The Spartacus File

Epilogue

It was snowing in Washington, but nobody seemed to care; the crowd listening to the new president's inaugural address applauded enthusiastically at every opportunity.

Maybe, Casper thought cynically, as he watched the spectacle on his screen, they were doing it to keep warm.

For himself, his enthusiasm had worn away over the past seventeen years-along with his control over the PFC. He listened to Cecelia delivering her speech, and could not find a single sentence of his in it.

The populist ideals were gone; instead, she was mouthing platitudes about compromise and reconciliation. The Democratic-Republicans on the dais behind her were applauding as loudly as the PFCers.

The PFC might have taken control of the government, but it was plain that the government, in turn, had taken control of the PFC.

Had taken it away from Casper.

The PFC was just more of the same old authority.

For sixteen years, Casper had appeased the demon in his head by exercising regularly with elaborate martial-arts routines, by keeping in practice with every weapon available, by planning campaigns for any PFC candidate who didn't look like a sure winner, by writing speeches for Cecelia and a dozen others, but now, as he watched President Grand, the Spartacus File was active again, and unsatisfied.

He watched Cecelia's every gesture, listened to her every word, thought over everything Mirim had relayed of late.

The PFC was the government now. They had the presidency, they had two hundred thirty-eight seats in the House and forty-three in the Senate.

And the Spartacus File compelled him to rebel against the government- any government.

That son of a bitch Schiano had never bothered to put in any end to the program; he and Covert had always assumed that their Spartacus would wind up dead, one way or another.

Covert was under Cecelia's command now. They'd tell her anything she wanted to know about the Spartacus File.

Casper knew that she had figured out, long ago, that he was still alive. She'd never said so, never told anyone else, he was sure, but she'd read those speeches, seen those campaign plans, and Mirim's name at the top or bottom wouldn't have fooled her.

And she hadn't forgiven him for lying to her, or she'd have sent him a message. She wouldn't have cut his every word out of her inaugural. She'd have mentioned her party's martyr during the campaign.

She had probably stewed constantly over the image of Casper and Mirim holed up somewhere, cozy and safe, while she fought her way up step by step through the political nightmare of the past sixteen years.

And when she talked to Schiano and the others, she'd know what would have to be done.

And Casper already knew what he had to do.

He wondered, as he packed, whether the Spartacus File had planned this all along, whether it required a constant cycle of revolutions, or whether this was a bug in the program.

In the end, it didn't matter whether it was a bug or a feature, so long as it was there.

When the SWAT team arrived two days later they found the cabin dark and empty. A note was pinned to the door with a knife.

“The battle continues,” it said.

It was signed “Spartacus.”