"Wait! Cadel! I'm not allowed out here!"
Cadel stopped. His quick eye noted everything in the immediate area: the man staring from a shop doorway; the car with tinted windows parked under a plane tree; the black metal box attached to the institute wall, near the gates. When Gazo reached him, another car passed them both, so quickly that Cadel couldn't see inside it.
"Then why don't you go back?" he asked loudly, before lowering his voice and adding, "We can't talk, Gazo, it's not safe. No,
don't
look around, just go back. Please."
"Can I give you a lift?"
"What?"
"Wherever you're going, I can give you a lift."
To Cadel's horror, Gazo actually winked behind his headpiece. Cadel hoped that no one watching them had noticed this conspiratorial little gesture.
"You mean in Abraham's car?" asked Cadel.
"It's a great car," Gazo replied. "I drove it all over the place yesterday."
"I can't get in that car with you. Not if you're driving."
"No, no! It's all right!" Gazo was beaming. "I can drive with me suit on! Headpiece and all!"
"Really?"
"Really. I already tried."
Cadel hesitated. Perhaps, in Abraham's car ...
But no. It was probably bugged by now. The Grunts would have noticed that Cadel had got into it yesterday. He couldn't take any risks. "No thanks, Gazo."
"But—"
"Go back inside. You're not allowed out here. You're attracting attention."
"Cadel?" Gazo was looking at him closely. "What's wrong?"
"I've got a headache," Cadel snapped, and turned away. He felt bad, but he couldn't talk. He was about to crack. Hurrying toward the station, he put all his energy into controlling the muscles of his face. He tried to empty his mind, so that stray thoughts of Sonja or Tracey didn't make him cry.
On the train, he read advertisements. He listened to a conversation about someone's aunt, who had found romance in a nursing home while visiting her aged mother. When he finally reached his stop, he really
did
have a headache. It pounded away at his skull as if demanding to be released. Cadel wondered if all the tears trapped inside his head were beginning to split it open.
It was a twenty-five-minute walk from the station to Crampton. Stumbling down the quiet, leafy suburban streets, Cadel kept his eyes peeled. Several cars passed him, as did an old man walking a dog. A plumber's van drove up to someone's house and parked. A woman pushed a stroller down one street, with a real baby inside.
Surely Adolf couldn't be hiring real babies?
The school, when Cad el reached it, was deserted. On a Saturday afternoon, there weren't even any sports teams around. Cadel marched quickly across the empty playground. Using one of his Crampton keys, he entered the eastern block, then the science staff room. He couldn't risk the math staff room, because Mrs. Brezeck frequented it and Thaddeus might have bugged it as a result. But the science staff room would be safe.
Having locked himself in, he crawled under a desk. Then he curled himself into a ball and began to cry.
He didn't know what to do. Everything was out of control. Tracey was dead.
Dead.
Had Dr. Deal actually
killed
her? There, in her house? Or had he found her like that? Perhaps he had found her like that and panicked. Perhaps he had gone to the police because he assumed that Luther had killed Tracey, and he was afraid that the same thing would happen to him.
But what if he really had killed her? A sudden, vivid picture leaped into Cadel's head: a picture of Dr. Deal punching him in the face. Had Dr. Deal done the same thing to Tracey? Because he thought she was trying to frame him? Because he was jealous of Terry? Cadel didn't know. He didn't have the data. Dr. Deal, Tracey, Brendan, Art—he didn't know any of these people well enough to predict their actions, not really. He had misjudged some crucial conjunction, and made a complete mess of everything. Someone had been
killed]
Because of
him!
And now the whole scenario was collapsing. Events were playing out in a way that he had never anticipated.
He wiped his face, his chest heaving. What was he going to do? He had unleashed a tornado. Pressed a red button. He was frightened to look at the Axis network again, in case he saw something or someone else disintegrating in front of his eyes. First Brendan. Now Tracey. Next Dr. Deal would go—Luther would get him for sure. And Art? What about Art? What if Max
did
catch him? If that happened, Cadel would be responsible for yet another death. He wouldn't have wanted it, but he would have caused it, as directly as he had caused Tracey's.
He remembered rating the probability of Max catching Art. Breaking the probability down into a complex number. Measuring it against other numbers. Why had he never thought? Why had it never occurred to him that he would actually be
killing someone
? He was as bad as the rest of them. As bad as Luther. What would Sonja say? How could he tell her? How
would
he tell her? He wanted to talk to her so much, but he couldn't; he didn't dare.
"What am I going to do?" he sobbed. "What am I going to
do
?"
He couldn't escape—not yet. Brendan and Dr. Deal might be out of the picture, but he couldn't be sure about Art. As for Alias, he knew more about Cadel's Ariel disguise than anyone, and therefore would have to be dealt with, but Cadel didn't trust himself to fashion a riskfree plan of attack. Not after making so many terrible mistakes.
"I don't know what to do," he whimpered.
He felt so ashamed. So small and lonely and miserable. More than anything else, he wanted someone to hug him and tell him that he didn't have to worry. Around him, the empty staff room was quiet and sunlit. There were snapshots pinned on a bulletin board, along with a duty roster, an ad for a sofa bed, a cartoon, a postcard from Surfers Paradise. The mugs beside the electric jug were covered in hand-painted flowers and funny slogans. A back pillow had been left propped on one chair, and a red cardigan was draped over another. Everywhere lay science textbooks, unmarked exams, broken laboratory equipment.
Gradually, these things began to affect Cadel. He began to calm down, soothed by the warm light, the happy photographs, the deeply
ordinary
quality of his surroundings. He realized how wonderful it was to sit in a room that wasn't bugged, scorched, or oozing with strange liquids. At the institute, he realized, his nerves were always taut; there was never a moment when he didn't run the risk of being spied on, attacked, taunted, or ambushed by some appalling sight or smell. Here, everything was peaceful. Nothing really bad, he decided, could ever happen in this room.
He got up and blew his nose. There was a mirror sitting on one of the desks; in it, he saw his face, which was smeared and blotchy. His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was a mess.
He couldn't go out looking like this. The Grunts were bound to report it:
Subject highly agitated.
He would have to wash his face. Comb his hair. Wait until his eyes weren't so puffy.
He found a comb in a drawer and water in the electric jug. He also found another photograph—a family shot. In it, Mr. Jankovic was sitting in a rowboat with his family: a wife, two children, and a golden retriever. They were all laughing, even the golden retriever. Cadel looked at it and caught his breath. He thought:
I could have had that. I could have had that if my father hadn't interfered. I could have had a
proper
family. Real parents.
Suddenly he didn't feel like crying anymore. All the confusion, the fear, the despair—it all trickled away, leaving something cold and hard like a stone in his gut. He thought resentfully:
This is my father's doing. I didn't start it, but I'm going to end it. I'll take the whole bloody lot down with me. Whatever happens, I'm going to make that bastard suffer for what he's done.
And then he saw the cell phone, half hidden by a confiscated Frisbee. It was sitting directly beneath the postcard on the bulletin board. Right beside a plastic-covered library book.
The idea was there, waiting for him. If someone had written it down, it could not have been more obvious.
Cadel didn't return to the institute. The thought of it made him sick. Instead, he went straight home, where James Guisnel and his partner—alias Mr. and Mrs. Piggott—were comparing schedules. They sat at the dining-room table, with a bottle of red wine standing open between them.
"Hello!" Lanna trilled. "So you're back, are you?"
"Where have you been?" Stuart demanded gruffly, and Cadel snorted.
"As if you didn't know," he growled.
"Eh? What's that?"
"Nothing."
"Beef Stroganoff tonight, Cadel," Lanna interrupted, trying to maintain a cheerful tone. "Your favorite."
Cadel muttered something and escaped to his bedroom. He wondered why the Piggotts were at home. Who had ordered them to be there, and for what reason? Was it simply a coincidence? Even on weekends, Stuart was usually away. Attending to his
real
life, no doubt.
Cadel tried to imagine what that life might be like, and failed. He couldn't picture Stuart at the beach, or in a shop. The guy was like a cardboard cutout—a cartoon. On reflection, Cadel realized that James Guisnel hadn't done a very convincing job of Stuart Piggott. Either he was a lousy actor or Dr. Darkkon had requested that Cadel be raised by a man with all the warmth and humor of a scarecrow.
After all, a hopeless adoptive father would ensure that Cadel bonded to his
real
father—not to mention his therapist. Thaddeus would have worked it all out. The whole business would have been carefully planned. Cadel could just see Thaddeus calculating the exact amount of rejection and isolation that Cadel would need to turn him into a freak.
The thought made him so angry, he had to stuff it into his mental trash can and pound the lid down over it. No point fretting about that now. He had other matters to attend to.
Cadel poked listlessly at his computer keyboard until dinnertime, turning things over and over in his head. At least he was going to speak to Sonja—that was something. From Crampton, using the abandoned cell phone in the science staff room, he had called Sonja's local library. He had asked Beatrice to pass on a message to Sonja:
Be at the Memorial Pool tomorrow from two to four. I'll call you there.
Cadel had it all worked out. He had seen from the Surfers Paradise postcard that Mr. Prowse was away for two weeks. He knew where Mr. Prowse lived, of course; he knew where all the Crampton teachers lived. He would go to Mr. Prowse's house tomorrow and call Sonja from there. With his knowledge of locks, it shouldn't be hard to find a way in. And if they had an alarm system—well, he would simply disable it.
"
Cadel! Dinnertime!
"
Cadel groaned. He could hardly bear the prospect of dining alone with the Piggotts. Fortunately, Stuart always watched the news while he ate. It saved him from having to make conversation. And while Lanna sometimes attempted to chat with Cadel, Stuart usually shushed her when an important story (about share prices, for instance) appeared on the television screen.
That evening was no different. When Cadel reached the dining room, he saw that the news had been switched on. It was clearly visible through the archway that divided the dining room from the vast, sweeping landscape of the living room, with all its glass walls and hectares of polished wood. Stuart was already gobbling down his beef Stroganoff, his gaze fixed on a very dull item about some sort of political scandal. Cadel sat down. He unfolded his white linen napkin and placed it on his lap.
"So. Cadel," said Lanna brightly. "How was your day?"
"Good," Cadel replied.
"You went to the institute?"
"Yes."
"I hope you ate a decent lunch."
"Yes."
"Have you checked your weight lately? It seems to me that you're thinner than usual. Though of course you might have shot up a bit—that's what generally happens with you."
Tracey Lane,
the television suddenly announced, catching Cadel's attention.
Ms. Lane, a former channel-seven newsreader and travel-show presenter, was found dead in her eastern suburbs home early this afternoon...
"Hey!" exclaimed Stuart. "Isn't that—didn't she work for the institute?"
"Of course she did!" said Lanna. "We met her there! Oh my
god,
Stuart!"
Cadel said nothing. He simply stared at the screen, listening hard. There was mention of a "suspect in custody," but no names were provided. Lanna made a horrified noise.
"Oh dear," she shrilled. "This is awful!"
"Shhh!" said Stuart.
But there wasn't much more to the story. Tracey had been beaten to death. An ambulance was shown, receiving into its depths her shrouded form. A "glamour shot" was also displayed; in it, Tracey was gazing soulfully at the camera, her blond hair carefully set, her face gleaming with makeup.
Cadel looked away, blinking fiercely. A "suspect in custody." Could that be Dr. Deal?
"I don't understand," said Lanna. "Are they saying they
have
the person who did it?"
"That's right." Stuart spoke impatiently. "Weren't you listening?"
"How appalling." Lanna addressed Cadel, who was fiddling with his beef Stroganoff, eyes downcast. "That lovely woman! Cadel, are you all right?"
Cadel nodded.
"Are you sure? You look so pale."
Again, Cadel nodded. He also closed his eyes.
just shut up,
he thought.
Let's not go through this farce.
"Leave him alone," Stuart growled. "Let him eat."
"But it's got to be a shock, Stuart. They should be bringing counselors onto the campus. Talking things through. Did you see any counselors today, Cadel?"
"Lanna, for god's sake, it's the
weekend,
" Stuart snapped. "Nobody's
there
on the weekend."
"Cadel is."
Stuart snorted. Lanna turned back to Cadel. "Would you like me to call Thaddeus?" she asked. "Would you like to talk to him?"