Lost Worlds (7 page)

The lift juddered to a halt and Gecko pulled the doors open. The two of them stepped out into a small hallway. There was a metal door ahead of them, set into brick, with a security-code pad
beside it. Gecko typed in the code that Calum had given him earlier, and the door clicked open.

Tara glanced at Gecko. There was a scowl on her face. ‘This had better be worth it,’ she muttered.

‘Hey,’ he pointed out, ‘this wasn’t my idea. You’re the one who tried to break into the website.’

‘Websites are visible to anyone on the internet,’ she said defensively. ‘They’re effectively public property. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.’

‘Actually,’ Calum’s voice called from inside the apartment, ‘that’s like saying that because the outside walls of a building face on to the public streets then the
entire building is public property. The logic doesn’t stand up to more than a few seconds’ scrutiny. It’s a fallacious argument.’

Tara’s scowl intensified. Grinning, Gecko led the way inside.

Calum was in his computer chair, facing the door. The ten screens behind him silhouetted him dramatically. Presumably that was intentional. Gecko thought it made him look like a villain in a
James Bond movie.

‘It’s like Gecko here thinking that because my roof is accessible by jumping from a nearby building, that makes it all right to run across it,’ he went on. Gecko felt the grin
slide off his face. ‘The technical term in that case is actually “trespassing”.’ He stared at Tara. ‘I’m not sure that “breaking and entering” covers
what you did, but “electronic theft” probably does.’

‘I didn’t steal anything,’ Tara said defiantly.

‘You downloaded the entire contents of my website on to a USB drive.’ Calum’s voice didn’t have any obvious emotion in it, but Gecko could tell that behind the words
there was some anger, but a lot of curiosity as well.

‘That wasn’t stealing – it was copying,’ Tara said defensively.

‘What made you do that? Were you doing it for money, or just for kicks?’

‘It wasn’t a
what
,’ Tara said. ‘It was a
who
.’

There was silence in the large room for a few moments while Calum seemed to consider her words. Abruptly he said: ‘Would you like a drink? There’s Coke in the fridge over in the
kitchen area.’

‘It’s good stuff,’ Gecko confirmed.

‘Gecko, could you grab three bottles for us?’

Gecko was about to protest that he wasn’t a slave, but then he remembered the trouble Calum had getting around the room. The kid wasn’t going to be able to carry three bottles back
from the kitchen area himself, not while hanging on to the ceiling straps.

As Gecko headed over towards the huge double-doored fridge that dominated the kitchen he heard Calum say, ‘Please – take a seat. You’re making the place look untidy. The sofa
is comfortable. Just be careful of the broken glass.’

He heard Tara moving towards the sofa. She obviously glanced upward, because she said, ‘What happened to your skylight?’

‘Someone dropped in.’ Gecko turned his head to see that Calum was nodding in his direction.

Tara sat on the sofa – primly, on the edge – and Calum twisted his chair and pushed against the computer table with his right hand. The chair scooted across the wooden floor, ending
up just across from the sofa. He twisted his body again so that he was facing the girl. It was obvious to Gecko that Tara had realized there was something wrong with Calum, but she didn’t say
anything. Her gaze flicked to the straps that hung from the ceiling, then to Calum’s muscular development. She was quick on the uptake – Gecko would give her that.

He walked across to join the two of them. He passed out two of the bottles, then slumped in the opposite corner of the sofa to Tara.

‘Got a thing against doors, I take it?’ she asked him.

He shrugged. ‘Getting into and out of rooms is a problem,’ he said. ‘Doors are a solution to that problem. They’re not the
only
solution though, despite the fact
that ninety-nine people out of a hundred think they are. And in most cases they aren’t the most interesting or the most graceful solution.’

‘Yes, talking about graceful but unorthodox methods of entry,’ Calum said, ‘let’s get back to the website, and your rather skilful attempts to crack it.’

‘It wasn’t an
attempt
,’ Tara protested. ‘I succeeded!’

‘Debatable.’ Calum shrugged. ‘But the important question is
why
. You indicated just now that you were doing it on behalf of someone else. Who are you working
for?’

‘I’m not
working
for anyone,’ Tara protested. She was quiet for a few moments. Gecko could see from her expression that there was some kind of battle going on inside her
mind. ‘What I mean is I wasn’t being paid,’ she finally admitted. ‘I was blackmailed into it.’

‘Blackmailed by who?’ Gecko asked, intrigued.

‘
Whom
,’ Calum corrected.

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s “blackmailed by
whom
”. Not “
who
”.’

‘Oh.’ Gecko shrugged. ‘Sorry. English is only my fifth language.’

Tara hadn’t registered the byplay between Calum and Gecko. She was huddled on the sofa, staring at the floor. Gecko and Calum waited for a few moments. Eventually she said: ‘Look, it
was some dodgy corporation called “Nemor Incorporated”, OK?’

‘Never heard of them,’ Gecko said.

‘They keep themselves out of the news and off the internet, apart from some corporate rubbish that doesn’t tell you anything interesting.’ Her shoulders straightened with
pride. ‘There’s a group of us who are trying to get inside their corporate firewall and find out if they’re doing anything wrong so we can expose them to the world’s
media.’

‘Computer hackers?’ Gecko asked, nodding. ‘Like those LulzSec people you hear about. Or WikiLeaks.’

She sniffed. ‘WikiLeaks just publish stuff they’re sent by insiders, and LulzSec just try to crash other people’s systems for giggles. We’re more serious than LulzSec and
more activist than WikiLeaks. We try to break through the firewalls and scoop up whatever we can find that might be embarrassing or against the law, and then release it to the public.’

‘Illegally,’ Gecko pointed out.

‘We answer to a higher morality,’ she said, as if reciting the words from a script. ‘If companies breaking the law use the law as a shield, then the law needs to be
circumvented in order to catch them.’

‘What do you call yourselves?’ Calum asked.

She shook her head disdainfully. ‘Why is it that the first thing people want to know is what we call ourselves? We don’t have a name. We don’t
need
a name. We’re
just . . . us.’

He nodded. ‘OK, I can appreciate your motives. I can even approve of them . . .’

‘Oh, gee, thanks for the endorsement,’ she said with fake wide-eyed enthusiasm.

‘. . . But it doesn’t explain how you came to be here.’

She wriggled uncomfortably. ‘This company, Nemor Incorporated, realized that I was hacking them. And really quickly too. Instantly. They must have some real computer expertise at their
end. They emailed me and offered me a deal – I was supposed to hack your website or they would report me to the police and have me arrested. They said they chose me because I had no
connection to them, and nothing I did could be traced back to them.’ She paused, and smiled slightly. ‘I’m also better than anyone they have on their books, but they didn’t
admit that.’

Silence, for a few moments.

‘What have you done,’ Gecko asked Calum, ‘to attract the attention of some big multinational company?’

Calum’s face reflected a mixture of concentration and confusion. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never heard of Nemor Incorporated. I know that my guardian
– Professor Livingstone – does consultancy work for some defence contractors, but I’ve never heard her mention them. I don’t know why I would have turned up on their radar
screens. It’s not like I do anything that overlaps with defence or military interests. I’m just interested in creatures that are either thought to be extinct or not yet registered by
biologists.’

‘They were particularly concerned,’ Tara added, ‘with anything that might be hidden within your website. And there
is
something hidden there, isn’t
there?’

Calum glanced sharply at her. ‘You spotted that?’

‘It wasn’t hard to spot.’

‘You need to show me how to cover my tracks.’

‘First,’ she said, ‘you have to break my connection to Nemor.’

Again, silence for a few moments while Calum and Gecko considered what she had said.

‘You sure you want to cast your lot in with us?’ Calum asked.

‘I don’t work for corporations,’ she replied firmly. ‘Not through choice.’

‘So what makes you think I can help you break free from this unfortunate arrangement you’ve got yourself into?’

Tara glanced at Gecko. ‘He told me you were smart.’

Calum smiled. Gecko hadn’t seen him smile before, and he liked it. The smile made Calum’s serious face light up into something boyish. ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I’m
actually
very
smart.’

‘And very modest about it as well,’ Gecko murmured.

‘Much as I would like to take credit for what’s about to happen,’ Calum said, ‘honesty compels me to admit that it’s nothing to do with me. Well, not directly,
anyway.’

Tara frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that Nemor Incorporated realized instantly that you were hacking their mainframe, yes?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘So they’re keeping an eye on you.’

‘OK . . .’

‘Which means that they know you are here, right now.’

This time, the silence was so heavy that it could have drowned out the sound of church bells.

The sun weighed down on ‘Rhino’ Gillis like a dull weight, and the air was heavy and humid. Breathing was like trying to suck air through a towel that had been
soaked in hot water and then clamped over his face.

He stood at the bottom of King Street and gazed around casually, feeling the sweat prickling down his back. He made it look as if he was glancing at the shops and the street signs, trying to
work out which photographs he wanted to take with the camera slung round his neck, but his surroundings weren’t really what he was interested in. He was actually considering the people around
him, working out which of them wanted to kill him.

King Street was the spine running up the centre of the historic district of Alexandria, a part of Washington DC – the capital city of America, and therefore by definition the most powerful
city in the world. The Alexandria district had been one of the first areas settled by travellers, several hundreds of years ago, and many of the buildings were obviously old and in need of
restoration. The street ran from the marshy banks of the Potomac River – which cut Washington DC in half – and up a shallow hill all the way to the King Street metro station at the top.
It was lined with hotels, restaurants and the kind of tourist shops that sold expensive scented candles, or hats that would be worn for a couple of days on holiday and then lost or forgotten
about.

Rhino could never understand why, out of all the places that settlers could have stopped and set up a capital city in a newly explored country, they had chosen an unhealthy, mosquito-infested
swamp that was far too hot in summer and far too cold in winter for humans to endure with any degree of comfort. Why not keep travelling for a while and find a better place? Wouldn’t that
have made more sense?

People puzzled him. They always had. People made strange decisions that couldn’t be explained by logic. That was why he preferred guns, and engines, and things that either worked the way
you expected them to or broke down in predictable ways and could be repaired. That was what he was good at. That, and rescuing hostages from captivity.

Rhino realized that he was standing outside a restaurant. The sign above the door read
The Fish Market
. He remembered eating there before, several years ago. It had been a celebration
dinner after he and some colleagues had completed a tough mission rescuing a bunch of backpackers and aid workers from a criminal group in one of those African countries that seemed to measure its
history not in years but in the number of times its government got overthrown and replaced. His colleagues had been retired American Special Forces personnel, which was why Washington had been
chosen as the best location for the mission to start and finish. They mostly lived inside the ring road called the Beltway that encircled the city, hoping that the Secret Service, or the FBI, or
the CIA would call on them for some Top Secret and highly deniable mission in the Middle East or North Korea, and filling in the time with paid hostage-rescue jobs.

‘Why do they call you Rhino?’ one of the men asked him.

‘I used to play a lot of rugby when I was younger,’ he answered. At the blank looks, he added: ‘Rugby – it’s like your American football, except without the padding
and the constant stopping. Anyway, the team I played on used to joke that I had no real talent for the game – my one skill was to run fast with my head down and barge my way past the opposing
players. They said I reminded them of a rhino charging. The name stuck.’

‘So what’s your real first name?’ the man pressed.

‘You know,’ Rhino replied, ‘it’s been so long since I’ve used it that I just don’t remember.’

That wasn’t true – his name was on his passport, of course – but he preferred ‘Rhino’. It suited him.

Now, a few years later but back in the same location, he caught sight of his reflection in a shop window as he scanned the passing crowd for signs of pursuit or danger. He was still under
thirty, muscular and without an inch of fat on him. The chinos and the polo shirt he was wearing were suitably anonymous. His sunglasses hid his eyes effectively, and the baseball cap he wore cast
a shadow on his face. His lightweight cotton jacket was loose enough to allow him to conceal a weapon either in a shoulder holster or tucked into the back of his chinos, but today he was unarmed.
Today was not meant to be a day for problems.