Checking the other reports, he saw that the Grunts in the gray car were entering their latest update.
Subject Ir31—en route. In pursuit. Stand by.
Obviously, it was too soon for a destination.
Then Cadel had an idea. He abandoned his computer and picked up Dr. Vee's phone, dialing Luther's number.
You have reached extension 3812,
Luther's recorded voice informed him.
Please leave a message after the tone.
There followed three beeps, signaling three messages.
Could one of them have been left by Terry?
It took Cadel just ten minutes to chase down Luther's messageaccess code. Chasing down these codes was a hobby of his. He had used his skill to good effect when sabotaging the exam efforts of his fellow twelfth-grade students at Crampton. Having identified Luther's code, Cadel listened to the three recorded messages.
Sure enough, the third had been left by Terry.
Luther, where are you? We've got a problem. Someone found out about our project. He's not in the picture now, but there might be others. Call me.
Click.
Cadel, who had been holding his breath, released it in a great sigh.
Thank god,
he thought. But how to copy it, from this distance? Before it was erased? Through a modem, onto a disk drive?
Though it was a complicated little piece of engineering, it wasn't beyond him. The trouble was, it would have to be done on his own computer, after which every trace of the operation would have to be utterly erased. He couldn't risk using Sark's computer. He wouldn't have time. It was only fifteen minutes until the scheduled start of his next session with Dr. Vee, and someone might walk in at any moment.
Fortunately, there was a stack of blank compact discs in the stationery cupboard, available to everyone who spent time in Hardware Heaven. You simply had to open the cupboard door with your personal access code. Cadel, of course, didn't use his own; he used Sark's. Then he sat down and copied Terry's message to the disk he'd chosen.
He was just finishing up when Sark slouched into the room, looking disgruntled.
"Where's Com?" Cadel asked, and received a shrug in reply. "Is he sick?"
"How should I know?"
"Where were you? Where is everyone?"
"What are you, my mother?" Sark flung himself into his chair and turned on his machine.
Cadel held his breath. He had done his best to wipe out all traces of recent activity, but things like a warm monitor were impossible to disguise.
"For Chris'sake," Sark spluttered.
"What?" said Cadel, his heart contracting.
"This bloody DN server hasn't crashed! I must have missed one of the goddamn machines, goddammit!"
Cadel breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Then Dr. Vee waddled through the door and announced that it was time to "extrapolate, gentlemen."
For the time being, Cadel knew, he would have to abandon his spy work.
From his infiltration class, Cadel went straight to Dr. Deal's, where he informed Gazo that Abraham was dead. (Gazo didn't say much. What, after all, was there to say?) They parted at five, after collecting their buff-colored envelopes. Gazo wandered off to the dormitories in his increasingly hapless way, while Cadel jumped into a cab. His usual session with Thaddeus was scheduled for half-past five. It wouldn't do to run late. He had to appear as keen as he always had been, despite his true feelings.
When he arrived at the psychologist's office, he was allowed to go straight up. Thaddeus was waiting at his desk, reading a newspaper.
"Ah, Cadel," he said. "You're here. I take it this means you're feeling better?"
Cadel nodded.
"No more nausea? No headaches?"
"No."
"So it must have been some kind of twenty-four-hour bug, then?"
"I guess."
"Good, good." Thaddeus rose and stretched. The way he did this made Cadel think of a panther. "I suppose you wouldn't have been running around so much if you hadn't been feeling better," Thaddeus added, with a glint in his eye. Cadel met the challenge head-on.
"Oh, you mean the hospital and that," he said.
"The hospital. Your old school. Number sixteen Waterloo Street..."
"I had to go see Abraham," Cadel insisted, allowing a touch of impatience to enter his voice. "He asked me to go and pick up his stuff. Said I was the only one he trusted."
"Ah. Yes. Abraham. What a pity."
"And now I've got his stuff, and I don't know what to do with it." Cadel grimaced. (
Don't overact,
he thought.
Keep it natural.
) "Underpants and things."
"Underpants? Dear me."
"What should I do with it?" Cadel gazed up at Thaddeus in a guileless fashion. "Should I take it back to his house, or what?"
"My dear boy," Thaddeus replied, his expression unreadable. "Why should you feel it necessary to ask?"
Cadel blinked.
"You mean—"
"I mean that if there's any reason not to throw it in the nearest trash can, I should like to hear what that reason might be." In the pause that followed, Cadel flushed. Thaddeus seemed to register this. "It amazes me that you went to visit that pathetic creature in the first place," he continued. "Were you hoping to gain anything from it? Anything specific?"
"I—I don't know." Cadel thought back. Why
had
he been moved to answer Abraham's summons? Because Gazo had asked him to? Because he was searching for a way out? Because it seemed like the
right thing to do?
None of these reasons, he knew perfectly well, would be acceptable to Thaddeus. "I suppose I thought it might be interesting," he said. "In case he had something useful to say."
"And did he?"
"Not really," Cadel lied.
"So it was a complete waste of time."
Cadel scratched his arm.
"Instilling loyalty is all very well, Cadel," Thaddeus went on, propping himself against the desk, "but only if the subject is worth the effort. I have to tell you, your father is not pleased. Abraham should never have called that ambulance. He should never have gone to the hospital. Now there's talk of bringing the coroner in, and
you,
Cadel, have been identified as Abraham's friend. You gave your name to the medical staff. How could you have been so stupid?"
Cadel swallowed.
"Perhaps you're still not quite well," Thaddeus suggested slowly, his gaze locked on Cadel's face. "You seem to be behaving in a very heedless manner—one might almost say an
impulsive
manner. That isn't like you."
"Sorry," Cadel murmured, and Thaddeus shrugged.
"It's done now," Thaddeus said. "We must simply make sure that you don't become further involved in Abraham's mess. You say you collected some of his possessions?"
"Oh, yes. Right here. His address book and his bathrobe—"
"Give them to me. I'll have someone return them. I don't want you approaching that house, or that hospital, again."
Obediently, Cadel surrendered everything in his backpack that had belonged to Abraham. He did so without disturbing the precious computer disk concealed in one of its pockets.
In a way, he was glad that he had blundered around and upset his father. If Thaddeus and Dr. Darkkon were fretting about his public involvement in Abraham's death, they were less likely to be interested in other aspects of Cadel's recent conduct.
"God help us," Thaddeus remarked, as he gingerly plucked the crumpled robe and grayish underpants from Cadel's grasp. Screwing up his nose, he transferred them to one of his in-boxes. "What on earth possessed you, Cadel? You could have
caught
something, lugging these things around." With a shudder, he carried the in-box to a remote corner of the room. "By the way," he said, "there's a transmission scheduled in three minutes. You'll have to face the music, I'm afraid—your father's not at all happy." Seeing Cadel's expression, Thaddeus suddenly smiled. "Don't look like that, dear boy, he's not going to eat you. Just sit tight and take it like a man. Everything he says will be for your own good—you can't go galumphing around the world like an ordi nary person, dropping your name here, there, and everywhere. It's not the sort of mistake you should be making at your age."
Cadel stared at the floor. He had been overwhelmed by a sudden, fierce rush of hatred, and was doing his best to hide it. His eyelids drooped. He pressed his lips together.
When Dr. Darkkon finally addressed him, from a jail cell thousands of miles away, Cadel was able to absorb each harsh word impassively. Dr. Darkkon was disappointed. More than that—he was disgusted. What had Cadel been thinking of? Not much, by the look of it. There were two categories of people in the world: enemies and tools. Abraham hadn't even had the makings of a useful tool. And yet Cadel had missed half of the Maestro's class, just for the purpose of picking up that wretched maniac's old clothes! Like a valet!
"That isn't what you're here for, son," Dr. Darkkon growled. "Do something like that and your only reward will be a whole mess of trouble. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"It's
you
I'm worried about, Cadel. I don't want to see you cast adrift again, lost in a world of morons. It could happen, if they find out who you are. What you're capable of. They might put you in a reform school—a juvenile detention center. With all the little drug addicts and antisocial personalities. Isn't that right, Thaddeus?"
Thaddeus inclined his head. Cadel said nothing. He was so filled with cold disdain that he couldn't risk uttering a word. Having recognized this cascade of lies for exactly what it was—an exercise in manipulation—he was finding it hard to control the rush of color to his cheeks. He could only pray that Thaddeus, if he saw it, would identify this color as a blush of shame.
"Some people are just a waste of space," Dr. Darkkon was saying. "On a microbiological level, they'd be viruses. Parasites. They can't support themselves, so they feed off the time and energy of those who should be focusing on more important and worthwhile things. They want this, they want that, yet they're inherently useless. More useless than a paralyzed athlete."
Cadel suddenly thought of Sonja, in her wheelchair. The image was so strong that tears rose in his eyes.
Thaddeus saw them and leaned forward to press Cadel's shoulder.
"You won't make the same mistake again, will you, Cadel?" he said, before addressing Dr. Darkkon. "He's not been well, remember. He's not been himself."
You can say that again,
Cadel thought. But he remained silent, folding up his mouth and fixing his wet, stricken gaze on the transmission screen.
As always, this trick was effective. Dr. Darkkon couldn't help softening.
"Well, we'll drop the subject now," he said, with an indulgent grin. "Dammit, boy, I wish I had your face. I wouldn't be in here if I did. Just one word of advice, though. Don't think a hangdog look is always going to solve any problems you might have got yourself in. Because it won't. And remember—just because you
look
friendly doesn't mean you have to
be
friendly. Understand?"
"Oh yes," said Cadel.
He thought,
I understand, all right. You just watch me.
That evening, Cadel decided to listen to some music.
Long ago, Mrs. Piggott had given him his own stereo system, which was kept in his bedroom. "I don't want you hogging ours all the time," she had said. In fact, Cadel only used this system about once a week, because he wasn't a music addict. He didn't follow the pop charts, or borrow the Piggotts' CDs, or record late-night music programs. Unlike most other kids, his preference was for complex vocal harmonies or pieces played by large orchestras (which were systems of an unusual kind). As a result, his small collection of CDs was dominated by classical and choral music, though it included the odd flamenco guitar and rap recording.
Cadel found rap very soothing to listen to, if the rhymes were perfect. It had the same effect on him as the sight of a beautifully wired circuit board, or the smoothly functioning mechanism of a watch. It didn't matter to him
what
was being said, as long as the words clicked together in a pleasing way.
When Cadel arrived home, he pulled all his compact discs out of their cases, dumped them on his bedroom floor, and sat listening to one of them with his eyes closed and an enormous pair of headphones clamped over his ears. Although this ruse gave him time to think without making anyone suspicious, its main purpose was to allow him to switch CDs. In the confusion that he had created, he was able to insert his CD recording of Terry's phone message secretly into a rap compilation CD case. Then he slipped the compilation case into his backpack, along with one more CD, just to make things look convincing.
After all, lending people CDs wasn't an unusual activity for a fourteen-year-old.
He didn't eat much that night. Nor did he get much sleep. His mind, like a computer, would simply not turn itself off; it kept grinding through various calculations while he tossed and turned, and missed Sonja. He was used to exchanging e-mails with Sonja when he was upset or disturbed. Now he had no one to talk to. He certainly couldn't talk to Thaddeus.
His only other friend in the world was probably Gazo. He felt that Gazo could be trusted, because he, like Cadel, was all alone. The trouble was that Gazo had a pretty low IQ. Though trustworthy, he perhaps wasn't entirely reliable.
Still, he was better than nothing.
Choose your tools.
If Cadel had had a choice, he might have looked elsewhere. But he didn't have a choice. Besides, poor Gazo—Cadel felt sorry for him. It was impossible not to. If Gazo wanted to drop out of the institute, why shouldn't he?
There had to be something that Cadel could do for Gazo. If Gazo, in turn, would do something for him.
The next morning, Cadel headed for the institute as early as possible, arriving at 9:15. He went straight to Hardware Heaven, where he found Com and Richard toiling over their machines. He didn't bother to greet them.
He just sat down and hitched a ride on Dr. Vee's spy sweep.