With an expert flick she tossed the tube up into the air. It passed high over the fence then fell down into the mud close behind Gia.
“Got it? Good. Now listen carefully. Inside that tube is a list of possible passwords to access the Special Branch computer system.”
Gia frowned. She knew all about the password system. Warrant Officer Naudé had told them all about it during data capture training.
“Did you get these from Brakman?” she asked. “They won’t be much use. Passwords get changed once a week. If Brakman got these before he was kicked out, they’ll not be working by now.”
“What do you know about Brakman?” said the girl, but before Gia could respond, “Oh yes, you got mixed up with him when he still had access to the Special Branch system. Got him to change some records for you, didn’t you? Brakman says these are some of the senior staff’s passwords. According to him, these people are a bit slow on the computer side. They don’t like changing their passwords. Or otherwise they just change the number at the end. You understand?”
“Yes,” said Gia. “But when—”
“Don’t ask so many questions, we don’t have time. Just listen. You do use the computers, don’t you? Brakman said they always use the Youth Brigade for entering information.”
“That’s right.”
“Well then. These passwords will give you access to the stuff we need. Now that Brakman no longer has access from outside, it’s essential that you help us. So listen up. On that list, you’ll also find some codes. We need you to look for any names that are listed under those codes and put them in a message to us.”
“But how—?”
“Will you shut up!” Gia could see the girl’s eyes glinting in the moonlight. “I’m telling you everything you need to know. Stop interrupting. We can’t stay here too long, somebody’s bound to come past and spot me so shut up and listen.”
Gia pressed her lips together to suppress what she wanted to say.
“Good,” said the girl. “Apparently, while he was still working here, Brakman put a sort of parasite into the computer system. To send messages out along the phone lines—anyway, it doesn’t really matter how it works, point is nobody can connect to the Special Branch system from outside, but there’s a chance that the parasite program still works and that it can send short messages out to Brakman’s computers. He says you can access it from any of the terminals as long as you know what code to use to call it up. On the back of that list is the parasite access code. Brakman says, all you have to do is type it into the search function. He says it looks just like a normal input box.” The girl paused. “Look, does this make sense to you? I don’t understand any of this computer stuff so I’m just repeating back what Brakman told me to say.”
“Yes, it does,” said Gia. “That was part of our basic training, opening an input box to send information to the database.”
“Oh. Good. Anyway, apparently the input box, or whatever, looks just like the normal one so even if somebody sees you using it, they won’t think anything’s wrong. So this is what you need to do. Use those passwords to get into those people’s accounts. Look for lists of names. If you find any names attached to the codes on that paper, you use Brakman’s parasite program to send those names to us, with their codes. Understand?”
Gia nodded. “But what’s it for?”
Although Gia could hardly see the girl’s face in the dark, she could tell that she was hesitating. At last, she gave a little nod. “Okay. I think it’s better if you know. That way you can make informed decisions. Special Branch have lists of people they are watching. Civilians, you know? Some are people they know for a fact are on our side. Those people tend to disappear.” The girl’s voice had not changed its tone, but Gia could not help a shudder at the meaning of her words.
“You mean Special Branch—”
“Yes. They rub them out. Or maybe they keep them locked up somewhere, who knows. Anyway, the point is, there are two lists. People they know are with us and others who are just suspects, who they’ll not move against unless we slip up. We need to know who is on which list. The codes show that. And especially if somebody changes from one list to another. From the watch list to the kill list.”
“But where do I even start looking? There must be thousands of names in the system.”
The girl shrugged. “Brakman said you can just search for those codes.”
“Oh. Right.”
“You understand what you have to do?”
“I do. But it’s not going to be easy.”
“Just don’t get caught. Now. We’ve still got a bit of time. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
Gia swallowed, feeling strangely blank. She wished that she’d been more attentive, that she had something to tell this abrupt stranger, show her that she knew what she was doing.
“Well,” she started uncertainly. “We’ve been mostly doing basic training...”
For the next few minutes she described, as quickly as she could, everything she’d seen and heard so far. As she spoke she felt the mounting embarrassment at her own ineptitude. A real spy would have prepared a short and concise report of all the essential information. Instead, her story was all in a tangle. She could not even answer half of the girl’s questions. How many werewolves were there? How many times a day did they get fed? What was Doctor Scubbe working on in his laboratory? When did the morning patrols go out? And yet the girl did not show any sign of impatience, quietly asking question after question until at last it was clear that Gia did not have anything more to share.
“Well then,” she said, drawing the hood back over her white hair. “I think that’s everything. We shouldn’t need to meet again if you can get that computer thing working.”
“Okay.”
The girl made as if to move away then turned back. “Oh yes. One more thing. You better tell that father of yours to lay off. He’s been trying to contact us and making a bit too much noise in doing it.”
Gia felt as if she’d been slapped. How could she have forgotten about Nico? That was the only reason Karel would be trying to contact the Belle Gente.
“He’s looking for my brother.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
The girl had stepped closer again. “Your brother? You mean the little one?”
So this girl did know something about Nico. “Yes,” Gia said unwillingly.
“He’s missing and your father thinks we have him, is that it?”
No point in trying to hide it now. “Yes.”
“I thought your bargain with us was that you’d do this, as long as we leave him alone.”
“It is.”
“But if you thought we took him and that the bargain’s broken. Why did you tell me all this—”
“I don’t know.” Gia shook her head in frustration. “I guess I don’t think you did take him. Actually, I don’t even know if he’s still missing. My family can’t contact me in here at the moment. They don’t let us communicate with our families while we’re still in training.” Gia could feel the girl looking at her, but could not see her face, hidden as it was under the hood.
“Well,” said the girl at last. “I’d guess that he’s still missing, as your father is still rattling some cages that are better left alone.”
“Oh.”
“As far as I know, we don’t have your brother,” said the girl. “I’m pretty sure I’d know if we did. The Crane does not break her promises.”
All at once, Gia felt exhausted. Without realising it she’d been counting on the idea that Nico was not missing after all, that he was home again and that Mandy and Karel would let her know as soon as they were allowed to contact her again. But this news about her father shook all of that to pieces. And what if he got himself into trouble? The Belle Gente were no joke.
“Can you give a message to my father?” she asked, trying to sound calmer than she felt.
“I can.”
“Then tell him what you just told me. About the Crane
and her promises, I mean. And tell him that I ask him not to—not to stir up trouble. Tell him that I’m doing everything I can do, in here, to figure out whether Special Branch have got him.”
“You think he’ll listen to me?”
“No, I don’t, but what else can I do?”
The girl gave a wry laugh. “Well. I’ll give him the message then. I think you better get back now.”
“Yes. Thanks. Um—what’s your name?”
“You can call me Sash,” said the girl as she slipped away into the dark.
Passwords
Nico drifted in the dark. The safe, still place where nothing could touch him. There was no time here. No overwhelming noise, no lights, no voices. Even his mother could not reach him here when he decided to retreat into himself.
But something was wrong; he could feel it even here. Something was nagging at him, a sense that he was being watched, that he was not safe at all. He felt the unfamiliar roughness of a blanket under his cheek, smelling faintly of mould and sweat. Memories intruded, spoiling the safe, blank darkness, filling it with time and movement. He’d been in a van, driving at night. He’d been carried somewhere. Dark, small room. Voices, movement around him.
The memory of fear. The need to lie as still as possible, the desperate need to escape. Long hours of staring into the dark, trying to link. If he could link to his father, to Mandy, to anybody, maybe he could somehow touch their minds and let them know what had happened to him. Call them to get him out of this horrible, strange, new place where nothing was as it should be.
He’d never tried to communicate through a link before; he didn’t even know if it was possible. But it was useless. To link, he had to be relaxed, dreamy, open, light. It was impossible to force it. At last he’d given up and gone where he was now. Denied everything around him. Denied the musty, scratchy blankets. Denied the sound of the sea, the rush and suck of the waves close outside the place where he lay. Denied the empty feeling in his belly and the increasing pressure in his bladder.
-oOo-
“So, cadet and where were you last night?”
Jooste had cornered her on the way to the bathroom. Gia opened her mouth then closed it again.
“Oh, don’t play stupid. Last night. When we came for you, your bed was empty.” The senior cadet was so close Gia could feel her breath on her face.
“Last night?”
Jooste sighed in exasperation. “Fuck’s sake, how dense can you be?” She lowered her voice. “The doop, idiot. Initiation. It was your turn last night. Except you weren’t there.”
Gia shrugged, trying to look puzzled. “I went to the toilet for a while. Got an upset tummy. You must have just missed me.”
“That so?” Jooste stared at Gia for a long moment. “Funny thing. I checked and all the bathroom lights were off.”
“I don’t remember. I must have just left the light off.”
Another silence. Then, “You trying to get out of it, cadet? You chicken, or something?”
“No!” Gia shook her head emphatically.
Jooste just stood there, looking at her. Then she turned abruptly on her heel and walked off down the corridor.
-oOo-
Later that day, in data capture, Gia tried the first password. She was nervous at first, but the cadets on either side of her were absorbed in their work and she didn’t think they’d notice what she was doing.
She’d memorised the list that morning in the toilet cubicle. Luckily the list was not long, only a few words and codes. Once she was sure she had it all by heart, she’d flushed the torn-up scraps. The plastic tube that had held the list had gone into an outside bin. Rationally, she knew it was extremely unlikely that anyone would find it, or even look at it twice. There was nothing unusual about it, and nothing to link it either to her, or to the Belle Gente. But she still felt unsafe.
She would just try one single password, nothing more.
What if it sets off an alarm? What if the system can tell that the person using the password is not the authorised user? There was nothing for it. She had to try. Guilt seared through her again. The lack of news from home had lulled her into a sense of false security. Because she’d not seen Nico’s empty bed for herself, because she’d so badly wanted it not to be true, she’d not really believed, had not understood.
Nico was gone. Sash’s warning about her father had brought that home to her. Her father, who went out of his way to avoid conflict, who would not have anything to do with the Belle Gente, was putting himself in danger, trying to find what had happened to her brother. She cringed in embarrassment as she remembered the message she’d sent him via Sash. He was doing what he could to find Nico, when she’d done almost nothing. But she had to stop Karel from provoking the Belle Gente.
The password box blinked at her. If she did not log in soon, the cadets on either side of her might notice something was wrong. The list she’d memorised contained only two names that she knew. One of them was Captain Witbooi. The other was Mrs Solomons, the woman who’d posed as a social worker at Gia’s school and who had been so unusually interested in Nico. For some reason, Gia found the idea of trying to access their accounts much more frightening than the names she did not recognise, so she typed one of those in now: Gift Radebe and his password, ElenaGirl.
Her heart bumped with fright as the password box pulsed in denial.
Wrong. Gift Radebe must have changed his password. It was no use.
Again, she forced herself to breathe. She tried to remember the list. Did she have it right? Hadn’t there been something...
Gift Radebe
EllenaGirl
She was so surprised when the access screen appeared that she nearly swore out loud. But nobody noticed anything. If there had been an alarm, it was a silent one. Working quickly, she punched in the code that Sash had told her to search for and a list of names appeared. This, she knew, was the watch list, people Special Branch had their eye on but lacked enough evidence to actively pursue. She read through quickly, forcing herself to concentrate. There was nobody there that she recognised.
“Excuse me, Officer Naudé?”
Again, her heart sped, but it was just Cadet Mayer asking for help. Nothing to worry about. Now for the next step. She had to use the parasite programme to send this list of names to the Belle Gente. First step: copy the list. Then type the parasite programme’s code into the search box. Gia smiled as the little input box opened, just as Sash said it would. This was not so bad after all. She placed the copied list and hit the “send” button. A progress bar appeared, hung for a moment then it was gone.
Done. And nobody had caught her.
One more list to go. The kill list. People who were wanted for questioning, or who’d be eliminated, if they were caught. She repeated the process, this time using the other code. Again, none of the names looked familiar. She copied and sent that list as well. It was difficult to believe that the programme really worked as Sash had said it would. Had she really just sent a message to the Belle Gente? There was no way she could tell. Her hands were shaking and she wanted to log out, have this all be over before she was caught. But she had one more thing to do.
Once again, she typed a search into the search box. Nico Grobbelaar. But the search was over so quickly she knew at once that it was useless. There were no results. Nothing at all. If there were any records of her brother on the system, they were not in this person’s account. At last she allowed herself to exit. She sat back, drew a deep breath and let it out in a long, trembling sigh, feeling as if she’d been running uphill. When a hand touched her shoulder, she startled so badly that her chair rattled backward and crashed into the table behind her.
“Cadet Grobbelaar!” said Warrant Officer Naudé, frowning down at her. “Control yourself. I’ve got a message here from Captain Witbooi. He wants to speak to you, in his office. Do you know where that is?”
“What?” said Gia blankly, her whole body thrumming with shock. “I mean, I’m sorry, sir?”
Warrant Officer Naudé’s frown deepened. “Do you know where Captain Witbooi’s office is? He’s sent for you.”
“I—no sir, I don’t know.”
“It’s on the first floor. Just past the receptionist.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aware of the other cadets’ curious eyes, Gia made her way past the row of computers to the door and out into the corridor. She stood there for a moment, waiting for her heart to slow.
It can’t be anything to do with the computer stuff. They would just come and arrest me, if it were that, not let me walk all by myself, surely. But what on earth can it be?
-oOo-
All the way downstairs the questions circled through her mind. Had they figured out that she’d been out last night? Maybe Jooste had told somebody that she’d not been in her bed? Maybe something’s happened to Dad, or Mandy— By the time she reached the receptionist, Gia was so agitated that the woman made her drink a few gulps of water so that she could calm down enough to explain why she was there.
“Captain Witbooi’s office? Of course. Come this way.”
The receptionist’s calm manner helped Gia gain some control over herself and by the time she was ushered into the office she was breathing normally and she hoped her anxiety was not quite as visible.
“Cadet Grobbelaar!” said Captain Witbooi with a smile. “Sit down, sit down. I’ll be with you in just a moment.”
He was seated behind a large desk and busy at his computer. He typed a few more words, shuffled some papers out of the way then turned to Gia. “Cadet Grobbelaar, you are probably wondering why I called you. You are still new here, so you and I don’t know each other yet. But that will soon change. I like to think that I have a special relationship with the Youth Brigade cadets.”
He leaned back in his chair, lifted his shoulders in a stretch and nodded thoughtfully to himself. “Yes, we are all a sort of family here. You are happy here, cadet?”
Gia blinked at him, then blurted, “Yes, captain!”
“Not too homesick? It’s a big change.”
Wolf Logic Page 8