Genius Squad

  Cadel shrank from the noisy barrage; he didn't know what to say. Trader must have seen this, because he started to wave his arms as if flapping away a cloud of insects.

  "Guys, guys!" he protested. "Give the poor kid some space; don't swamp him! If you carry on like this, he'll take off!"

  "He should go and unpack first," Dot declared. Though her voice was weak and rusty, everyone stopped to listen—perhaps because she so rarely spoke up. "Before he gets too tired."

  There was a buzz of agreement. Next thing Cadel knew, he was being escorted up to his bedroom by Trader, who insisted on carrying the heavy laptop. On their way upstairs, they passed Lexi and Zac in the kitchen; Zac was wiping down surfaces as Lexi sullenly stacked the dishwasher, making far more noise than was absolutely necessary.

  Tony Cheung had taken out the garbage.

  "Where do you sleep?" Cadel asked, and Trader explained that he didn't live at Clearview House. None of the adults did, though they all spent a lot of time on the premises and sometimes used the office beds. In fact, a shift roster had been instituted.

  "One more thing," Trader added, when he reached Cadel's room. "The doorbell is attached to an alarm system that covers the entire house. If you hear the alarm, and you're down in the War Room, don't leave. Stay where you are. Because anyone who presses the doorbell is an intruder, and the War Room is our little secret. We wouldn't want the wrong sort of people to find out about it."

  "Like Mr. Greeniaus, you mean?" said Cadel, studying Trader's beautifully proportioned face.

  "Like anyone who doesn't belong to Genius Squad," Trader replied. Then he advised Cadel to unpack, told him that bedtime was optional, and left.

  Cadel immediately locked the door. It was hard to resist taking advantage of that gleaming new lock, or the privacy it afforded him after so many lockless months. With a deep sense of satisfaction, he then proceeded to inspect his personal domain, opening every drawer and examining every outlet. As far as he could tell, there were no miniature cameras or listening devices secreted anywhere in the room. But he wasn't an expert; not like Trader Lynch. Cadel sensed that, when it came to spyware, Trader was way ahead of him.

  Nevertheless, Cadel felt reasonably secure. Certainly more secure than he had felt at the Donkins' house.

  He didn't bother unpacking. Instead, when he had finished familiarizing himself with the contents of his room, he opened up his new computer. And the first thing he did with it was to check out the GenoME/data file, as Cliff had recommended.

  It was quite a hefty file, stuffed with information. Some of this information concerned the now-defunct Darkkon Empire. There was a structural tree incorporating many of Dr. Darkkon's pet projects, such as his fake gene patent company, his faulty vending machine franchise, and—of course—GenoME. Another featured subsidiary was something called NanTex Laboratories Inc., which Cadel recognized as Phineas Darkkon's old nanotechnology lab. NanTex had been responsible for Dr. Darkkon's various genetic experiments—or so everyone seemed to think. It was generally assumed that most of the money made by Dr. Darkkon over the years had actually been channeled back into NanTex, to fund his crazy genetic mutation schemes.

  Unfortunately, there was no way of proving this in court. Cadel remembered having a long talk with an FBI agent, who had told him that the notorious laboratory was not yielding any useful evidence. Its exact whereabouts had been discovered only after Prosper's arrest, and by the time it was raided, the lab was just an empty shell. Most of its equipment and all of its staff had vanished.

  That was why no one had ever arrested Chester Cramp, the man thought to have been its former chief executive officer.

  Cadel saw with interest that, according to the Genius Squad files, Chester was now in charge of a company called Fountain Pharmaceuticals. Even more interesting was the fact that the former head of NanTex was actually married to Carolina Whitehead, the head of GenoME's new Australian branch. Studying the photographs provided, Cadel saw that Chester Cramp was a pale, slight, balding man wearing very thick spectacles. In contrast, his wife was as tall and glamorous as her husband was small and insignificant. In fact, Carolina Whitehead reminded Cadel a bit of Tracey Lane, one of the Axis Institute teachers—except that Tracey had always looked rather vacant. Carolina didn't look vacant. On the contrary, she wore a cool, shrewd expression in every one of the three photographs that Cliff had obtained. Somehow it was obvious that a very sharp mind lay behind all her shiny lip gloss and lacquered blond hair.

  Cadel wondered why on earth she had married a shrimp like Chester.

  There was a photograph of Prosper English, as well. One look at that beaky nose, enigmatic smile, and dark, piercing gaze was enough for Cadel. He scrolled past the familiar face quickly, trying to ignore the sudden chill that ran down his spine. He didn't want to think about Prosper English. Memories of Prosper would spoil his mood.

  So he began to focus on the GenoME data, which had been divided into several subsections. One of them concerned the new Australian branch. Cadel was surprised at the amount of material that had already been collected; somehow Cliff had acquired photographs of every staff member. There were snapshots of people caught climbing out of taxis, or eating in cafés, as well as more formal shots from passports or driver's licenses. Upon reading the reports attached to every picture, Cadel realized that Cliff had been following the staff home from work, recording their car registration numbers, and eavesdropping on restaurant chats. Internet checks had been run, and mail had been intercepted. Cadel wondered uneasily what Saul Greeniaus would say if he ever found out about these activities.

  With any luck, however, Saul never would find out.

  According to Cliff's notes, Carolina and her second-in-command, Jerry Reinhard, occupied separate apartments in the same high-security block of flats, while the five potentializers lived in a single house, like students. These potentializers seemed to do almost everything together: eating, shopping, commuting—even going to the movies. It's like they belong to some kind of religious cult, Cliff had remarked, at the conclusion of his report.

  The rest of the staff lived pretty normal lives, judging from Cliff's observations. In fact, Cadel was reading all about the marketing manager's boring credit history when his eyelids became heavy. Next thing he knew, he was standing in Prosper's old office, on the top floor of the gloomy terrace house near Sydney Harbor. Cadel recognized the maroon couches, and the array of bogus certificates on the wall. A familiar computer was sitting on Prosper's desk. Everything was unchanged, except for the photograph of Cadel. That was new. It lay on top of a very thick file, which Cadel was afraid to open. Somehow he understood that this file contained his whole life, carefully labeled and analyzed.

  He rushed to the door, but it was locked. So were the French windows. He couldn't get out. And Prosper was coming; he was climbing the stairs. Cadel could hear approaching footsteps. He could see the doorknob jiggling.

  And then the door opened.

  Like a fox caught in the glare of headlights, Cadel watched as Prosper approached him. Though wearing a set of orange overalls, Prosper was otherwise unchanged; he studied Cadel with a kind of quizzical intensity, his hooded eyes unreadable.

  "So. Cadel." It was the same old voice—gentle and precise—with the same old undercurrent of barbed amusement. "I see you've been rather active." And Prosper paused beside the desk to flick at Cadel's bulging file with one long, bony finger.

  Cadel couldn't respond. He had lost the ability.

  "I'm not angry, dear boy. Just disappointed," Prosper went on. "How many times have we discussed this? You're being stifled. Reined in. You're not being allowed to spread your wings and reach your full potential."

  Still Cadel couldn't talk. But he shook his head frantically, signifying his disagreement.

  "You think that you're at liberty, but you're not," Prosper insisted. "Believe me—I know. I know what you've been up to." He bared his teeth in a slow, vulpine smile. "It seems to me that you've forgotten
what I always used to say Trust nobody. Doubt everyone." Leaning forward, he reached for Cadel's shoulder. "Watch your back, my dear, or you'll find yourself in a lot of trouble."

  Cadel retreated from the advancing hand—and woke abruptly. He was slumped at his new desk, his head pillowed in his arms. The overhead light was still blazing. Beside him, the laptop screen announced that it was 1:05 A.M.

  He had been asleep for three hours.

  Cadel sat up. His mouth was dry. His neck was stiff. His heart was still pounding like a jackhammer, from the shock of his dream. On the whole, however, he felt surprisingly alert.

  So he rubbed his eyes, adjusted the position of his computer, and plunged back into GenoME/data. After all, no one was going to stop him.

  As Trader had said, bedtime was optional at Clear-view House.

  SIXTEEN

  Cadel wasn't the first down to breakfast. When he arrived in the kitchen, at about half past six, he discovered Hamish eating burnt fruit toast at one end of the table, and Dot drinking coffee at the other. Both were studying their laptop screens, utterly absorbed.

  "Hi," said Cadel. But only Hamish glanced up.

  "Oh. It's you," he said. Then he focused on his computer again.

  Feeling slightly snubbed, Cadel wandered over to the nearest cupboard. Upon opening it, however, he saw that it contained pots and pans. So he moved on, checking drawers and shelves and canisters until Hamish finally asked, "What are you looking for?"

  "Coffee," Cadel replied. Though coffee wasn't something he normally drank, he wanted to demonstrate that he was a mature kind of person—the kind who had coffee and toast for breakfast, instead of milk and sugary cereal.

  "I'll get it," said Hamish, and surged to his feet. Startled, Cadel watched him retrieve a plastic container from a high cupboard. It seemed odd that Hamish should have decided to be so helpful all of a sudden. It didn't make sense. And why keep the coffee up there? In such an inaccessible spot?

  Cadel accepted the container hesitantly, bemused by Hamish's big, metallic grin. Sure enough, as the receptacle changed hands, Dot remarked, "That's not coffee. That's ground cinnamon."

  Whereupon Hamish made a wet, explosive noise.

  "Oh, jeez!" he cried, stomping back to his seat in a huff. "You're no fun, Dot!"

  "The coffee's in the fridge," Dot continued, fixing her blank gaze on Cadel. "It's instant, though. The espresso machine is downstairs."

  "That's okay." Cadel quietly placed the cinnamon on a nearby countertop, wondering if he had made a mistake.

  Would Clearview House prove to be full of idiots and bullies after all?

  "Don't mind Hamish," Dot continued dryly. "He has a puerile sense of humor, but he's quite acceptable in other ways."

  "At least I have a sense of humor," Hamish retorted, and Dot set down her cup.

  "There's nothing wrong with my sense of humor," she said coolly. "For instance, I find your outfit very amusing."

  Cadel had to suppress a smile. Hamish did look rather odd in his oversized Hell's Angels T-shirt and his studded leather wristband. Like a woolly lamb in body armor.

  But despite his feeble appearance, he still had enough courage to launch an attack on Dot.

  "Well, what are you d-dressed as?" he demanded scornfully. "A 1950s librarian?"

  Dot stared at him for a moment, expressionless, before turning back to her computer. Cadel toyed with the idea of asking her about Com. He was trying to think of a good opening line when she abruptly sprang to her feet, snapping her laptop shut. Even Hamish seemed taken aback by this unexpected burst of energy.

  "I'll be down in the War Room," she declared, and made for the lift. She moved so quickly that Cadel had to blurt out the very first thing that came into his head.

  It was: "When did you last see your brother?"

  Dot paused on the pantry threshold. Her eyes ran over him in a curiously detached way, as if she were swiping a laser beam across a bar code. At last she said, "I'll send you a report."

  Then she disappeared into the pantry.

  "That's what she always says," Hamish remarked, after a brief silence. "I'll send you a report. She prefers e-mails to conversations." Sprawled in his chair, he pushed his glasses up his nose and peered at Cadel through their thick, distorting lenses. "So have you worked out what you want to do yet?"

  "How do you mean?" asked Cadel.

  "Well—have you had any good ideas? Or d-do you want to help someone else?" As Cadel considered this question, Hamish continued impatiently, "We re trying to get into the GenoME system. You know that, don't you?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "We can't prove that GenoME's been doing anything illegal unless we get into its system," Hamish declared, going on to relate that the squad was hoping to bring down GenoME by doing one of three things: either by proving that the company was responsible for killing Rex Austin's son, or by establishing that its genetic analysis technique was a scam, or by determining that there was a financial connection between GenoME and Fountain Pharmaceuticals. "Because if Fountain Pharmaceuticals is really the new NanTex, and GenoME is sending it money, then GenoME is b-breaking the law by funding an illegal corporation," said Hamish. Whereupon Cadel thought back to the files he'd been reading the previous night.

  So far, there didn't seem to be much data on Fountain Pharmaceuticals. Except for the fact that Chester Cramp was its chief executive officer.

  "So what do you want to do? We've already done all the obvious stuff," Hamish continued, counting off various options on his knobbly fingers. "They've been really careful with their off-the-shelf defaults—they've changed every one of them. They've got RootKit Revealer. They run tests on the firewall continuously—"

  "How do you know?" Cadel interrupted.

  "Huh?"

  "How do you know all this, if you haven't got in yet?"

  "They discuss it," Hamish replied. He informed Cadel that Trader had picked up conversations between Jerry and his assistant using the laser eavesdropping technology. Trader tended to concentrate on Jerry's office, because Jerry was "the tech guy," and occasionally talked about subjects other than traffic, football, and clearance sales. "The good thing is, they've got a webpage," Hamish revealed. "So I figure that's how we'll get in. Unless this thing works with Zac, of course."

  Cadel frowned. "What thing?" he said.

  "The honeytoken." When Cadel blinked, Hamish added, "Didn't you hear about the honeytoken?"

  "No."

  "Really?" For some reason, Hamish looked delighted. "Well, Zac's got an appointment with one of the potentializers at nine thirty. He's pretending to be a client. And we know he'll have to fill in a form, b-because that's how GenoME manipulates people. By getting hold of their information."

  "Oh, right." Cadel nodded. He had seen a scan of the GenoME application form in the electronic files he'd examined. Apparently, it had been stolen and copied by one of Rex Austin's contacts in America. "Yeah, I saw that form."

  "D-did you see question five, by any chance?" It was obvious that Hamish expected the answer to be no. When it was yes, he could hardly conceal his disappointment. "Gee," he mumbled. "You really are on the ball."

  "Is Zac going to put a fake e-mail address on the application form?" Cadel hazarded, because that would have been his plan. And Hamish grinned.

  "Fake e-mail, fake identity, fake everything," he confirmed. "Zac won't be going in as Zac." He sighed. "I wish it was me going in. I'd love to find out what happens in that place."

  "You will," a familiar voice remarked, and suddenly Trader was standing beside them. "There's a debrief session after lunch, with Zac. I want everyone to attend." He studied Cadel. "How are you this morning?"

  "Good," Cadel replied. He felt very small and creased and grubby next to Trader, who positively gleamed in his freshly ironed clothes. Trader smelled of cologne and toothpaste. His eyes were clear and there was a bounce in his step.

  He made the kitchen look dingy.

  "Aren't you eating
?" he asked Cadel, just as the twins appeared. All at once the room was full of people. It was as if an alarm clock or a starter's pistol had gone off somewhere, signalling the commencement of a new day. While Hamish continued to pack toast into his mouth, Lexi and Devin started to bicker over the last of the strawberry jam. Tony Cheung sidled in to make coffee. Judith Bashford, laden down with bags of fruit, burst onto the scene like an armored tank, announcing that she had the perfect cure for Lexi's constipation. And though Trader confessed that he'd already eaten breakfast, he remained in the room, adding considerably to the noise and bustle.

  Cadel didn't know quite what to do at first. He retreated to one corner, clutching a teaspoon like a shield. Then he felt Trader's arm fall across his shoulders, heavy and reassuring.

  "I'm afraid it's everyone for himself at breakfast," Trader said softly. "But I'm sure you can handle it, after the Axis Institute." With a conspiratorial grin, he placed his mouth to Cadel's ear and murmured, "The good thing about Clearview House is that no one's going to poison your orange juice."

  No, thought Cadel. They'll just try and trick me into drinking ground cinnamon. But he didn't say this aloud. Instead he took a deep breath and plunged into the milling crowd between the sink and the fridge, emerging some time later with a bowl of cornflakes. He didn't really mind all the confusion. From what he could see, it was simply the product of a general desire to get to work as soon as possible. By the time he had eaten, showered, and cleaned his teeth, everyone else was downstairs in the War Room, beavering away.

  Everyone, that is, except Zac and Cliff.

  According to Trader, Cliff would be monitoring Zac from a parked car during Zac's "recon of number eleven." Cliff, in turn, would be sending updates to Trader until the job was done. Zac's interview was scheduled for half past nine, so someone would have to keep an eye on the honey-token e-mail address from that moment on—just in case it was used by GenoME.