Operation Sherlock

by Bruce Coville

  Roger supposed if someone was fooling around with the computer, Dr. Hwa should know about it. On the other hand, he didn’t like the idea of asking anyone else to handle their problems.

  Yet they had no idea whether this person was actually dangerous or not. Were the threatening messages just a prank-or the work of some dangerous lunatic?

  The muscles in Roger’s shoulders were so tight he was afraid he would get a cramp. His palms were soaked with sweat. Flanked by Rachel and Ray, he stood looking at the house for what seemed an eternity. What if the message sender had already left?

  Before Roger could decide whether they should go into the house, the matter was taken out of his hands.

  The front door swung open and the boy named Hap, the dune buggy driver Trip had nearly collided with the day before, stepped out. “Well,” he said with a smile. “It’s about time. I wondered when you were going to catch me!”

  Explanations = More Mysteries!

  The babble of voices that greeted Hap’s casual reaction to being discovered made it impossible to think. Trip and Wendy arriving from the other side of the house only added to the confusion.

  “All right, all right, everybody shut up!” bellowed Roger at last.

  In the silence that followed he took a step toward the other boy, eying him warily, as if he still expected him to run—or even attack.

  “Hey, I’m not going anywhere,” said Hap. “You caught me, fair and square.” He spread his hands and laughed. “Now the question is—what are you going to do with me?”

  Roger scowled. What could they do with him?

  Tell his parents? They didn’t even know who his parents were. Of course, they could turn him in to Dr. Hwa. But it would be better if they could handle the situation on their own. “We’re not going to do anything with you,” he said at last. “We just want some answers.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll trade you answer for answer.”

  “No,” said Roger. “Right now you owe us a few.”

  Hap shrugged. “We’ll see. Why don’t we go inside where we can all sit down?”

  Roger glanced at the other members of the gang and realized they were waiting for him to make the decision. He looked back at Hap and wondered if this was a trap of some kind.

  “Coming?”

  Roger decided to take the chance. “All right. Lead the way.”

  The inside of the house had been stripped when the officer who last lived there had left the island. With no furniture the empty rooms seemed unusually large—and slightly eerie.

  “Too neat,” said Wendy, looking around. “I prefer a healthy dose of clutter.”

  A flicker of annoyance passed over their host’s face. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the floor. Nobody moved.

  The boy shrugged, then lowered himself so that he was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  “What’s your name?” asked Roger.

  “Hap.”

  “We know that,” snapped Trip. “Hap who?”

  “Swenson.”

  A look passed between the other kids.

  Ray pushed his glasses up onto his nose with the tip of his forefinger. “You’re not Mr. Swenson’s son, are you?”

  “Someone’s in for a rude surprise if I’m not.”

  Trip groaned.

  “Why did you send us those messages?” asked Rachel, sliding down the wall into a squatting position.

  Hap shrugged. “I was bored. And you people were so wrapped up in yourselves you barely noticed I existed, except to stare at me once in a while as if I was a spy or something. I never saw such a stuck-up group.”

  Rachel blushed. Their less-than-generous treatment of this boy when he served them in the canteen had been pricking at her conscience as it was. His words confirmed what she had suspected, and brought her feelings of guilt to full flower.

  Those words obviously weren’t having the same effect on Wendy. “Oh, bullfeathers!” she exclaimed. “We had things to talk about. You were the waiter. I don’t believe in abusing the help, but I’m not going to feel guilty because we didn’t decide we couldn’t live without you!”

  Hap turned away, his face sullen. An awkward silence fell over the room. It was finally broken when Trip folded his long legs, sank to the floor with Rachel and Hap, and asked, “So how did you do it?”

  “Send the messages?”

  Trip nodded.

  Hap looked a little nervous. “When the Air Force pulled out, they left terminals in a lot of the houses. It wasn’t too much work to reconnect the thing.”

  “That’s not the issue,” said Roger, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together furiously. “And you know it.” He looked Hap straight in the eye. “Each of our terminals has an access code that should be virtually impossible to break. But you did it. How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The others stared at him. “I beg your pardon?” said Roger.

  “I don’t know,” repeated Hap, looking even more nervous. “I was just hacking around, not really expecting anything to happen, when I made contact with your terminals.” He took a deep breath. “I hadn’t really been planning to send a message, but I was still mad, and when the chance came up…” He shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished. “The thing is, I shouldn’t have been able to do that. It scared me a little.”

  Hap looked at the circle of faces surrounding him. He seemed to be trying to decide whether he should say the next thing on his mind. “If you want to know the truth,” he said at last, “I think someone has been tampering with the system.”

  “Yeah,” said Ray. “You.”

  “Don’t be stupid! I was just playing with a terminal. I think someone else has fiddled with the mainframe’s security program.”

  “I want to go home,” said Wendy. “This place is Weirdsville.”

  Roger began pacing back and forth, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together faster than before. “Weirdsville is right. But you can bet that we’re not going anywhere, so we’d better start putting things together to see if we can make sense out of them. I wish Sherlock was up and running.”

  “Sherlock?” asked Hap.

  Roger paused. Should they trust this newcomer? He looked at the others. Again they were leaving the decision up to him. Again he decided to take the chance.

  “Sherlock is a program we’re trying to create,” he said, settling to the floor. “What we’re shooting for is an A.I. crimesolver.”

  Though he had decided to trust Hap, he deliberately held back on telling him how big their plans really were. The idea that they were trying to create a self-aware computer was not something he was ready to share with a newcomer to the group. It was only then that he realized that despite the fact that they had been enemies, he was indeed considering Hap as a possible member of the gang.

  “The original idea was to get something that would help us figure out some of the weird things that have been happening here,” explained Rachel.

  “You sound like there were more weird things than my messages,” said Hap.

  “Well, there was that explosion at the guard shack,” said Ray.

  Hap shrugged. “My father says that was just an accident.”

  “Could be,” said Trip. “Personally, I’m not ready to toss it off that easily.”

  “And then there was the bug,” said Rachel.

  “Bug?”

  Quickly Rachel filled him in on the details of the microphone that had been planted on her collar. When she was done, he let out a low whistle. “That is weird.”

  “Especially when you consider that it was almost certainly planted by one of the adults at that meeting,” said Rachel.

  “But why?”

  “That’s what we want to know!” exclaimed Wendy. “Actually, it was what first got us started on Operation Sherlock. But things just keep getting weirder. For example last night Dr. Remov was telling us that he was worried about some spy group called G.H.O.S.T.”

  “And there’s the fact that we never got
in trouble for denting the dune buggy,” put in Trip. “Don’t forget about that.”

  Hap began to laugh. “Well, that’s one mystery I can solve for you. I took care of it. I got one of the mechanics to help me, and we had the whole thing looking good as new before my father had a clue that anything had happened. Those new snap-in panels are great. We could never have done it fast enough without them.”

  “But why did you do it?” asked Trip, looking astonished.

  Hap shrugged. “A couple of reasons. For one thing, I figured if I ever did get to know you guys, I would just as soon you still have the use of the duners. I didn’t want to be stuck bombing around all alone out there! And to tell you the truth, I felt a little guilty. Despite what I said, the accident was at least half my fault.”

  “No,” said Trip. “It was mostly my fault. I should have been more careful.”

  “Let’s not get too mushy,” said Wendy. “I have a delicate stomach. Besides, that only clears up one mystery, and one of the smaller ones at that. We’ve still got some real weirdness left to deal with.”

  “Let’s run through it again,” said Roger. “We’ve cleared up the mysterious messages and the self-regenerating dune buggy. But there’s still”—(he began ticking things off on his fingers as he spoke)—”one, the explosion. Two, the bug on Rachel’s collar. Three, the fact that Hap was doing things on the computer that he simply shouldn’t have been able to do.” He paused, then said, “Three strikes and you’re out. I think it’s time we went to see Dr. Hwa.”

  A Visit to Dr. Hwa

  Hap stood with the gang outside the huge marble building that held the main offices for Project Alpha. His mother had excused him from working in the canteen for the afternoon so that he could come along with the group. She had no idea what they were up to—she was just so relieved he had made some friends that she was more than happy to give him the time off.

  He felt funny being with the others after the tension that had existed between them. They were certainly trying to be polite to him now, Rachel especially. But it was clear that they were not entirely comfortable with him; particularly the one they called the Wonderchild.

  I wonder if I would have been invited along if I didn’t have important evidence to add? he thought—and then immediately began to worry about having to tell Dr. Hwa about what he had been up to.

  His fussing was interrupted by Roger. “All right, are we clear on our strategy?” he asked, speaking to the group as a whole. “We don’t want to look like a bunch of idiots, so unless Dr. Hwa specifically asks one of us something, we’ll stick with the things we decided. I’ll start by explaining why we’re here. Rachel will talk about the transmitter on her collar. Then Hap will tell why he thinks the computer has been tampered with. If it comes up, Ray can mention that we’re still not convinced that the explosion at the guard shack was an accident. Trip and Wendy, you can verify things for us, but for the time being you don’t have any major data to present. Got it?”

  They all nodded.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Funny, thought Trip. I’d be nervous as a cat in a dog pound if I were doing this on my own. But with all of us together, it doesn’t bother me at all.

  They had to sign in at the front desk, where they were given little plastic badges embedded with a microchip that would set off an alarm if they ventured into any restricted areas. The receptionist pointed the way to Dr. Hwa’s office.

  It didn’t take long before they met their first real obstacle: Bridget McGrory.

  “Saints preserve us!” cried the fiery Irishwoman when the kids presented themselves at her desk. “What is this? A research project or a day-care center? No, you can’t see Dr. Hwa. He’s busy! Now, get on with you!”

  “But it’s urgent,” said Roger.

  “It’s urgent that you rascals get yourselves out of here,” snapped the formidable Ms. McGrory. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Now, look, Toots,” said Wendy. “I don’t—” She was interrupted by the door to the inner office swinging open. “What’s the commotion, Bridget?” asked a quiet voice.

  “There, now.” The secretary sighed, exasperation heavy in her voice. “You’ve gone and disturbed Himself. I’m sorry, Dr. Hwa. These scamps were trying to get in to see you.”

  “These ‘scamps’ are welcome here anytime,” said Dr. Hwa softly. He gave his secretary a wink. “Let’s not take ourselves so seriously, Bridget.”

  Ignoring her scowl, he turned to the gang and said, “Come right in. I’m eager to talk to you.” Feeling smug, the kids filed into Hwa’s office.

  Ray, who was last in line, tripped over his shoelace on the way. As he was picking himself up, he noticed Bridget McGrory reaching under her desk. When the secretary saw him watching her, she jerked her hand back as if she had been burned. “Get on with you!” she snapped. “Now that you’ve interrupted him, don’t keep the doctor waiting!”

  Ray scurried into the office. What was that all about? he wondered as he closed the door behind him.

  Dr. Hwa’s office—his sanctum sanctorum, as he referred to it—was an elegant combination of beautifully patterned oriental carpets, real walnut paneling, and highly polished desks and conference tables. Several Chinese-style landscapes hung on the wall behind his desk.

  Dr. Hwa himself was dressed in a white lab coat. Taking a seat on the corner of the desk, the diminutive scientist listened intently to what the gang had come to tell him. His brow was creased, and he looked worried.

  “You say this microphone, this ‘bug,’ disintegrated after you took it off Rachel’s collar?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “Then how do you know it was a microphone? I’m not saying it wasn’t, mind you. But I need to know.”

  “What else could it have been?” asked Ray indignantly.

  Dr. Hwa shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it. I’m just asking.”

  Roger began to fidget uneasily. This wasn’t going the way he had planned. “But Hap’s messages…” he began.

  “Ah, yes.” Dr. Hwa looked severe. “The messages. I must say, I am a little disappointed. I gave you youngsters access to a magnificent computer in hopes that you would use it constructively. These silly games of annoying one another…” He shook his head sadly. “Well, youth will be youth, I suppose. But let’s have no more of this, shall we?”

  “But the messages,” repeated Roger. “Hap should never have been able to get them through to our terminals.”

  “A simple glitch,” said Dr. Hwa. “And one we were already aware of. In fact, I wager if you had tried one of your pranks this afternoon, Mr. Swenson, you would have found yourself blocked.” Dr. Hwa gave Hap a wink. “I would suggest that we keep this all to ourselves,” he said. “No sense in alarming the others.”

  By which it was clear that he meant he would not tell Hap’s father what Hap had been up to.

  “Yes,” said Hap gratefully. “I think that’s a good idea, Dr. Hwa.”

  “I thought you would. Now, if you will excuse me…”

  “But Dr. Hwa!” cried Roger.

  “Yes?”

  The redhead paused. The doctor had effectively dismantled all their arguments. “Nothing,” he said glumly. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.”

  “Think nothing of it. Come and see me anytime you like. I’ll tell our Ms. McGrory not to protect me from you quite so zealously in the future.” He flashed them a conspiratorial smile, then sobered a bit. “I will warn you, though: I am often in the lab. If that is the case, you will not be able to get to me. I allow nothing to disturb me while I am working.”

  The ferocity with which he said this made it clear that when it came to his work, the scientist was dead serious.

  After the failure of their meeting with Dr. Hwa, the gang decided there was only one thing to do: proceed full speed ahead with Operation Sherlock.

  Which was just what they did. When they decided they needed even more privacy than the Phillips house could provid
e, Hap suggested that they move their base of operations to the abandoned house from which he had been sending them messages.

  Soon they were gathering there every morning, when they would meet to discuss their strategy for the day.

  Hap himself turned out to be an unexpectedly strong addition to the group. While he lacked the programming skills the others had picked up from their parents, he was a superb “nuts and bolts” person. When Rachel suggested they add a voice synthesizer to the terminal, it was Hap who cobbled together the parts to make it. When they wanted to add extra keyboards to the workstation so that more than one of them could input things at the same time, it was Hap who figured out the most efficient way to do the wiring.

  Operation Sherlock began to progress rapidly as each of them added to it from his or her own strengths. Before long they had the computer conversing with them in a limited fashion—in much the same manner as Paracelsus, though with more serious intent. (It was Roger’s idea to give the computer’s voice a British accent in order to make its speech patterns reflect the way the original Sherlock Holmes would have sounded. It was Ray who got his movie-buff father to loan them a voice pattern for Basil Rathbone, the actor who had played Holmes in so many old films.)

  Each of them contributed to the project in his or her own fashion. The Gamma Ray, for example, turned out to be a superb “glitch spotter.” When an addition to the program seemed perfect but just wouldn’t run, more often than not it was Ray who could find the tiny mistake that was causing the major problem. Before long he had pinned a score sheet on the wall next to his workstation where he kept a tally of the glitches he had successfully zapped.

  Roger and Rachel were the primary information programmers. Drawing on their own vast pool of knowledge, they spent much of their time simply adding to Sherlock’s store of general information. When the others found out how many hard facts the twins carried in their heads, they came to be considered the gang’s walking data base. It was a rare occasion when someone asked a factual question that one or the other of them couldn’t answer.