Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spartacus File

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.