KILLER T

by Robert Muchamore

  Life had been slow at White Boulder. Lessons, free association, meals. Locked up with your cellmate by seven thirty and the electronic bolt releasing eleven hours later. Outside news and minor rebellions were the only thing to crack monotony.

  Now Charlie’s life was gaining speed. Hanging with Harry. New laptop, new clothes, new friends, new place to live. Last night I had my first kiss and let a guy feel me up. Drank too much, took idiotic risks. Never again. And on Monday a new school. And this damned menu. I don’t know what half of this stuff is …

  The restaurant’s setting was beautiful. A table with a view over reed beds, swans gliding on a lake and rich folks’ houses beyond.

  ‘Walnut and olive bread,’ the waitress said, her voice muffled by an anti-viral mask.

  Vinyl-gloved hands set down the bread bowl and a compartmented dish, filled with vinegar, olive oil and pâté.

  Charlie felt out of place as Harry casually dipped bread in the treacly balsamic.

  ‘I’ve never been anywhere this fancy,’ she whispered, not wanting the saggy-necked ladies at the next table to overhear. ‘This menu’s full of weird words. What is a tapenade?’

  ‘Stewed cow’s eyeballs,’ Harry said.

  ‘Eww … Wait. You’re messing, aren’t you?’

  Harry laughed. ‘It’s a pesto. Mashed olives, anchovies, herbs and stuff. Do you like olives?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Never tried them.’

  ‘Never?’ Harry gawped.

  Charlie looked a touch wounded. ‘My mom had this truck-driver boyfriend for a while. He’d take us to IHOP for pancakes and I’d get stupidly excited. After Ma topped herself, I mostly ate with Ed, who only liked five things. And there wasn’t much baked red mullet with citrus jus at White Boulder.’

  One of the old birds at the next table glanced over at the mention of White Boulder. Harry glowered back until she started pretending she’d been looking for her napkin.

  ‘So you ain’t spawned from fancy-eating folk, then?’ Harry smiled, accidentally touching Charlie’s hand as he reached across and tapped her menu. ‘This lamb burger is supposed to be really good.’

  Charlie looked wary. ‘It’s twenty-six dollars and I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘The man from Vegas Local doesn’t pay,’ Harry reminded her. ‘And greasy food lines your stomach after a hangover.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘Is that official surgeon general’s guidance?’

  But she felt better once she’d scraped most of the mint foam off her burger and tucked in. After the main, the chef came out of the kitchen with some banana-and-honey crêpes. He asked Harry how Kirsten was doing, told him what a great website Vegas Local was. Then he went on about how his eighty-year-old grandma was on Vegas Local every day, reading gossip and printing off grocery coupons.

  ‘That’s Ellie’s goal,’ Harry told the chef, as he realised his crêpes were microwaved and rubbery. ‘We do what local newspapers did before they all went broke. Vegas Local gets over a quarter million unique visitors per day, a lot of them tourists looking for insider tips.’

  ‘This has been a tough year,’ the chef said. ‘People are getting out more now, but SNor cut our takings by half.’

  ‘Brutal,’ Harry said, ‘but our lamb burgers were great and I’ll make sure you get a feature review in the next few days. I’ll get Sue-Ann to call. Maybe we can fix a deal for a coupon.’

  ‘Anything that gets bodies through the door,’ the chef said eagerly.

  ‘You ain’t got a bad life,’ Charlie told Harry as they headed outside into a breeze coming off the lake. ‘Cruising around picking up free food in restaurants.’

  Harry admired Charlie as she walked ahead. Little ears, nice butt and legs that had been starved of sunlight.

  ‘Not forgetting your wheels,’ Charlie said, twirling as she got near his British racing-green Mini, with a Union Jack flag across the roof.

  ‘I do OK,’ Harry said humbly, unplugging the Mini. ‘And grub like this is a treat. I burn heaps of calories running, but rich food is terrible for my skin.’

  Maker’s Yard was a two-minute drive on a road with speed humps that ran round Swallow Park’s manmade lakes. Charlie wowed as they passed an ultra-modern house with a white Ferrari on the driveway.

  ‘You’re good at making money,’ Charlie observed. ‘This is where you’ll end up.’

  ‘You’ll do OK with that big brain,’ Harry told her.

  Maker’s Yard was an aluminium-sided building at the edge of Swallow Park. It was screened behind a fifteen-foot hedge, next to recycling bins and a garage that housed the little carts used by security patrols.

  It took a while to find the unassuming entrance. The yard was the size of a basketball court. There was a whiff of burnt wood and motor oil. The décor was trendy industrial, with a bare concrete floor, stripped walls, particle-board benches and some pricey-looking machinery along the edge.

  An elderly woman was gluing a vintage record player in one corner, but the main action centred on a pre-teen gang building little carts, covered with stick-on solar panels and powered by repurposed washing-machine motors.

  ‘Can I help you?’ their pink-haired, heavily pregnant teacher asked.

  ‘I messaged Steve,’ Harry told her. ‘We came to check this place out, and maybe for my friend here to join up.’

  The punkish teacher explained that Steve had gone out to buy materials for another class later that afternoon. They waited on ancient comfy sofas in a lounge area. Besides the sofas, there were shelves of old technical manuals, a bright green coffee machine that hailed from the 1970s and some homemade cakes next to a donation jar.

  Charlie laughed when she saw a motion-sensing camera rigged up to an old-fashioned police siren. She couldn’t figure out how it worked, but the flashing blue light was clearly designed to shame anyone who didn’t pay for their cake.

  Moms of the kids doing the go-kart building sat on the sofas. There was also a beard-and-beer-gut in paint-spattered dungarees. He leaned on the back of a sofa, addressing the women like he was the world authority on everything.

  ‘All this talk about mutated virus, designer babies and this whole gene-editing show like it’ll be the end of days,’ he said in a booming Texas drawl. ‘But there’s always been scaremongering. It’s like this global warming. Been talking ’bout it for years, but I still ain’t seen Manhattan under twelve feet a water.’

  Three moms nodded, while the fourth built blocks with a toddler sat on a sterile play mat.

  ‘Sure hope you’re right,’ one of them said.

  ‘I worry about school bathrooms,’ another commented. ‘That’s how those poor second-graders died in Miami. Thirteen in one year group.’

  The drawler resumed his lecture. ‘We heard it all before with nuclear proliferation,’ he said, shaking his head slowly. ‘Everyone saying the terrorists would get a nuke. But detection systems were in place. SNor caught us with our pants around our ankles, but governments are on red alert now …’

  Charlie had always seemed shy, so Harry was surprised to hear her butt in.

  ‘But the proliferation of nuclear weapons is difficult, because you need to enrich uranium ore into weapons-grade uranium,’ Charlie said. ‘Uranium enrichment requires a factory the size of three football fields, filled with thousands of gas centrifuges, each one more complex than a jet engine.

  ‘But I could go online and buy all the equipment I need to do gene editing for the price of a second-hand car, and the equipment would fit in a regular garage. So, you’re comparing two very different technologies.’

  ‘They’re clamping down on the sale of chemicals and equipment,’ the Texan said.

  ‘But tens of thousands of sequencing and editing machines have already been produced,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘And when all the rich countries ban the sale of gene-editing machinery, there will be dozens of poor ones, who either don’t legislate or don’t have the money to police it.’

  One of the moms nodded. ‘It’s t
errifying. I think about my three boys, and when I see it on the news … I know it sounds weak, but I turn it off because it’s so horrible.’

  The Texan hated Charlie undermining his authority. ‘I’m sixty and I spent my whole life listening to people talking about threats. The communists were gonna wipe us out, then it was the AIDS, global warming, terrorists with nukes, terrorists with chemical weapons. All I know is I ain’t dead yet.’

  ‘SNor killed more people in six months than have ever been killed by terrorists and nuclear weapons,’ Charlie said. ‘I just researched it for my end-of-term paper.’

  Now the guy roared with laughter, clutching his big gut. ‘Well, I gotta change my mind if you wrote it in your school pro-ject, sweetheart …’

  A couple of the moms smirked too, and Charlie turned and scowled at Harry. ‘Screw this place. I’m outta here.’

  ‘He’s a pig,’ Harry whispered, grabbing her arm anxiously as she stormed away. ‘It’s nothing.’

  But Charlie didn’t think so and headed for the exit. Luckily, a slim guy with a bouncy walk and a pocket full of pens blocked her path.

  ‘Welcome to Maker’s Yard. I’m Steve,’ he said, offering a hand to shake. ‘You must be Harry and Charlie. I’m sorry I had to pop out, but you didn’t say exactly what time you’d be dropping by.’

  ‘No probs,’ Harry said.

  Charlie shook hands, but kept sulking.

  ‘Join me at my bench,’ Steve said, then waved at the moms and told them. ‘Your kids are doing so great over there,’ which made the quartet crack proud smiles.

  Steve’s bench was back by reception and he looked across at Charlie as he led the way. ‘I agree with what you said about the virus situation. The problem with setting up any open maker community is you can’t tell big mouths like Jerry McLeod to go eff themselves.

  ‘And mommies would rather have a good-ol’-boy telling them I’m still standing, than deal with the reality that the children they adore might soon die from a synthetic virus made in a suburban garage by couple of college dropouts.’

  Charlie enjoyed Steve’s bossy-but-cynical vibe and reluctantly cracked a smile. His desk was a particle-board workbench, covered in circuit boards, chocolate-bar wrappers, half-drunk Starbuckses and a soldering station.

  ‘A lot of eggheads come here and sneer at my Wednesday-night appliance-repair workshop,’ Steve told Charlie. ‘They’d rather build killer robots than fix a suction chamber on a ten-year-old Dyson.

  ‘But the wannabe robot builders get frustrated when they realise how complex it is, while my appliance fixers build up a skill set – learning how everyday things work and what tools you need to repair them. It makes a starting point for more ambitious maker projects. There’s also satisfaction, when a struggling family gets their air-conditioner fixed, or we fit new batteries inside old iPads, load them up with educational apps and send them off to a school in Mozambique.’

  ‘Sounds amazing,’ Harry said, giving Charlie a nudge for encouragement.

  ‘And before you ask in a sly and embarrassed fashion, yes Steve will write a reference for your college application stating that you’re a wonderful young human, who repaired lots of computers for poor kiddies.’

  Charlie seemed to have forgotten her humiliation a few moments earlier and looked hopefully at Harry. ‘You could join too.’

  ‘I do running club with Matt on Tuesdays,’ Harry said, shaking his head. ‘Plus it’s dark way before nine, so I’d never be able to drive home.’

  ‘Aww,’ Charlie said, then smiled at Steve. ‘You’ve sold me. How do I sign up?’

  20 NAPALM DROPS

  After leaving Maker’s Yard, Harry and Charlie strolled around Swallow Park’s lakes, talking about London, pets, White Boulder, bad music, apps they played when they were kids and funny shit that had happened at school.

  They watched cute toddlers in masks feeding the water birds, got honked by an old coot in a golf buggy and watched a girl get screamed at by a spectacularly pompous dad, after she’d piloted his model boat into a tangle of reeds.

  ‘I can’t make it up here on school nights,’ Harry said, ‘but maybe you can come to my place next weekend? Matt will tell you all kinds of embarrassing stories about me, and you can meet Kirsten if she’s not at work.’

  It was just before five and the Mini was parked on the brick driveway in front of OIL.

  ‘Sounds great,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll let you know how school goes, and if I hear anything about Ed.’

  ‘You know what Vegas traffic is like on a Saturday evening,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll pop in and take a leak before I head home.’

  As Harry peed in Charlie’s bathroom, a guy said something from out in the hallway. Harry aimed his stream down the side of the pan, so he could overhear.

  ‘It was insanity last night!’ Brad told Charlie, grabbing the top of the door frame with his big hands and smiling. ‘Where you been hiding all day?

  Charlie felt wary. Was Brad the sweet guy who’d cooked steak and told her she was sexy? Or the snarling drunk who’d smashed some kid’s nose and accused her of drinking too much?

  ‘Swallow Park, with my friend, Harry.’

  ‘Schmaltzy,’ Brad sneered. ‘Bunch of us are seeing a movie tonight if you’re up for it?’

  Harry awaited her answer before flushing.

  ‘I’m hungover,’ Charlie said, shaking her head. ‘I’d like to settle in. Sort my room out, watch some bad TV.’

  ‘On Saturday night!’ Brad said, outraged. ‘C’mon! I’ll let you share my popcorn.’

  ‘Some other time,’ Charlie said, a touch firmer.

  Harry came out of the bathroom and hated Brad instantly. Handsome, hunky, confident. Harry would have given anything to be like him.

  Charlie introduced the boys to each other.

  ‘Hey,’ Brad said grudgingly, narrowing his eyes like Harry was gum stuck on his shoe.

  ‘Guess I’d better shift if I’m gonna get home before sunset,’ Harry said. Then awkwardly added, ‘Good to meet you, Brad.’

  Brad snorted, but Charlie cracked a smile and put her arms out for Harry to hug.

  ‘It’s been such an awesome day,’ Charlie said as she squeezed. ‘Thanks for everything.’

  Harry couldn’t enjoy the hug with Brad staring.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, then checked the time on his phone.

  He needed to leave, but Brad kept holding the door frame and only backed up six inches, making Harry duck slightly and almost have to stick his face in Brad’s armpit.

  That meathead lives right across the hall, Harry thought jealously as he walked towards his car. He’ll see Charlie six times a day. He’s got moves; I’ve got acne. Why didn’t I put my arm round Charlie at the lake when she was laughing at everything I said? Such a great day, but now this Brad prick is all I’m gonna think about …

  • • •

  ‘Do you have earplugs?’ Charlie asked, standing at the counter in 7-Eleven next morning.

  When Charlie was ten, she’d stolen foam earplugs from CVS and dissolved them in gasoline to make her first tiny batch of napalm. The YouTube clip of her using the sticky explosive to melt a Barbie had resurfaced in the days after she’d confessed to the locker bombing, and she worried that an onlooker would make that connection as the store clerk shook his head.

  ‘You’ll get them at Walgreens, six blocks up.’

  Charlie walked the six blocks to clear her head. She’d hardly slept. The guys in her corridor had yelled through the night, banged doors and lobbed a firecracker into Jamal’s room at 2 a.m. At four, a pair of cop cars rolled up the driveway, their lights flashing up the walls of Charlie’s room.

  They had an arrest warrant for some kid from a room upstairs, and he wound up climbing OIL’s steeply sloped roof and screaming that he hadn’t done nothing. The guy on the roof’s girlfriend came from somewhere and persuaded him to come down. By the time the sun came up, Charlie felt like she’d slept about fifteen minutes.r />
  Charlie had just walked out of Walgreens’ automatic doors when her phone buzzed. She didn’t recognise the number, or the woman on the other end.

  ‘My name is Dr Raphael,’ she began. ‘I received the message you sent regarding visitation for your brother, Edward.’

  ‘Oh,’ Charlie said, as she eyed a bench then sat down.

  ‘Is now a good time to talk?’

  ‘For sure,’ Charlie said. ‘Have you been working with Ed? How is he doing?’

  ‘I’m an administrative director,’ the woman said curtly. ‘I have encountered your brother on several occasions, and taken part in clinical meetings where his case is discussed, but I’m not involved in his day-to-day care.’

  ‘Right,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I received your request to visit Edward. It was discussed with the nursing staff, and I’ve spoken to your sister, Fawn, and your brother’s independent trustee at the law firm Troughton and Oliver.’

  Charlie shook her head. ‘Troughton and what? Ed’s trust money is administered by Care Nevada.’

  ‘It was until the beginning of this year,’ Dr Raphael corrected. ‘I believe there was a legal dispute between your sister and Care Nevada. Your sister won the legal right to control Edward’s settlement money, shortly before Edward was resettled here at Care4Kids.’

  Charlie couldn’t believe it. ‘My sister has control of Ed’s money?’ she blurted.

  ‘I believe that is the effective result of the legal dispute.’

  ‘But it’s Ed’s,’ Charlie said anxiously. ‘It’s his legal settlement from the hospital. He’s got to survive on that money for the rest of his life.’

  Dr Raphael sounded weary. ‘A Nevada State court has deemed your sister fit to manage Ed’s affairs.’

  The hell she is … Charlie thought. Probably cooked some scheme up with the Janssens’ smartass lawyers …

  ‘If you wish to discuss your brother’s financial arrangements, you’ll have to contact your sister or Desiree Troughton at Troughton and Oliver. I called exclusively to discuss your visitation issue.’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘Care4Kids doesn’t have a website. I couldn’t find any information with your visiting hours, or anything, but I’m eager to see my little brother.’