So unless it was some bizarre coincidence, not only was someone calling him by his real name, but whoever it was didn't want the FBI to know about it.
Casper sat down and clicked on item #32.
After the usual headers, he read, “Dear Mr. B.: If I'm mistaken about your identity, I apologize, but I assume it's you. If you really are who I think you are-friendly ghost tree-I think you'll be very interested in the attached file, SPXPTA. DOC-it provides the basic working specs for an optimization program that was accidentally run at NeuroTalents’ Philadelphia facility not too long ago, as well as some other relevant information.”
Casper was very interested indeed. “Friendly ghost tree"-he'd heard of Casper the Friendly Ghost when he was a kid, though he'd never seen the movies or any of the old cartoons, and he certainly knew what a beech tree was. There couldn't be much doubt that this R.S. Chi had identified him correctly. He opened the file.
It was gibberish. Casper stared at it for a moment, then realized that it was encrypted-and as was obvious at a glance, it wasn't the standard legal encryption.
That was really interesting.
It was also frustrating. How was he supposed to read it?
He went back to the message to look for clues. The document name was the first thing that caught his eye-what the hell did SPXPTA mean?
Well, he didn't know about all of it, but PXP was an illegal encryption program, Pretty eXtreme Privacy, that had been around for years. People For Change used it sometimes; so did about a million other people. The FBI would occasionally pick a user at random and come down on him, but the volume of traffic was too great for serious policing, especially since most of the messages they caught and decrypted were things like, “Bet we're ticking off the feds with this one!” FBI complaints against such users tended to get thrown out of court-the users were usually the kids of Party members or Consortium executives.
The FBI could break PXP encryption if they had to, but there was too much of it on the nets for them to get all of it, and it would keep the automatic watchdogs from spotting key words and calling the file to a human being's attention.
One of the key words they watched for was PXP, of course-to slow its spread. Nesting it in the name of the file like that might keep it from being spotted.
So the file was encrypted with PXP. Fine. Except now Casper needed the two keys, which would each be a long string of more or less random characters. What strings of characters?
Well, there was the obvious one, the only other thing the mysterious R.S. Chi had sent him. Casper brought up PXP, and listed the first key as: “DearMr. B.: IfI'mmistakenaboutyouridentity, Iapologize, butIassumeit'syou. IfyoureallyarewhoIthinkyouare-friendlyg hosttree-Ithinkyou'llbeveryinterestedintheattachedfile, SPXPTA. DOC-it providesthebasicworkingspecsforanoptimizationprogramthatwasaccidentall yrunatNeuroTalents'Philadelphiafacilitynottoolongago, aswellassomeotherrelevantinformation.”
That was presumably the private key; now he needed the public one. He had an idea how to find that; he googled on newsgroup posts by “R.S. Chi.”
768 articles were listed; he picked one at random and opened it, and sure enough, the signature file at the bottom included a public PXP key. He plugged it in and clicked on “Display.”
The decrypted file immediately began to scroll across the screen in plain English. Casper leaned forward and watched. When it was completed he read it through carefully, then read it again.
When he had finished he sat back in his chair and stared at the screen.
If Casper's guess was right, “R.S. Chi” was really someone named Robert J. Schiano, whose name turned up all through the notes in the file. And this Schiano was proud enough of his handiwork that he'd wanted Casper to see some of it clearly-because Casper Beech was intimately involved in it, whether he liked it or not.
At least, Casper thought, he now had a name for the thing in his head, and a pretty good idea of what it was supposed to do.
The thing in his head was the Spartacus File. And he, Casper Beech, was supposed to be the new Spartacus, the slave who would lead an army of slaves in a rebellion against the oppressive republic that had enslaved them.
Spartacus, the gladiator. Spartacus, the rebel. Spartacus, the great general.
Casper Beech smiled as he thought that over. It wasn't anything he would ever have asked to be, it wasn't anything he had ever imagined becoming, but here it was, thrust upon him whether he wanted it or not.
And he had to admit to himself that he rather liked the idea.
Chapter Seventeen
Rose didn't like her assignment. She didn't like it at all.
Casper wished Colby had asked Tasha or Ed or one of the others to help him instead, but they weren't around or weren't willing, and Rose had been agreeable right up until Casper had explained where he wanted her to go.
Now, though, she wasn't happy.
“When Colby said I should help you out, I thought you just wanted me to, like, put things in the bank, or sign checks, or stuff like that,” Rose said. “Nobody said anything about talking to reporters.”
“You don't have to talk to any reporters,” Casper assured her. “You just drop this disk off at the station, with the note. You don't have to talk to anyone. In fact, the fewer people you talk to there, the better.”
“Well, how do you know they'll put it on the news, then?” she demanded.
Casper just smiled. “Don't worry,” he said. “If they don't we'll try again.”
Rose wasn't crazy about that idea, either, but she didn't want to be unreasonable. She picked up the little pouch with obvious distaste, and left.
Casper and Cecelia watched her go.
“Just what are you trying to accomplish, Casper?” Cecelia asked.
“I'm trying to take over the country,” Casper said, quite sincerely. Cecelia snorted derisively.
“I thought you just wanted to stay alive,” she said.
Casper shrugged. “They programmed me to overthrow the present regime and set up an American-style democratic government-a real one, not the oligarchy we have now. I'm trying to oblige them.”
“You do anything like that, and they will kill you,” Cecelia retorted.
“They're going to kill me anyway, if I let them.”
“They've lost track of you, haven't they? Why can't you just stay underground?”
“Because first off, they're going to keep looking; and second, they programmed me not to. I didn't just get an ordinary imprint, where I can use it or not as I please; I got optimized, and the optimization's got compulsions built into it. I'm compelled to rebel against the present government, and authority in general.”
“Then don't you have to rebel against your programming, too?”
Casper smiled. “I am,” he said. “They programmed me to stage a violent revolution-armies, battles, death and destruction. I'm not going to do it that way, because it won't work here.”
“But you're still trying to take over the country?”
Casper nodded.
“You're nuts.”
“Maybe,” Casper agreed. “Or maybe I'm as sane as anybody. Sure, I'm following the programming from the Spartacus File, but why is that any crazier than following the patchwork programming we all build up from our parents, and our genes, and our schools and friends and jobs?”
“Because it's going to get you killed.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“And what makes you think you can?” she demanded angrily, her hands on her hips. “Casper, you say they've programmed you to be the new Spartacus-has anyone pointed out to you that Spartacus died? The Romans crucified him! He died on a cross on the Appian Way-I looked it up. So are you planning to wind up nailed to a cross somewhere on the Jersey Turnpike?”