Evil Genius

by Catherine Jinks

  I. Hf.

  Meaningless. Unless it meant ‘I have’?

  He checked the next number. Seventy-three kilograms. That sounded more like an atomic number again – tantalum, to be exact.

  I. Hf. Ta.

  Birthday on the twelfth of January. What did that mean? Twelve was the atomic number for magnesium: Mg. Divorced in’92 was easy, ninety-two being the atomic number for uranium (U). I. Hf. Ta. Mg. U. It didn’t really make sense.

  And then Cadel realised. The reference to January meant something as well. It wasn’t just twelve – it was twelfth of the first, or 12.01. The atomic weight for carbon.

  Number, weight, number, weight, number. I. Hf. Ta. C. U.

  I have to see you.

  It was as clear as day. Kay-Lee wanted to see him. She wanted to see him, but she couldn’t tell him so. Not directly. Not even in the code they’d devised.

  Why?

  He jumped out of his seat and began to pace the floor, hardly knowing whether to dance for joy or wring his hands. What on earth was going on? Why this strange message? But perhaps it was incomplete. Perhaps there was more. Throwing himself at the computer again, Cadel studied Jorge’s email with ferocious intensity. The only other numbers he could find were in the last paragraph: I believe that life falls into four seasons, and I am, obviously, commencing my autumn years. But I don’t believe that would make any difference, for kindred spirits. I believe the Beatles got it right – and even if I was sixty-four, or older, it wouldn’t matter to the woman who saw past the exterior, to the core of my being. The True Self doesn’t fade. Anyway, as Bismarck said, ‘Do not count the years, only the achievements’. I believe I have a fathomless depth of love and experience to offer the one who digs deep enough.

  Four seasons. Four. The atomic number for Beryllium. (Be.) Seventy-four was the atomic number for tungsten. (W.) Be W.

  Bew?

  No, no, no. There had to be something else. Be, W, something. He combed through the last few sentences. He sectioned them, dissected them, ran them through every possible test he could think of before it suddenly sprang out at him. Bismarck, Otto von. Otto – the Italian word for eight. Eight was the atomic number for oxygen, or ‘O’.

  Be W O.

  No. That wasn’t right. Be W . . . ox? Woxy?

  Air? Not exactly scientific, but . . .

  Be W Air. Beware.

  It was a warning: I have to see you. Beware. Was Kay-Lee in some sort of danger? Was that why she had cut off all communications with him?

  Clearly, she was afraid that their main line of communication had been bugged. She was under the impression that someone had been reading their emails. Well, it might be possible. Cadel’s own computer firewalls were almost impossible to breach, but the security on Kay-Lee’s machine was hopeless – as he’d proven in the past. Perhaps the hacker had wormed into their exchange from her side? That was possible.

  Curled up in his chair, furiously gnawing at his fingernails, Cadel considered his next move. He had to see Kay-Lee. To visit her, in other words – not to phone her, or to email her, or anything else. The question was: How? He could catch a train to Weatherwood House easily enough, but could he just walk in the front door? Kay-Lee had told him to beware. It might be dangerous, walking up to the front door. And besides . . .

  Cadel glanced at the window. For all he knew, the Fuhrer’s surveillance team was sitting outside. It might follow him, and then what would happen? Maybe nothing. Maybe, if there was danger, it would be a good thing to have a few Grunts watching his back.

  On the other hand, Kay-Lee McDougall was none of the Fuhrer’s business. Cadel had seen the Fuhrer’s data on other Axis staff members. He had seen the way Adolf collected background titbits: police records, unpaid child support, outstanding warrants. The Fuhrer seemed to regard this information as important to the security of the institute – in case he ever had to blackmail someone, perhaps. Like Cadel, he made a hobby of data collection. Unlike Cadel, however, he wasn’t very good at it.

  All the same, Cadel didn’t want him finding out about Kay-Lee. As far as Cadel was concerned, Kay-Lee and the Axis Institute had to be kept as far apart as possible. Thaddeus, for example, wouldn’t approve. Sending Kay-Lee presents had been bad enough. Going to visit her would be regarded as horribly unwise. You’re getting too involved, Thaddeus had warned him a long time ago.

  ‘That’s your opinion,’ Cadel said aloud. Then he got up, dragged his backpack from under the bed, and stuffed it with items that he’d been hiding: his Indian cotton skirt, his snap-on earrings, his bra, his hair ribbon. To these he added a plastic shopping bag from ‘Sam’s Boutique’, a filmy chiffon blouse (filched from the laundry basket) and some of Lanna’s make-up, which he was able to take from her bathroom quite easily. She didn’t even stir when he slipped through her darkened bedroom; she was just a motionless lump under an embroidered silk doona.

  Having packed his bag, Cadel ordered a taxi and walked boldly out the front door. He couldn’t see anyone – no lurking cars or suspicious strangers lighting cigarettes – but that meant nothing. The Grunts might simply be very good at their job.

  He hoped that they wouldn’t be too good. If they were, he was in trouble.

  The taxi arrived in about ten minutes. Cadel asked the driver to take him to the nearest mall. As they purred along leafy avenues, and then swung out onto the highway, Cadel kept his eyes peeled for pursuing vehicles. One white Toyota stayed behind them for a suspiciously long time, before turning off down a side-street. There was also a motorbike that weaved in and out of the traffic like an Internet search engine spidering through the Web. But Cadel saw nothing that he could positively identify as a surveillance team.

  At the mall, he headed straight for a computer store that he often frequented. It wasn’t his favourite but it was the closest; it stocked a lot of telephone and entertainment equipment as well. Cadel spent about an hour poking around there, watching everyone who came in after he did. He was trying to lull any hovering surveillance teams into a false sense of security. Finally, he left the shop, ducking down a featureless corridor that led to a pair of rest rooms. Two doors were placed side by side, one marked ‘male’, the other ‘female’.

  With a quick glance around, Cadel entered the female toilets.

  It was the riskiest part of the whole plan. One protest could ruin everything. But he moved quickly, and the only person who saw him was a tiny girl whose mother was peering into a mirror above the basins. The girl caught his eye and stared.

  Cadel darted into a cubicle, slamming the door behind him.

  In the unearthly fluorescent light, he struggled with buttons and zippers. Having forgotten to bring spare socks, he was forced to stuff his bra with toilet paper. His sneakers looked odd under the Indian cotton skirt, but that couldn’t be helped. (Alias had warned him about giveaway shoes, but that couldn’t be helped either.) Though he was able to tie his hair back inside the cubicle, he didn’t attempt to put on any make-up. Not until he had a mirror to help him.

  The little girl was gone by the time he emerged. Cadel applied his lipstick carefully, with many surreptitious glances at the woman on the other side of the room, who was doing the same thing. He put kohl on his eyes, and a little blusher on his cheeks. He plastered foundation over his bruises, until they were barely visible. The mascara, however, defeated him. He decided that mascara wasn’t necessary.

  When he’d finished, he was pleased with the result. It was convincing. He was convincing. He shook out his ‘Sam’s Boutique’ bag and thrust everything into it that he wanted to take with him (discarded boys’ clothes, make-up, backpack).

  Then he walked through the exit door.

  THIRTY

  No one stared. No one stopped him. He might have been invisible, for all the notice he attracted.

  With a dry mouth and a hammering heart, he wandered down to the street, pausing every so often to peer into the kind of shop windows that he usually ignored – windows full of g
irls underwear, jewellery, scented soaps, floral cushions. He wasn’t sure if anyone was following him. He thought not.

  Once on the street, he turned left and headed for the station. The air was full of grit. He felt strangely exposed after the bright, enclosed world of the mall, but the eyes of the people he passed simply slid over him. His skirt swished around his ankles: a very peculiar sensation. He could taste lipstick.

  When he reached the station, he bought a ticket from a machine. Every platform was crowded with people, but the train that he caught wasn’t very full. Though he moved from carriage to carriage, no one seemed to be dogging his footsteps. After about forty minutes, when he finally reached his stop, he sat by the door until the last possible moment.

  Only as it was sliding shut did he suddenly fling himself out onto the platform, nearly knocking down an elderly lady.

  He would have apologised, if he’d trusted his voice. But he couldn’t. So he brushed past her rudely and bounded up the stairs to the street, two at a time. He saw Chinese families, slouching skateboard riders, a woman with a baby in a stroller – nothing suspicious. Weatherwood House was a half-hour walk away, down a very long road. He had checked his street directory before coming. He knew exactly what to do.

  It was overcast, though dry. The walk seemed endless. On and on he went, tripping sometimes on the badly maintained pavement, barely noticing the apartment blocks and brick-veneer houses that lined the road on each side. At one stage he thought he’d reached Weatherwood House, only to discover that he was looking at a nursing home. And Weatherwood House, when he finally got there, wasn’t at all what he had expected. Somehow he hadn’t pictured so many entrances and exits – so many signs saying ‘Visitor Parking’, ‘Ambulance Only’ and ‘Kyle Manly Wing’. There were trees, and a big white house, but the photograph on the website hadn’t encompassed all the glass breezeways, car parks, ramps, patios and ugly additions.

  He didn’t dare hesitate, however. He had to look purposeful. Briskly, he crossed the front lawn and headed for the nearest entrance, which was the door to an enclosed verandah. The verandah contained all kinds of odd chairs, a wicker side-table stacked with boxes of jigsaw puzzles, and an electric urn – but no people. From one end of this airy but slightly depressing space, a pair of double doors opened onto a wide hallway. Here everything looked far less run down. There was carpet on the floor and a plant in a pot. Bright pictures hung on the wall, interspersed with several noticeboards. A faint smell of cooking lingered in the air.

  ‘Can I help you?’ a female voice inquired.

  Cadel whirled around. He saw a compact, grey-haired woman in slacks and a short-sleeved blouse, carrying a pile of folded sheets. She was emerging from what appeared to be a storeroom or linen cupboard.

  Her manner was anything but friendly.

  ‘Uh . . .’ Cadel was so nervous that his voice was a startled squeak. ‘Kay-Lee McDougall?’

  ‘You want Kay-Lee?’

  Cadel nodded, relieved that the woman didn’t seem to find the pitch and tone of his request at all suspicious.

  ‘Kay-Lee hasn’t finished her shift,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want to wait?’

  Cadel nodded again.

  ‘Well . . . perhaps you’d better come through here.’

  The woman led Cadel down the hallway, past lots of wide-open doors. Cadel saw an office, a bathroom, a floor strewn with toys. He had to dodge a wheelchair, which was being pushed by a young man in a pink t-shirt; the child in the wheelchair rolled his eyes at Cadel, his head juddering.

  ‘In there,’ said the woman, and stopped. The hallway had widened into a large area that was in fact the vestibule of the old house. A polished staircase swept up to the second floor; it had some kind of stair-lift attached to it. There was also an elevator, Cadel saw, and a row of upholstered seats placed near the massive front door.

  ‘Just sit down and I’ll tell her you’ve arrived,’ his companion instructed. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

  She couldn’t have been more blunt. Cadel was reluctant to advertise his presence, just in case the danger that Kay-Lee had warned him against lurked inside Weatherwood House. So he picked a fake name.

  ‘Fe,’ he shrilled.

  ‘Fee?’

  Cadel nodded. Fe, of course, was the symbol for iron – Eiran. He hoped that Kay-Lee would understand.

  ‘As in Fiona?’ the woman pressed.

  ‘Just Fe,’ he said firmly, hoping that his voice wasn’t going to give him away. Perhaps if he pretended to have a cold? He coughed into his hand, wishing that he’d brought a handkerchief. Alias would have brought a handkerchief.

  ‘Right,’ the woman sighed. She was clearly losing patience. ‘Just wait here, then.’

  And she left. Cadel was relieved. He sat down and picked up a brochure from the table next to him. It looked more interesting than all the dog-eared Women’s Weeklys and torn picture books underneath it because it was scattered with photographs of computer keyboards. Cadel soon realised, however, that these keyboards were of a kind utterly strange to him. There were keyboards with extra-large keys, with multi-coloured keys, with a feature ensuring that each key would only type one letter no matter how long you held it down. There were removable key guards, for people with a tendency to hit more than one key at a time. There were programmable membrane keyboards, with their own types of key guards.

  Cadel was fascinated. He knew that keyboard shortcuts – or mouse keys – were usually employed by disabled people who couldn’t use a normal mouse, but he hadn’t been aware that special keyboards were being made. And special mice, too, by the look of things. He pored over descriptions of mice with extra-large roller balls, with joystick configurations, with drag locks, with different cursor speeds, with removable guards . . .

  ‘Ahem,’ someone said.

  Cadel jumped, and glanced up.

  He was face to face with Kay-Lee McDougall.

  She looked exactly the same as her picture. There were no visible scars. Her sandy-coloured hair was pulled back in a ponytail; she wore black mascara, a touch of lip gloss, and a plain white polo shirt over a knee-length skirt. Her arms were lightly dusted with freckles.

  She looked tired.

  ‘I’m Kay-Lee,’ she said. ‘Do I know you?’

  Cadel stared. He was suddenly frightened – frightened and confused. It was as if he didn’t know this woman. As if she was a stranger. She seemed so old.

  What am I doing here? he wondered. This is insane.

  ‘I – I –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve got a message,’ he said hoarsely. ‘From a friend.’

  He didn’t want to spell everything out. Not in this public place. But Kay-Lee was disappointingly slow on the uptake.

  ‘What friend?’ she asked, sounding impatient. After glancing around quickly, Cadel fluttered his fingers, like someone using a keyboard.

  Kay-Lee’s head suddenly jerked back, as if she’d been slapped. Shock registered on her face.

  ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘You mean – you don’t mean – Tom Carter? ’

  Cadel frowned. Who was Tom Carter? ‘No,’ he said. ‘Eiran Dempster.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Kay-Lee had recovered, somewhat. Her drawl was flat and nasal – almost sarcastic in tone. She folded her arms. ‘Alias Tom Carter.’

  ‘I don’t know any Tom Carter,’ Cadel said impatiently. He wasn’t bothering to disguise his voice, and Kay-Lee narrowed her eyes. She peered at him. Then she suddenly caught her breath, and coughed.

  ‘Christ,’ she exclaimed. ‘Christ, you’re – you’re not –’

  ‘I’m a boy,’ Cadel said. ‘Don’t talk so loud.’

  ‘You’re him, aren’t you? You’re Tom Carter!’

  ‘Look, will you stop?’ Cadel grew more and more angry as it dawned on him that he didn’t know this woman. He didn’t feel any connection with her at all. ‘I told you, Tom Carter doesn’t mean anything to me! My name is Cadel!’

  ‘I don’t
believe it.’ Kay-Lee was shaking her head in amazement. ‘This is unbelievable. You really are thirteen.’

  This time it was Cadel’s turn to be shocked. He changed colour. He nearly choked.

  ‘Who told you I was thirteen?’ he demanded.

  ‘The coppers.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘They came here,’ Kay-Lee revealed. ‘On Thursday. Barged right in, told me they had some information. About Partner Post.’ She spoke sharply. ‘Said it was all a big scam, run by some thirteen-year-old kid named Tom Carter. Said he made up all the partners – wrote the stuff himself. Showed us printouts.’ She paused, and waited. But Cadel was struck dumb. ‘Pretty smart thing to do,’ she continued. ‘Pretty low as well, I reckon.’

  Cadel put his hands to his head. ‘But – but this isn’t right,’ he stammered. ‘I’m not Tom Carter. I’m Cadel Piggott.’

  ‘So you really did it? Shame on you.’

  ‘But they couldn’t have found out! They couldn’t have!’ Cadel had been so cautious. And who was this Tom Carter person? ‘I was so careful! This doesn’t make sense!’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said his companion, watching him. There wasn’t a spark of affection in her eyes. ‘Why did you do it? What for? How could a kid your age be so bloody cruel?’

  Cadel flinched. The last word was like a whiplash. Frightened and disoriented, he gazed up at Kay-Lee in supplication. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Kay-Lee stared at him for a moment, before looking away. When she spoke again, some of the steely quality had left her voice.

  ‘Don’t apologise to me,’ she said gruffly. ‘You didn’t break my heart. It’s someone else you should apologise to.’

  Cadel didn’t understand. ‘Someone else?’ he echoed, and Kay-Lee took a deep breath.

  ‘I might as well tell you,’ she said. ‘You haven’t been talking to me. I’m just a front. All this time, you’ve been talking to someone who was using my name. And my face.’