Cadel, who had been peeling bits of alfalfa off his chicken roll, looked up. He studied Gazo’s expression.
‘They’re fighting,’ he said at last.
‘Oh.’ Gazo slumped. ‘You heard.’
‘No.’ In fact, Cadel had calculated the probabilities. ‘What have you heard?’
‘Only what’s going round the dorms,’ said Gazo. ‘Jem decided she wouldn’t blow her fingers off to match Niobe, even if Ni cut her own cheek for Jem’s sake. So Ni’s mad at her, now. She’s put some kind of poison in Jem’s fingernail polish, because Jem’s going round wiv her fingers all covered in bandaids. Weird, eh?’
Cadel grunted.
‘They’re not nice, them girls.’ Gazo glanced around the refectory, folding his arms. ‘They’re not talking to each uvver, no more.’
Cadel wasn’t surprised. Curiously enough, he wasn’t too pleased, either. Although he had predicted this fight as a likely outcome, it was not one that he approved of. The thought of Jem and Ni slugging it out filled him with a deep sense of discomfort, for some reason.
‘They come and go,’ Gazo added, ‘but they don’t do it togevver. I ain’t seen ’em for a week. I ain’t seen nobody much, except Kunio. Not from our year. What about you?’
‘Not really,’ Cadel replied. In fact, he had seen Abraham only the night before. It had been late – about half past nine – when Cadel had looked up from his computer screen and realised that he would have to get home quickly, or run the risk of alarming the Piggotts. (He didn’t want to do that, in case they had second thoughts about the institute.) Hurriedly he had packed his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and scampered out of Hardware Heaven. He hadn’t expected to find Abraham using the lift.
Chalk-white, his eyes concealed behind an enormous pair of wrap-around sunglasses, Abraham had confessed that he preferred to work at night. He had even considered living in the dormitories so that he wouldn’t have to brave the sunlight when classes began again.
‘At least I’d be able to stay indoors,’ he’d said. ‘Out of the sunlight, you know? I hate sunlight.’
He had given Cadel a ride home in a little bomb of a Ford Cortina that smelled of chemicals and mouldy carpet. During the trip, he had talked non-stop about the dwindling sum in his bank account, the ghastly people he shared his house with, and the way his family kept sticking their noses into his business.
‘They think I’m insane,’ he’d lamented. ‘They actually think I’m insane, when they wouldn’t know one end of a chromosome from the other! It’s ridiculous.’
Cadel had looked out the window, clutching his backpack against his chest. The street lights had flowed past. He had seen into people’s houses, catching glimpses of families laying tables and watching television. These glowing images always made him feel sad – he didn’t know why.
‘Why do you want to create vampires?’ he’d suddenly asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Abraham had sounded astonished. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
Cadel had struggled to phrase his next question without causing offence. ‘The thing is – I can’t quite see the point, really. Perhaps you could explain.’
A long pause had followed. At last Abraham had said, in withering accents: ‘Well if you don’t know the answer to that already, Cadel, it makes me wonder what you’re doing at the institute.’
This remark had lingered in Cadel’s head. He had pondered it that evening, and again the next morning. Abraham was a little bit mad, of course, but was he also a little bit right? Was Cadel missing something really, really obvious? Were his occasional doubts shared by other students? Was the institute really his natural habitat?
Certainly Gazo wasn’t entirely comfortable there. He didn’t like the Yarramundi campus, or the way he would sometimes hear animals squealing at night. He complained about the students who set fire to litter bins and stuck razor blades into library books. He had even been forced to put rat traps in his dresser because of all the theft happening in the dorms.
But Gazo was an idiot. Surely, for that reason, his opinions didn’t matter?
‘I know Doris is visiting her granny,’ Gazo was saying, as the refectory slowly emptied. ‘She’s lucky she’s got one. I can’t even get a job, wiv my suit on. It gets a bit boring.’
‘You should study,’ Cadel remarked, through a mouthful of chicken.
‘I do study,’ Gazo sighed. ‘I study a lot. But I can’t do it all the time. Not like you. Hey, what are you doing upstairs? Are you hacking into the CIA’s computer system – stuff like that?’
‘No,’ Cadel replied. In fact, he had recently decided that someone was hacking into his system. It hardly seemed possible that anything should have breached his firewalls, but he had started to notice one or two flickers of activity that worried him. They were very subtle, but they were unmistakably there.
His solution had been to build a special program, full of locks and traps, to lure the invader into an exposed position. This had worked, but only up to a point. The questing tentacles of code had, more than once, appeared in his system; but when he’d tried to trace them back to their source they had broken up, dissolving into a meaningless soup. It was intensely frustrating. He did, however, have an idea for a virus that might stop the rot. If it was to bond with the invading code and prevent it from self-destructing, then perhaps he’d have a chance. But he would have to construct the virus on another system. A discrete system. Otherwise the mysterious hacker would know what he was up to . . .
‘Oh!’ Gazo suddenly exclaimed. ‘Hello, Maestro.’
Cadel jumped. He hadn’t noticed Max’s approach, despite the fact that the Maestro’s bodyguards now numbered three. It was odd to see Max in the refectory. Normally, he didn’t join his colleagues for lunch.
‘Cadel,’ he said, surveying the two students from beneath weary eyelids. ‘What are you doing here?’
In response, Cadel lifted the remains of his chicken roll.
‘You working? Studying?’ Max wanted to know, and Cadel nodded. ‘Where?’
‘Computer room.’
‘Private project, is it?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Vee can’t be around much.’
Cadel shook his head. Gazo, who obviously couldn’t bear to be left out, added: ‘Cadel’s here all the time. He loves working here. Even in the holidays.’
‘Zat so?’ Max studied Cadel’s face, as if searching for something. Cadel kept his expression bland, though he was secretly annoyed. Why shouldn’t he be working upstairs? What was Max’s problem?
‘Heard you talking about your old man,’ Max continued, removing a cigar from his pocket and lighting up. There were no non-smoking areas at the institute. ‘Speak to ’im much?’
‘Sometimes,’ Cadel rejoined, cagily.
‘Keeping an eye on you, is he?’
‘Yes.’
Max nodded. Puffing at his cigar, he stared at Cadel for a moment longer. Then he jerked his head at his bodyguards, and they all went to buy cappuccinos – all four of them.
Cadel headed in the opposite direction, making his way to the door.
‘Hey, Cadel.’ Gazo had followed him. ‘You didn’t finish your roll.’
‘I wasn’t hungry.’
‘They’re a bit scary, aren’t they? Them blokes.’ Gazo glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Do you fink they’re in the mafia? Abraham says they are.’
‘Gazo.’ Cadel stopped and turned. ‘Don’t you have anything else to do?’
Gazo faltered. His whole body slumped.
‘Not really,’ he mumbled. ‘I told you.’
‘Well, I have. I’m working. Why don’t you go and – I don’t know – watch TV? Go for a run?’
‘I can’t. Not in this. I can only run at night, when no one’s around.’
‘Well, go and write to my dad, then,’ Cadel suggested. ‘Tell him how you’re doing.’
Gazo’s face brightened behind its plastic shield.
‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘Yo
u fink I should?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good,’ said Cadel, moving away. But Gazo’s voice pursued him.
‘I dunno his address! Cadel!’
‘Just give me the letter,’ Cadel called back. ‘I’ll pass it on.’
‘Will you? Oh, great! You’re a mate, Cadel, fanks a lot!’
Cadel went straight home to work on his virus. He worked away until two o’clock in the morning, undisturbed by the Piggotts. (Stuart was in New York at the time, and Lanna was in bed with a migraine.) The next day he also spent at home, working feverishly. The day after that he worked until three o’clock in the afternoon, before packing his bag and hurrying off to the institute. He couldn’t wait another night. He wanted to test out his new program immediately.
When he arrived at Hardware Heaven, he found an envelope sitting on his keyboard. It was addressed to him. Inside were Gazo’s letter to Dr Darkkon, and a covering note for Cadel.
Deer Cadel, it said. This is my leter for your dad. I hope you get it. I hope your not sick. I dont know were you live or I coud visit you. I have to tell you importent news. Your freind Gazo.
Cadel shook his head over this message. He wondered what the important news was. Something to do with theft in the dorms, no doubt. Cadel tucked the letters into his pocket and glanced over at Com. Com was always in Hardware Heaven, tapping away at his keyboard like a robot. He was more like a computer than a person; he never displayed the slightest interest in what anyone else was doing. That was why Cadel tended to ignore him.
Sark wasn’t around; nor was Dr Vee. Cadel had the room pretty much to himself and quickly took advantage of the fact. He set about tracing the source of the mysterious probes that were infiltrating his programs.
By eight o’clock that night, he had succeeded.
The culprit was Dr Vee.
He wasn’t entirely surprised. Infiltration, after all, was Dr Vee’s subject. What did surprise Cadel was the nature of the probe that Dr Vee had created. To all intents and purposes, it was the super-hacker program that Sark was attempting to design. Automatically, on a regular basis, it would do sweeps of the entire internal institute network, collecting huge amounts of information by keeping one step ahead of dynamic passwords. Using his own virus, Cadel was able to ride ‘piggy-back’ on Dr Vee’s probe as it wormed its way into countless files belonging to Luther Lasco, Maestro Max, Tracey Lane, Dr Deal. He found Carla’s various toxin recipes. He found a heated email exchange between Adolf and Luther – something about security codes. He discovered an invitation from Tracey Lane to Dr Deal: Meet me at Antonelli’s, 10:45. The private business of the institute’s entire faculty was laid bare – except in the case of Thaddeus Roth. Thaddeus didn’t have much of a presence on the network.
‘Well, well, well,’ Cadel murmured. His voice seemed very loud in the silence, but Com didn’t even twitch an ear.
Then Cadel’s mobile rang.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Mrs Piggott demanded, as soon as Cadel had uttered his name. ‘Do you realise what time it is?’
‘Uh . . .’ Cadel checked his watch. ‘Ten-thirty?’
‘Where are you?’
‘At the institute. I told you. I had to do something –’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes,’ Cadel replied. He didn’t feel the need to explain that he had eaten only an old packet of pretzels that he had found in the bottom of his backpack.
‘Well, I want you to come home, please. At once. You can call a cab, and I’ll pay for it when you get home.’
‘Okay, but –’
‘NOW, Cadel!’
There was no point arguing. It was very late. With a sigh, Cadel abandoned his detective work and packed up. He didn’t bother saying goodnight to Com. He simply headed for the lifts, and caught one down to the ground floor.
When its steel doors parted in front of him, he was surprised to see a black-clad figure waiting by the ‘up’ button. The figure was wearing a black turtleneck jumper, black pants, a black vest, black gloves and a black balaclava. All the same, Cadel could tell it was one of the twins. They both had very distinctive eyes – and bosoms.
‘Niobe?’ he said. (Or was it Jemima?)
She brushed past him without a word. Was she unable to hear him, perhaps? Because of the balaclava? Cadel didn’t like the look of that padded vest. It was covered with bulging pockets – the kind of pockets you could hide things in. Flick knives. Hand grenades. Things like that.
Of course, she wouldn’t have been able to get a hand grenade past the security scanners; but still, there were other things you could use to create a big bang. Cadel knew that perfectly well.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. The doors, however, were already closing. Cadel’s view was blocked. His gaze shifted to the indicator panel above his head, where the lift’s destination would be displayed as a glowing yellow number.
First floor. Was she heading for the dormitories?
Cadel wondered if he should mention this sighting to anyone. In other parts of the world, you always notified the authorities if you saw someone wearing a black balaclava. At the institute, however, it wasn’t that out of the ordinary. Many people wore balaclavas and bullet-proof vests as fashion statements. Niobe wasn’t necessarily on her way to blow her twin’s head off.
With a sigh, Cadel decided that he’d better do something. Just in case. Once he had left the building, and before he called a cab, he would contact the emergency number supplied to each Axis student for occasions just like this. He would leave the building first, though. No use standing around like a moron, waiting to be blown up.
Though Cadel had not studied Explosives, he knew enough to get well out of the way when there were people in black balaclavas around.
TWENTY-ONE
‘A most unfortunate incident,’ Thaddeus remarked the following afternoon. ‘Difficult to handle, in all kinds of ways.’
Cadel said nothing. The news wasn’t good. Apparently, Niobe had been skulking around the campus in a black balaclava for a very good reason. She had been attempting to track down her twin, who had in turn been trying to steal some kind of deadly toxin from the microbiology labs.
Both had been caught – but not before Niobe had smashed a computer monitor over Jemima’s head, fracturing her skull.
‘Arrangements had to be made,’ Thaddeus confessed. ‘Jemima couldn’t be found on the premises in that condition.’
‘Is she – is she all right?’ asked Cadel, who had taken a seat on Thaddeus’s maroon couch.
‘Not at all. She’s in a coma.’
‘Oh.’
‘Her sister has disappeared,’ Thaddeus continued. ‘It’s very worrying. Luther’s trying to track her down.’
Staring out the window, Cadel said flatly: ‘Will she be all right?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so.’ As Cadel turned to look at him, Thaddeus lifted an eyebrow. ‘Think about it, Cadel. She’s effectively killed her other half. That’s going to cripple her, psychologically.’
‘No, I mean – will she be all right? You know. If Luther finds her.’ Cadel’s urgent gaze had a curious effect on Thaddeus. For the first time ever, Cadel saw him glance sideways, as if trying to avoid Cadel’s regard. He even scratched his nose.
‘I believe we can trust Luther to do the right thing,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’ve left the matter to him. He’ll weigh the risks, and make a sound decision. He’s not one to resort to drastic measures unless it’s absolutely necessary. Remember, we have something to pin on Niobe now, if we choose. It’s good leverage.’
Cadel swallowed.
‘The twins,’ Thaddeus added, ‘were my mistake. They were far more psychologically fragile than I anticipated. I’m afraid the blame rests squarely with me.’ His bright black eyes were like nail-guns, pinning Cadel to his seat. ‘I can only hope this hasn’t caused you to lose faith in my judgement.’
‘No,’ Cadel replied.
‘They were particular friends of yours? The twins? I wasn’t aware of it.’
‘No. They weren’t.’
Nevertheless, Cadel was troubled by their fate. Though he didn’t want to think about it, unfortunate images kept popping into his mind. And when the new semester began a few days later, he found that he couldn’t avoid talking about Gemini. Gazo, for one, kept worrying away at the subject like a child picking at a scab.
‘They musta gone mad,’ he said gloomily. ‘I dunno why. Can you go mad, handling poisons?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Cadel muttered. They were standing by the door of Lecture Room One, waiting for Alias. They had never seen Alias before, but knew that he was supposed to be teaching them the art of disguise. Luther’s Case Studies lectures were now finished; Alias would be taking over his timeslots.
Cadel wished that Alias would arrive, and put a stop to all this discussion about the twins.
‘Doris,’ said Gazo, ‘could you give yourself brain damage, mucking around wiv poisons?’
Doris smirked. ‘Those two already had brain damage,’ she retorted, adding: ‘Three down, five to go.’ Cadel didn’t like the way she said this. It was almost as if she was taking credit for what had happened.
‘I saw Ni, that night,’ Abraham suddenly remarked. His voice was hoarse, and he was a dreadful colour. Furthermore, his hair seemed to be falling out. Cadel could see white patches of scalp all over his head, showing through the thick, black curls. ‘She was sneaking around like a cat. At first I thought she was – well, somebody else.’ Abraham paused for a moment. ‘You get a few people sneaking around in the labs at night.’
‘Like who?’ Gazo wanted to know. But Abraham simply made an impatient gesture. He had become very moody, Cadel thought. Even Terry had noted it in one of the daily computer reports that Cadel had logged into: ‘Subject demonstrating abrupt mood swings, hair loss, vision impairment, nausea.’
Whenever Cadel penetrated Terry’s firewall, he did so reluctantly, with a sense of distaste. If he hadn’t felt the need to build up a thorough database on the institute’s faculty members, he wouldn’t have bothered delving into Terry’s secrets. They were all pretty revolting, and Cadel had a weak stomach.