Dangerously Placed

by Nansi Kunze

  ‘But what exactly are you doing, Alex?’

  To my annoyance, I found myself blushing.

  ‘I’m fanning the rice.’

  ‘It’s a very important job,’ Ki put in. ‘One can’t make onigiri with boiling hot rice.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right – you can’t cook!’ Nix grinned, making a show of smacking his forehead. ‘I totally forgot!’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you forgot something you’ve been bugging me about since year seven,’ I said, going even redder. ‘And for your information, I can cook – I’m just not as good as these guys when it comes to stuff like mung beans and pickled plums.’

  ‘Two-minute noodles don’t count as cooking, Alex,’ said Nix, laughing as I put down my cardboard fan and advanced threateningly towards him.

  ‘You just missed hearing Alex’s good news,’ said Ki the peacemaker.

  ‘Good news?’ Nix raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The police have put me in the “unlikely” category as a suspect for Grody’s murder,’ I told him.

  ‘All right! Congrats, dude,’ said Joel, coming over to high-five me.

  ‘That’s great!’ said Nix. ‘Isn’t it? Alex?’

  I was frowning. ‘Yeah, it’s good,’ I said absently. ‘It’s just … well, there’s still one thing that bothers me.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Ki.

  ‘I think I’m being followed,’ I said.

  Joel looked fearfully over his shoulder.

  ‘Not right now,’ I explained. ‘But last night there was this guy outside my house, watching my room. And I was thinking this afternoon that he looked kind of familiar. I think I saw him at the lab when I went to visit you, Ki.’

  ‘You mean he was one of the lab technicians?’ Ki put down her knife.

  ‘No, he was waiting in the foyer with me. A tall guy, maybe early twenties, with reddish hair.’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone at the lab who’d fit that description.’

  ‘He didn’t look like he’d ever been there before – those weird prints on the wall were freaking him out. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I think he could be following me for some reason.’

  ‘We should check if he’s outside right now.’ Nix was deadly serious all of a sudden. ‘Don’t all come out, okay? If he’s there, it’ll look suspicious.’

  He marched back down the hallway. The rest of us followed at a distance. Nix peered through the spyhole in Sky’s front door.

  ‘I don’t see anyone,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ I told him. ‘He’s hardly going to be standing right in front of the door!’

  ‘Wait.’ Nix pressed his eye closer. ‘There is someone. Across the road.’

  I froze. Ki, who was beside me, put a comforting hand on my arm.

  Nix grasped the door handle. Then in one smooth, quick motion, he thrust the door open and leapt outside.

  In a second, the street was empty, but not before we’d all seen him: a tall man with ginger hair disappearing around the corner of the neighbours’ hedge.

  ‘Well.’ Nix stared after him. ‘I think that’s pretty conclusive. Someone’s following Alex.’ He turned to me. ‘Any idea why?’

  I shook my head. I was trembling a little. Finding out for sure that some guy is stalking you isn’t exactly the cheeriest way to start your weekend.

  ‘Alex,’ said Ki, ‘did you tell the police about Dale?’

  ‘No. I mean, they didn’t ask me if I’d heard anything suspicious or whatever.’ It sounded lame, even to me. ‘And, you know, he has an alibi for the time of the murder.’

  ‘Who’s Dale?’ demanded Nix.

  ‘The other work experience student at Simulcorp Marketing. It’s possible he knows something about the day of the murder. He was using one of the empty Virk Rooms near Grody’s that morning.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell the police this?’ Nix looked incredulous. ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘I told you, he totally has an alibi for the murder.’ Damn it, I was going red again. ‘He might not even know anything.’

  ‘He might not know anything? Aren’t you the one who thought we should leave everything to the police? And now you’re not even telling them this guy was near the murder scene!’

  ‘I didn’t want to get Dale into trouble with our mentors over being in an unauthorised Virk Room, okay?’

  Nix ran a hand savagely through his brown hair, making it stand up in wild spikes.

  ‘I can’t believe it – you’re compromising your own safety to make sure some guy you barely know doesn’t get a bad work experience report! I mean, who gives a –’

  ‘Dude, calm down!’ Joel put a restraining hand on Nix’s shoulder. Nix blinked, breathing heavily. I stared at him. I’d known Nix since we were kids, but I’d never seen him get like this.

  ‘Listen.’ Nix wasn’t shouting any more. There was a kind of dangerous calm about him now. ‘I need you to tell me this Dale guy’s name and address.’

  ‘His name’s Dale McCarthy. I don’t know exactly where he lives – somewhere in Blackwood Heights.’

  Nix nodded.

  ‘I’m going to see what I can find out about him. You coming with me, Joel?’

  Joel stepped outside.

  ‘Later,’ he said to us.

  ‘And Alex,’ added Nix as Joel loped off down the driveway, ‘I’m … I’m sorry I yelled at you, okay? But you’ve really got to start taking this whole thing seriously. This is murder we’re talking about.’ His green eyes bored into me for a moment. Then he turned away, leaving the three of us staring after him.

  ‘Me take things seriously? That’s pretty rich, coming from Mr Flippant there,’ I muttered as we went inside.

  ‘Yeah,’ sighed Sky. ‘But you know, he does take things seriously every now and then. When they’re important to him.’

  ‘Like when?’

  ‘Like …’ Sky thought for a moment. ‘Well, you remember there was that detective game at Virtuadventures, back when Nix started working there?’

  ‘The PI Files,’ I supplied.

  ‘Yeah. When Joel actually turned out to be good at it and got close to Nix’s top score, Nix started going in and practising every day – never shut up about it. He was pretty damned serious then, I can tell you.’ Sky turned to deadlock the front door. I frowned, wondering if she might have got her facts mixed up somewhere. After all, I’d absolutely blown Nix’s top score away after a week of playing The PI Files, and all he’d done was grin.

  Later, though, as I sat in the lounge room helping Sky do a SWOT analysis on her relationship with Robbie the delivery guy and listening to Ki talk about her school supervisor visit at the lab and how Mr Guildenhall had nearly puked over her microscope when she described all the bodily fluids she’d analysed that week, I kept thinking about what Nix had said. Maybe he was right on this one. What if Dale knew something crucial, something that could help the police catch the murderer? Wasn’t it my responsibility to ensure that they got that information? At the very least, I should try to persuade Dale to talk to the police himself. Then, if he refused, I could still call Montague and Hargreaves and let them know that Dale was hiding something …

  ‘Alex! Do you see this?’ Ki pointed the remote at the TV, turning up the sound.

  ‘… of the victim in the Simulcorp murder have been released.’ A sombre-faced newsreader stared at us from the screen. A picture of Grody with the words ‘Simulcorp Murder’ hung in the corner above her. ‘The deceased, forty-two-year-old Pierce Brian Grody, was Head of the Marketing Division at the multinational company best known for its innovative Virk virtual workplace system. Police confirmed that Grody, who had recently struck a landmark deal with robotics giant Avatar, died after being strangled at the Virk portal near his home in Brighton on Tuesday evening.’

  A larger picture of Grody filled the screen. I frowned at it. It was definitely him – there was no way I could forget that face, so terrifying both in life and death. But somehow it
was different, too: the red hair less fiery, the nose a little beakier, the skin around those cold, pale eyes a touch more furrowed. Could he have tweaked his virtual image? Obviously you could change some things about the way you looked in Virk, like the way Budi changed his sarong every day. But I hadn’t realised you could change your face, too. Grody was supposed to have been a technological genius, though – maybe if you were skilled enough, you could change anything you wanted. I wondered if that was what Budi had meant when he told me about Inge’s ‘artificial enhancements’.

  ‘Police declined to comment on what could have prompted the killing, but speculation is rife that Grody’s death may have been work-related, amid rumours he mistreated colleagues and intended to use the profits from a planned second deal with Avatar Robotics to gain a majority share of Simulcorp stocks. A suspect taken into custody over the murder yesterday is said to have been released. And now to finance news …’

  ‘You didn’t tell us Grody was trying to take over Simulcorp,’ said Ki, turning the sound down again.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I said slowly. ‘I did read something in a magazine about unusual shareholder changes when I was researching Simulcorp before my placement, but I didn’t think much about it.’ I looked at Sky and Ki. ‘The question is: where are all these rumours coming from?’

  Considering how tense our last conversation had been, I was surprised when Nix rang after lunch on Sunday and invited me to Aqualand.

  ‘Aqualand? Why Aqualand? I haven’t been there in years.’

  ‘Well, I have something to show you there, but don’t you think it’d be awesome anyway? Look out the window for once, Alex!’

  I looked outside. The sun was blazing down. I had to admit, Aqualand did sound kind of tempting.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there in an hour or so.’

  ‘I’ll meet you by the dolphins.’ Nix hung up.

  I was just about to leave the house when Kiyoko turned up on the doorstep.

  ‘Before you ask, I have no idea whatsoever about what’s going on,’ she told me as I let her in. ‘Nix just rang and told me we were all going to Aqualand, and that he felt it would be appropriate for me to accompany you, given the possible presence of your stalker.’

  ‘Don’t call him my stalker, Ki,’ I said, pulling on my sneakers. ‘It makes it sound like I’ve employed him to follow me around.’ But I was glad to have her with me as we set off.

  We found Nix by the dolphin pool, where feeding-time antics were entertaining the crowd. He was laughing at two high-fiving dolphins, his hands in his pockets, his bright ‘Don’t Try This at Home’ t-shirt helping him stand out from the crowd. Weirdly, I found myself feeling almost envious of him. He looked so … carefree. I realised that it had been quite a while since I’d felt that way myself. Even before Grody’s murder I’d been kind of stressed, working to get the Simulcorp placement on top of the usual school stuff. Not that I felt sorry for myself or anything – I liked the pressure, the feeling that I was working for something important. There was just something about Nix’s face that made me remember that life could be … well, different.

  We made our way over. Nix welcomed us with a smile.

  ‘Hi Ki,’ he said. ‘Alex.’

  ‘You seem to be missing a sidekick,’ observed Ki.

  ‘Joel had to work at the shop. No need to feel too sorry for him – he told me nothing brings the hot chicks down to a surf shop like unseasonal warm weather.’

  ‘Charming. We made it here without being abducted, I hope you’ll notice,’ I told him.

  ‘Which just shows the wisdom of having Kiyoko with you,’ said Nix, his eyes twinkling. ‘That withering stare she does would scare anyone off. Yeah, that’s the one I mean.’

  ‘So, are you going to tell us what we’re here for?’ I asked.

  ‘All in good time,’ said Nix, looking at his watch. ‘And we seem to have a little up our sleeves, so why don’t we have some fun in the meantime?’

  And we did. It was like being a kid again, walking around looking at the sharks and stingrays, eating fairy floss and eyeing off the sideshow games. Even Ki seemed to be enjoying herself.

  ‘You know, I never realised you were such a fan of sweet stuff,’ I told her as we watched Nix target-shooting with a water pistol. Ki had just started on her second stick of fairy floss, and passers-by were giving her strange looks. I couldn’t exactly blame them – it’s not every day you see a sixteen-year-old in dark plum lipstick and an ankle-length black velvet dress eating bright pink fairy floss.

  ‘Only when it seems appropriate,’ said Ki, pulling off a little wad of floss. ‘There are times when it can be most enjoyable – perhaps even healthy – to allow oneself some of the pleasures of childhood.’ She looked at me meditatively. ‘You should remember that, Alex.’

  ‘Me?’ I blinked at her. ‘You’re the serious one, Ki!’

  ‘Externally, perhaps,’ Ki murmured.

  ‘Heads up!’ Nix handballed the mini football he’d just won at the water-pistol stand my way. I caught it, still trying to work out what exactly Ki meant. ‘I was actually going for the big, fluffy bunny they had at the top – I thought it’d go perfectly in your room, Ki.’ He grinned. Ki returned him a small, indulgent smile. Obviously humouring Nix counted as one of the pleasures of childhood for her.

  ‘Sky’ll be here in a few minutes,’ Nix told us, taking back his football. ‘Shall we stroll on down to the entrance?’

  Ki set off in front, weaving her way through the crowd. Nix fell in beside me.

  ‘This is for you.’ He handed me a heavy, lumpy object as big as my palm and covered in what appeared to be spatters of blue and grey paint. I stared at it.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s a Giant Moon Rock. You know!’ He grinned at me. ‘A thing you eat, like a gobstopper.’

  ‘You mean it’s a giant lump of sugar?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I won it. Thought you might like it – I remembered how you went through that entire bucket of Chupa Chups on year seven camp.’

  ‘You know, I’m –’ I stopped. I’d been going to tell him I wasn’t twelve years old any more, but then I realised how ungrateful that would sound. It was kind of a nice gesture, after all. ‘I’m kind of amazed to find you and Ki have a love of sugar in common,’ I finished instead.

  ‘Hey, I’m full of surprises,’ said Nix, peering over people’s heads to keep Ki in sight.

  ‘Thanks for the rock.’ I tucked the heavy lump into my backpack.

  The crowd was dense here. We walked slowly, shouldering our way between excited kids and tired parents.

  ‘So how’s your placement been going, Alex?’ Nix asked. ‘Apart from the murder stuff, I mean.’

  I looked up at him as I turned a little to avoid the Dragon Punch machine. He seemed genuinely interested, his green eyes intent beneath his wild brown hair.

  ‘I’ve been taking it seriously, if that’s what you mean.’

  Amazingly, he actually looked a little embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I was just … concerned about you, you know?’

  I was touched.

  ‘Thanks.’ I smiled. ‘The rest of it’s been pretty good. They’re letting me work on a marketing proposal for Impression – you know, the jeans company?’

  Nix nodded. ‘What do you have to do for that?’

  I told him. I was surprised to discover how much he understood about the things I’d learnt at Simulcorp. Up until then, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that his placement was kind of similar.

  ‘I guess you’ve been learning some of the same stuff, huh?’

  ‘A little,’ said Nix, handballing his footy up into the air and catching it. The crowd had thinned out now we were near the entrance. ‘I mean, obviously there are things that don’t come into your end of it, like how to actually make an actor look like a zombie, but we have to work on the same principles of marketing. I think our CGI department d
oes similar things, too, just not for virtual applications.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess they would. I was supposed to go and see what the CGI guys do on Wednesday, but things were so messed up, I didn’t get to. Hopefully I’ll go this week, though.’

  ‘I’m doing that kind of thing this week too. They have this room where they can do markerless motion capture, which is –’ He broke off as his hand slipped. The mini football shot sideways and hit a woman who was walking past us with a toddler in her arms.

  ‘Oh!’ The woman blinked behind her thick glasses, startled.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ Nix bent swiftly to retrieve the ball, the picture of sincerity and concern.

  ‘Oh … that’s okay!’

  ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ the woman assured him, obviously thawing under the charming smile he shot her. Nix tickled the little boy.

  ‘And are you all right, big guy?’ he asked.

  The toddler giggled, and his mum beamed at Nix. You could tell she was thinking something like: What a nice young man!

  Nix turned back to me, still smiling, as they walked away.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re looking at me funny.’

  ‘Oh.’ I squinted at my feet for a moment, confused. ‘I don’t know. I was just thinking.’

  He raised an eyebrow, but I could hardly explain to him that it was weird, seeing him from that woman’s perspective. Fortunately, Ki and Sky were already heading towards us.

  Nix began to laugh as Sky came to a halt in front of us, and I couldn’t find it in my heart to admonish him. I thought people had been staring at us a lot when Ki was eating fairy floss, but Sky brought our stranger-fascination level to a whole new plane.

  ‘Is there a reason for this get-up, Sky, or are you just wondering where the fine line between daring and arrestable might be?’ I asked her.

  Sky looked down at the yellow platform sandals, tight denim hotpants and barely there, sunflower-print bra-top she was wearing in surprise.

  ‘I was hanging out with Robbie from work,’ she explained. ‘It’s not that bad, is it? I was going for, like, a “summer fun” look. Because of the weather.’