Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spartacus File

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.”