Genius Squad

  Still, it was annoying. More than annoying. It was, in fact, unfair that on such a damp, miserable, overcast morning, the men in the unmarked car wouldn't give him a lift to the station, at least.

  Was it any wonder that Cadel should have been in such a foul mood?

  Nothing about his surroundings cheered him up, either. The Donkins lived in a flat, dreary suburb on Sydney's western outskirts. There weren't many trees or parks or Internet cafés in the area. People either lived in mean little houses on rambling, untidy blocks of land, or in brand-new mansions squeezed so tightly between boundary fences that they barely had any gardens at all. The local library was hard for Cadel to reach. The local walks—along culverts or across sun-baked football fields—were deeply depressing. The buses always arrived late at the nearest bus stop, and sometimes didn't arrive at all. The bus stop itself was in a bleak and windswept location; Cadel could foresee that it would be a very cold place to stand on winter mornings.

  Fortunately, however, winter was still a few months off. So at least Cadel didn't have to wait in the freezing cold for twenty minutes, while the two policemen sat watching him from their warm car. Still, he was glad when the bus arrived. Not only did it mean that he could sit down, at long last, it also meant that one of his bodyguards was forced to abandon half a cup of take-out coffee. Cadel was feeling so resentful, it pleased him to see someone deprived of a hot drink.

  The coffee-deprived policeman followed Cadel onto the bus, and took care to sit some distance away He was short and stocky, with close-cropped hair and a glum expression. Perhaps he was glum because he didn't like playing nursemaid. Or perhaps he disapproved of the trip itself. Cadel was well aware that the police would have preferred that he didn't visit Sonja. Such visits, he realized, were a bit risky. Prosper English knew about Sonja. He knew how much Sonja meant to Cadel. Though Cadel's whereabouts were currently a well-kept secret, it was much harder to hide Sonja. There weren't many places where a girl with her special needs could safely live.

  If Prosper's agents wanted to trace Cadel, they only had to find Sonja first.

  Cadel had therefore been advised that he ought to consider rationing his visits to Sonja's house. Such trips required two surveillance teams instead of one, and left him very exposed to a possible assault. Cadel had been reminded that he was chief witness for the prosecution—that Prosper might want to stop him from testifying. Prosper, after all, was a ruthless and intelligent man. Did Cadel really want to risk putting himself in harm's way?

  "Prosper won't try to kill me," Cadel had declared. "I know he won't. He tried before, and he couldn't. He just couldn't bring himself to do it." Seeing the skeptical looks that had greeted this statement, Cadel had tried even harder to explain. "You don't understand," he'd said. "I'm scared of Prosper, but not like that. He doesn't want to kill me. He wants me to be on his side, that's all."

  The police disagreed, however. So when Cadel finally reached Sonja's house, he found two unmarked police cars stationed nearby: one around the back of the house, the second near the front.

  After months of being followed, he could spot them quite easily. To begin with, they were sparkling clean. All were recent-model sedans. Each was normally occupied by two passengers, both of whom sat in the front. And when Cadel waved at them, or poked out his tongue, or did anything else designed specifically to irritate the people inside, he received no response at all.

  Cadel passed through Sonja's front gate without bothering to glance back. He knew that the policeman from the bus was behind him somewhere, having accompanied Cadel on both train trips as well. No doubt there had been some kind of surreptitious radio contact. No doubt one of his bodyguards had already checked the license plate of every car parked on Sonja's street.

  When Cadel rang the doorbell, Rosalie answered it.

  "Hello, Cadel," she said.

  "Hello, Rosalie. Is Sonja feeling all right today?"

  "Yes, come in. Sonja will be very pleased to see you, for sure."

  Once upon a time, Sonja had lived in a large institution called Weatherwood House. Then it had closed, and its occupants had been moved to smaller houses, containing fewer people. Cadel didn't think that this change had been for the best. Sonja's new quarters were rather shabby. She was now living in an old brick building, full of narrow hallways and awkward corners, which hadn't been designed for people with special needs. Despite all the new ramps and doors and handrails, there was an air of discomfort about the place. Most of the floors were covered in cheap vinyl. Most of the windows were hard to open. Sonja had to share a cramped bathroom with three other people, and her own room was also quite small. Because her bed, desk, and wheelchair took up so much of the available space, there wasn't even a stool or a beanbag for her visitors to sit on. Cadel always had to use the bed. He felt awkward about that, because he couldn't help rucking up the quilted bedcover when he sat on it. And then someone like Rosalie, the caregiver, would have to straighten it out.

  Rosalie was a nice woman. She would hustle Cadel through the front door with a big, beaming grin, and make him tea, and feed him biscuits. "Your beautiful boyfriend is here!" she would crow. "Look, everyone! Sonja's beautiful boyfriend has come!" It was embarrassing, but well meant. Rosalie seemed genuinely fond of Sonja. Nevertheless, Sonja missed Kay-Lee, the nurse who had looked after her so well at Weatherwood House. Kay-Lee had gone overseas to work, and although she e-mailed Sonja every week, things just weren't the same.

  They weren't as good.

  "Hi, Sonja," Cadel said shyly, upon reaching her bedroom. "How's it going?"

  He was conscious of Rosalie, hovering at his shoulder. There was no doubt in his mind that Rosalie would have liked him to greet Sonja with a smacking kiss, or some other extravagant gesture. He felt uncomfortable when the caregiver was around, and couldn't really relax until she had gone to make tea.

  Then he closed the door carefully behind her.

  "New poster," he observed, his gaze fastening on an unfamiliar eye-puzzle pinned to the wall. Sonja's bedroom was plastered with posters and printouts, most of them relating to mathematics. The parchment shade of her bedside lamp was decorated with numeric equations, written in a flowing copperplate hand. Birthday-cake candles, each molded into the shape of a different digit, were ranged across her desk. Even the geometric pattern on Sonja's shirt was complex enough to suggest mathematical formulas.

  This shirt was worn over stiff corduroy pants and fluffy slippers. Cadel recognized the slippers. He had given them to Sonja for her birthday, because no one seemed to bother much about her feet, and it worried him. Sonja's involuntary muscular spasms sometimes knocked her feet about quite badly; he'd decided that they needed more padding and protection.

  The spasms were always more violent when she was feeling stressed or excited. Looking now at the taut angle of her neck, Cadel could tell that she was distressed about something. And because he knew that she communicated more easily when she was calmer, he sat down and started to talk about mathematics.

  "I saw something really interesting on the Net yesterday," he said. "It was on that website—SIGGRAPH, you know? The mathematics of programming? They were talking about diffusion-limited aggregations in the digitally simulated growth process."

  As he rambled on, Sonja watched him, her brown eyes straining to keep him in focus as her neck tried to twist in the opposite direction. Finally her juddering hand found her DynaVox machine, which was propped on a mounting arm in front of her. One rigid finger jabbed at the screen, jerked away again, then returned to the screen once more.

  Slowly, the DynaVox began to talk in a flat, robotic voice.

  "I-saw-SIGGRAPH," it said, speaking for Sonja. "Your-friends-came-too?"

  "Today? Oh, yes." Cadel nodded. "They're outside now. Four of them."

  "Would-they-like-tea?"

  Cadel grinned. "That would be funny," he said. "Or we could ask them if they want to use the toilet. I'm always wondering what they do about going to the toilet. Mayb
e that's why they're so crabby. Because they're busting to go."

  Sonja abruptly changed the subject. It occurred to Cadel that going to the toilet wasn't easy for her, either; he could have kicked himself.

  "Any-news-from-Mel?" she asked, and he sighed. Mel Hofmeier, his lawyer, did unpaid work for the National Children's Law Center. News from Mel usually reached Cadel through Fiona Currey.

  "Nothing much," he replied. "I'm still on a temporary protection visa. The immigration minister is still my guardian, and the Department of Community Services is still my custodian."

  "No-orphan-pension-yet?"

  "God, no." Fiona had been exploring the possibility of an orphan pension for Cadel, to augment his special benefit. But since his parents were still unidentified, it couldn't be proven that they were dead. "If Phineas Darkkon was my father, then I might have a chance," he explained. "If Prosper's my father—well, he's not dead yet, is he?" Cadel suddenly remembered something. "Oh!" he added. "And it turns out that Darkkon was definitely cremated. So unless they can find some preserved tissue somewhere, they can't do a paternity test on him."

  "But if-he-had-cancer—"

  "Yeah, I know. They took out a tumor. And maybe some healthy tissue, as well." (This, too, had been considered.) "Why should anyone have kept it, though? Yuck."

  "What-about—," the DynaVox began, then stopped. Sonja's arm lurched sideways, skittering off the glassy surface of the screen. It wasn't a voluntary action.

  Cadel's own fingers closed gently around her clawlike hand. He returned it to the DynaVox and held it there for a moment.

  He knew why she was agitated. Any mention of Prosper tended to trouble them both. And she didn't want to upset him.

  "You mean—what about Prosper?" he asked. She nodded (a single jerk of the head), and her tongue rolled around behind her teeth.

  "No word from Prosper," he said. "Things are looking pretty good for him, so why should he admit to anything?" For perhaps the hundredth time, Cadel pondered the State's case against Prosper English. It still looked shaky. The police were determined to prove that Prosper had been Phineas Darkkon's right-hand man, largely responsible for running the Darkkon criminal empire. They were searching for proof that the Axis Institute (one of Prosper's many responsibilities) had been a University of Evil, designed to train criminals rather than help bright young people in need of emotional support—as Prosper claimed.

  But much of the Axis Institute had been blown up. Its records had been hastily destroyed. If its staff hadn't died or disappeared, they had lost their minds, or escaped from custody. Moreover, hardly any of the students had been identified, since most had been enrolled under assumed names. And the ones who hadn't been killed were now lying low.

  Except for Cadel, of course.

  "I'm still the only student who's come forward to testify about the Axis Institute," Cadel admitted, with a dismal little laugh. "I'm all the police have right now—they can't find any corroborating evidence. No wonder Prosper won't open his mouth. The last thing he'd do is admit that I'm his son. Because if I'm telling the truth about that, then I might be telling the truth about the rest, as well."

  Sonja already knew all this. Impatiently, her hand worked free of Cadel's clasp, sliding across the DynaVox screen until it arrived at a key.

  Cadel waited.

  "Paternity-test?" the DynaVox squawked at last.

  "Nope." Cadel shook his head. "He's still refusing. He claims that the police can't do a paternity test on him, because my paternity isn't directly related to the crimes with which he's been charged."

  "Poor-Cadel."

  "Not really. In a weird sort of way, I don't even want him to have a paternity test." Cadel explained that he had recently received some very bad news from Fiona Currey. If Prosper English turned out to be his father, then Cadel would be placed with Prosper's closest relative—a cousin who lived in Scotland. "And I don't want to go to Scotland," he said. "I don't want to leave you."

  There was a long pause as Cadel mulled over his circumstances. They were pretty grim. Ironic, too. "It's funny," he continued. "The police want to prove that I'm Prosper's son, because it corroborates some of what I've said. And they want me to stay in Australia or I won't be able to testify against him. But if I turn out to be Prosper's son, then I can't stay in Australia. So what are they going to do?"

  Sonja didn't have an answer to that question. Neither did Cadel. So they abandoned the subject and talked about Sonja's problems instead. Sonja wasn't happy in her new "shared support" accommodation; in fact, she had already applied for a transfer, though she wasn't likely to get one. (There weren't many places around with facilities for people like her.) Although the care that she currently received was adequate, she didn't get out much. Resources were stretched, and staff were overworked. While her caseworker was nice, he didn't visit her often. And when he did, he sometimes left her feeling very depressed.

  "He-thinks-I-don't-understand," she told Cadel.

  "Understand what?" he asked.

  "Anything. Much."

  Cadel bit his lip. A lot of people underestimated Sonja's intelligence. After taking one look at her twisted posture, her writhing tongue, and her distorted limbs, they assumed that she was mentally handicapped.

  "Hasn't he been told?" Cadel demanded. "About what you've done?"

  "Yes, but-he-doesn't-believe-it," Sonja replied. "Not-deep-down."

  Cadel was suddenly furious. He felt like punching the nearest wall.

  "I wish I could hire someone," he said angrily. "Someone really clever. A postgraduate student to take you places, and help you with things. Just you."

  "Talking-of-students," Sonja interjected, through the medium of her DynaVox, "what-news-on-universities?"

  "No change." Cadel scowled. "No one wants me. You know, I've been thinking—there are probably some things that I could do to earn money. Like that old Internet dating scheme I set up—"

  "No."

  "But—"

  "No."

  Cadel studied Sonja's face. Though her mouth was almost never still, and her thin face was often cruelly contorted, her eyes always remained rock steady. They were fixed on him now, and he saw the reproof in them.

  "There was nothing illegal about it." He faltered. "It was just a bit of a scam. And it did make money."

  "We-had-an-agreement," was Sonja's firm reply. After a moment's flurry, during which she tried to control one flailing arm, she added, "You-hurt-a-lot-of-people-with-that-dating-service."

  "Yeah," Cadel muttered, "but it wasn't a total rip-off. If I hadn't set it up, we would never have met."

  "You-lied-to-people," the DynaVox replied, without expression. "That-was-wrong."

  "Yeah..."

  "Don't-even-think-about-it, Cadel."

  Cadel grimaced. Then he sighed. Then he nodded.

  "Okay. I won't," he said.

  And they started to talk about differential equations.

  THREE

  Cadel stayed so long with Sonja that he missed his usual train. This meant that he missed his usual bus as well. And missing his usual bus meant that he had to wait for thirty fruitless minutes at a noisy roadside bus stop, when he could have been working away on Hazel's computer.

  It was infuriating.

  Everyone living at the Donkin house had to abide by a carefully planned computer schedule. On weekday mornings, Hazel used the machine for her data-entry job. After school, for about three hours, Janan and Mace divided the computer between them. (Occasionally they did their homework on it, but mostly they just played mindless war games.) During dinner, no one was allowed near the computer. And afterward, Leslie Donkin would usually spend a quiet evening writing e-mails, or pursuing his genealogy research over the Net.

  As a result, Cadel only had access to the computer for three hours a day, between twelve thirty and three thirty in the afternoon. On weekends he sometimes managed four or five hours, if he woke up early. And he also spent as much time as he could on the library c
omputers. Nevertheless, he felt deprived. Almost disabled. It was like walking around on crutches, or trying to peer through misty glass. Without a computer, he couldn't function properly.

  That was why he had decided to build his own. It was also why his thirty wasted minutes at the bus stop were so frustrating. He couldn't bear the thought of missing a second on Hazel's computer. Even more exasperating was the knowledge that the police could easily have given him a lift home. There was no real need for him to stand around breathing in gas fumes. Why should he have to suffer like this, just because his surveillance team was determined to be uncooperative?

  Then, when he finally reached the bus stop near the Donkins' house, it started to rain. Though the drops were still light and scattered, a brooding mass of cloud to the south suggested that a storm was heading in his direction. Cadel wondered how far away it was. The walk home usually took about ten minutes; would he beat the downpour if he ran? Pulling up his collar, he set off at a rapid pace—but before he had even rounded the first street corner, something caught his eye.

  It was a computer monitor, sitting by the side of the road.

  Cadel had been vaguely aware of the forthcoming municipal council cleanup. He had noticed the piles of junk that had begun to accumulate on the curb: broken cane furniture, rusty paint tins, stained foam mattresses, split curtain rods. But he had never expected to see discarded computer equipment. Certainly not discarded computer equipment that appeared to be no more than four or five years old.

  He dashed over to the monitor, hoping that it might be accompanied by a keyboard, or even a hard drive. Instead he found that it was sitting beside a length of cracked concrete pipe, a roll of dirty carpet, and a three-legged coffee table.

  "Damn," he said, looking around. An unmarked police car (silver, this time) was lurking some distance away. The raindrops were pattering down more heavily. Quickly Cadel slipped off his denim jacket and draped it over the monitor. With a grunt and a heave, he lifted the unwieldy machine and began to stagger along, clutching it against his stomach. It was a deadweight.