‘What does the face of someone capable of recalling Pi to three hundred decimal places look like?’ continued Lear. ‘That’s what I asked myself when I read your profile. And there you are, Farley, as plain as the rest of us.’
As Jackson smiled sheepishly at the miniature camera, the waitress placed a steaming mug of tea on his table. The clock read 10.48 a.m.
CHAPTER 8
3.141592653589793238462643383279. Pi. It formed effortlessly in Jackson’s mind. Pi accurate to thirty decimal places. He was seven years old when his mother had taught him the party trick that would spark his fascination with maths. She had written a poem in the young Jackson’s birthday card and told him that it hid a secret code. If he guessed the code, he could have his present.
For I must a verse prescribe
by artful sense and words describe
rhyming’s cryptic chemistry
bit by bit wiggling free
circle by circle soon you see
sketched out in Grecian schoolery
Two days with his head buried in his mother’s books and finally the young Jackson recognized a string of numbers as the ones he’d managed to extract from the birthday verse. By counting the characters in each of the rhyme’s words and listing them in order, he had uncovered the world’s most famous irrational number, Pi. He loved his shiny new BMX, but the discovery of Pi accurate to thirty decimal places was the best present Jackson had ever had.
As for the next 270 decimal places Lear had referred to, well, that was one reason Jackson didn’t get out much.
‘How do you know that?’ Brooke broke into the conversation with her distinctive American twang. ‘How do you know he’s a … a Pi guy? How do you know any of this stuff about us? How did that handset you sent me recognize my voice … you been stalking me or something?’
The American girl was echoing Jackson’s own thoughts. As far as he was aware, he’d never shared his fondness for mathematics’ most famous infinite number with anyone.
‘Farley’s maths teacher.’ Lear smiled knowingly at Jackson. ‘He noticed his doodles on a piece of scrap paper. He was very impressed … wrote it down in Mr Farley’s school file. And your honeyed tones, Ms English?’ Lear looked down and Jackson could see he was typing something. ‘Ah yes, your voice was recorded at … 17.22 on 16 June last year … I believe you were talking to a girlfriend about a band called … let me see … Satan’s Curse. At least, I hope it’s a band.’
‘Yes, they’re a band,’ said the indignant American. ‘And for a billionaire businessman, you seem to have a lot of spare time to spend eavesdropping. What’s all this about anyway?’
Jackson was relieved to hear he wasn’t the only one in the dark.
‘Listening in is a necessary part of our recruitment process,’ said Lear. ‘We’re only trying to safeguard the secrecy of the MeX organization.’
‘What is MeX?’ said Jackson, throwing the million-dollar question at him.
‘Experimental Mechanicals – MeX,’ said Lear. ‘It started as a pet project to design hardware for law enforcement. Small, unmanned surveillance vehicles that could be used to scout suspect buildings for criminal activity or slip undetected into a gangster’s stronghold.’
‘Wow, Robocop!’ blurted Brooke.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ continued Lear. ‘We soon realized we’d work better on our own. We’ve been … freelance … for the last five years.’
Freelance? It was an interesting choice of phrase and Jackson wasn’t sure what Lear meant by it. Before his dad had got his job as a security guard, he had been a freelance gardener for a few months. Judging by the amount of time his old man had spent watching TV during that time, freelance was just another word for unemployed.
‘You … vigilante?’ asked one of the twins.
‘Certainly not,’ replied Lear, breaking into a broad grin. ‘We still work closely with various government agencies. We just find it easier to do what we do without … all that red tape.’
As he continued to speak, the video stream of the brick wall was replaced with a string of photographs and newspaper headlines: ‘Serbian Monster Jailed’, ‘Drug Cartel Crushed’, ‘Hostage Freed’. There were photographs of smoking buildings, a group of policemen standing proudly in front of a huge pile of guns and rocket launchers, and several aerial shots of city high-rises and camps in forests and deserts. One newspaper picture that caught Jackson’s attention was that of a fat handcuffed man with a torn shirt and a big moustache being loaded into a dark blue van with ‘Policía’ written on the side. Next to him a headline read ‘Gotcha Amigo!’
‘Criminals. Gangsters. Warlords. Untouched by the laws that are meant to protect us from them. Indulged by the very governments we elect to stop them. Call it what you will, a commitment to justice, to fair play; a hatred of corrupt governments and the dirty games they play. We move in a world of shadows. We are vigilant and virtuous. Where there is chaos, where order cowers beneath a table and freedom lies beaten in the corner, we wreak our mechanical retribution.’
The headlines vanished and the strange brick wall returned, the grass at its base still swaying gently in the breeze.
What am I doing here? thought Jackson. What is this nutter going on about? I can’t even stand up to Tyler Hughes. How am I supposed to go up against international drug barons and evil-looking dudes with guns?
‘Now, I’m assuming you’re all familiar with the concept of tele-robotics?’
Jackson wasn’t, but mumbled ‘Yes’ anyway.
‘Sure, honey,’ said Brooke, ‘it’s all I’ve been doin’ for as long as I can remember. It’s how you control stuff from a distance. SUVs, planes, whatever you like. Tele-robotics lets you drive ’em around like great big remote-control toys.’
‘Yes, well, we don’t deal in toys,’ said Lear, ‘or those vulgar SUVs you’re so fond of for that matter.’
Brooke scowled.
Once again the feed of the brick wall in the centre screen was replaced, this time with a blueprint of what appeared to be a flying saucer.
The disc was described in three drawings, one from above, one from below and one from the side. It was smooth, apart from what looked like circular vents around its edge. The view from underneath, however, showed the outline of a large fan in the centre, its blades radiating outwards like spokes on a wheel.
‘Say hello to your training rig, the MeX1.’
Both Kojimas let out a gasp that Jackson recognized as the international language of amazement.
‘She’s a modular reconnaissance vehicle, which means she can be configured for a number of tasks including intelligence gathering … the laying of bugs, motion sensing, video work, that type of thing, and some minor defensive assignments. In the scheme of things, MeX1 is a pussycat, my version of a pizza delivery bike, but she’ll tie you in knots if you don’t stay ahead of yourselves,’ Lear went on. ‘We use tele-robotic vehicles like these to tackle situations in the far-flung corners of the globe that governments seem too, shall we say, preoccupied, to bother with.’
Tell me I get to fly that thing and I’m in! thought Jackson, as the sleek outline of an aircraft resembling a classic UFO hovered over the tabletop in front of him.
‘Our vehicles are designed to be small and agile enough to slip in and get out without anyone knowing they were there. We do make it into the headlines once in a while. At least we do if you know what to look for – some daring hostage rescue attributed to Special Forces. But it’ll have been us at the controls. There’s no glory when no one’s allowed to know you exist.
‘The four of you have been selected because you have what our organization considers to be appropriate psychological profiles for the kind of work we do. A number-cruncher, two distinguished cyber athletes and a wayward … but brilliant engineer. The question is, do the four of you want to make a difference? How about you, Miss English? I realize you’re not short on exotic gizmos, but I can offer you a machine that actually works.’
&n
bsp; Brooke opened her mouth, as if she wanted to give Lear a dressing-down for yet another example of his uninvited ‘eavesdropping’, but then she seemed to think better of it. ‘Yada yada. I’m in, as long as they come in other colours. Military grey is so last season.’
Lear chose, perhaps wisely, not to respond.
‘And, Farley,’ Lear continued, ‘don’t tell me you wouldn’t appreciate a little intrigue and adventure. You trudge back and forth to that school of yours every day, but can you say you feel stretched by the experience? Isn’t that, and the unwanted attention your brainy status brings you, the reason you play hooky so often?’
Was it a compliment or a criticism? Jackson wasn’t sure. It made his cheeks flush all the same. He wasn’t a truant. He didn’t want the others thinking that. He just took a few days off each term to … deal with things. And he wasn’t a pushover either; he could look after himself, as long as the person doing the pushing wasn’t twice his size, which Tyler Hughes patently was.
It was hard attending a school where it seemed most of the other kids were more interested in listening to music, or filming each other with their mobile phones doing stupid stunts, than listening to what was said in class. Jackson was no swot, at least he didn’t think he was, but he liked most lessons and that marked him out as a target. Sometimes it seemed to him that unless you liked exactly the same things as everyone else, spoke the same, watched the same TV shows and showed the same brutality to those lower down the school food chain, you were treated like an outcast.
There were exceptions: Amisha could be a bit weird, but she always had time for a conversation about space and the possibilities of alien life, and Sarah Jacobs had invited him to go into town with her on more than one occasion; he hadn’t taken her up on the offer, but it was nice to be asked.
He got on best with the other members of the chess club: Taylor Dillon, who he’d sometimes met up with at The Zap Shack cyber cafe to play Whisper, until his dad had suspended Taylor’s account after he’d bought thousands of MP3s with his credit card, and Otis Gibbs, who was quite a bit younger than Jackson, and awarded him a degree of hero worship on account of his chess skills. But even the people he considered friends would ignore him when certain ringleaders were handing out the beatings and that’s when Jackson would make himself scarce.
Brooke gave Jackson an awkward grimace as he struggled to find a witty reply to deflect Lear’s very personal question, just like Brooke had done. But he couldn’t think of anything good to say.
In any case, if he was honest with himself, Lear had it about right. After all, why was he here? Why was Jackson sitting in a cafe in the middle of a school day? And he wasn’t just curious about MeX now. This gear was more than simply cool. Did he really want to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime?
‘Why not?’ he said coolly, as if enlisting in a top-secret organization was no big deal.
‘And what of our gaming duo? Does the thought of doing something your father doesn’t control excite you?’
The Kojima twins eyed Lear sternly, as if they considered what he had said to be the height of rudeness. It was rude, thought Jackson, sharing details of their relationship with an overbearing father. But Jackson had to hand it to him: Lear’s tactic of using the information he had gathered to push personal buttons had worked on him and Brooke. Master Kojima flicked his head towards his sister and whispered something in her ear. She continued to stare with an intensity that was no doubt intended for Lear.
‘What is … capability of vehicle you show?’ asked the young Japanese girl in her stilted English.
‘I’m afraid I can reveal nothing more unless you agree to join us. What I will say is that it will test even your considerable skills as gamers. So, what is your answer?’
Again Master Kojima whispered something into his sister’s ear before the two of them turned, bowed in unison and said ‘Un.’
‘Very well,’ Lear continued smoothly. ‘It’s time for you to grab your pens.’
CHAPTER 9
Jackson dug the blue fountain pen out of his school bag. As he held it up to examine it, he was reminded of his surroundings. The swooning couple behind the counter were still far too interested in each other to worry about the last of the big spenders playing with his new pen in the window seat.
‘Note its bejewelled elegance,’ Lear said, holding up an identical pen and running his finger along the three coloured spots on the pen top. ‘But also beware, for these are magic stones.’ Jackson wondered if Lear used this kind of flowery language all the time, or if he just put it on for new recruits.
Lear pulled the top off, exposing the nib, and pushed it on to the other end of the pen. He then closed his hand round it and held it out in front of himself.
Jackson checked his surroundings once more before self-consciously mimicking Lear’s actions.
‘It’s called a gestural interface; a magical combination of nano-engineered components that can turn just about anything into a magic wand!’ Lear flourished the pen in mid-air and the blueprint in Jackson’s view was instantly replaced by the view of the brick wall, now swaying in time with Lear’s gestures.
‘They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Well, when it’s configured as a joystick and wirelessly jacked into one of my robots … it’s mightier still.’
Holding the pen steady in the palm of his hand, Lear appeared to nudge it gently backwards towards himself. The brick wall zoomed further away, until Jackson could see it was one side of a derelict building. It was now apparent that the central video feed of the wall was coming from a camera mounted on a MeX1 robot that Lear was controlling.
Suddenly the view lurched forward as Lear sent the remotely controlled vehicle on a high-speed tour of an abandoned junkyard. Up high and over the brick wall, skimming the top of a rusty corrugated roof, then down towards two rotten garage doors. With a twist of the pen, he flipped the MeX1 on its side and it darted through the doors to a ramshackle workshop, flying past a heap of old tyres and a precarious wall of oil barrels. Then, Jackson realized, Lear must have flicked the craft’s nose up because the screen was now pointing towards the building’s roof, the dust kicked up by the vehicle’s fan sparkling in the shafts of sunlight that streamed through the spaces left by missing metal tiles.
Lear spoke calmly as the vehicle he was controlling flew upwards and burst through the largest gap in the roof into bright sunshine.
‘MeX1 is controlled using a combination of inputs from the floating pen – and vocal mimicry.’
‘Vocal mimicry?’ asked Jackson.
‘Pretending to speak. Mouthing words without actually saying anything,’ replied Lear, the roller-coaster view unrelenting as he threw the machine underneath rusted farm machinery and in and out of a line of dilapidated caravans. ‘The grommet in your ear measures subtle changes in pressure in your inner ear when you mouth certain keywords,’ he continued. ‘Try saying the word “Menu”, but don’t let any sound come out.’
Jackson did as instructed and a list of words appeared down the left of the floating screen: VIEW, MAP ARM, SET-UP, SPEC, EXIT.
‘That’s buff!’ said Brooke, who had obviously just tried the silent voice control for herself.
The Kojima twins were mumbling in hushed Japanese; the wonderment on their faces was obvious.
Jackson mouthed ‘View’ and a video feed from another craft popped up, looking as if it sat waiting for him inside an old shed. With effortless flexes of his jaw, Jackson found he was cycling through the options menu of his very own MeX1 – ARM: BASS BOMB, CAMERA, DAZZLER.
‘Word of warning, ladies and gents,’ said Lear, bringing his remote vehicle into a controlled hover, ‘don’t waste any of your defensive measures just yet –’
He hadn’t finished his sentence when there was a blinding flash that caused everyone to reel back.
‘Holy moly!’ said Brooke. ‘What was that?’
‘Virtute non armis,’ said Lear. ‘It’s our motto. It means “Virtu
e not by force of arms”. What you just witnessed was the Dazzler, one of two non-lethal weapons that your MeX unit carries. We have what is called a non-lethal mandate, an international agreement allowing us to operate as long as our machines don’t use lethal force. The Dazzler has a range of about twenty-five metres and is designed to overwhelm the electronics and computer systems of our enemies with a pulse of electromagnetic energy – and it’ll temporarily blind any human opponents that get in its way.
‘Before Farley got trigger happy,’ Lear continued, ‘I was trying to explain that the Dazzler and Bass Bomb can only be used once each. So, Farley, you’re already one weapon down.’
‘Er … sorry about that,’ said Jackson. He wondered if the others felt as astonished as he did about the dangerous weapons their vehicles were carrying.
‘Apologize to English, not me; she’s your teammate,’ said Lear.
‘Teammate?’ asked Brooke.
‘It’s you two versus the Kojimas.’
Jackson saw the twins look at each other, whisper something he couldn’t interpret, and then perform some kind of complicated handshake before gently banging their foreheads together. They seemed nice enough, but judging by what he assumed was the gaming duo’s little warrior jig, they would be serious competition.
‘What’re we playing?’ asked Jackson.
‘To use the video-gaming parlance you’re so fond of,’ answered Lear, ‘I believe it’s called a deathmatch.’
CHAPTER 10
‘I think the idea is for you to take pieces out of them, not me,’ said Brooke.
Jackson’s MeX bot was zigzagging its way down a narrow alley made up entirely of old engines, bouncing like a lunatic pinball off every available surface, including Brooke’s machine.
Lear’s idea was that a deathmatch offered the ideal opportunity for the four recruits to get to grips with the MeX1. ‘You can fly them around an assault course for as long as you like,’ he said. ‘But until someone’s trying to blow you out of the air, you’ll never really learn what these machines can do.’
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