The Genius Wars by Catherine Jinks

Author:Catherine Jinks
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2009-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

By seven o’clock that night, there were eight people in the house.

Three of them actually lived there. Three had been formally invited to attend what Cadel described as ‘a council of war’. But the other two were bored-looking men with guns, whose presence Fiona found unendurable. She was already upset about the blazing floodlights in the garden, and the temperamental alarm system that now protected every door and window. Men with guns were the last straw.

‘They can have their dinner elsewhere,’ she’d hissed at her husband, ‘because we won’t be cooking for them!’

‘There’s no question of that,’ Saul had promised. But despite all the scented candles she’d lit and ambient music she’d played since arriving home from work, Fiona remained edgy and unsettled. Even a warm bath (in a locked bathroom) hadn’t calmed her down.

Her reaction to Gazo’s reappearance, at about half past five, had been so abrupt – so uncharacteristically tense and distracted – that he’d quietly asked Cadel if it was all right to stay.

‘You have to stay,’ Cadel had replied. ‘I want to hear about Sonja.’

‘But I don’t fink your mum really wants me ’ere.’

‘It’s not you. It’s everyone. This is a pretty small house.’

‘Is it because of what I done?’ Gazo had lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I mean – wiv Thi’s laptop, an’ all?’

‘No one knows what you did, except me. Now what did Sonja say?’

It turned out that Sonja hadn’t said very much. Although Judith had been trying to track down a neurological interface device like the damaged one on Sonja’s wheelchair, such an advanced speech synthesiser wasn’t freely available in Australia. And because Sonja’s new Dynavox was no more efficient than her old one, she’d been forced to spell out every word, letter by letter, during her conversation with Gazo.

The result had been a long, slow, stumbling exchange, spread over several hours.

‘But she’s doing real good,’ Gazo had been able to report. ‘She’ll be out soon. Day after tomorrow, they reckon.’

‘Did she say anything about me?’ Cadel had inquired, eliciting a snort from Gazo.

‘Are you kidding? You’re all she does talk about.’

‘Did you tell her about Com? And his car?’

‘Sorta. I didn’t know about the car, back then. I mean, I didn’t know they’d found it.’

‘Had she heard about the encrypted stuff on his laptop?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Did you ask her?’

‘How could I? You only just told me about it.’

‘Oh. Yes. I forgot.’

Cadel was missing Sonja more and more acutely, and not just because she was such a brilliant code-breaker. Whenever Sonja was around, it seemed easier to make the right choices. She had a stronger sense than he did of what should and shouldn’t be done.

‘Well … Judith’s coming over tonight, so I can tell her all the news, and she can pass it on to Sonja,’ he’d finally observed, at the conclusion of his quiet talk with Gazo. Judith had been asked to join them because she was feeling left out – and because she had lots of money. No one was

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