Alyzon Whitestarr (31 page)

Raoul had installed himself at a gap in the bench, and he was booting up a computer. Harrison grinned at me, acknowledging
my wide-eyed wonder. He and Gilly opened a door in the side wall and brought out three folding chairs, arranging them around Raoul. I sat down, still lost for words but no longer startled at the idea that Raoul would pay for Sarry’s convalescent home or have a specially modified car. Gilly’s grandmother was well off, but Raoul’s wealth was of another order entirely.

Raoul said, “Before we do anything else, I just wanted to show you this.” We watched silently as the screen came to life, revealing four enigmatic lines of text.

“You’ve gotten deeper in?” I guessed, my heartbeat quickening. I felt Harrison and Gilly stir as they realized what they were looking at.

Raoul shook his head. “That’s the interesting thing. I haven’t. I have never come across such complex protections, but what I have been able to figure out is that to go any deeper into the program, you have to have certain code words and numbers. That means no one is meant to enter it but those for whom it was created. Now, companies do this all the time, for the sake of privacy, but why would a Web site open to the public work in this way?”

“Could it be for secret agents who might have to link in from an Internet cafe?” Gilly asked. She flushed and laughed when we all looked at her, saying she had spies on the brain because she had watched an espionage movie the night before.

But Raoul said she might be right. “Though I doubt it would be political spies. It is more likely to be connected to
industrial espionage. I can’t think what else it could be, unless this Aaron Rayc is some sort of master criminal. In which case from what you have said, he is following in the fine tradition of crooks who love to hobnob with stars.”

“You think he is a criminal then?” I asked, disappointed because I couldn’t see any way to fit this in with the pattern of artists’ careers.

“All I am saying is that he has something to hide,” Raoul said.

Gilly interrupted to urge me to tell them what had happened when we had called Oliver Spike.

“You felt endangered by talking to him?” Raoul asked me.

“I think it was because he could mention my name to Aaron Rayc, who would straightaway think of Da.”

Gilly’s face fell. “Oh God, I didn’t even think. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “He won’t remember.”

“But what if he does?” Gilly asked worriedly.

“He won’t. I know.”

Harrison was watching me closely. “You know?” he repeated.

I bit my lip, then I said, “I know because I made him forget the whole conversation.”

“It’s something else I can do that I didn’t get to tell you the other night.” I stopped and drew a breath to calm down. “Some times I can … make people do what I want just by willing it. By saying the words with my mind. What I’ve figured out is that, when we think things, we give off those scents that I can smell, and just as my senses have changed so that I can smell better, I can now also shape smells by thinking. Twice, I’ve willed people to forget things, and both times it worked, but it doesn’t work all the time so I think it also has something to do with the strength of mind of the person I am willing.”

“Like hypnosis,” Gilly murmured, looking fascinated.

“But you were on the phone tae this guy,” Harrison pointed out.

I nodded. “I know. I only did it because I was desperate, and I have no idea how it worked. Maybe I’ve got this whole scent thing wrong, because I thought it was possible only when I was looking at someone.”

“It might be that being afraid activated some new ability,”
Raoul said. “The important thing is that you dealt with the danger. Figuring out how you managed it can come later.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before. I guess the truth is that it feels kind of horrible doing it. Like mental bullying.”

Raoul said firmly, “You were protecting yourself, that’s all.”

“Did you ever try willing Harlen tae leave you alone?” Harrison asked.

I stared at him, realizing that it had never occurred to me. But Raoul was shaking his head. “Maybe it would be better not to try that just yet. If the sickness Harlen carries is attracted to the possibility that your senses are altered, the last thing we want is to confirm it.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about Aaron Rayc,” Gilly said, gazing at the computer screen. “Your being so scared and suspicious about him would make a lot more sense if he smelled of wrongness, too.”

“But he doesn’t, and anyway, it would be a bit of a coincidence that two infected people were after different members of the Whitestarr family,” I said. “I just wish Da was home from his gig in Remington.”

“Remington,” Raoul said thoughtfully. I wondered if he was going to mention Sarry and the convalescent home, but instead he tapped at the keys and in a few minutes we were looking at the same site for the Castledean Estate that I had looked at in the school magazine office.

Raoul said he had come across the site earlier that day but had not looked into it. He tapped a key and we read that
although it was owned by Rayc Inc., the majority of events staged there were organized by the international charitable organization ORBA, which also funded the artist residency program on the estate. Three-and six-month residencies were available to emerging and established artists from all disciplines. I felt cold at the thought of how many bright young artists might be drawn to the Castledean Estate, and what might happen to them there.

“Let’s see what you need to get in,” Raoul said, and tapped on the icon to download the application form. Immediately the screen began to shudder and fuzz.

“What the hell?” Raoul said, because the fuzz had vanished and now something was downloading. Then we were all staring, shocked, at a naked man.

“Oh no!” Gilly said, horrified.

“It’s a porn site,” Harrison said flatly.

“This is impossible,” Raoul muttered, tapping the escape button to no avail. He tried returning to the previous page, but the camera panned sideways to show a child. Raoul swore softly and switched the whole computer off. I stared at our ghostly reflections in the blackened computer screen and thought about the note on the computer-room door at school.

I chewed my lip. “Raoul, when I called up Aaron Rayc’s Web site on the school computer, a creepy bondage Web site came up. I couldn’t get it to go away, and now there’s a notice on the door of the computer room saying no one is allowed to use the computers because of a virus.”

“That is … weird,” Gilly said.

Raoul said, “It sounds as if the virus was either in Aaron Rayc’s Web site and migrated to the Castledean Web site, or vice versa. But where did it originate? I’d like to look into it. Why don’t you three test the game for me in the meantime.”

I didn’t feel the least like playing a computer game, but neither did I want to look at child porn or maybe something equally disgusting, so I agreed. Harrison and Gilly must have felt the same, because they agreed, too. Raoul settled us in front of another screen and gave us joysticks and earphones that were amazingly comfortable and therefore probably amazingly expensive. Then he explained that the game offered realistic human problems in a fantasy setting, saying that it was to be a teaching tool for psychology students.

I wasn’t much of a games person as a rule, but it was fun playing with Harrison and Gilly because once we had got into the game, they played their roles imaginatively and with great flair. I felt like a lump of wood between them. Gilead, Mistress of the Flame, had a host of sometimes invisible pet salamanders and the ability to turn rock into lava, in which she could then swim; and Prince Har was Lord of Harfeld City. I was Zonda, who had the amazing ability to communicate with animals, which was ironic considering I had not told the others I could do so in real life. I was beginning to feel embarrassed about the things I kept revealing.

By the time we had finished the game, I felt refreshed and energized. I looked at my watch and was astonished to discover we had played for over an hour.

“Dinner,” Raoul said decidedly, and he wheeled ahead of us out to the kitchen.

I expected to be given a hard-boiled egg and toast or noodles, but dinner was gourmet pizza made expertly by Raoul in his state-of-the-art black and white kitchen. We all watched appreciatively. When it was cooked, we carried it out and ate it at a long trestle table set up on a mosaic-covered square at the heart of the indoor jungle.

It felt incredible to be eating pizza by candlelight, bare-armed because the enormous greenhouse was heated for the tropical plants, with rain pelting softly down on the transparent roof overhead. Dessert was baked pears with rich chocolate sauce.

“That was sublime,” I told Raoul when we had finished. We hadn’t talked about anything but the game during the meal, and Raoul’s questions had made it clear that he was really using us to test it. But then he asked Harrison and Gilly if they would carry in the trays and load the dishwasher. They both glanced at me before going inside.

“There is now a virus in my computer system, and it looks as if it has affected all of my terminals,” he said. “So far as I can make out, the virus causes random links with pornography sites, then freezes a system so the link can’t be broken. If you switch the computer off, the link is immediately reestablished when it is switched on again.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said contritely.

“You’re not responsible for a virus,” Raoul said dismissively “But I want to know how it got through my firewall and
virus protection. To track it and to clean up my system, I will need to call in some expert help. By expert I mean a hacker. I’d like to see if she can also get some more information about Aaron Rayc. How do you feel about that?”

I knew he meant how did my danger sense feel about it. “I think it would be better if Aaron Rayc doesn’t know anyone is interested in him,” I said slowly, wishing I could just tell him what Gary Soloman had said. The truth was I was beginning to resent the promise that he had exacted.

Raoul nodded. “You needn’t worry about Daisy on that count. She is fanatically careful. The other thing I’d like to do is to call into the headquarters of ORBA. I want to see how they are tied up with Rayc Inc.”

I licked my lips, thinking I had to warn him. “Raoul, I … I want to tell you something about Aaron Rayc, but I made a promise.”

“Promises ought to be kept,” Raoul said simply.

“I know, and I
am
keeping it, but I have to tell you that … someone warned me that it could be dangerous to be caught prying into Aaron Rayc’s business.”

“This … person who warned you. Are they a friend?”

I shook my head. “Just someone I met while I was trying to find out more.”

“Well, you needn’t worry. I won’t mention you or Aaron Rayc. In fact, I will present myself as a possible future donor.”

I bit my lip, then I said, “Raoul, why are you going to so much trouble to help me?”

He smiled. “Partly because what I’ve learned has made
me curious. But I have thought a lot since we talked at the hotel, and I can’t help but wonder if this wrongness—this sickness—could be responsible for much of man’s inhumanity to man and beast. Imagine if all cruelty and ugliness came down to this sickness. That means humanity might be capable of being healed, if we could learn enough about it.”

“But Aaron Rayc—”

“Isn’t infected,” Raoul completed my sentence. “But you think there is something wrong with him, and given what else your senses perceive, I mean to find out what it is about him that makes you so uneasy.”

Harrison and Gilly had come back, and Harrison said, “I have tae say I feel pretty much the same way as Raoul. But I think our first priority has tae be tae protect you from the sickness. That is, from Harlen Sanderson.”

Raoul stretched, and the movement made me realize how stiff I had become. I was also feeling strange because of what he had said about the sickness being behind the awful things that people had done in the world. That meant hundreds of people might be infected, and not just in our time. I said that I had better go, and Raoul suggested we all have a hot drink in the kitchen before heading our separate ways.

As Gilly put the kettle on to boil and Harrison and I assembled cups, I finally asked Gilly what had happened the previous day with her grandmother and the police.

“Not all that much. A neighbor saw two guys hanging around the place. The police just wanted to know if Gran had seen them. The weird thing is that when they were reading the
description, I had the feeling I had seen them, but I can’t imagine where.”

“How did the neighbor describe the guys?” I asked, sipping my tea.

“One was a skinhead. The other might have been, too, but he was wearing a hoodie. Anyway, the police reckon they’re part of a gang who have torched a lot of different places.”

That snagged on something, but the doorbell rang. It was Jesse, and I had to go before I could drag it out of the depths of my mind.

* * *

“What’s up?” Jesse asked curiously. We were halfway home, and I realized that I hadn’t said more than two words the whole way.