The Spartacus File

Chapter Two

Casper awoke the next morning with a tremendous headache. He sat up slowly, but as he came upright nausea boiled up in his belly. For a long uncomfortable moment he thought he was going to vomit. Black spots appeared in front of him. He lay back and put his pillow over his face.

It was twenty minutes later before he could make the major effort necessary to reach for the phone and call in to work and let them know he wouldn't be in. That done, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

He slept until shortly before six o'clock the following morning, when he awoke to find the headache gone, but not the nausea. He still felt weak and shaky.

Even as his stomach told him otherwise, he knew he had to eat something. He managed to stagger into the kitchen, where he forced down some leftovers from the refrigerator.

That relieved the nausea slightly, to his surprise. Blinking gummy eyes, he worked out the next thing to do; he went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Standing under the hot water made him feel almost alive again, and when he got out he decided he really ought to try to go in to work.

He sat on the edge of his bed for several minutes before he had enough energy to get up and finish dressing, moving slowly toward the door as he fastened buttons, zippers, and Velcro.

He stumbled down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. As he aproached the entrance to the subway he missed a turn, and didn't realize until he passed a construction site that he was going the wrong way. He turned around and retraced his path.

He had walked that same path to the subway for years. He would have sworn he could walk it in his sleep. That he had missed a turn meant he was in worse shape than he had thought.

If old, comfortable mental patterns like that had been disturbed-was that a side effect of the imprint? Did it clear out the old to make way for the new?

Nobody had ever mentioned that, and he didn't like the idea at all. If he had lost memories, would he ever even know they were gone?

By the time he reached the foot of the subway station stairs the regular morning commuter crowd had gathered on the station platform, filling the tunnel with the smell of sweat on top of the ingrained stench of dirt, metal, and urine, a stench that had seeped into the very grit on the walls.

All in all, perhaps two dozen people were waiting for the next train. Casper leaned against one of the pillars and looked at them.

In the evenings the subway crowd included many couples, family groups, and youth gangs. Here, though, the crowd was entirely composed of individuals. Casper found this oddly interesting, and watching them took his mind off the pounding in his temples.

It occurred to him that if those individuals could be unified, somehow, they could-well, could what?

They could do things, certainly-but what?

He shook his head slightly. His thoughts were a jumble, and he gave up trying to force them into coherence.

A train screeched into the station, stirring up the dirt and filling the station with noise, and he joined the others in boarding it. He was lucky enough to get a seat immediately, and he rode with his forehead pressed against the window, looking out at the tunnel.

There were a lot of details that he seemed to be noticing for the first time-the location of the pillars, for instance, as the train pulled into the next station. Except for one broken stump near the far end of the platform the pillars provided excellent cover, and a pillar would never be more than four or five meters away. The occasional bullethole proved that the pillars were a formidable barrier-good defenses to cover a retreat down the tunnel.

What an odd thing to notice, Casper thought, startled by his own musings. Why would he pay any attention to something like that? His study of the crowd back on the platform had been curious, too. He had been vaguely aware of where everyone was, all of the time he was there. And he hadn't so much noticed that everyone was alone as he had noticed that no one was together, that there was no organization in the crowd.

Why was he thinking about that?

Why was he thinking about anything when he felt so rotten?

He turned to face into the train, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. The motion and stink of the train upset his stomach, though, so he opened his eyes again, which seemed to help.

He was staring at the man seated on the other side of the car. The man shifted angrily in his seat, and Casper, realizing what he was doing, averted his gaze.

The train finally pulled into the Race/Vine station, and he swayed to his feet. There were almost as many people getting on here as getting off, and Casper, in his unsteady state, had a little trouble getting through the doors. Eventually he made it onto the platform and headed for the stairs to the street.

The short walk to the office seemed interminable, but at last he made it, only slightly late.

Quinones happened to be arriving at the same time as Casper. He nodded a greeting.

“Feeling all right today, Beech?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Quinones.” Casper hesitated, then added, “I had a bad time with the imprinting, but I feel fine now.”

“Good, good,” Quinones said; Casper braced for a slap on the back, but it didn't come. “We've got quite a bit of work for you to do,” Quinones said.

“I'm ready for it,” Casper told him. He didn't bother to try to smile or sound enthusiastic; he knew he couldn't pull it off, and Quinones wouldn't care in any case.

Quinones strode off to his office while Casper shuffled to his desk. He sat down, logged on, and looked at the list of work that awaited him. There were eighteen urgent traces already in the queue, some of them obviously complex and time-consuming, and more would probably come in before quitting time.

He sighed.

“It's going to be a busy day,” he muttered.

Lester Polnovick stopped his crane and rubbed his forehead. He'd had a ferocious headache ever since he had left NeuroTalents the day before, after his imprinting. The flicker from the crane's monitor screen seemed to be making it worse; he couldn't turn the screen off, but he did turn down the brightness.

The headache wasn't important, he told himself. What was important was that after years of failing the qualifying exams for management positions he had scraped up the money to have the necessary skills imprinted. Crane work was getting scarce, now that robots were doing most of it, and the pay wasn't what it used to be; it was time to move on. Soon he'd be exchanging his blue collar for a white one-symbolically, at any rate, since the collar of his work shirt was silver-grey, and he hadn't seen a white shirt in years, not since the city, at the insistence of the Consortium and with the Party's blessing, had given up enforcing the clean air laws.

“Hey, Lester, get a move on!” someone shouted.

Lester waved and grabbed the control levers. He swung his load of temporary flooring around and raised it to the top of the building framework, and then looked over the growing structure while the crew was unloading the sling.

This was to be the Volcker Financial Center, Philadelphia's attempt to claim its share of the booty now that yet another string of terrorist attacks had finally driven New York's Wall Street to decentralize.

Lester was unimpressed with the structure. “It wouldn't take much to bring that whole thing right down,” he mused aloud; due to spending so much time alone in the crane's cab he had gotten in the habit of talking to himself. “Just a small charge there, there, and maybe there, ought to do it.” A certain warm satisfaction seeped into him at the realization.

Then he frowned. “Why did I think of that?” he asked himself. “What do I know about it?” Could there have been information in his imprinting about explosives and demolition? What the hell did that have to do with management?

Had there been some sort of error? Some of the technicians at NeuroTalents had looked sort of worried when he had left.

His headset crackled, and he forgot about it. “Okay, Les, go get another load,” the crew boss's voice told him.

Les swung the crane back toward the pile of flooring, and waited for the next batch to be secured.

Stu and Carl had just finished strapping another load into the sling when the lunch whistle blew. Les reached for the ignition switch, then paused. Slowly, without quite knowing why, he withdrew his hand. He waited quietly in the cab until the rest of the crew had settled down for lunch, and then he slipped out the side door.

He didn't know at first where he was going, but using a stack of pipes for cover, he made his way towards the shack where the explosives were stored.

He stood for a moment at the door, uncertain what he was doing-or rather, why he was doing it. He knew what he wanted, knew that he had to do it, but he didn't know why.

But then he shrugged. It didn't matter why; he had to do it. He reached for the handle.

As he had hoped, the shack was unlocked, despite strict company regulations and city ordinances to the contrary. Convenience had won out over the law once again.

“What's going on here, Polnovick?” said the voice of Keough, the ground-crew foreman, as Les felt a hand on his arm.

“I noticed the door to the shack was open,” he said, turning. “I just thought I'd close it.”

“Yeah, well, why don't you just let me worry about it.” Keough eyed him suspiciously, then pushed past him into the shack. “You got something going in here? Something special, maybe?”

“Nope,” Polnovick answered. He smiled. He knew what to do. “You want to check, go ahead. Whatever you say.” He picked up a discarded length of pipe, hefted it silently, and then followed Keough into the shack.

Casper worked through lunch, eating a vending-machine sandwich at his desk. He was having trouble working-even the simplest, most routine tasks seemed to be giving him trouble. He just couldn't get his thoughts in order; the habits of years all seemed to have disappeared. It was probably a residual effect from his bad reaction to the imprinting, he told himself, but whatever the reason, it meant that it took him longer to do his work.

And so far, he had not picked up any new techniques or knowledge that he was aware of-but then, the new software wasn't running yet. This was Friday, and it would go in over the weekend.

He was also supposed to have been given improved techniques for handling the old stuff, though, and any improvements certainly hadn't made themselves obvious.

His office nemesis, Mirim Anspack, was among the first to return from lunch, and for the moment the two of them were the only people in the main room. She was Cecelia's roommate, and in fact Casper had only met Cecelia when the latter came to the office to pick up Mirim. Even before that momentous occasion, Mirim had delighted in teasing Casper; once he started dating Cecelia he had become the target of endless double entendres, and now that the imprinting and Casper's bad reaction were common gossip she had a new topic to tease him about.

Casper didn't really mind. He was used to it. He could take it, and even dish out a little in return. If he hadn't been able to, Mirim would have left him alone after awhile; she wasn't cruel, just playful.

She loitered near her desk for a few minutes, plotting her mischief, before approaching him.

“So how's our new super-operator doing?” she asked.

“Plodding along, like the rest of you. Wouldn't want to make you look bad.”

“Oh, you needn't worry; none of us would think of competing with you! No, we'll let you do everything, shall we?”

“From the job list, I believe it. Can anyone do anything around here without me?”

“We manage, although how…”

A heavy rumble interrupted her; they both looked up, startled. The first rumble was followed by a second one several seconds later; the building shook, and a window blew out, scattering glass across the floor. Mirim and Casper both ducked down behind the desk.

They remained there for several seconds, not coming out of cover until they heard sirens.

Cautiously, they crept out, side by side. Mirim was first to stand.

“What was that?” she gasped.

“Sounded like an explosion-probably something commercial, not military.” Casper cocked his head to listen. “And that's small arms fire. Pistols, shotguns, maybe a submachine gun. I'd guess it's the police.”

Mirim looked at him, startled. “Where'd you learn anything about weapons?” she asked.

“I don't know,” Casper answered, puzzled. “I just seem to know it.” He shrugged the matter aside and added, “Let's go take a look.”

Step by careful step they crossed the room, and together they peered out the shattered window.

The street was covered with broken glass and litter; windows on other floors had gone, as well as their own. A few people lay on the sidewalk, apparently injured, and a car had gone out of control and run up onto a flight of steps.

“What the hell is going on here?” Casper demanded.

“I don't know. Maybe we'll get some answers soon, though-look there.” Mirim pointed towards the end of the block. A police cruiser with its roof-speakers up had just turned the corner and was driving toward them. They leaned out the window to hear better.

“The area west of Twentieth Street between Chestnut and Arch, all the way to the river, is being evacuated,” the speakers announced. “If you have someplace to go outside of this area, please go there immediately. If you have no place to go, you should go to the Thirtieth Street Station at once. The area west…”

Casper and Mirim looked at each other. “What the hell?” Mirim asked.

“Must be terrorists,” Casper suggested.

“Must be,” Mirim agreed. The two of them stared for a moment.

“Want a ride?” Mirim asked. “The subways will be hell.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Casper said. “Let me get my jacket.”

“Would you like to come over to my place?”

Casper hesitated. “I don't think so,” he said.

“Oh, come on. I don't have any vile purpose in mind, I'm just being sociable. Cecelia will be there.”

Casper considered that. “You're sure?” he asked.

“Of course I'm sure. Her office is in the evacuation zone, too, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Casper admitted. “All right, then, I guess it's safe.”

“It's safe, it's safe.” She paused, then grinned. “Well, mostly safe.”

Casper groaned.

Cecelia was already home when they arrived, and the apartment also held a very large, heavily muscled man named Leonid-Mirim's current bedmate, Casper knew.

Leonid greeted Mirim with a passionate kiss, coupled with some indelicate pawing of her body; he then seemed to take sadistic delight in squeezing Casper's hand until it hurt. The first chance he got, Casper checked Leonid's knuckles to see if they were calloused from dragging on the ground.

A TV feed was on their main video screen, quietly burbling CNN's usual line. “There was a news bulletin about five minutes ago announcing the evacuation,” Cecelia said as she brought in a tray of snacks. “Other than that, nothing.”

Nibbling on celery sticks and tortilla chips, the four of them settled down in front of the video; Mirim found the remote and began switching from one channel to the next.

After nearly twenty minutes of nothing-CNN and al-Jazeera USA were covering the fighting in Siberia, while FoxNews had yet another congressman defending his record-she found a placard announcing a special bulletin on the city-mandated local news channel. She put down the remote, and a moment later the card was replaced by a man in light body armor, with a microphone in his hand.

“This is John Covarrubias speaking to you from the corner of Market and Twenty-First. Just a few blocks from where I'm standing a construction worker by the name of Lester Polnovick has apparently gone berserk, and committed acts of wanton destruction. The situation is still confused; details remain vague. No known terrorist organization has claimed credit, nor has Polnovick made any demands.”

John Covarrubias was replaced by a view of the construction site. The partially-completed structure near the center of the lot had collapsed against a neighboring building. Police and rescue workers swarmed over the rubble.

“As we understand it,” Covarrubias continued as the camera panned across the site, “Lester Polnovick, a crane operator, blew up the partially completed structure of the Volcker Financial Center, using explosives from the dynamite shack and causing it to collapse against the neighboring Takeuchi building.” A closeup of the tangle of girders piled against the buckling wall of the Takeuchi building flashed onto the screen. “Most of the construction crew had gathered here for lunch. At last count, seventeen were killed by the blast or the subsequent collapse; twenty more were seriously injured.”

Another shot, this time of a half-crushed police cruiser. “Officers Santiago and Hojaji of the city police were the first on the scene. Their vehicle was demolished by several steel girders dropped from Polnovick's crane. Officer Hojaji was killed instantly. Paramedics removed Officer Santiago from the scene, and we have no information on his whereabouts or condition.”

Covarrubias appeared on the screen again. “After this, Polnovick apparently used his crane as a battering ram on the surrounding buildings; because of the lunch-hour break few people were in the areas assaulted, and no injuries have been reported. The area has now been evacuated. Polnovick is still in the cab of the crane, and is believed to be armed.”

“I wonder what made him do it?” Cecelia mused.

“Who knows?” Casper said, “If he was already a bit over the edge, it could've been anything that set him off.”

“There's been a lot of that sort of thing going on lately,” Leonid said authoritatively. “Incidents taking place all over the country. The continent, even.”

“Do you know much about that sort of thing?” Casper asked, looking up, wondering if Leonid might actually have a brain after all.

“Leonid works for a security firm,” Mirim said.

“It's part of my job to know what's going on,” Leonid said smugly.

“And there's been a lot of this going on?” Casper asked.

Leonid shrugged, then held up his hand for silence. “The SWAT team's on now. Let's see them take this guy down.”

They watched as the cameras followed the SWAT team moving into position. Leonid grunted with pleasure when a team sniper fired a single round, killing Polnovick as he sat in the cab of the crane.

A thin stream of crimson trailed down the rusty metal siding below the cab window, and the news camera zoomed in.

“Oh, God,” Cecelia said, flinching at the sight. Casper took her hand and squeezed it.

“It could have been a lot worse,” he said.

“Sure,” Leonid agreed. “Only nineteen dead and twenty injured. Why, just last month a dam in Kyrgyz was blown up. Over four hundred people were drowned. And the fighting's still going on in Russia.”

“Let's not dwell on it, huh?” Mirim asked.

“Just pointing out how lucky we are to live in the States.”

“I'd feel lucky if I could get something to eat,” Casper interrupted.

“Good idea,” Cecelia quickly agreed. “Give me a hand, Cas?”

“Sure.” Casper followed her to the kitchen. As soon as they were around the corner, he lowered his voice and asked, “Where'd Mirim find that ape?”

“Shh. I don't know. He doesn't come by here very often. Mirim usually goes over to his apartment.”

“Probably just as well. What do you have for dinner?”

“Chicken sounds good.” Cecelia pulled the instruction strip off the end of the box of a frozen chicken diner, put the box into the heat chamber of the oven, and fed the instruction strip into the oven's control panel. The defrost cycle began immediately.

“Have you got any plans for after dinner?” Casper asked.

“I'm open to suggestions. You got any?”

“Not offhand, but tomorrow's Saturday-no work even if they get the mess cleaned up. It's a good night to stay out late.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I'll order a newspaper and we'll decide what to do after dinner.” She leaned back and kissed him.

When they got back from the movie Cecelia decided that it was far too late to send Casper home-especially with the headache he had developed. Instead she demonstrated that she had some interesting ways to take his mind off the pain.