Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spartacus File

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.

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.