The Genius Wars Read Free Page A

decided, upon hearing this news.
If they were getting close to where he is, they’d find out soon enough
. But he had said nothing. Not even to Saul.
    He wasn’t going to make himself a target by offering up any unsolicited advice.
    ‘Anyway, I’m happy as I am,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to get involved in stuff like that. I like things the way they are.’
    ‘You must be joking.’ Hamish sounded genuinely shocked.‘Aren’t you b-bored to death?’
    ‘No.’ Cadel pushed through another fire door, emerging into a wide, sloping hallway near the Rex Vowels lecture theatre. ‘I’m happy.’
    ‘How
can
you be? In this place? It’s so
dull
.’
    ‘It’s not dull. It’s normal. It’s a normal life.’ It was, in fact, Cadel’s first taste of a normal life, and he’d been savouring every moment. Things were so easy. So free. He could go anywhere he wanted, without having a surveillance team tagging along. He could say anything he wanted, without wondering if the people who were listening to him had some kind of hidden agenda. He could stroll around campus secure in the knowledge that none of his fellow students was going to explode.
    For fifteen years, he had lived under constant scrutiny. He’d grown accustomed to being closely monitored, first by Prosper English, then by the police – who had been afraid of what Prosper might do to him. As heir to a criminal empire, Cadel had been brought up in an atmosphere of invasive scrutiny, subtle manipulation and unending lies. Even his education had been an exercise in duplicity. At the age of thirteen, he’d been enrolled in a college known as the Axis Institute, which had been established for the express purpose of turning him into the world’s greatest thief, liar and con-artist. What’s more, he had escaped that particular trap only to fall into another one – which, like the Institute, had been the work of Prosper English. As far as Cadel was concerned, Genius Squad hadn’t been a fearless team of brilliant crusaders, secretly working to bring down the world’s most evil corporation. It had been a naive group of opinionated suckers, who had become more and more entangled in one of Prosper’s cunning schemes. Cadel didn’t mourn the loss of Genius Squad. Not one little bit. He didn’t need Genius Squad to give his life meaning.
    Now that he had a real home, and real parents, and real friends – now that he had enough room to move, and talk, and make his own decisions about his own future – why would he want anything else?
    ‘Hey, Cadel.’ Hamish wouldn’t let up. ‘Can I ask you something?’
    ‘I suppose so.’ Cadel wasn’t keen to continue their discussion. A crowd was gathering outside the lecture theatre, drifting in from every point on the compass, and he didn’t want to be overheard. ‘As long as it’s not about Prosper English.’
    ‘But what if he doesn’t
know
?’ Hamish demanded, blithely ignoring Cadel’s request. ‘What if that’s why he hasn’t tried to kill you – b-because he still thinks you’re his son? What do you think will happen when he finds out you’re not?’
    ‘Oh, shut up, Hamish,’ Cadel said crossly. Then he darted forward, swerved past a press of unwashed students, and plunged through the open door beyond them.

TWO
    Introductory Programming was divided into two classes: basic and advanced. ‘Advanced’ students didn’t have to fight for a place in the Rex Vowels lecture theatre, which was big enough to accommodate every one of them. Scattered thinly across three hundred or so brightly upholstered seats, the advanced class could afford to spread out a little.
    At times, however, Cadel almost wished that he belonged to the larger group. There were so many ‘basic’ students that they were never asked to ‘move down the front, please’. Cadel would have felt less conspicuous in a crowd like that. He would have found it easier to keep a low profile. And he could have chosen a seat up the back