The Genius Wars (16 page)

All he could do was take a deep breath, and hope that no one was eavesdropping on their quiet little exchange.

‘The Wife got hacked by a program that was written for another house,’ he said softly, picking up Sonja’s TV remote. After adjusting the volume on her television set (which was tuned to a quiz show), he leaned towards her until he was jammed against the steel bars that had been raised to stop her from rolling out of bed. ‘Did Judith tell you? When I had a look at the malware, I found all kinds of applications for specific Bluetooth appliances – stuff that Judith doesn’t have. We might be able to track down the original house if we can identify someone who’s bought all those products.’

‘
America,
’ was Sonja’s contribution. And Cadel gave a nod.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he said. Then, shielding his mouth with one hand for extra privacy, he added, ‘America’s a big place, but there can’t be
that
many people in the world with a floor-washing robot and a computerised trigger lock connecting their guns to their alarm system. You never know – the manufacturers might have customer records.’

‘
Insurance.
’ It was clear that Sonja’s head injury hadn’t affected her reasoning skills. ‘
All-those-things-insured-with-one-company-somewhere? Check-coverage?
’

‘I’m not chasing it up myself,’ Cadel admitted, in response to these awkwardly phrased suggestions. ‘Sid’s in charge – I’m not allowed online, right now.’

Sonja’s snort was no accident. It was a voluntary noise meant to convey her disgust. When she rolled her eyes, Cadel felt constrained to defend his foster father. ‘Saul’s just trying to be careful,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not like I’m on the sidelines, you know. I just have to
look
as if I am, in case somebody’s watching.’

Sonja blinked. Her gaze flicked around the room, apparently searching for evidence of a bug or a hidden camera. Then her hand moved across the Dynavox, until it was hovering over the letter ‘V’. But she didn’t strike the keyboard. Instead she glanced inquiringly at Cadel, who gave a nod.

‘Yeah,’ he confirmed, under his breath. ‘I think it might be Dr Vee.’ Aware of how hard it was for Sonja to ask questions, he proceeded to give her the answers she needed, without prompting. ‘If he’s in America, though, he’s got someone working for him over here. Because “Bev” made a local call. In fact tomorrow I’ll be part of a wardriver team of Richard’s students that’s going to be scanning for signature IDs in –’

‘
Grah!
’ she yelped, so violently that he stopped in mid-sentence. At first he assumed that her squeal must have been a cry of pain, until he saw the anxious look in her eyes. She stabbed again and again at the Dynavox, but for some reason she kept missing it. Her fingers never made contact with the keyboard.

‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Dnn! Dnn!’

‘Should I call the nurse? Do you need something? Does it hurt somewhere?’

‘
Dnn!
’

Still she jabbed at the Dynavox, without actually touching it.

‘Here,’ he offered, reaching across the bed. ‘I’ll do it myself. Blink twice if I’m on the right letter. “A”. No? “B” …’

‘
NAAH!
’

Her whole body lunged towards him, knocking against the steel frame that separated them. The impact was so unexpected that he jerked back, almost toppling off his chair.

‘What the –?’ He was stunned. But as he watched her flailing around, swatting at the machine in front of her, something clicked inside his head. ‘Oh my God,’ he spluttered. ‘The Dynavox!’

The Dynavox had been at Clearview House. The Dynavox was a computer.

The Dynavox could very well have been bugged – or worse.

‘I’ll take it,’ he said, jumping up. When he seized the device,
Sonja seemed to relax a little. She fell back onto her pillows with a heartfelt sigh, though her hands kept twitching.

Cadel headed for the door, which he yanked open. Outside, Reggie and Angus were still at their posts. Fiona had parked herself at a more discreet distance, several metres away. Her husband stood beside her, holding a spray of silk flowers.

Judith had warned them that real flowers weren’t allowed inside the hospital, because pollen was bad for people with allergies.

‘What are you doing?’ Cadel demanded. ‘Why don’t you come in?’

‘Um …’ Saul looked to his wife for help. Before she could say anything, however, Cadel thrust the Dynavox at Reggie – who received it with a startled grunt.

‘We have to get rid of this,’ said Cadel. ‘It could be a problem.’ He turned to address Saul once again. ‘The Dynavox was at Clearview House, remember? Somebody should make sure it hasn’t been tampered with.’

‘Christ.’ The detective’s confused expression slowly yielded to one of alarm. ‘I never thought …’

‘But it’s Sonja’s,’ Fiona protested, as Reggie clumsily scooped up a dangling power cable. ‘How’s she going to communicate without her Dynavox?’

‘I don’t know,’ Cadel replied, and Saul said, ‘We’ll think of something. Just … just take it down to the car, Reg, will you?’

‘Which car?’ asked Reggie. ‘Yours or hers?’

Cadel didn’t wait around to hear Saul’s response. Instead he plunged back into Sonja’s room, letting the door swing shut behind him. He was angry with himself for being such an idiot. Of
course
the Dynavox could have been bugged. Why hadn’t it crossed his mind before?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, upon reaching Sonja’s bedside. ‘That was stupid. I can’t believe it never occurred to me. Thank God
someone’s
using their brain.’ Then he leaned down to whisper in her ear. ‘If only I knew sign language,’ he hissed. ‘This is insane. It’s like being back at the Axis Institute.’

‘Sonja? Hello?’ Fiona’s cautious greeting interrupted him. She had sidled into the room, bearing Saul’s bunch of silk flowers. ‘Are you all right, sweetie? Are you going to be all right without your Dynavox?’

‘Of course she isn’t!’ Cadel snapped. Though he knew he was being unfair, he couldn’t seem to moderate his tone. ‘We have to get her something else! We have to call Judith, right now!’

‘Well … okay. We can do that.’ If Fiona was taken aback, she didn’t show it. She regarded him with sympathy, and her voice was gentle. ‘I just wanted to make sure that Sonja doesn’t have a problem with this decision you’ve made –’

‘It wasn’t
my
decision, it was
her
decision!’ Cadel flushed, infuriated by this bald-faced assumption that he was trying to boss people around. ‘She’s the one who thought of it, not me!’

‘Oh.’

‘Maybe they have a spare Dynavox here at the hospital,’ he continued. ‘Or something
like
a Dynavox. There must be a speech therapy unit – couldn’t we find out? Couldn’t we ask a nurse?’

Fiona frowned. She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s pretty late,’ she said. ‘It’s after seven. I doubt if any of the clinics or therapists will be available until tomorrow –’

‘But we can
ask,
can’t we?’ he exclaimed, at which point Saul entered the room.

‘Ask what?’ The detective didn’t sound as if he wanted to deal with yet another crisis. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that Sonja needs to talk!’ Cadel cried. ‘So we need to ask someone if there’s a spare Dynavox around here!’ Seeing his foster parents exchange a pensive glance, he lost patience with them. ‘
I’ll
do it,’ he barked, before hurrying towards the exit.

But Saul was in the way, and didn’t step aside. On the contrary, he grabbed Cadel’s arm.

‘Calm down,’ the detective ordered.

‘I’m not –’

‘
Calm. Down.
’

Cadel suddenly realised that he was clenching his fists. Subdued by Saul’s dark and sombre gaze, he made a deliberate effort to relax, taking a deep breath while he flexed his fingers.

‘I know you’re upset, and I know why,’ Saul declared. ‘But there’s no need to panic, okay?’

Cadel nodded.

‘I’ll go and see what I can do.’ Saul straightened, then raised his voice to address Sonja. ‘Sorry about this,’ he went on. ‘I’ll be back in a minute to say hello – I just figure it’s more important that we fix you up with some way of saying hello back.’

From the other side of the room, Sonja gave a squawk that might have been an affirmative response. Fiona said to her husband, ‘I’ll go, if you like. I know how these bureaucrats think.’

‘Yeah,’ he rejoined, ‘but I’ve got my ID on me. And I’m also carrying a gun.’ As his wife heaved a long-suffering sigh, he turned back to Cadel. ‘You go and talk to Sonja. That’s why you’re here. Just leave the rest to me – I’ll take care of it.’

‘How can I talk to Sonja?’ Cadel demanded, gesturing wildly around the room. ‘Even if she
did
have a Dynavox, just look at this place! It’s all wired up, and I don’t know anything about the systems! I don’t know if there’s wireless medical equipment! I don’t know what the security’s like!’ He started to tug at his hair. ‘Suppose they have a computerised medication schedule? Suppose someone gets into that, and adjusts Sonja’s dosage?’

‘Cadel. Sweetie. Look over there.’ It was Fiona who decided to reassure him. She pointed at Sonja’s bed. ‘That’s a clipboard. With a chart on it. The people here are still using paper, Cadel – you don’t have to worry so much.’

‘We can look after ourselves,’ the detective confirmed. ‘And we can look after Sonja. You’re not responsible for our safety; that isn’t your job.’ He put an arm around Cadel’s shoulders. ‘You know what concerns me? That you’ll get all worked up, and then you’ll lose it. Because you’re not Superman, son. You’re just a really smart kid with a lot on your plate.’

‘No one expects you to save the world,’ Fiona agreed. ‘You can’t fix everything, no matter how brilliant you are. You shouldn’t have to. I don’t want you to.’

I don’t want me to, either,
Cadel thought sourly.
Trouble is, I don’t have much choice. Not now that Prosper English is back.

‘You’ve got to learn to trust other people,’ Saul remarked, as if he’d read Cadel’s mind. ‘Just let it go, and get on with your visit.’

‘But –’

‘I know Sonja isn’t able to talk, right now,’ the detective continued. ‘That doesn’t mean you can’t talk to
her,
though, does it?’

Cadel hesitated. He wondered if he was being paranoid. After all, what were the chances that Prosper had somehow bugged Sonja’s room? Was it unreasonable to be so anxious? Was he thinking like a graduate of the Axis Institute, instead of a normal human being?

Or was it unwise to discuss anything of importance with Sonja, while she was trapped in an environment that he didn’t entirely understand?

‘Here.’ All of a sudden, Saul’s arm dropped away from Cadel’s shoulders. The detective fished around inside his jacket – but he didn’t pull his gun out of its holster. Instead he produced a small, ring-bound notebook and a ballpoint pen. ‘If it makes you feel better, you can write things down,’ he said. ‘And if you’re
really
worried, you can write things down in code. Either way, you’ll still be talking to Sonja. And no one can possibly overhear you.’

As Cadel mutely accepted the notebook, his foster father offered him one more piece of advice along with it. ‘You’re both smart kids, and you’ve got half an hour left before the ward closes. Why don’t you make the most of it while you can? By the time I get back, I bet you won’t even need a Dynavox any more. You’ll be jabbering away with the TV remote or something.’

‘With the
what
?’ said Cadel. But it was too late. Saul had
already spun around, and was disappearing into the corridor.

‘Listen, sweetie.’ Fiona waited until her husband was out of earshot before speaking. ‘If you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to,’ she said. ‘You’re tired. You’ve had a big day. Just give me the word, and I’ll take you home. Sonja won’t mind, I’m sure.’

Cadel, however, wasn’t listening. He was staring across the room at the TV remote.

The TV remote.

There were a lot of things you could do with an infrared remote control …

Thi Thuoy lived in a two-storeyed townhouse made of brick. The next morning, when Saul and Cadel arrived there, they noticed several cars parked out front. One of these cars belonged to Hamish Primrose. Another was Gazo’s little blue bomb.

Thi answered the door in person. He had dimples, a nose stud, and a big, white, dazzling smile. Over a pair of almost threadbare jeans he wore a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sweatshirt.

Cadel recognised him instantly from the K17 computer labs.

‘Hi,’ said Thi. Though his expression was quizzical, he didn’t comment on Cadel’s ski-gloves, flippers, or padded anorak, having already been warned about them during various phone conversations with Richard Buckland. ‘Come on in.’

‘Are you Mr Thuoy?’ Saul inquired, from beneath the black Islamic
chador
that he’d draped over his head. He was dressed from head to toe in a traditional Arabic woman’s outfit, which had been a gift to Fiona. Because it was a bit too short, the cuffs of his trousers were clearly visible beneath the hem.

‘Call me T,’ said Thi, his grin widening. ‘I guess you must be –’

‘Detective Inspector Saul Greeniaus. And this is Cadel.’

‘From the labs,’ Thi confirmed, in satisfied tones. He was eyeing Cadel. ‘I
thought
you might be the one that Richard was talking about.’

‘Is Richard here?’ asked Saul, as Thi stepped back to admit him.

‘Sure is.’ Thi waved his two guests over the threshold. ‘Second door on the right. He came with Boyd – you know Boyd?’

Cadel shook his head. The front entrance of Thi’s house opened directly into a narrow corridor, which dodged a carpeted staircase and passed several rooms on its way to a big, open-plan living area. Cadel caught a glimpse of glossy floorboards, bright paint and colourful bookshelves some distance ahead, before the detective suddenly stopped short in front of him, blocking his view.

They had reached the second door on the right.

It was Hamish who had once informed Cadel that Thi Thuoy was rich. ‘You know that guy with the nose stud and the fancy haircut? Well, his dad owns one of those hardware chains,’ Hamish had said, his expression a mixture of jealousy and awe. ‘That’s why he’s got about five computers, and his own house in Leichhardt.’ Thi certainly wasn’t living like most of his classmates; though he was a final-year student with part-time tutoring work, there could be no doubt that he had
some
form of financial support.