The Gladiator

The movie was called The Incredible^. It wasn't like anything A

"More computers," Eduardo said. "This one's ninety years old. It's a classic, sure, but they can do a lot more now."

She wasn't fussy. The Incredibles might seem old-fashioned to him, but it was thousands of kilometers ahead of anything people here were doing. And it was a good movie, no matter how they did it. It was fu

When A

"Well, you're right." A

"That would be fine if they really were," Eduardo said. "The original Battleship Potemkin is-no arguments. But a lot of them are just turkeys from the Propaganda Ministry."

" Turkeys?" A

"No, but you're going to tell me, so that's all right." Eduardo could tease without making it sting. From everything A

"I am going to tell you," she agreed. "All those houses. Rows and rows of houses, with lots of middle-class people- well, middle-class cartoon people-living in them. Even though the movie is animated, it's based on something real, isn't it?"

"Si," Eduardo said. "But it's based on the United States, where they have more room than they do here. And the United States had more room at the start of the twenty-first century than it does now. But Italy was mostly apartments even then- only rich people had houses."

"Rich people." A

Eduardo wasn't impressed. "You ought to have rich people. Rich people aren't what's wrong. Poor people are. Compared to the way people live in the home timeline, everybody here is poor."

"You can say that," A

Instead of reminding her of that, he took a different tack: "You know what you have instead of rich people?"

"What?" she asked suspiciously.

"Apparatchiks," he said.

Apparatchiks weren't all bad. They made the wheels of government turn… when the wheels did turn. Gianfranco's father was an apparatchik, though he would have got mad if you said so. Apparatchiks always thought other people were apparatchiks. What they did themselves was important. If you didn't believe it, you could just ask them.

And Eduardo had hit that nail right on the head. Apparatchiks might not have a lot of money in the bank. But they got the best apartments, the best summer houses, the best cars, and doctors. A

Apparatchiks also got to travel more than ordinary people did. Their children got into good universities whether they deserved to or not. If you quarreled with an apparatchik and you were just somebody ordinary, you were in trouble if he took you to court. They might not have money, no, but they sure had privileges.

"What can we do about that?" A

"Make those people really work for a living," Eduardo answered. "If they don't do anything useful, throw the bums out."

"Easy to say. Not so easy to do," A

She wondered if he would deny that and try to make a counterrevolution sound simple. She gave him credit when he didn't. "Well, you're right," he said. "That's why we were trying to come at it sideways. We thought we could get new ideas in with the games."

"It didn't work," A

"Tell me about it!" Eduardo exclaimed. "We were hoping your government was fatter and lazier than it turned out to be. I'm sure we won't give up, but I'm not sure what we can do right now. I hope like anything I'm not stuck here."

"What about your friends, wherever they are?" she asked.

"If they don't find me, I'll have to try to get hold of them sooner or later," he said. "I hope they didn't have to pull out, too. If they did… If they did, I'm in trouble. Sooner or later, the Security Police will start getting closer to me, too." He smiled a crooked smile. "Isn't life grand?"

He had his wonderful computer. He had the memories of all the things his people could do that no one here knew anything about. And all of that did him not one bit of good. Had anyone in the history of the world-in the history of many worlds-ever been so alone?

Comrade Donofrio gave Gianfranco his report card. The algebra teacher actually smiled when he did. "You've improved, Mazzilli," he said.

"Grazie, Comrade," Gianfranco answered.

He looked at his grade. A B! He hadn't got a B in math since… He couldn't remember the last time he got a B. His grades in his other subjects were up, too. He wouldn't get first honors, but he might get second.

He knew A

And he did. He got a B+ in history to put him over the top. That was another bolt out of the blue. If Rails across Europe hadn't got him interested in the subject, he never could have done it. But the game had, and he did.

He missed The Gladiator. Even with Eduardo next door, he missed the camaraderie and the arguments and the games with different people. He missed having somewhere besides home to go when school let out. He missed the models and the books.

Those books! No wonder you couldn't find them anywhere else! A lot of them came from what Eduardo called the home timeline. Nobody there thought they were subversive. They were just… books. And that, or so it seemed to Gianfranco, was how things were supposed to be.

He even got a B- in literature, though he didn't think he had much of a future as a poet. Italian would just have to go on making do with Dante. Gianfranco Mazzilli had other things on his plate.

First among those other things was taking his report card home and showing it off. He walked back with A

"I know you've got a better one," he said.

"So what?" she answered. "You haven't even been interested till now. It's hard to do good work if you don't care."

"Si," he said, and left it right there. Had he said anything more, he might have started babbling out thanks. A

And what would she do if he said something like that? She wouldn't laugh in his face-she was too nice. But she wouldn't take him seriously, either. He didn't feel like listening to jokes, even from A