KILLER T

by Robert Muchamore

  Mango nodded. ‘I don’t want to pressure you,’ she said. ‘You’ve not seen anything illegal. You can’t prove any of the things I’ve said I’ve done. And you’re the last person who’d go running to the cops.

  ‘But if you come aboard, the risk will be well rewarded. I’ll pay a hundred and fifty dollars an hour. Maybe one evening per week, and five or six hours every Saturday or Sunday. That will give you twelve hundred a week, tax free. That’s enough to buy a car, to have nice clothes and build a nest egg so you can study at college, rather than kill yourself working two jobs.’

  ‘I’ve never had nice stuff,’ Charlie admitted. ‘But I’ve never studied synthetic biology. I don’t know anything about designer babies, or gene therapy.’

  ‘I can teach you, and for the first few weeks I’ll be right alongside you. It’s more complex than teaching a new employee to make an lime muffin, but it’s a laboratory process that can be broken down into simple steps.’

  ‘Can I think this over?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘For sure,’ Mango said. ‘But I know how curious minds work. You’ll get back to OIL, log on to the WiFi and start reading articles on human-gene editing, then you’ll look up the new laws going through Congress to see what the punishments are. Am I right?’

  ‘Obviously,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Well don’t,’ Mango warned. ‘The CIA uses a deep learning AI system that can scan a billion pieces of unencrypted web traffic per second. Even in privacy mode, your searches can easily be linked to you, and if the system links someone with your criminal record reading papers on human gene editing, it’ll get flagged up to a human intelligence agent.’

  ‘Really?’ Charlie said.

  Mango nodded. ‘The government has had satellites and monitoring stations for decades, but in the last few years computer power and behavioural recognition tech has improved to the point where they can analyse everything. If you want to be a bad guy, data encryption is no longer optional. But I can loan you a quantum encrypted tablet, with a 5g hook-up and location masking.’

  ‘Is that legal?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘First amendment says it is,’ Mango said. ‘So you’re welcome to think, but there’s a guy who works in the bakery. He’s got an engineering degree. I’ve been considering approaching him for a while now. I think you have greater potential, but someone has to be trained in all the basic techniques before Junior is born, so I can’t wait forever.’

  ‘What if I let you know by Sunday evening?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mango said, smiling. ‘And don’t feel I’m forcing you. I’d much rather you said no than agreed to do something you’re not comfortable with.’

  31 D IN MATH

  Harry’s day went from bad to worse as he got collared by his homeroom teacher, Mrs Scott, on the way out of school. It was a repeat lecture about outside interests and making best use of the many opportunities Queensbridge gives to pupils, but Harry struggled to keep a straight face because his pal Anita stood behind Mrs Scott, flicking her tongue and making obscene gestures.

  By the time Harry walked out, everyone else had had a five-minute start and he knew he’d be at the back of the line to get out of the student lot.

  ‘Want to study for the math quiz at my place?’ Anita asked, walking a couple of paces behind.

  ‘I’ve got a million things to do,’ Harry said grumpily.

  ‘You got a D last Friday,’ Anita said.

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ Harry groaned, which made Anita spread her arms and break into song.

  ‘D, dee, dee. Dee, D, D, dee, D, dee.’

  ‘You’re not funny.’

  ‘I’m hilarious,’ Anita contradicted. ‘How’s your Mad Bomber doing? Have you stuffed your hoo-hoo-dilly in her cha-cha yet?’

  Harry stopped walking and spoke sharply. ‘Look … we’re cool, Anita. But sometimes you’re too much … I’ve had a crap day and I need peace.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Anita said, staring at the gravel, hurting. ‘But math is a core subject. They’ll boot you out of Queensbridge if you keep getting Ds.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’ Harry asked.

  Anita gave a wonky smile and backed away. ‘We’ll talk when you’re in a better mood, Haribo.’

  Harry grunted and gave Anita a wry thumbs-up. By the time he got in his Mini, traffic stretched from the street in front of Queensbridge Academy, down a curving lane and back to the edge of the parking lot. It would take at least ten minutes for the traffic in front to clear and the most annoying part was a second, completely empty exit lane that was for staff only.

  ‘Autodrive, destination home,’ Harry told the car.

  The map on the centre console showed the route. Harry pressed the handover button on the steering wheel, and the car rolled itself a couple of feet before slowing to let Anita shoot past in her Mazda convertible.

  ‘Call Ellie Gold,’ Harry said.

  The phone rang on a speaker in the centre console. Ellie’s voice came through as the Mini joined the line of traffic.

  ‘Wassup, champ?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘The universe sucks,’ Harry said, half smiling. ‘Is your boy Christian OK now?’

  ‘He’s fine, but Woody stuck a Lego brick in his ear. So that was another five-hundred-dollar trip to the emergency room.’

  Ellie had four sons under seven. Harry had never met them, but Ellie’s home life always sounded like a sitcom.

  ‘Did you get my message about the tip off?’

  ‘I tried to call you straight back,’ Ellie said. ‘Janssens are scumbags. But that story needs a heap of work to be publishable and they’ll sue for sure.’

  ‘But they won’t have a leg to stand on if we do it right,’ Harry said.

  ‘The Janssens will find something,’ Ellie said. ‘Even if it’s just an exchange of legal letters, it’s a couple of thousand dollars in lawyer bills. If it gets to court, you’re looking at twenty large.’

  ‘I was thinking—’ Harry began.

  ‘Sounds dangerous,’ Ellie interrupted.

  ‘Let me finish,’ Harry told him. ‘The Fawn Janssen chair-whack video has already brought in four grand. I don’t have time to go to California, but what if we used some of that money to hire a PI?’

  ‘A private investigator?’ Ellie blurted, outraged. ‘Why are you so keen to spend my money today?’

  ‘Nobody does proper journalism any more,’ Harry protested. ‘Twenty years ago, Vegas had three local newspapers, with teams of writers who’d have bitten Earl’s hand off to investigate a juicy story about the Janssens. Now, it’s all about scraping content from other sites, click-bait adverts and hoping some fat lady gets videoed hitting a wasps’ nest with a broom.’

  ‘It’s not my fault people are cheap,’ Ellie said. ‘They’ll eat ninety-nine-cent burgers with meat from God knows where. They pirate their favourite TV show, then complain when it gets cancelled. And they don’t want to pay for quality news. The newspapers with proper journalists died, or got bought by billionaires, to go with their sports franchises and hundred-foot yachts …’

  ‘My mum would spin in her grave if she saw the trash I put on the Vegas Local home page,’ Harry reflected. ‘And people like the Janssens are bribing every cop in town and literally getting away with murder.’

  ‘Have I explained the super-lean business model?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Three thousand times,’ Harry groaned, knowing he was about to hear it again.

  ‘We keep costs down by encouraging user-generated content. Elliegold Media will build a portfolio of profitable local news sites in the fifty biggest media markets. If we stick to my super-lean business model, in five to seven years I can have profitable local news websites in America’s biggest advertising markets and a media company worth half a billion dollars.

  ‘And, don’t forget, when you bailed me out with the money from the Rock Spring bombing footage, your auntie’s clever lawyer made sure that your one-third share of Vegas Local is convertible into five per cent of the
parent company so that’s …’

  ‘Twenty-five million dollars,’ Harry said as his car advanced out of the parking lot. ‘But, apart from Vegas Local, how many of your other sites are currently profitable?’

  ‘Palm Springs and Orlando are making money.’

  ‘Retired folks love their e-coupons,’ Harry laughed. ‘What about the big markets? Washington, San Francisco, Chicago?’

  ‘New York is close to breaking even,’ Ellie said. ‘And the super-lean model means that when we open a site in a new city our costs are less than a thousand dollars a month.’

  ‘So what about Earl’s story?’ Harry asked. ‘Can I at least make some calls and find out how much a private investigator would cost?’

  ‘Harry, I need every penny right now.’

  ‘You’re broke again?’ Harry said, sighing. ‘I wish you’d focus on making our original, ten-grand-per-week-profitable Vegas Local website great, instead of living in San Fran and trying to take over the world.’

  ‘I’ll ask if you still feel that way when you cash your cheque for twenty-five million,’ Ellie said.

  Harry tutted. ‘I’m not holding my breath on that.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry,’ Ellie said, sighing. ‘I value the work you do, Harry. You got that Fawn Janssen story up before anyone else in Vegas. It’s making a ton of money.’

  The ton of money hung in Harry’s ears as Ellie hung up.

  I don’t care about money. But I guess that’s easy to say when you live in a house the size of an aircraft hangar and your super-chef auntie buys you a $33,000 car the day you get your learner’s permit.

  Kirsten’s gonna blow when she finds out I’m failing math. And Anita is ace at maths. When she asked if I wanted to study with her, she had nothing to gain. She was offering to help me out and I was rude. Why did I act like a grumpy dick?

  Harry pounded the Mini’s central armrest, then cursed when he realised that a car had broken down. The single-lane exit road was blocked, and idiots were honking, as if that was going to do any good.

  In the end, Harry’s ten-minute drive home from school took an hour. Kirsten’s electric front gate opened obediently, but the roll-up door to the underground garage just made a weird grind and clunk sound. When Harry looked, he was baffled to see a hand trowel wedged in the door frame. The resistance was enough to trigger the safety mechanism and stop it from going up.

  Why would the stupid gardener do that? Everything is shit today … Except that Charlie got a break, which is awesome …

  Harry unbuckled and flung his door open. The fork was wedged in hard and flakes of paint lifted off as he yanked the trowel and tossed it into a planting.

  ‘All right, Harry,’ a deep voice said, closing fast.

  Harry sprang round, seeing a hulking, overcoated figure with wrecked army boots and a greasy man bun. He tried to scramble, but Man Bun had him cornered, yanking Harry’s spindly arm behind his back, then crashing his forehead into the metal door.

  ‘How are your balls?’ Man Bun growled, dousing Harry with rancid breath. ‘What’s happened to your skin lately? I’ve seen leopards with less spots than you.’

  As Harry squirmed, Man Bun located a big zit on the back of Harry’s neck and popped it.

  ‘You’re like human bubble wrap,’ Man Bun teased, squeezing another. ‘I could spend all day popping these.’

  ‘Piss off,’ Harry moaned, twisting his head and getting his forehead bounced against the door again for his trouble.

  Man Bun wiped pus and blood on Harry’s school shirt, then tightened his grip until Harry’s legs buckled.

  ‘Sit,’ Man Bun ordered, letting Harry go. ‘Face me, legs crossed, hands on head like a good Queensbridge schoolboy.’

  Harry shuddered and did as he was told.

  ‘Lucky for you, the boss told me to take it easy,’ Man Bun said. ‘You’re a man of influence, with your job at Vegas’s number-one locals’ website. I’ve brought you a nice juicy story as a peace offering.’

  Harry peered up as Man Bun unlocked his phone. Man Bun tutted as he searched for something, finally flipping it round to show Harry a picture of an old Ford sedan with the front end obliterated.

  ‘Happened a couple of hours ago. Some poor old guy. Truck coming the other way swerved into his lane as he made his regular trip to the local bowling alley. Shattered pelvis, broken legs. Not sure if he’ll live. You might have spoken to him. Went by the name Earl Everard?’

  Harry closed his eyes and gagged.

  32 BLOODY LOVE SCIENCE

  Charlie spent the afternoon on her bed with the tablet Mango had given her. The unit was a brand-new $600 Vault Tab. It looked like a regular no-brand tablet that you could pick up in Walmart for fifty bucks, but it had hardware encryption chips and ran a version of Android designed for anonymous messaging and browsing.

  Mango had sent through a bunch of links, and Charlie got sucked in as she read. Science had always been her escape. When Ed was screaming and Fawn was being impossible, when the trailer stank of unwashed laundry and there was no food in the cupboard.

  Charlie would spend entire school holidays hiding in dens reading books and doing crude experiments. Getting top marks in school was the one thing that made Charlie feel that she counted for something, even if the other kids called her a geek.

  Her first pre-teen fascination was dinosaurs, then space travel. She experimented with rockets, but when Charlie realised she had as much chance of saving $279 plus tax for a rocket-making kit as she did of being selected as the first woman on Mars, she became captivated with the idea of blowing stuff up with items she could buy for a few dollars, or shoplift from CVS.

  For the first time in two years, Charlie had a free afternoon and unrestricted web access. Starting with links Mango sent, she read and watched videos on gene editing, scribbling notes, and struggled to finish anything because every topic threw up three more questions.

  SNor had been a wake-up call to the world, but new infections had now dropped close to zero. The public had mostly decided they preferred not to dwell on something so depressing, but scientists realised it was the start of something much bigger.

  Charlie read an article by a pessimistic virologist, who said that the ease of gene editing meant that some experimental accident or mad individual would wipe out the human population within fifty years. Others said simple hygiene procedures like hand-washing and UV sterilisation can make it very hard for viruses to spread, and there were optimists, pointing to the way that genetically modified tsetse flies had been used to eliminate malaria in parts of western Africa.

  It remains a little-publicised fact that gene editing has already saved ten times more people from malarial deaths than were killed in the SNor outbreak.

  Charlie read about governments panicking, banning all gene editing and forcing the registration of equipment and chemicals. Cynics said they’d have about as much success as governments had in their wars on drugs, and that it was more dangerous to have illegal underground labs than legal ones that could be monitored.

  And while synthetic human viruses could be massively reduced with good hygiene, many scientists pointed out that viruses carried by birds, insects or rodents were much harder to control. Then there was the possibility of genetically altered bacteria, and a rumour that a Russian weapons lab had already developed a genetically modified fungus with reproductive spores that caused a severe allergic reaction and suffocated anyone that inhaled it.

  Beyond the apocalyptic visions there were trashier stories too. Was a formerly pale TV star’s perfect olive skin the result of illegal gene therapy? Had the athlete who broke the hundred-metre sprint record at the last Olympics used gene therapy after a tendon injury? Then there was the eccentric Indonesian cult leader who’d cloned himself six times and claimed that one day each of his children would rule a continent.

  ‘I got your message,’ Brad said cheerfully, when he stuck his head into Charlie’s room, just after seven. ‘Glad you’re still with us.�
��

  Charlie had been on her bed for three hours, and was surrounded by notes and the crumbs of three Radical Cake Collective muffins. Brad had done an after-school gym workout and wore black Nikes, and grey shorts. His T-shirt was balled up in his hand, and his torso glazed with sweat.

  ‘What you studying?’

  ‘Cake recipes,’ Charlie lied, gathering her notes and hoping Brad couldn’t see what was on them.

  ‘Great idea to get some cash behind you,’ Brad said encouragingly. ‘And a bakery is a better way to earn than wading through slurry on my uncle’s farm.’

  Charlie hadn’t a hundred per cent decided to accept Mango’s offer, but the science fascinated her and the money would be life-changing. There was still part of her that wanted to be an ordinary teenager and stay out of trouble. But the odds were stacked against kids like her, and having a pregnant pink-haired lady for a boss, who ran a company that made trendy iced muffins, made the dark path seem less intimidating.

  ‘Didn’t you shower at school?’ Charlie asked, feeling obliged to complain about Brad’s funk, while actually being quite turned on by it.

  ‘Betsy wouldn’t start again this morning,’ Brad explained, as he eyed the muffins. ‘Just ran from school.’

  ‘You can have one. Mango gave me the whole box and I’ve already made a pig of myself.’

  ‘I saw these in a shop. They’re seventeen bucks for four,’ Brad said, outraged at this until he took a bite and moaned. ‘Papaya and passion fruit … There’s a party in my mouth!’

  ‘Best muffins ever,’ Charlie agreed.

  ‘You’ll wind up hating the sight of them if you’re making them all day,’ Brad pointed out.

  ‘Let me taste a tiny piece of the papaya one,’ Charlie said. She put the tablet and notes on her bedside table and knee-walked across the bed.

  Brad broke off a piece of muffin, making sure it had plenty of the gooey passion-fruit filling, before holding the sticky blob at the end of two fingers a half-inch from Charlie’s lips. She’d wondered if the night before had been a one-off, but this was clearly more than an offer of food and she craned slightly, biting the muffin, then gently sucking his fingertips.