolutionary group in the U.S. had ever gotten very far. There had never been a serious coup attempt in all the hundred and fifty years since. Every assassination had resulted in a peaceful transfer of power to the designated successor. Even the most disputed elections hadn't led to violence.

Casper wanted to think that no revolutionary in all that time had had his own abilities, and that the government had never before been so corrupt and unpopular, but he had to admit to himself that he was probably being optimistic about that. Hell, before his imprinting he hadn't had any knowledge of subversion or rebellion, and the stuff in his head now couldn't be any better than the abilities of the people who wrote the file, none of whom had actually overthrown the U.S. government.

And the government had been corrupt or unpopular during Reconstruction, under Hoover, in the Vietnam era—there had been revolutionary movements and mass demonstrations sometimes, but nothing had ever come close to actually overthrowing the system.

Revolutions and counter-revolutions in the U.S. had come about at the ballot box or in the courts, not in the streets. Cecelia had been telling him that, telling him that the way to defy the power structure was to become part of it, but he had been resisting.

He had wanted to find some way to bring the whole thing down from the outside, but looking at it, he didn't think it could be done. Seizing power stations wouldn't do anything but piss people off.

The communications network couldn't be seized—there was far, far too much of it. Two thousand TV

networks, transmitting by satellite; the internet supplying information through a system designed to withstand anything up to and including a nuclear war; the multiply-redundant cellular phone systems; thousands of radio stations ... ?

And that wasn't even considering such alternative, semi-obsolete forms as faxes and newspapers.

Taking over the military ... well, first off, Casper doubted it could be done; the military was so thoroughly integrated with the civilian population and power structure that he couldn't see any way to detach it. But even if he did, he didn't think a military coup would work. There were three million people in the military—and three hundred million guns in civilian hands. The army would not necessarily bring the National Guard with it, and almost certainly wouldn't carry the police.

And it wouldn't carry the media, or the people.

Besides, the idea was to set up a better, more democratic government, a multi-party government, not a military dictatorship.

A temporary military government might not be a disaster; it had certainly worked in other countries.

Casper could use it to root out the most corrupt elements of the government, then stage new elections.

But the military-backed candidates would lose in the elections, and the military might refuse to step aside.

It might be worth a try if nothing else worked, but it didn't look like a very appealing course of action.

And if you looked at history ... ?

Maybe, Casper thought, leaning on the kitchen table, he was going about this wrong. He wanted to get the Party out of power, and replace it with people of his own choosing. He'd been looking at revolution as the way to do that—but maybe that wasn't the only way, or even the best way.

He wanted to get his own people into power. The government said he was a terrorist. Well, where had one-time terrorists wound up in power?

Soviet Russia. Nazi Germany. Israel. The Taliban's Afghanistan. Palestine.

Those were not very cheering comparisons.

But it was worth noting that only half of the examples that had sprung immediately to mind—and he knew there were others he hadn't thought about—involved terrorists successfully leading a violent revolution and seizing power by force. Hitler had maneuvered his way to power through the 1932

election, and the Israeli terrorists had been elected.

Having been a terrorist apparently didn't make one unelectable.

Of course, this might not apply in America—but elections were definitely the way to transfer power here. A political party had a much better shot at overthrowing the government than a revolutionary cell did.

So where could he get a political party? He looked around at Colby, who was still silently watching him, and at the dingy little kitchen.

People For Change consisted, so far as he could determine, of about twenty people, of whom half a dozen, not counting himself, Mirim, and Cecelia, lived right here. There were another hundred or so people who supported PFC at least to the point of knowing about it without turning anyone in for that last string of bombings in New York four years ago. Not even Ed, the unrepentant cop-killer who made everyone nervous, had been ratted out.

That wasn't much to start with in founding a political movement, but it was better than nothing.

He had an organization, at least a minimal one. He had a charismatic leader, in himself—for a moment he marveled at his own arrogance in describing himself that way, but he dismissed that; thanks to whatever the government had put in his head, he was a charismatic leader, or at least could become one. He knew it.

What else did he need?

Money. He needed money to buy access to the networks, more access than an ordinary citizen could get—nobody actually watched the public-access stuff where the loonies raved, and political discussions on the net just degenerated into endless arguments that sensible people filtered out. To attract mass attention, you needed to be in the mass media. That was how the whole system had gone bad in the first place—only millionaires could afford to run for office, and millionaires weren't going to screw around with the corporate structures that had made them rich, other than to make themselves even richer.

If he could talk to people with money, he knew he could raise the funds he'd need—but how could he do that? Not through public-access channels or the public nets, that was certain. Maybe if he could get onto talk shows? But how could he do that while he was still a fugitive?

And he would also need a front organization that people could donate to—it didn't have to be elaborate, a box number and a bank account should just about cover it. He'd need an employee, someone who wasn't wanted by the feds, to sign all the papers—but PFC ought to be able to provide that.

He wondered how much of this he was figuring out on his own, and how much had been programmed into him. He had no way of telling.

But did it really matter? However it got there, it was there, and he might was well get on with it. He needed to build up a political organization; that was more important than a military one in the U.S. There was something in him that was very, very unhappy with that idea, but that he was fairly sure was part of the programming he'd received.

To build a political organization he needed access to people—but it didn't have to be live, did it?

"So,” he asked Colby, “is there a vidcam around here?"

"A vidcam? You mean a webcam?” Colby glanced over his shoulder.

"I was hoping for something a little better, but a webcam would do."

"I don't know. Probably."

Annoyed, Casper got to his feet and marched into the next room; Colby watched him go without comment.

The unattended computer in the next room had no webcam attached, so far as Casper could see, but as long as he was there he logged into the local network to see whether one might show up. None did, but as long as he was online he took a moment to check his e-mail log, the replies to the messages he'd posted on the nets under various pseudonyms.

Most of it, judging by the subject lines, looked like the usual junk—people agreeing with him, people arguing with him, people trying to sell him things.

One entry on the list caught his eye, though.

"32: From: R.S.CHI Subject: C'PR BCH"

Casper recognized his own name in the subject line immediately—but he also saw that the government watchdog programs wouldn't. A human being might, but the volume of e-mail traffic was far too great for the government to use human watchdogs.

So unless it was some bizarre coincidence, not only was someone calling him by his real name, but whoever it was didn't want the FBI to know about it.

Casper sat down and clicked on item #32.

After the usual headers, he read, “Dear Mr. B.: If I'm mistaken about your identity, I apologize, but I assume it's you. If you really are who I think you are—friendly ghost tree—I think you'll be very interested in the attached file, SPXPTA.DOC—it provides the basic working specs for an optimization program that was accidentally run at NeuroTalents’ Philadelphia facility not too long ago, as well as some other relevant information."

Casper was very interested indeed. “Friendly ghost tree"—he'd heard of Casper the Friendly Ghost when he was a kid, though he'd never seen the movies or any of the old cartoons, and he certainly knew what a beech tree was. There couldn't be much doubt that this R.S. Chi had identified him correctly. He opened the file.

It was gibberish. Casper stared at it for a moment, then realized that it was encrypted—and as was obvious at a glance, it wasn't the standard legal encryption.

That was really interesting.

It was also frustrating. How was he supposed to read it?

He went back to the message to look for clues. The document name was the first thing that caught his eye—what the hell did SPXPTA mean?

Well, he didn't know about all of it, but PXP was an illegal encryption program, Pretty eXtreme Privacy, that had been around for years. People For Change used it sometimes; so did about a million other people. The FBI would occasionally pick a user at random and come down on him, but the volume of traffic was too great for serious policing, especially since most of the messages they caught and decrypted were things like, “Bet we're ticking off the feds with this one!” FBI complaints against such users tended to get thrown out of court—the users were usually the kids of Party members or Consortium executives.

The FBI could break PXP encryption if they had to, but there was too much of it on the nets for them to get all of it, and it would keep the automatic watchdogs from spotting key words and calling the file to a human being's attention.

One of the key words they watched for was PXP, of course—to slow its spread. Nesting it in the name of the file like that might keep it from being spotted.

So the file was encrypted with PXP. Fine. Except now Casper needed the two keys, which would each be a long string of more or less random characters. What strings of characters?

Well, there was the obvious one, the only other thing the mysterious R.S. Chi had sent him. Casper brought up PXP, and listed the first key as: “DearMr.B.:IfI'mmistakenaboutyouridentity, Iapologize,butIassumeit'syou.IfyoureallyarewhoIthinkyouare—friendlyghosttree—Ithinkyou'llbeveryintere stedintheattachedfile,SPXPTA.DOC—itprovidesthebasicworkingspecsforanoptimizationprogramthatwas accidentallyrunatNeuroTalents'Philadelphiafacilitynottoolongago,aswellassomeotherrelevantinformation."

That was presumably the private key; now he needed the public one. He had an idea how to find that; he googled on newsgroup posts by “R.S. Chi."

768 articles were listed; he picked one at random and opened it, and sure enough, the signature file at the bottom included a public PXP key. He plugged it in and clicked on “Display."

The decrypted file immediately began to scroll across the screen in plain English. Casper leaned forward and watched. When it was completed he read it through carefully, then read it again.

When he had finished he sat back in his chair and stared at the screen.

If Casper's guess was right, “R.S. Chi” was really someone named Robert J. Schiano, whose name turned up all through the notes in the file. And this Schiano was proud enough of his handiwork that he'd wanted Casper to see some of it clearly—because Casper Beech was intimately involved in it, whether he liked it or not.

At least, Casper thought, he now had a name for the thing in his head, and a pretty good idea of what it was supposed to do.

The thing in his head was the Spartacus File. And he, Casper Beech, was supposed to be the new Spartacus, the slave who would lead an army of slaves in a rebellion against the oppressive republic that had enslaved them.

Spartacus, the gladiator. Spartacus, the rebel. Spartacus, the great general.

Casper Beech smiled as he thought that over. It wasn't anything he would ever have asked to be, it wasn't anything he had ever imagined becoming, but here it was, thrust upon him whether he wanted it or not.

And he had to admit to himself that he rather liked the idea.

Chapter Seventeen

Rose didn't like her assignment. She didn't like it at all.

Casper wished Colby had asked Tasha or Ed or one of the others to help him instead, but they weren't around or weren't willing, and Rose had been agreeable right up until Casper had explained where he wanted her to go.

Now, though, she wasn't happy.

"When Colby said I should help you out, I thought you just wanted me to, like, put things in the bank, or sign checks, or stuff like that,” Rose said. “Nobody said anything about talking to reporters."

"You don't have to talk to any reporters,” Casper assured her. “You just drop this disk off at the station, with the note. You don't have to talk to anyone. In fact, the fewer people you talk to there, the better."

"Well, how do you know they'll put it on the news, then?” she demanded.

Casper just smiled. “Don't worry,” he said. “If they don't we'll try again."

Rose wasn't crazy about that idea, either, but she didn't want to be unreasonable. She picked up the little pouch with obvious distaste, and left.

Casper and Cecelia watched her go.

"Just what are you trying to accomplish, Casper?” Cecelia asked.

"I'm trying to take over the country,” Casper said, quite sincerely. Cecelia snorted derisively.

"I thought you just wanted to stay alive,” she said.

Casper shrugged. “They programmed me to overthrow the present regime and set up an American-style democratic government—a real one, not the oligarchy we have now. I'm trying to oblige them."

"You do anything like that, and they will kill you,” Cecelia retorted.

"They're going to kill me anyway, if I let them."

"They've lost track of you, haven't they? Why can't you just stay underground?"

"Because first off, they're going to keep looking; and second, they programmed me not to. I didn't just get an ordinary imprint, where I can use it or not as I please; I got optimized, and the optimization's got compulsions built into it. I'm compelled to rebel against the present government, and authority in general."

"Then don't you have to rebel against your programming, too?"

Casper smiled. “I am,” he said. “They programmed me to stage a violent revolution—armies, battles, death and destruction. I'm not going to do it that way, because it won't work here."

"But you're still trying to take over the country?"

Casper nodded.

"You're nuts."

"Maybe,” Casper agreed. “Or maybe I'm as sane as anybody. Sure, I'm following the programming from the Spartacus File, but why is that any crazier than following the patchwork programming we all build up from our parents, and our genes, and our schools and friends and jobs?"

"Because it's going to get you killed ."

"Not if I can help it."

"And what makes you think you can ?” she demanded angrily, her hands on her hips. “Casper, you say they've programmed you to be the new Spartacus—has anyone pointed out to you that Spartacus died ?

The Romans crucified him! He died on a cross on the Appian Way—I looked it up. So are you planning to wind up nailed to a cross somewhere on the Jersey Turnpike?"

Casper blinked at her, surprised and pleased by her anger. He took it to mean that she still cared for him; he'd begun to wonder. Since his optimization he and Cecelia had been drifting apart; they shared a bedroom upstairs, courtesy of Colby's housing arrangements, but they hadn't done much but sleep in it.

Cecelia didn't seem to like the new, more assertive Casper Beech as well as she'd liked the wimpy original.

"More likely a bullet-riddled corpse in the Schuylkill River,” he said. “And no, that's not what I want—but Celia, it's too late to stop now. They're already determined to kill me."

"Are you sure? ” she asked, and he thought her eyes looked moist. “Are you sure that's not their damn program, telling you that, making you assume they're after you, when they aren't?"

"They did try to kill me,” he said. “They started it. They came after me before I'd done anything, before I had any idea what they'd put in my head. Why would they stop?"

"I'll make them stop,” she said. “I can do that, Cas—I'm a lawyer, and a damn good one. It's a matter of political economics, a P.R. problem and a legal problem. If we make it too expensive for them politically, they won't kill you. You don't have to take over the fucking country , Cas! If you do that they will kill you."

He stared at her thoughtfully.

"You know,” he said, “I think we may have come up with the same answer to two different questions.

The first step in my campaign is to make it too politically expensive to kill me. After all, dead men don't win elections. They may vote in them in Chicago, but they don't win them."

She stared back. “Is that what you meant when you said that video is the first step in taking over the country?"

He nodded. “It's the next step in my campaign to stay alive,” he said.

"But it's just a bunch of ordinary loony-fringe rhetoric, half socialism and half libertarianism."

Casper grimaced. He didn't think his speech was “loony fringe rhetoric"; he'd thought it was fairly reasonable populist stuff. Boring, but reasonable.

That wasn't the point, though. “That's just cover,” he said.

"What are you talking about? You put some sort of coded message in there?"

He shook his head. “No. Look, you know there's no way they're ever going to put that whole video on the news, right? Maybe on C-SPAN 4 or something, but not on the news, not even on CNN."

"Of course not,” Cecelia agreed. “They'll maybe pull a soundbite or two."

"Exactly. And I wrote that speech so there's only one soundbite worth pulling. Maybe one or two of the networks will miss it, but sooner or later it'll go out."

Cecelia gaped in astonishment. “You mean you made the speech boring on purpose ?"

"Sure."

"So what's the soundbite?"

"You didn't catch it?” For the first time since making the vid, Casper looked worried.

Cecelia looked embarrassed. “The speech was boring , Cas; I didn't watch it all the way through."

"It's only ten minutes."

"I lasted about two, okay?"

Casper shook his head in amazement.

"Okay, okay,” Cecelia said. “What's the soundbite?"

"You'll hear it on the news, I hope,” he said.

She had to be satisfied with that.

Bob Schiano looked up suddenly when the newscaster mentioned “wanted terrorist Casper Beech."

What had they been saying? He hadn't been listening. Had Covert finally nailed Beech, despite Schiano's lack of help? Despite, in fact, his active assistance to Beech in the form of the file he'd e-mailed?

Or had Beech struck somewhere, and begun his revolution?

And there was Beech's face on the screen, and by the quality of the picture it was a home project, not anything there at the studio.

"The government says I'm an escaped terrorist,” Beech said, and his voice and manner carried intensity and conviction as he spoke, even with the poor reproduction. He hadn't looked anywhere near so alive in the old interview files Schiano had seen. “I say they lie,” Beech continued, “and I say that I'd surrender if I thought I'd live through it."

Then it was cut short.

Schiano stared at the screen. “What the hell was that about?” he wondered aloud. That wasn't anything he'd programmed, so far as he could see. Oh, the attitude was from the charisma subroutines that he'd incorporated, the stuff from Behavioral Sciences and Psychwar, and it was good to see that it seemed to be working, since Schiano himself didn't understand how any of that functioned; the delivery was great, but the words were wrong. Saying the government lied was fine, but Beech should be looking for recruits at this point; he shouldn't be talking about surrender, he should be talking about inevitable victory.

What was he doing?

"God damn it!” Smith said. He turned to his aide. “Get a dozen men down to that station now —I want that disk. I want to know everything there is to know about how it got there. And I want to know what idiot put it on the air without clearing it—either that, or who cleared it!"

"Yes, sir."

"And get Schiano up here! I thought Beech was supposed to be recruiting the bums and winos we've been rousting, not making video speeches!"

"You think that'll do it?” Cecelia said. “Just that? I didn't see anything like that in the file you showed us."

She was seated at one end of an old couch, Mirim at the other, with Casper in the middle holding the remote control.

"No, of course not,” Casper said, hitting the MUTE button. “It's just a start, something to get people interested in my case. The next step is a rally."

"A what? ” She turned to stare at him. “Casper, are you crazy? You can't go out in public yet! The next step is a lawsuit ."

Casper shook his head. Just like a lawyer—if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, so lawyers always wanted to use the courts. “No, Celia,” he said. “If we try to do it that way, I'll be shot resisting arrest, or trying to escape, or maybe I'll just have an unfortunate auto accident. They have to kill me, just the way Rome had to kill Spartacus. The idea that a slave could rebel and live was too dangerous for Rome to ever let Spartacus live; he had to win or die. It's not quite the same for me; they're big enough they could let a mere rebel live. But I'm not just a rebel, I'm the rebel leader they made

, and they can't let me live. I have to win or die. And I'm not going to win with a lawsuit!"

"Why not? ” Cecelia insisted. “If we get a court order..."

"Celia, it won't matter . They aren't going to play by the rules. They don't want me in jail, they want me dead ."

Cecelia subsided unhappily and slumped back on the couch; then, abruptly, she stood up.

"Do it your way, Casper,” she said. “You think you know it all now, you believe everything that programmer put in your head and you won't listen to me, and you've got Mirim there acting like your damned cheering section, oh you big strong male, she's always liked ‘em tough and stupid, like Leonid, so she'll go along with you without stopping to think. Well, I'm not ruled by my hormones, or by some Covert Operations programmer grinding out software that's never supposed to get used in the first place, so he doesn't care how good it is! I'm not going to throw away everything I know and do what this miracle file says! I read your ‘Sparta-doc’ file and what that Schiano said you could do, and I don't believe it. They can't imprint that much. You suit yourself, Casper Beech, but it won't work. It's insane, holding a rally and trying to take over the country! It can't be done, but you can make a deal to save your own sorry ass, if you'll let me set it up. And when you realize that, if you're still alive, when you realize you've been an idiot, if you ask me nicely, then maybe I'll do my best to save you."

She stamped away.

Mirim and Casper watched her go. Casper frowned.

"I think I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight,” he said. Then he turned to Mirim and said, “and if you were thinking of inviting me into your bed, thanks, but not yet. Let her cool down first."

Mirim's mouth opened, then closed. She stared at him for a moment before she found her voice.

"And what if I wasn't thinking of inviting you?” she said.

Casper smiled wryly. “Well, then I've misjudged the situation and by bringing it out in the open now I may have just saved everybody some later embarrassment."

Mirim smiled back at him. “You didn't misjudge,” she admitted.

"Well, good. Thank you. But I'll still sleep on the couch for at least two or three nights. We're going to need Celia's help later, after the rally."

"After the rally?” Mirim asked. “You really plan to hold a rally?"

"Sure do."

"How the hell are you going to do that? Isn't that just asking for a sniper to take you down?"

Casper smiled at her again, a big surprised smile this time. “Of course it is,” he said. “That's the point.

We have to taunt them, make them act stupidly, and make them do it in front of an audience."

"But Cas..."

"The real trick here,” he said, interrupting her, “is to live through it."

Chapter Eighteen

Smith waved the print-out at Schiano. “Is he really this crazy?"

Schiano shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “I didn't think he was crazy at all, but this isn't anything I put into the program."

"So you don't know if it's a trick?"

"It isn't anything I programmed,” Schiano repeated.

He didn't need to read the print-out; he'd seen the messages himself. They were all over the nets.

Posters were all over New York and Philadelphia as well, pasted on walls, utility poles, trashcans, everywhere. Schiano figured that everyone who had ever been involved with PFC at all must have been called in to help put them up.

Smith was probably trying to track down the printer responsible, but that wasn't likely to work. Schiano doubted a print shop had been involved at all. Anyone could have run off a few thousand posters on his home printer easily enough, and if that was what they'd done then even if Covert was able to identify the make of printer, that wouldn't tell anyone anything useful. It was probably some model that was common as dirt.

"Are you going to let him hold the rally?” Schiano asked.

"You tell me,” Smith said. “You're supposed to be the expert on this guy—what's happening here? Is this some kind of diversion? Or is he really going to show up at this thing and give us a clear shot at him?"

"I don't know,” Schiano repeated.

"Suppose we clear the streets, cordon off that block, don't let anyone in—then what?"

"Oh, he won't show then ,” Schiano said confidently. “He's not stupid ."

"But if we let a crowd form?"

Schiano shrugged. “Maybe he'll show,” he said. “I just don't know."

"Damn,” Smith said. “You aren't a hell of a lot of good, are you?"

"Hey,” Schiano protested, “this isn't my job! I'm an imprint programmer, not a goddamned counterspy. I didn't know I was ever going to have to stop my Spartacus!"

"Yeah, well...” Smith flung the print-out aside. “Let's just hope your Spartacus is doing something stupid here.” He turned and marched angrily away.

Schiano watched him go, then picked up the print-out. As he had expected, it was one of the notices from the nets.

"Rally!” it said. “If you saw me on the news, here's your chance to find out what it's all about."

It went on for a few lines, and then it gave time and place. Down at the bottom it was signed, “Casper Beech, People For Change."

What the hell was Beech up to?

Should he warn Beech that Covert knew about the rally?

He shook his head. No, he told himself, that would be putting his own neck in a noose; he didn't dare try to contact Beech again. Even sending that one message had been incredibly risky. He'd routed it through dummy accounts and six layers of anonymous remailers, done everything he could to keep it from tripping any alarms, but anything in a non-government encryption could be snagged, and any encryption could be broken if someone good wanted to work at it. And he hadn't dared do anything subtle, for fear Beech wouldn't be able to read it himself.

And Beech was too smart for this rally to be as stupid as it looked. Beech had to know he'd be exposing himself to Covert's snipers if he showed up. He must have some sort of plan in mind.

Schiano wished he knew what it was.

Casper leaned against the oily brick and looked at his watch for the hundredth time, more grateful than ever for the illuminated display.

7:58. Almost time. He reached down and picked up the first sheet of heavy, rigid plastic, then looked up. Tiny circles of light showed through the airholes in the manhole cover. That was reassuring; it meant no one had covered it over.

It had been a long, unpleasant wait down here, with his kevlar jacket and his plastic shields, but it was almost over, and the government hadn't found him.

He leaned the plastic shield against the ladder rungs, then looked down at his vest. Time to put in the ceramic inserts; he'd left them out until now to save weight, but he'd need them in place before he emerged from the manhole.

As he tucked the ceramic plates into the vest pockets he wondered if hiding down here had really been necessary. Then he smiled at his own foolishness; of course it had been necessary. Once those posters had gone up and the messages had gone out over the net, there was no way the feds would ever have let him just walk up to the appointed corner of Washington Square.

They'd let other people come, so as to lure him out, but if he'd shown his face above ground he'd have been dead meat, he knew it.

Just then the manhole cover shifted, with a heavy grating sound; grit sifted down onto his hair. Casper looked up as he smoothed down the last Velcro fastener on his vest; he stepped back further into the shadows and waited, just in case the feds had caught on.

"Cas? Are you okay?"

It was Mirim's voice.

"I'm fine,” he said. “Get it open and clear."

"I'm trying,” she replied. “Listen, there are police all over the place—we had one guy tell us we didn't have a permit, but they haven't really tried to get rid of us."

The manhole cover slid aside, and light poured in; Casper blinked as his eyes adjusted.

"I expected that,” he said. “What about the rooftops? See anything?"

"We aren't sure.” Casper could see Mirim now, as a shadow blocking part of the light. He could see others around the manhole, as well.

"Is the sound system set up?” he asked.

"Yes."

"Good. Here.” He handed up the first of the bulletproof plastic panels. Someone grabbed it and lifted it away, and Casper handed up the next, and the next.

When he finally climbed the ladder out of the manhole he emerged into a booth of clear plastic shielding, each panel held by a trusted member of PFC. Each of them wore a helmet and heavy vest—lined, Casper knew, with kevlar and with ceramic shock absorbers like his own.

Together, the little clump of revolutionaries moved across the street to the sidewalk and up onto the platform set up there for Casper's use. Once he was on the platform someone handed him a microphone, passing it between two of the plastic panels.

Then the people holding the panels all sank down, sitting on the platform, ducked down low, and Casper looked out at the crowd.

The street was packed—as he had hoped. Most of them were just curiosity seekers, of course, but there might be several potential recruits, all the same.

Police were scattered around, as well. That was to be expected. There were also reporters, and a dozen or more videocameras. That was excellent. Casper wanted this as public as possible.

And somewhere out there, he was sure, there were assassins in the pay of the Covert Operations Group.

"Hello, New York!” Casper called into the microphone. “My fellow Americans, thanks for coming!"

A cheer went up.

"I'm Casper Beech, a member of People For Change, and I have a few things I want to tell you tonight—a few things about People For Change, a few things about our present government, and a few things about you !"

Another cheer. Casper heard it, but didn't pay much attention. He was listening for other things, and scanning the surrounding buildings.

"Our government has told you that I'm a terrorist, and that People For Change is an organization of terrorists, and I've come here tonight to tell you not to listen to their lies! People For Change is a peaceful political organization—we want change, all right, but we're Americans, and we believe in democracy, and in the Constitution that made this country great. We want to bring about change through the ballot box, not through terror or crime in the streets!

"And that's what scares the Republicrats!"

And the shot came.

The timing couldn't have been better if Casper had scripted it himself.

The shot itself wasn't loud. Casper wasn't even sure he'd really heard it. Its effect, though, was unmistakable. The bulletproof plastic to his right shattered spectacularly, and shards sprayed around him.

He immediately dropped and rolled, pushing aside some of his supporters. The others dropped their own shields and dove from the platform. People were screaming.

Casper still had the microphone as he clambered back down to the sidewalk.

" That's what scares them!” Casper shouted. “People, they've been fixing the elections for decades! Who oversees the elections? The Republicrats! Why haven't any of the other parties ever gotten a foothold, no matter how unhappy the voters were? Why has the Dem-Rep Party dominated this country for..."

He'd gotten that far when someone tripped over a wire and disconnected him; there was a burst of white noise, and the sound system went dead.

And then an automatic weapon somewhere opened fire. There were more screams.

The rally collapsed into chaos, and the police started moving in, moving toward Casper; he saw them coming, and shouted, “Look! They can't let me speak the truth! They've sent the police to stop me before I can tell you any more!"

"Stop them!” someone else shouted, and a moment later a wave of angry citizens overwhelmed the police.

Casper didn't even look back. “Head for the subway,” he said.

Police ran past them, paying them no attention as they rushed to deal with the riot the rally had become.

Moments later, Casper, Colby, Ed, and Mirim dropped, exhausted, onto adjoining seats on an uptown train. For a few seconds they sat silently, catching their breath; then Mirim sat up abruptly.

"I thought that plastic shielding was bulletproof!” she said angrily.

"They must have used armor-piercing shells,” Casper said wearily. “I thought they might. That was why I got to talk as long as I did—they had to change their ammunition.” He turned to Colby. “Where'd you tell Rose to meet us?"

"Canal Street."

"We'll need to switch trains, then—we're headed the other direction."

"Cas, you could have been killed!” Mirim said.

Casper shrugged. “I figured the plastic would divert the first shot, and I didn't intend to hang around for a second one—but yeah, we're in this for keeps, Mirim."

" Why?"

"Because they're going to keep on looking for me, Mirim, and they're going to keep going until they kill me, because they consider me a threat."

"Because they think you're going to try to take over the country."

"That's right."

"Well, why don't you just get out of the country, then? Then you wouldn't be a threat any more! Colby could arrange it—couldn't you, Colby?"

"Maybe,” Colby said noncommittally. “Ed might know more than I do on this one."

Ed grunted.

"But remember Trotsky,” Casper said. “Stalin's men got him in Mexico, halfway around the world. I'd still be a threat. Besides, Mirim, I'm an American—I don't want to leave, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life in hiding, with the Covert Operations Group looking for me. So I'm taking some risks to avoid it."

Mirim stared at him. “You're ‘taking some risks',” she said.

"That's right."

"Casper, you spent thirty-six hours down a manhole waiting, so that you could stick your head up and get shot at?"

He shrugged.

"I can understand the thirty-six hours—back at Data Tracers you were always good at enduring crap, and that apartment you lived in, well, I guess you could put up with anything. But deliberately letting them shoot at you—I can't believe you did that!"

Casper looked at her with interest.

"You think the file's responsible?” he asked. He had to admit, thinking about it, that it did seem unlike anything he had ever done before his optimization.

"Of course it is! Casper, it's going to get you killed !"

"It hasn't yet—hell, it's saved my life."

"But the risks you're taking—sooner or later, the odds are going to catch up with you."

Casper gazed at Mirim for a moment, then glanced at Colby and Ed.

Ed shrugged. “You don't meet a lot of old revolutionaries,” he said. He clearly wasn't bothered by this observation.

Casper leaned back, his head against the window behind him, staring at the off-white metal ceiling as the car swayed.

"Spartacus died,” he said, to no one in particular. He frowned, and chewed on his lower lip. “I don't want to die,” he added a moment later, as the train began to slow for the next stop.

"Well, if you keep up like this, you're going to,” Mirim said angrily, reaching for the pole to pull herself upright.

Colby leaned across the space where she had been and said, “So you made your speech and they took a shot at you—now what?"

"Now we've got our Boston Massacre, our Kent State,” Casper said, standing. “There's still a way they could get out of it—but I don't think they'll do it in time."

Mirim stared at him. “You mean you took that risk, and whatever you were doing might not work ?"

"Oh, I think it will,” Casper said, pushing her toward the open door, as Ed and Colby hurriedly rose and followed. “The only way they can get out of it is if they turn in the shooter and say he's one of us, that we set the whole thing up. Then it'll be our word against theirs, and they'll be able to manufacture all the evidence they need. If they don't do that, and quickly, we'll be able to make the truth stick—that the feds shot at me. That'll get us a lot of sympathy, and a lot of attention, and when we put out a call for volunteers we should get them. Then we turn PFC into a genuine political party, and we make sure that they can't rig the elections against us the way they have against everyone else."

"And then what?” Colby said, as the four of them emerged onto the platform. “You get elected president next year?"

Casper shook his head. “Not hardly,” he said. “We won't be able to take the presidency for at least twelve years, at the very best—probably twenty, maybe as long as forty-four. But if it's that long, it'll be because they've cleaned up their act, and that's what I really want."

"You intend to be elected president?” Mirim asked.

"Probably not me ,” Casper said. “Too much political baggage. I did kill those men back in Philadelphia.

But someone from PFC. And I'll be rehabilitated along the way."

"If you don't get killed first."

"If I don't get killed first,” Casper agreed.

Chapter Nineteen

The news coverage was perfect. Casper watched intently as the networks played the images over and over—his face, looking strong and wild and noble as he spoke; the plastic shield shattering; the screaming crowd; the slow pan across the wreckage and the ambulance crews covering the bodies before hauling them away.

"Seven dead,” Mirim said, horrified.

"Were any of them ours?” Colby asked.

Tasha frowned. “We don't know,” she said. “We still have three people missing."

"They're stonewalling,” Casper said, his eyes still locked on the video. “They're dead. They can't stonewall this and get away with it. They're just denying everything."

"What?” Mirim asked.

"They're mishandling it,” Casper said. “Don't you see? The government, I mean—the Party. They haven't even denied that it was a fed who shot at me! They've let the networks transmit their coverage, they've let my speech—what there was of it—go out. It's been so long since they've faced a real challenge that they've forgotton how to spin the facts."

"You're right,” Cecelia said thoughtfully. “We can tie ‘em in knots now—wrongful death suits, civil rights violations, everything."

"We can put out a call on the nets for volunteers and donations,” Casper said. “When the money starts coming in we can hire spokesmen, turn PFC into a real political party. We'll put candidates up in every little election we can find—once we're in office a few dozen places people will take us seriously. Run a populist, anti-status quo platform, long on rhetoric and short on specifics. The Republicrats have never bothered rigging the small elections—they never had to. And then we can demand oversight on the bigger ones."

"People were killed out there, and you're talking about elections?” Mirim burst out.

Colby, Ed, Casper, and Cecelia all turned to stare at her.

"Of course,” Casper said calmly. “That's what this is all about."

"I thought it was about keeping you alive, Cas!"

"That, too."

"And what makes you any more important than those seven people who died?"

For a moment, there was an uncomfortable silence. The TV babbled quietly in the background.

Casper didn't think Mirim was in the mood to hear the truth—that Casper thought he was the most important person on Earth because he was the one who could fix the country, get it back on track, make the lives of millions of Americans better, and the lives of millions more people in the dozens of countries the U.S. dominated. She didn't want to hear that.

"Nothing,” he said at last. “Not in absolute terms. But Mirim, I'm more important to me , and I thought I was important to you, that you cared about me. And with this thing the feds put in my head, maybe I'm more important to the country. If we can get the oligarchs out of power and re-establish a government that's answerable to ordinary people, and not just to corporations and lawyers, there will be fewer of these stupid deaths in the future. It'll be a better life for everyone."

"It'll be more of the same, Cas, it'll just be you and the PFC in charge instead of the Party, instead of the people running things now. And there'll probably be hundreds of deaths along the way, won't there?"

"I hope not.” Casper got up from the couch and knelt before Mirim, holding her hand. “Listen,” he said,

“I think I'm doing the right thing—but maybe I'm not. I can't tell any more what's me, and what's the Spartacus File. At first I knew, at least sometimes—it was the File that got me out of Philadelphia alive, I knew that—but the lines have all blurred. You read the notes Schiano sent; you know he said that the optimization had to fit the recipient's brain perfectly, that I couldn't have taken the Spartacus File if I wasn't suited for it, and I guess he was right, because it's blended right in. I thought it was just telling me how to do what I wanted to do, but maybe it's done more. Maybe it's changing my idea of what's right and what's wrong. Maybe there's no real difference any more between Casper Beech and the Spartacus File—that idea scares me, but maybe it's true. I can't tell. You and Cecelia are my only external connection to the original Casper Beech now, and I can't trust the internal links. So you tell me—am I just doing what I'd always thought should be done, but I didn't have the nerve or the knowledge to do it?

Or am I doing something I would have known was wrong, before?"

Mirim stared at him, at the familiar face of her co-worker that had become something more. There was a gleam in his eyes and a strength in his jaw that had never been there in their years at Data Tracers; she had always thought he had a certain charm, but now that had become an irresistible charisma, like a spark fanned into a roaring blaze.

How could she tell him he was wrong?

And was he wrong? She didn't know what the old Casper's political convictions had been—if he'd had any. He had griped about the government, like anyone else, but he'd never gone into specifics of what should be done about it. He had never wished anyone ill—and as far as she could tell, he still didn't wish anyone ill, except perhaps the people who ran the government, and even them, she thought, he just wanted out of power, he didn't want them harmed.

After all, the Spartacus File was supposed to enable him to lead a violent revolution, a guerrilla war—she'd seen Schiano's notes talking calmly about massacres and riots, and here Casper was transforming that into a relatively peaceful political reform movement. He was trying to reshape the Spartacus File to fit his own beliefs.

But people were dead, all the same. Only seven so far, but who knew how many more there might be if Casper went on with his plans?

"Cas,” she said, “if you were to succeed tomorrow, if you were suddenly appointed dictator of North America, what would you do? How would you be any different from any other power-hungry politician?"

"I'm not power-hungry,” he said. “I'd do my best to restore the Constitution as originally written. I'd kick out the bureaucrats who really run everything, the staff people, the paper-pushers, the lobbyists, everyone tied to the Consortium, and then I'd hold elections. I haven't worked out the details yet..."

"And you never would,” Mirim interrupted. “Reformers have taken office before with great plans, and it's always just been more of the same."

"I'd try very hard not to be,” Casper said.

"And you think you could be different."

"Yes, I do,” Casper said earnestly.

"And you think it's important enough that you have your chance to reform the government that it's worth people dying?"

"I think that if we had a new government of the kind I want that there wouldn't be any more Covert Operations Group killing people, that there wouldn't be any Consortium immune to half the laws, that there wouldn't be any corporate cops who can get away with killing troublemakers, so yes, I do think it's worth risking a few deaths."

"It's worth people dying so you can be president?"

Casper shook his head. “I don't want to be president,” he said. “I just want a new government."

"So you say."

"I mean it!” He stared into her eyes. “Listen, Mirim,” he said, “I'm not doing this out of personal ambition, I swear it. If it'll make you give me your support, I'll make you a promise—I won't ever be president. Or dictator, or whatever. When our reforms succeed, when PFC takes power, it'll be with someone else in charge. I'm not doing this to put myself in charge."

"You're serious?"

"Absolutely."

And he was.

The Spartacus File required him to overthrow the present government and replace it with a more democratic one; it never specified that he, personally, had to have any role in the new one.

In fact, the idea of actually having to run a country as big and complicated as the U.S. was terrifying. He didn't want to do anything of the kind. They'd find a figurehead somewhere. Maybe Colby—he would clean up better than Ed. Much better than Ed—in fact, Ed could be a problem in the long run, a problem that might need to be eliminated.

Or maybe instead of Colby or any of the other long-time PFC people they could use Cecelia, or even Mirim herself.

Of course, Casper might still be running things behind the scenes. He wouldn't be president, he'd be chief of staff, or just an advisor with no official title. And it wouldn't be permanent.

Just until everything was settled.

Chapter Twenty

No one gave any names, and while many Americans would have thought the tall man's face was familiar they wouldn't have been able to say who he was.

Smith knew, though. As part of his job he had to be able to instantly identify any high government official, just in case he happened to see one somewhere he shouldn't, and he knew who he was facing.

He straightened a little further.

This was the White House Chief of Staff—the current administration's hatchet man.

The two men stared at each other, Smith stiff and nervous, the other relaxed but angry.

"So,” the tall man said at last, “you're the asshole who started a riot in New York."

"Sir,” Smith protested, “I don't feel that's a fair description."

"You don't."

"No, sir."

"You're the one who ordered a bunch of hit men to shoot someone who was giving a speech in Washington Square, right? Right out there in front of the crowd, like something from a goddamned Hollywood movie?"

"I...” Smith caught himself. “Yes, sir,” he said.

"And you didn't think that would start a riot?"

"I ... Perhaps I hadn't thought out the consequences,” Smith admitted.

"And why hadn't you?"

"Sir, I considered it essential that we dispose of Casper Beech as soon as possible. I was too concerned with that to worry about collateral damage."

"Collateral damage,” the other man said. “An anti-government riot in the middle of New York—you call that collateral damage?"

"Yes, sir."

"I seem to recall that collateral damage is a euphemism for what we used to call ‘overkill.’”

"Ah, well ... I don't know, sir."

"You ought to. If you're going to use a term like that, you ought to know just what the hell you're saying.

And if you're going to do something like shoot people in front of a crowd in the middle of New York, you ought to know what the hell you're doing."

"I was trying to prevent a catastrophe, sir!"

"By killing this Casper Beech."

"Yes, sir."

"And did you kill him?"

"No, sir."

The chief of staff stared at Smith for a long moment, then asked, “Did you ever read Macchiavelli?"

Smith blinked. “No, sir."

"You should. Anyone in government should. If you had, you might've remembered that he said, ‘if you strike at a king, you must kill him.’ Well, you've struck at this son of a bitch, and you haven't killed him, and you're in deep shit."

Smith swallowed, then said, “I gathered that, sir."

"That all you've got to say?"

"No, sir.” Smith swallowed again. This was his chance to present a defense, and he didn't want to blow it; he hadn't been sure he was even going to get one, and he was pretty damn sure he wouldn't get another. “Sir,” he said, “Casper Beech has been programmed with the Spartacus File. That's considered the most dangerous of all our imprint weapons; we put everything into it, everything we knew how to do.

A man who's been optimized with the Spartacus File is driven to overthrow the government of his homeland—it's an irresistible compulsion, and nothing short of death will stop it."

"There are probably thousands of people in this country who are obsessed with overthrowing the government, Mr. Smith,” the chief of staff said drily.

"Yes, but the Spartacus File also gives him the knowledge and skills necessary to do it. He had to be stopped, by any means available."

The chief of staff sighed, and seated himself on the edge of the desk. “So you've been trying to kill him."

"Yes, sir—of course. That's the only way to stop him."

"And you didn't worry about who or what might get caught in the overkill."

"No, sir. You can't make an omelet, and all that."

"Smith, you're an idiot. You and your guns and bombs and computers ... look, if we seriously had wanted to take out this Beech, if you'd brought this up to my level to begin with, we could have done it.

We could have fucking nuked New York if we thought it was important enough. If you really don't care about the overkill you can take out anybody, any time you want. If this Beech ever gets to be that much of a menace, we can goddamn well do that. But we haven't. You know why?"

He waited for a reply, but Smith simply looked blank.

"Because we do care about the overkill, goddammit!” He slammed his fist on the desk. “A lot of good it does to take out one revolutionary if the political damage creates a hundred more! So this Beech is dangerous, he's a goddamn Spartacus who's going to turn the whole goddamn underclass into a slave army, he's going to turn every city in the country into a war zone if we let him, until someday he and a bunch of ghetto punks come riding into Washington on a hijacked Greyhound and string us all up on the Mall and declare the People's Libertarian Republic or some such crap—that's what you're worried about?"

"Ah ... yes, sir."

"Fine. Let's say he gets every single American who's living below the poverty line to sign up in his army and pick up a gun. You know what he's got, then, out of three hundred million Americans?"

"No, sir."

"He's got a hundred million troops—most of ‘em women and children. They've probably got handguns and homemade explosives at most and they aren't trained for shit. And you know what we've got?"

Smith didn't bother to answer.

"We've got two hundred million loyal Americans, including the whole goddamn army, and against a bunch of kids with rifles we've got 3,000 nuclear warheads. We put one of those warheads on Beech's headquarters, and his army falls apart overnight. They don't come marching down the Mall. We don't negotiate with them. We don't need to. We just blow ‘em away."

"Yes, sir."

"You don't look convinced, Smith—and I think I know why. Because if it comes to dropping a nuke on Americans, we're in rough shape. Damn right we are. But Smith, that's worst case . That's if we do nothing until this Beech has his whole army up and running. Best would have been if someone at NeuroTalents had been paying attention, and when Beech got that brain flash and was lying there out cold from the zap, this helpful person had quietly cut his throat. That didn't happen, and you've been trying to make it happen ever since."

"Yes, sir, that's it exactly!” Smith said, perking up. “We need..."

"You need to shut up and listen. Smith, it's too late for that. Timing is everything in politics, and this is politics. It was too late once Beech went underground and linked up with the PFC and started putting his propaganda out on the nets. You can't just cut his throat now."

Smith fought down the urge to demand, “Why not?” Instead he said, “Yes, sir."

"You've been looking at this wrong. Our goal isn't to kill Beech. That's not a goal , it's just a means to an end. You have to look at what we really want . It's not that we want Beech dead; it's that we don't want him screwing up the country."

"But..."

"But killing him would be one easy way to make sure he doesn't screw up the country. Right. No argument. But you haven't managed to kill him, have you?"

"No, sir."

"And he's on guard now, he's got helpers, he's got a whole goddamn organization, he's got some public support."

"Sir, if we could just shut down..."

"Shut down the media. Right. Do you know how long we've wanted to do that? Since Nixon, for God's sake! This isn't Serbia, Smith; we can't do it. If we tried, we'd have pirate stations on the air in hours, we'd have illegal satellite uplinks bitching to every other country on Earth, we'd have the nets screaming bloody murder. Americans didn't care when one by one we gutted all the Constitutional checks and balances that are supposed to keep the government in line, because they always knew they had an ace in the hole, the biggest goddamn brake in the whole system—the media, with its muckrakers and investigators. If we screw over someone too much he can go on one of the talk shows or rat to the tabloid news shows and make life hell for whoever's responsible—or at least he thinks he can. So we live with it, we don't go after the media, and we've got our deals, our unwritten laws, and we can pretty much do as we please when the media aren't looking, but we can't shut it down, or suppress anything that happens out in public. That riot of yours was in the middle of fucking New York —we can't suppress that."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, if you'd had any brains, or anyone in your department knew shit about PR, we wouldn't have had any problem, because we could have said the snipers weren't ours, and then we could have investigated and said that Beech staged the whole thing, and he'd look like an asshole and we could track him down at our leisure and blow him and his buddies to hell with an explosion we'd put down as them setting off a bomb they were building. But you didn't do that. You didn't deny anything. You didn't tell the cops to keep their mouths shut, and they'd been told not to interfere with the feds on the rooftops."

"That hasn't been widely reported, sir. We could still deny it, say that was all rumors..."

The chief of staff shook his head. “No, we couldn't, asshole. You don't understand how PR works, do you? It's all timing. I told you, all timing . If we deny it now , everyone will scream cover-up, and we'll have another goddamn scandal dragging on for years even if Casper Beech walks in here in ten minutes and blows his own brains out. We should have had a spokesman there covering our ass on the scene

—once the story's out on CNN and Fox and all over the net it's too late."

Smith wanted to protest, but the other man was right—he didn't know anything about PR. That wasn't part of his job description. Covert was covert ; they never admitted or denied anything.

"You beginning to see the situation, Smith?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, what we want is to make sure that this Beech doesn't start a revolution. We want to dump the blame for the riot. Right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the direct approach hasn't worked with Beech—and you can be proud of that, if you want, because that's exactly what you programmed him for , asshole. He's supposed to be able to handle any kind of direct attack, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir."

"So why the hell did you use them? Chrissake, man..."

Smith swallowed uneasily.

The chief of staff took a moment to collect himself. “So we need to find another approach,” he continued eventually.

"Like what?"

The chief of staff smiled. “Why, it's obvious. You heard his speech, saw the vids?"

"Yes, sir."

"He says he's not a revolutionary,” the tall man pointed out. “He says he wants peaceful political reform."

"That's just propaganda, sir,” Smith said. “It's in the Spartacus File. It's all just talk, for public consumption. He's still programmed for violent revolution."

"Of course,” the other agreed, nodding. “But what if we take it literally? What if we invite him to Washington for talks?"

"What?"

"What if we apologize, say it was all a misunderstanding, and invite him down here to meet the president?"

"Sir, he'd assassinate the president!"

"Okay, then, to meet somebody , some geek from State maybe. It doesn't matter who he talks to. The point is, we get him out of the underground, out where we can see him, keep an eye on him."

Smith blinked. “And then we can get him with his defenses down and kill him?"

"Oh, God,” the chief of staff said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling in disgust. Then he leaned forward again and hammered the desk with his fist. “No, asshole! We don't kill him. We co-opt him.

How the hell is he going to recruit an army if he's here talking to the Under-Secretary for Urban Affairs?

Hell, we could even appoint him Under-Secretary for Urban Affairs if we have to! We make him think we're taking his reform talk seriously, and tie him up in red tape until everyone just forgets him, until he's just one more former radical giving speeches no one listens to!"

"But ... he won't do it. He's compelled ."

"That's fine, too. Then we can point and say, ‘Look, we tried,’ and we can send the SWAT teams after him and blow him away right out in public and people will cheer for us instead of starting riots! And we'll take our time about it and do it right , with bombs or serious firepower, no more half-baked crap with snipers using armor-piercing shells ... Jesus, Smith, where'd you come up with that, anyway?"

"It seemed ... we wanted to be ready for everything, and we thought he might wear a vest..."

"Right.” He grimaced in disgust. “You thought."

For a moment the two men were silent; then Smith asked, “So you'll issue a pardon for him, then? And after that Covert's out of it?"

The chief of staff shook his head. “Not exactly,” he said. “We need to dump the blame for the riot. We need a scapegoat if we're going to pull this off and have the public on our side when we ask Beech to surface."

Smith felt a sudden cold dread.

The chief of staff smiled.

"You got it, Smith. Seems there's a small covert unit gone rogue, went after this Beech character without authorization, but of course we've caught them now. We'll have a nice show trial, you and maybe three or four others will be convicted and given twenty years, and then we'll quietly lose you on the way to prison, and next thing you know you'll be in the Witness Protection Program somewhere."

"But ... my work ... my career..."

"So you'll have a two-year vacation. It'll be about that long before this blows over. A sabbatical, Smith—you can do some studying, brush up on your practical politics. Maybe when you come back you'll have a better handle on the way the real world works."

Smith shuddered.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Cas! C'mere, quick!” Mirim shouted.

Casper was out of his seat at the kitchen table before he even realized he'd heard Mirim's voice—the Spartacus File, as he'd discovered right from the first, had its own reflexes, faster than his own natural ones.

"'Scuse me,” he said to Cecelia and Ed, as he hurried into the living room.

Mirim was watching Headline News; a government spokesman was on the screen, half a dozen microphones shoved into his face.

"...responsible for this regrettable incident are under arrest,” the spokesman was saying.

"What's happening?” Casper asked, as he settled onto the couch.

"I repeat,” the spokesman said, “their actions were completely unauthorized, and a thorough investigation is under way."

"The sniper at the rally,” Mirim said. “They're saying he was part of a rogue cell within the national security structure, acting illegally."

Casper threw her a quick glance, then locked his attention on the screen.

"Sir!” a reporter called, “does this mean that Casper Beech, the speaker at that rally, is in fact not a terrorist?"

"We can't say that definitely at this time,” the spokesman replied, “but it appears that in fact, there is no evidence that Mr. Beech had broken any laws at the time these renegades issued their order for his apprehension. Mr. Beech has not been indicted, and the government has dropped all charges against him.

We do have some questions we'd like to ask him in connection with prosecuting those responsible for this outrage, and the City of New York apparently has some problems with his failure to obtain a permit for his rally...” He paused, grinning, for the reporters to laugh appreciatively. “...but if he was sincere in saying that his organization, People For Change, is dedicated to peaceful political reform, we trust he'll come forward and share his insights with us. Together, I'm sure we can prevent any further abuses of this sort."

Cecelia had followed Casper from the kitchen, without rushing; now she stood in the doorway, listening to the speech.

"Pretty good,” she said, leaning against the doorframe. “Notice how he left everything open. If they decide you're trouble, Cas, they can still hit you with failure to get that permit, and wrongful death suits by the relatives of the four feds in Philly, and a lot of other shit."

"Yeah,” Casper agreed, “it's a nice recovery. I hadn't thought of this. If I surface, they can keep an eye on me and tie me up six ways to Sunday, and stage an accident if they decide it's necessary. But if I stay underground, I'll be discredited—they'll be able to ask everyone why I'm still hiding if I'm not a terrorist."

"So what do you do?” Mirim asked.

"For now,” Casper replied, “I stall.” He reached into his pocket and extracted his wallet, then pulled out a bill. “Here, Celia,” he said, “take this as a retainer, would you?"

Cecelia didn't move. “Why?” she asked.

"Because you're going to surface, of course, and start negotiating my surrender."

"I am?"

"Sure. Weren't you saying that keeping me alive was just a matter of the right P.R. and legal shenanigans? Well, here's your chance to prove it."

"You're going to give up? The Spartacus File hasn't got some clever way to twist this around again?"

Casper shrugged. “Hey, Celia, they've got me—the File doesn't cover anything like this. Schiano and his people couldn't think of everything, and besides, this is really outside what Schiano had planned on. He was figuring on guerrillas and battles, not political duels. The Party's got the real political pros here, and they're finally using them. I'd hoped they wouldn't catch on in time, but they have. They've outmaneuvered me by giving up those Covert guys and saying they were acting alone, out of control. I don't have a power base to argue that from. If I stay underground now, it'll prove I'm a terrorist, as far as the public is concerned, so I've got to surface pretty soon—but I'm not about to just walk into the local cop shop. I could have an accident, or commit suicide. So I want you to stall until I'm sure I'll be safe."

Casper noticed that Mirim was staring at him doubtfully.

Cecelia, too, clearly wasn't quite ready to accept this sudden acquiescence.

"I thought the Spartacus File was compelling you to rebel,” she said.

"It is ,” Casper said, “but it doesn't have to be violent. Schiano assumed it would be violent, but it doesn't have to be; as long as I'm fighting the government, I'm okay. I can fight them in the courts, by proxy—or at the ballot box. I'm not about to go back to working as a liability analyst; I'm in the political reform business now."

"You don't still think they'll kill you?"

"I don't know—that's one thing I want you to find out for me."

"You don't think they'll kill me ?"

Casper shook his head. “Not until they've got me ,” he said. “You'll be their best link, and they'll know it.

You just tell them that you were kidnapped, make whatever connections you need to keep yourself safe—that's another reason I want to stall, to give you time.” He pressed the bill toward her.

Reluctantly, she took it.

Casper smiled at her.

He knew why she was reluctant—he was doing exactly what she had wanted him to do all along, but he wasn't whining about it, wasn't putting up a struggle, and she didn't trust that. She thought there had to be a catch.

She was right, of course—there was a catch.

That was the next step in his plan.

The fact that his identity was known right from the first, and that he was too heavily outgunned to set up a guerrilla force in the wilderness somewhere, had made most of the preferred options in the Spartacus File impossible—Schiano hadn't compiled it with the U.S. in mind. Casper's promise to Mirim not to openly take power himself limited his choices still further. The government's disavowal of any ill intentions toward him narrowed it down even more.

He couldn't stay underground without ruining his position, and if he tried to operate in the open he could never succeed—they'd find a way to kill him if he started to get close. He had to find a third way.

And of course, the Spartacus File provided one. Schiano and the hundred other programmers who had worked on the File hadn't been able to think of every possible contingency, but they'd included every general case they could think of, and provided guidelines for choosing which model to follow.

It was pretty clear what to do in this situation. When presented with two unacceptable options, find a third choice even if it looks even worse on the surface. And here there was definitely such a choice, one that looked really bad at first:

Martyrdom.

Not suicide, of course—he had no intention of killing himself, and if he let himself be killed, who would lead the revolution? Who would guide People For Change into power? And he didn't want to die.

Spartacus had died for his revolt, and the revolt had died with him. Casper didn't want that, didn't want either part of it—he wanted to live, and he wanted his revolution to continue and grow. Martyrdom was a matter of public perception, not reality; all he had to do was appear to die, at the hands of a treacherous government.

He was pretty sure he could pull it off.

He hadn't yet worked out the details, though, and until he did, he wasn't about to let Cecelia in on his plans.

"Go on,” he told Cecelia, “go turn yourself in, or whatever."

She stared at him a moment longer, then nodded.

"Okay,” she said. “I'll turn myself in to ... let's see ... CNN, I guess. Or maybe ABC would be better."

He smiled wryly. “Not the cops?"

"Don't be an idiot, Casper. Hasn't that thing in your head taught you anything ? They aren't going to shoot me live on TV; in private, though, who knows?"

Casper nodded. She was exactly right.

He wondered—if Cecelia had gone for one of Covert's optimizations, would she have gotten the Spartacus File? She seemed to have half the tactical knowledge already. Certainly, she had more of what it took to fight a revolution than he had had before his visit to NeuroTalents.

"Colby,” Cecelia called up the stairs, “could Rose or Tasha or someone drop me somewhere? And I need to make a shielded phone call.” She turned and headed back for the kitchen.

Casper watched her go, then settled onto the couch beside Mirim.

The news was still running, but had moved on to the financial report. Casper watched it, not really paying attention.

Mirim stared at him.

"Are you really giving up, Cas?” she asked at last.

He looked at her, startled, then smiled at her, a big, warm smile.

"Nope,” he said. “Come on, let's get the vidcam; as soon as Celia's gone I want to record some more speeches. And I need to check the nets, see if we've got some volunteers. After that we'll talk to Colby and the others about setting up maildrops and bank accounts for contributions."

"So you're still going to try this political stuff?"

"Absolutely!” He stood up and reached down for her hand. “Come on,” he said. “We've got a campaign to launch."

Bob Schiano stared at the screen in amazement. A dozen security men were shielding Cecelia Grand from the mob as she was led up the courthouse steps.

"Ms. Grand, a lawyer representing alleged terrorist Casper Beech, announced that she had come to negotiate Beech's surrender,” the off-screen reporter announced.

"But he can't,” Schiano said. “He can't surrender. The file won't let him.” He smacked a fist onto the table in front of him. “I won't let him!"

The scene cut to Cecelia addressing the press.

"Mr. Beech is understandably wary,” she said. “Government agents openly tried to kill him on the streets of Philadelphia and again in New York, and while the administration may now say that those agents were acting without authorization, Mr. Beech feels that he needs greater assurance of his own safety before turning himself in."

Schiano leaned back in his chair, staring at the screen.

Beech couldn't surrender. And especially not now, when he'd scored a victory and forced the government to disavow their attacks on him! Smith and his chief aide and two triggermen were packed away somewhere, being prepared as scapegoats; Schiano had been briefly concerned that they might even sacrifice him , but in the end they hadn't done anything that desperate. Good imprint programmers were hard to find.

He was, however, out of work for the moment, while they looked for somewhere else to put him. That meant he could stay home and watch the news.

He hadn't expected this , though.

Was the Spartacus File breaking down?

Or ... He relaxed somewhat as the thought struck him.

Or was Beech up to something?

That had to be it. Beech wasn't going to surrender at all.

Schiano tried to remember more of what had gone into the File. He'd overseen the whole thing, but of course it had been far too much for one person to do single-handed; if he'd been able to write the whole Spartacus File by himself, he'd have been the new Spartacus.

Then he had it. He knew what was coming.

He wondered how Beech would set it up.

"I'm here representing Casper Beech and People For Change,” Cecelia told the interviewer.

"And are you a member of People For Change, yourself?” he asked her.

"People For Change is a legitimate political organization, seeking recognition...” she began.

"Yes, Ms. Grand,” the interviewer interrupted, “but are you a member of People For Change?"

For a moment, Cecelia hesitated. On a living room couch somewhere in New Jersey, Casper Beech looked up from his laptop and waited.

Cecelia had surfaced two days before, with much fanfare. The government had apologized to her, the media had feted her, and everyone had listened to her tale of desperate flight from crazed renegade feds.

There had been various denunciations of the “rogue” operation, and several editorial comments about the need for a political reform movement like People For Change.

But until now, no one had asked her much about her own politics.

No one—not even Casper.

And Casper needed to know. He had plans for Cecelia and for PFC.

"Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, I am."

Casper thrust a fist in the air and said, “Yes!"

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Tell them I want to surrender at the U.N., in front of the international community,” Casper said into the phone.

"Do you?” Cecelia asked.

Casper smiled. “It's a possibility,” he said.

"The U.N. should be okay,” Cecelia said thoughtfully.

"See how it would work, then, and I'll get back to you. I should have that speech ready for you soon, too.” He shut off the phone and stuck it in his pocket.

"I thought...” Mirim said.

"What?” He looked up at her, startled.

"Didn't you just ask Rose to book you on the train to Kennedy Spaceport? I thought maybe you were heading out to somewhere on the Fringe."

"Where I might get a more sympathetic hearing?” Casper shook his head. “It wouldn't be the Fringers themselves who'd be listening to me out there, it would be the authorities, and they're heavily into suppressing rebellion."

"But then why did ... isn't that what you told Rose?"

"Don't worry about what I told Rose,” Casper said. “You just be ready to go."

"Casper, I don't want to go out to the Fringe! Space travel scares me."

He looked up at her with interest. “Have you ever done any space traveling?"

"No, and I'm not going to!"

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay, that's no problem! You don't have to. I promise."

"You're going without me?"

"Look, Mirim, just trust me, okay? It'll all be fine, just wait and see."

She looked down at him uncertainly.

"I promise ,” he said.

She turned away.

He watched her go, then picked up his laptop and booted it up. He had things to do. There were a lot of arrangements to make.

It was a good thing that PFC had at least one or two serious terrorists as members; he was going to need some of Ed's skills, and other specialists, as well. He'd need a bomb, and for some reason he hadn't been getting much help from the Spartacus File with the specifications on that. Maybe part of the imprint hadn't taken properly, or maybe one of Schiano's programmers had been faking it.

He'd need some specialized equipment—equipment Ed probably couldn't provide, but he might know someone who could. Fortunately, the equipment didn't actually need to work .

And he wanted some way to remove a person without anyone knowing it; poison, perhaps, or an engineered bug of some sort ... ?

"Sir,” the aide said.

The Chief of Staff looked up. “Yes?"

"It's about Casper Beech,” he said.

"What about him?"

"It seems we have conflicting reports about him, sir. That lawyer of his says Beech is going to turn himself in at the U.N., but the word on the net is that he intends to head out to the Fringe."

The Chief of Staff sat up straight and looked the aide in the eye.

"The Fringe?"

"Yes, sir. Probably to the L5 colony."

"And once he gets there, is he planning to surrender, or to join the rebels?” He had talked with Smith and Schiano; he remembered that Beech was supposed to join a rebel group. They'd assumed that PFC

was that group, but maybe Beech had decided it was time to try starting over somewhere else.

"We don't know, sir.” The aide hesitated. “He says he plans to surrender, but the people who worked on the Spartacus File say that he can't . And if you like ... well, before we took over the situation, Covert had issued orders to destroy any ship Beech boarded, rather than risk letting him loose off-planet. We haven't actually countermanded those orders yet, and we can blame that on a bureaucratic foul-up if we have to."

"Countermand them,” the chief said immediately. “We want him alive, if at all possible. If he gets off-planet ... hell, it ought to be that much easier to spot him and corner him out there. Everything's so much smaller. And if he does get killed, we can blame it on the radicals, we don't have to take the heat ourselves.” He gazed thoughtfully at the wall. “I wonder ... do you suppose he'll surrender out there?

Maybe he thinks the radicals will back him up, or that we won't dare harm him for fear of open revolt."

"The programmers say he can't surrender, sir."

The chief nodded.

"If he's off-planet, he's less of a threat to us, alive or dead—we can always destroy the whole damn colony and blame the radicals."

"Yes, sir."

"You sure about this, Casper?” Ed asked again, holding up his ticket and freight receipt.

"Absolutely,” Casper replied. “We've got to hurt them, force them to negotiate."

Ed nodded. “Damn straight. I've gotta give you credit, man—I didn't think you had the balls for something like this. You talk a good line sometimes, but I wasn't sure you had what it takes to be a real revolutionary, any more than the rest of these wusses. For four years they haven't dared do squat, and then you show up with this super-imprint in your head, and I think we'll finally get somewhere, then you start talking about peaceful change. If you'd stuck with that public surrender crap, I might've been tempted to put a knife in your back myself—the only thing the fat cats understand is violence, and that might have stirred some up. It's good to see you understand that you can't make an omelet without cracking some eggs."

Casper looked at Ed, the man who had deliberately waited until a cop was leaning over the planted bomb in the New York precinct before detonating it four years before, the man behind virtually every act of violence PFC had committed before Colby had taken charge and moved the group away from overt terrorism.

Ed was a loose cannon, someone who couldn't be rehabilitated because he didn't want to be rehabilitated, someone who would always be in the way of any attempt to turn PFC into an effective political force.

Casper clapped him on the back. “Whatever it costs, Ed. I know that now, same as you do."

Ed winced; the slap had stung. But then, everyone at PFC knew that Casper had a tendency to misjudge his own strength. “I thought you were serious about all that ‘peaceful means’ and ‘win at the ballot box’

crap,” he said.

Casper just smiled. He twisted a ring on his finger; Ed noticed that. Casper was definitely changing, Ed thought; he hadn't worn any jewelry before, so far as Ed could remember.

"You can't go that way, man,” Ed said. “You have to compromise too much if you play by their rules.

You can't play politics that way and keep your ideals."

"I know,” Casper said. “Listen, good luck, Ed—and thanks for doing this."

"You, too,” Ed said. Then he turned and boarded the Florida train.

Casper watched him go.

He felt a surge of guilt over what he had just done—over both parts of it. He knew that before his optimization he would never have done such a thing, never even have considered it.

Now he couldn't help it.

At least, he told himself, this should be the last of it, the end of the violence. He would never do it again.

And it was better than the guerrilla war that the Spartacus File kept urging him to lead.

Cecelia Grand looked at her watch. She frowned. She'd heard the rumors about a flight to the Fringe, and intended to give Casper a piece of her mind. The U.N. would be much better for a surrender, and he damn well better intend to surrender! If he couldn't control that damned software in his head ... ?

Well, he had plenty of good ideas, and she liked the whole idea of getting into politics, but she wasn't going to let some damn piece of spy fiction run her life.

Her phone beeped; she snatched it up and opened it.

"Grand,” she said.

"Celia?"

It was Mirim's voice, not Casper's.

"Yes? Where's Casper?"

"He told me to apologize, said he couldn't help it."

"Couldn't help what ?"

"He's heading for the Fringe."

Word went out on the net before Freight 2105 was even off the ground—Casper Beech was aboard, tucked in a crate in the cargo hold with his own oxygen, water, and food supplies. The passenger flights were too closely watched, and he'd wanted to get to the Fringe, so he'd had himself smuggled aboard an unmanned supply ship.

All along Florida's northern Atlantic coast, people looked out their windows at the line of flame that was Freight 2105's launch from Kennedy and ascent toward space.

Most of them, thanks to the rumors on the net, knew that Casper Beech, already something of a folk hero, was supposed to be aboard.

And hundreds of eyes saw the sudden flash and knew instantly what it meant.

"The guy gave his name as Thomas Paine,” the security guard read from the screen. “It's apparently phony—we aren't getting a description match on any real Thomas Paine, so it set off the security check, a bit late. He's already left the port. Whoever he really is, we think he might be connected with People For Change."

The spaceport's traffic manager asked, “People For Change—isn't that the group Casper Beech runs?"

"Sure is,” the guard agreed. “Rumors on the net say Beech is being smuggled off-planet, and this guy checked some freight aboard 2105—a goddamn big crate, according to the shipping people. Big enough to hold a man and three days’ supplies. We thought you might want to hold the launch until we've searched it."

"You're a little late,” she said. “2105 took off for the L5 colony five minutes ago."

That was when the alarms went off. The flash hadn't been visible in the windowless office, but there were plenty of other reports of the explosion aboard Freight 2105.

"Goddamn it,” the White House Chief of Staff said, “I thought I told you to countermand those orders."

"I did ,” his aide said. “Someone must have gotten the word late."

"Shit. This'll mean another show trial; it makes us look really bad.” He sighed. “Well, at least Beech is out of the way."

Cecelia appeared before the cameras with tears on her cheeks, her make-up smeared.

"Casper Beech was aboard that ship,” she said, “and the Covert Operations Group, a branch of the government of the United States, shot it down to make sure that he was not able to bring his message to the people of America. I demand that those responsible be brought to trial for murder!"

The White House spokesman was visibly ruffled, though nowhere near as distraught as Cecelia, when he said, “This was an unfortunate accident. The orders to destroy any ship Casper Beech boarded had been countermanded, but apparently word had not reached everyone. We're still trying to locate whoever was responsible."

Casper smiled as he watched. Even the feds thought they'd done it, and that he was a burnt corpse on the bottom of the Atlantic.

The wreckage ought to be so far down that no one could recover it and find out that there weren't any corpses, or at least none that had Casper's DNA.

If they ever did find it, of course, they'd guess the truth—that he was safe in a cabin in the Poconos, and Mirim would be joining him as soon as she could get away.

There were still other loose ends to be dealt with, as well. He had to make sure that Ed was out of the way, that the genetically-engineered virus he'd injected with that slap on the back had done its job and erased his memory—otherwise, the possibility that Ed might reveal the fraud would always be there. Ed and his terrorist past didn't fit with the new People For Change, in any case.

He hoped the virus wasn't fatal; the black market gene tailor hadn't made any promises. The thing had originally been developed with the idea of erasing outdated or proprietary imprints, but had never been used—it ate out huge chunks of the user's memory, along with the imprinted skills, and the developers hadn't been able to find a way to target it more precisely.

Casper was trying to resist the Spartacus File's ruthlessness. He hadn't simply killed Ed, though that would have been the easiest way to cover his tracks and remove an embarrassment from PFC—but Ed was going to lose so much of his past life and personality that death might almost have been preferable. If the virus performed as advertised, the old-line revolutionary would never be able to tell anyone that Beech was still alive, or that the crate that had supposedly held Beech and his life support system had actually held the bomb that destroyed Freight 2105.

That would take care of most of the loose ends, but there were other things he still had to do. Casper knew he'd have to find some way, working by proxy, to convince Cecelia to let Mirim act as her speechwriter, so that he could supply Mirim with the words to keep PFC on the right track.

But all in all, everything was going just fine. The revolution would continue, without violence, and this time no one was going to crucify Spartacus.

He'd beaten them to it.

Epilogue

It was snowing in Washington, but nobody seemed to care; the crowd listening to the new president's inaugural address applauded enthusiastically at every opportunity.

Maybe, Casper thought cynically, as he watched the spectacle on his screen, they were doing it to keep warm.

For himself, his enthusiasm had worn away over the past seventeen years—along with his control over the PFC. He listened to Cecelia delivering her speech, and could not find a single sentence of his in it.

The populist ideals were gone; instead, she was mouthing platitudes about compromise and reconciliation. The Democratic-Republicans on the dais behind her were applauding as loudly as the PFCers.

The PFC might have taken control of the government, but it was plain that the government, in turn, had taken control of the PFC.

Had taken it away from Casper.

The PFC was just more of the same old authority.

For sixteen years, Casper had appeased the demon in his head by exercising regularly with elaborate martial-arts routines, by keeping in practice with every weapon available, by planning campaigns for any PFC candidate who didn't look like a sure winner, by writing speeches for Cecelia and a dozen others, but now, as he watched President Grand, the Spartacus File was active again, and unsatisfied.

He watched Cecelia's every gesture, listened to her every word, thought over everything Mirim had relayed of late.

The PFC was the government now. They had the presidency, they had two hundred thirty-eight seats in the House and forty-three in the Senate.

And the Spartacus File compelled him to rebel against the government— any government.

That son of a bitch Schiano had never bothered to put in any end to the program; he and Covert had always assumed that their Spartacus would wind up dead, one way or another.

Covert was under Cecelia's command now. They'd tell her anything she wanted to know about the Spartacus File.

Casper knew that she had figured out, long ago, that he was still alive. She'd never said so, never told anyone else, he was sure, but she'd read those speeches, seen those campaign plans, and Mirim's name at the top or bottom wouldn't have fooled her.

And she hadn't forgiven him for lying to her, or she'd have sent him a message. She wouldn't have cut his every word out of her inaugural. She'd have mentioned her party's martyr during the campaign.

She had probably stewed constantly over the image of Casper and Mirim holed up somewhere, cozy and safe, while she fought her way up step by step through the political nightmare of the past sixteen years.

And when she talked to Schiano and the others, she'd know what would have to be done.

And Casper already knew what he had to do.

He wondered, as he packed, whether the Spartacus File had planned this all along, whether it required a constant cycle of revolutions, or whether this was a bug in the program.

In the end, it didn't matter whether it was a bug or a feature, so long as it was there.

When the SWAT team arrived two days later they found the cabin dark and empty. A note was pinned to the door with a knife.

"The battle continues,” it said.

It was signed “Spartacus."

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