While most of the students’ injuries were the result of class work or practical jokes, or occasionally accidents, Abraham’s were self-inflicted. Cadel knew this because Abraham would actually talk to him. Abraham loved to talk about his work, when he was physically capable of it, and Cadel was the only other student who impressed him as being clever enough to understand. So Cadel heard all about the microbiology labs, and Terry’s experiments with gene-splicing, and how every few nights a whiskered figure in a baseball cap and blue overalls would quietly deliver to the seminary a load of stray cats and dogs for experimental purposes.
‘I spend a lot of nights up there,’ Abraham once confessed. His eyes were ringed by dark bruises, and his voice was like the rasp of a crosscut saw. ‘It’s a great set-up. The atmosphere’s perfect. I’d feel right at home, if I was a vampire.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Cadel, politely. ‘And what are you actually working on, so late into the night?’
‘Oh, I’m looking at various blood disorders,’ Abraham replied. ‘Genetic blood disorders can be mimicked, you know. Either chemically or with radiation treatment. And it wouldn’t be impossible to rewrite DNA sequences, not with the right kind of nanotechnology. You see, I’m really trying to create a new blood disorder.’ His tone became eager. He and Cadel had arrived early at their Law class, and by now he was leaning over Cadel, who was pressed up against a wall. ‘With vampirism, you have what is essentially a metabolic problem and an allergic
reaction. The allergic reaction is a skin condition similar to that experienced by a lot of albinos. The metabolic problem is related to haemoglobin levels, and to digestive acids. All you have to do is identify the right combination of factors, and then reproduce them genetically –’
‘You’re not trying to reproduce them on yourself, are you?’ Cadel interrupted. It had suddenly occurred to him that Abraham was looking more and more like a vampire every day. ‘You’ve got very pale, did you know that? You don’t seem well.’
Abraham stiffened.
‘It’s a legitimate method,’ he rejoined. ‘Many great medical researchers have infected themselves.’
‘Yes, but haven’t they usually died in the process?’ It alarmed Cadel that Abraham was willing to turn himself into a vampire. Abraham had always struck him as a fairly intelligent bloke, and if a fairly intelligent bloke was capable of doing something so stupid – well, it confirmed all Dr Darkkon’s opinions about the state of the world. ‘I mean, isn’t there some other way? Can’t you try it out on rats first?’
‘Human cells are different from rat cells.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘You never heard of a vampire rat, did you?’
‘No, I –’
‘It’s like Professor Roth said – no pain, no gain. That’s what Axis is all about, surely you understand?’
Seeing the fanatical gleam in Abraham’s eye, Cadel gave up. There was no point arguing. Abraham might be intelligent, but he was also obsessed. Very soon, Cadel was sure, he would be seen flitting around the institute’s dormitories wearing a black cape and fake plastic fangs. Not that he would have looked out of place. On the contrary: at least two-thirds of the student body would have alarmed any security guard at a normal institution. There was one young man who seemed to have melted half his face off; one who scuttled from shadow to shadow like a crab; one who wore infra-red goggles permanently clamped across his eyes; one who never removed his latex surgeon’s gloves. There was a girl who ran everywhere, mouth open, lungs heaving, eyes bolting from her head, as if she were fleeing from a monster. There was a cowled figure in a monk’s robe whose hands were always concealed in his or her sleeves, and who never lifted his or her head to reveal a flash of expression. There was a hairy youth who walked around swinging a length of pipe, and another whose shoes were fitted with long, steely spikes on their toes.
Among these people, a vampire wouldn’t have attracted much attention. Nevertheless, Cadel resolved to stay out of Abraham’s way. This was more easily said than done because Abraham, like Gazo, would hunt Cadel down. Cadel was easy to talk to. There was nothing threatening about him. Thanks to his father’s influence, he was safe from random attacks, and could afford to be pleasant. At Crampton College, he had picked up a lot of interesting information by fading into the background and offering no kind of challenge. At the Axis Institute, people would confide in him because he looked harmless.
He didn’t make much noise, or take up much space. He wasn’t enrolled in any of the more dangerous subjects. He was small, with a sweet smile and a disarming gaze. He seemed so insignificant that people underestimated him.
They didn’t realise that, almost through force of habit, he was collecting information to feed into a special database.
They didn’t realise that he was well on the way to designing his behavioural prediction program.
NINETEEN
‘I’m wondering if you’re trying to start this from the wrong end,’ the Virus remarked on one occasion, after he had spent several minutes watching the computations unroll on Cadel’s screen. ‘You’re starting with populations and moving in. Why don’t you start with the human brain and move out?’
Cadel sighed. ‘In other words, why don’t I create a precise neurobiological map of the human brain?’ he said.
‘It can be replicated. Theoretically. You know that.’
‘Oh, right – theoretically.’ Cadel pointed out that the number of neurons in the human brain, 1011, was comparable to the number of galaxies in the observable universe. ‘It would be a bit of a challenge, don’t you think?’
The Virus shrugged. ‘We have a supercomputer.’
‘Yeah, but does it really have the capacity?’
‘It can calculate up to eight billion digits of pi.’
‘So? You’re still talking about ten thousand post-synaptic potentials for each neuron. Every two milliseconds. It’s big numbers, Vee. Especially when you’re talking about probabilities.’
‘Oh, big numbers.’ The Virus waved his hand. ‘What’s so scary about big numbers?’
Kay-Lee agreed. If Georg Cantor wasn’t afraid of big numbers, why should you be?’ she teased Cadel. ‘We’ve been talking about the number of infinite numbers, and you’re worried about 10,000 ×1011? Get a grip on yourself ! Of course, she didn’t know the true reason behind Eiran Dempster’s sudden fretfulness about big numbers. Cadel hadn’t mentioned neurobiological maps; he had simply been unburdening himself as much as he possibly could, without arousing her suspicions. She came up with the idea that he was suffering from a peculiar form of mathematical vertigo. I get it sometimes myself, she assured him. You hit the infinite, and you get dizzy. The best thing for it is to go outside and sit in the sun. Though I don’t suppose you have much sun in Toronto.
With the Virus on one side, keeping him on his toes, and Kay-Lee on the other, soothing his over-heated brain, Cadel felt that he was finally realising his true potential. It was stimulating, enriching, and surprising. He became utterly immersed in theory, to the point where he sometimes forgot to eat. The Piggotts often heard him singing as he got dressed in the morning.
The trouble was that, while his Infiltration and Forgery classes were making him very happy, other aspects of the institute weren’t quite so pleasant.
Cadel was growing used to the odd explosion on campus, and the sudden sprays of water or gas that always followed. He was growing used to the strange cries that occasionally reached his ears, faint and muffled, as he waited for a lift or crossed the front lawn. He didn’t worry much when his classes were invaded by teams of Grunts with sniffer dogs or electronic field detectors. While at first he was surprised to see an unexplained hole punched in a wall, or a dead dog on the grass, he soon began to take such things in his stride. He just tried to ignore them and concentrate on his studies.
Then Clive Slaughter combusted – and Cadel began to experience a faint sense of unease.
The accident took place at Yarramundi, so
Cadel never saw any evidence of it. He simply heard about it the next day, from Gazo Kovacs. Gazo had taken to joining Cadel for lunch whenever possible; though Gazo himself couldn’t eat in a public place like the refectory, he would sit and watch Cadel consume the institute’s soggy fare.
‘Poor Bludgeon,’ said Gazo. ‘He was a real mess. He only half-combusted.’
Cadel grimaced. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he complained. ‘I’m eating.’
‘The Fuhrer made us look,’ Gazo went on glumly. ‘He said we’d afta get used to it. I dunno why. I ain’t gunna be killing nobody.’
‘What did they do with the corpse?’ asked Cadel. ‘What about his parents? They must be kicking up a stink.’
‘They staged a car crash. The petrol tank exploded. It musta looked like a accident.’
Cadel grunted. Though he hadn’t much liked Clive Slaughter, he felt queasy at the thought of what Clive must have gone through. So when Thaddeus organised a memorial service at the institute, Cadel attended, even though he realised that the event was designed solely to placate Clive’s parents. No one else had ever been given a memorial service at the institute because no one else had ever had family who were interested enough to appreciate one. Most of the Axis students either hated their relatives or were alone in the world, like Gazo.
Gazo himself joined Cadel at the service, which took place outdoors. A plaque, engraved with Clive’s name, was embedded in one of the seminary walls, and a little bush was planted underneath it. Gazo was impressed.
‘I’d like me name put up, when I die,’ he confided to Cadel. ‘Somefink nice like that.’
For a week or so, Cadel noticed Clive’s absence. There was a sense of something missing whenever he walked into his Basic Lying or Forgery classes. Then, just as Cadel was growing used to the idea that Clive’s space would never again be filled, something happened to Jemima.
One morning, she and her sister arrived late for their Case Studies lesson. This wasn’t unusual. The twins were often late, and would creep in giggling, trying not to make any noise. This time, however, they banged the door open and marched in, heads held high. Jemima, Cadel noticed, was sporting a thick gauze bandage on one cheek.
Luther Lasco, who had been speaking, paused while they crossed the room.
‘Ah,’ he said, when they had planted themselves defiantly in the front row, ‘now here’s a good illustration of what I’ve been talking about. You try to cheat, you pay for it. Isn’t that right, Jemima?’
Jem stared at him stonily, refusing to comment. She and her sister barely moved for the next half hour. At last, when the class was dismissed, Cadel approached her in the corridor outside Lecture Room One.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Did Dr Lasco do that?’
‘None of your business!’ snapped Jemima. Niobe took her arm and led her away protectively. Behind Cadel, Doris snorted.
‘That’ll teach her,’ Doris said.
Cadel generally tried to avoid talking with Doris. But Abraham was quick to seek an explanation.
‘Do you know what happened?’ he inquired. ‘Was it Dr Lasco?’
‘Sure was,’ said Doris. ‘He cut her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she was cheating.’ Doris’s tone was placid. ‘I knew she was. She’s such a fool.’
‘Cheating in her poisoning class?’
‘That’s right,’ said Doris, and shrugged. ‘She was warned.’
‘Still . . .’ Abraham sounded hesitant. At last he walked away. Seeing the little smirk on Doris’s face, Cadel also withdrew, thinking hard.
This injury, he decided, would have an excitatory potential. Some kind of action would almost certainly result, though the variables would be hard to calculate. He just didn’t know enough about Gemini to plot a decent causation tree.
‘Oi, Cadel!’ Gazo was lumbering along, trying to catch up with him. ‘What do you fink? Bit scary.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Poor Jem. I feel sorry for her, even if she can be a bitch. Where are you going?’
‘To Hardware Heaven.’
‘Oh.’ Gazo stopped. The Virus wouldn’t let him into Hardware Heaven. ‘Well, I s’pose I’ll see you later? At lunch?’
Cadel didn’t reply. His head was too full of calculations. He made straight for his computer and spent the rest of the day wrestling with probability factors and external inputs. That evening, he couldn’t help himself: he asked Kay-Lee if she thought it was possible to turn emotions into equations. Perhaps, she replied doubtfully, if they were a form of chemical equation. But chemistry, she added, wasn’t her strong suit.
The next morning, when the twins turned up to their Forgery class, both were sporting identical bandages on their right cheeks.
‘We’re twins,’ said Ni, when asked what had happened, and everyone was dumbfounded. Ni’s message was clear. She had cut her own cheek so that, once again, it was almost impossible to distinguish her from her sister.
Even Doris was impressed.
‘Talk about blood is thicker than water,’ she murmured. ‘Where would they stop?’
Cadel wondered the same thing. And he was sure that he could work it out, given enough information – especially since Niobe’s sacrifice had hugely reduced the range of possibilities. In the two remaining weeks of the first semester he struggled with his undeveloped program, lost in a mire of complicated mathematical and chemical equations. He also hovered around the twins as much as he could, trying to glean little nuggets of precious data. He had read their files, of course – Thaddeus had given those to him without a single protest – but the files weren’t complete. He needed to know all kinds of things about Jem and Ni, like their comparative degrees of competitiveness, the composition of their combined self-image, what they liked to do in their spare time . . .
It didn’t take him long to realise that their habits had suddenly changed. Though he had never before encountered them in the library, they now spent hours there, whispering together in the stacks. No longer did they giggle and flirt, and expose their tummies in skimpy little tops. Now they dressed in leather and camouflage colours. Now they were wary of everything and everyone, including Cadel. Even he found it hard to monitor them because they would edge away when he drew near.
Nevertheless, he didn’t need round-the-clock video surveillance or even a predictive computer program to tell him what they were up to.
‘I think they’re going to plant a bomb,’ Cadel told Thaddeus. ‘I think they’re mad at Dr Lasco, and they want to blow him up.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Thaddeus said dismissively. He was busy preparing for a transmission from Dr Darkkon, tuning frequencies and plugging in cables. ‘Half the time, I feel like blowing Luther up myself.’
‘Oh. Right. Well . . .’ Cadel didn’t know how to continue. ‘I thought I’d better tell you, anyway.’
‘Thank you, Cadel, but you needn’t worry.’ Thaddeus flashed him a smile. ‘The whole institute is wired for sound – and pictures. Besides, Luther Lasco can look after himself. And I can’t say I’d put much faith in those dizzy blonde extroverts. Pass me the pliers, would you?’
As it turned out, Thaddeus’s lack of confidence in the twins’ abilities was justified.
Just three days before the Easter vacation, Niobe blew two of her fingers off in a failed attempt to booby-trap Luther Lasco’s car.
TWENTY
Cadel hadn’t been looking forward to the holidays. He didn’t have any friends to spend them with, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with himself, away from the institute. When he discovered that Sark and Com and the other Infiltration students kept wandering into Hardware Heaven as if nothing had changed, he decided to follow their example. If they could spend their entire vacation tapping away at a computer keyboard, so could he.
The Virus wasn’t around much, but that didn’t matter: Cadel preferred to work on his own. If he was ever stumped by a particular equation, he could always ask Kay-Lee for help – an
d he frequently did. Sometimes, when he needed a break, he would work on his Partner Post correspondence. By now he was growing bored with Partner Post, and he wasn’t devoting nearly as much time and effort to his emails. As a result, clients were beginning to drop off his list, disgusted that their perfect partners were forgetting their birthdays, not replying to their letters, and confusing them with other people.
Cadel didn’t mind. He had saved up quite a lot of money, thanks to Partner Post. Much of it had been spent on fancy computer software, and the rest had been used to buy presents for Kay-Lee – until she stopped him.
No more, she’d instructed. This is ridiculous. Anyone would think you were trying to prove something. I know how you feel, Stormer – just relax. I’m not going anywhere.
At lunchtime, Cadel would buy his usual chicken roll or ham and cheese focaccia at the refectory, which remained open during the holidays. Here Gazo would wait for him like a faithful dog. It was clear that Gazo had almost no one else to talk to. Cadel couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Though Gazo lived on campus, surrounded by students who also lived on campus, he was obviously unpopular. People avoided him, despite his protective suit.
‘Them twins,’ Gazo complained one afternoon, ‘they look right through me, like I don’t exist. Why do they afta be so snooty? They only got a “C” on their Law exam.’
‘You mean they’re still around?’ Cadel was surprised. ‘I thought they must have gone away to the beach, or something. I haven’t seen them. What do they do with themselves?’
‘Shoplifting, mostly.’ Gazo leaned across the table, lowering his voice. ‘Did you hear what happened? Wiv them twins?’