Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spartacus File

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

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

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

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

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

“I think so,” she said unsteadily.

“Then get out here. Now.”

“But there's… in the doorway…”

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

“But…”

“No arguments! Before any more come!”

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

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

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

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

Wood cracked, and the door burst open.

“How…” Mirim began.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Amateurs,” Casper muttered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only one explanation made sense.

“NeuroTalents,” he told her.

“What?”

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

“Only explanation of what?”

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

Mirim still looked puzzled, and he explained, “They must have screwed up my imprinting, when I went in to learn the new software,” he said. “I didn't learn it-I couldn't do a thing with it at work this morning. But I knew what to do when that man attacked us. And I knew what to do when some gangbangers tried to mug me last night.”

“ What? You were mugged? You didn't…”

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

“Those men… Yeah, Casper, who were they?”

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

“NeuroTalents teaches people to fight? They have imprints for that?”

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

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

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

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

“But I…” Casper hesitated.

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

Somehow, he doubted it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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