Hey Primo, he typed in code, and stopped. He wanted to ask advice without revealing too much. How could it be done? He thought a bit more before continuing. Hard day at the office, he wrote. I'm whacked. That campus is a madhouse, I swear. Some of the students are so stupid I can't believe they're allowed through the gates. What do I do with a couple of blonde bimbos who are all over me because they think it's good politics? I wouldn't trust them as far as I could spit, either a they make me nervous a so I can't exactly boot them up the a.s.s. They might get their own back some other way. You're a young, good-looking blonde, Primo a are there any tips you can give me?

On the subject of tips, I'm wondering what you think about money. You know I'm not good with money. It doesn't interest me, for some reason. But I'm informed that I'd better get interested a fast a or I'll end up a tramp when I retire. What's your take on this? How come a guy who teaches number theory can't seem to budget his expenses? Or balance his chequebook? What is it that I'm missing, here?

If there's some way that you could open up a door for me, and show me a whole, new, wonderful world of funds management, I'll be forever in your debt.

By the way, I've met a great new guy from the computer department. He's into designing hardware and software implementations of neural networks, and it's been fantastic talking to him. Have you ever applied things like Gaussian random variables to the calculation of how many fixed vectors a neural network might have? It's all to do with storing patterns so that they're stable, and establishing stability conditions for each bit on a chip. We spent several hours today proving that a pattern will be stable with probability 1 for a Hopfield network with sum-of-outer product weights, if n a a and the number of patterns obeys the condition n m a 1 . Wish you'd been there.

21nr Love from Stormer.

Having sent off this message, Cadel spent half an hour waiting impatiently for a reply. He wandered out to the kitchen and made himself a banana smoothie. He flicked glumly through his Embezzlement texts. He checked his Partner Post mailbox, which was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with anxious emails that he didn't feel energetic enough to answer.

At last, after repeatedly checking, he received Kay-Lee's reply.

Darling Stormer, she wrote, what the h.e.l.l is a Hopfield network? Never heard of it a though I'm not surprised about the Gaussian random variables. Gauss pops up pretty much everywhere anyway, and it's only to be expected that he makes an appearance in the field of neural networks, since he was a scientist as well as a mathematician. (Did you know that he and Weber designed an electric telegraph? Bet you didn't.) You'll have to give me a bit more information, though, if you want me to appreciate the beauty of your equation.

As far as money goes, you're asking the wrong person. I wouldn't be working as a nurse if my share portfolio was behaving itself. However, I did once see a lovely piece of calculation in an annual report a something about a financial option called a perpetual floating rate note. It was a whole new take on transcendental numbers, as far as I could see. Very amusing.

But maybe we should both put our minds to finding the fun in money a especially superannuation funds. Glancing through the prospectus in front of me, I can see that fees are calculated as a percentage of the amount invested, depending on the risk factors involved. I'm sure we could find some entertainment in running checks on this stuff.

Darling Stormer, if you really want to get rich, let's get rich. I'm up for it. But remember that wealth always comes with strings attached. You think you've got problems with ruthless blonde bimbos now? Wait till you've got more money than you know what to do with! You won't be able to move for ruthless blonde bimbos!

I'm not ruthless, and I'm not a bimbo. I don't care how much money you have. If you were a septingentillionaire I wouldn't love you any more than I do now.

Your own Primo P.S. I'm glad you've found a kindred spirit at work. I worry about you. If only there was an equation that would solve all your problems once and for all!

Reading this email, Cadel wondered why it made him feel even worse than he had before. Because it contained so much genuine affection, which was being lavished on someone who didn't exist? He was sometimes overcome by a strange sense of discomfort (guilt, even?) when he considered Kay-Lee.

But that didn't stop him from talking to her. In fact as soon as he'd finished reading her message, he launched into a full explanation of J. Hopfield's recipe for the synaptic matrix T.

With Kay-Lee, he could lose himself in a world of enjoyment that was utterly, refreshingly pure.

EIGHTEEN.

The first semester at Axis was ten weeks long. By the end of the third week, Cadel had drawn several important conclusions.

To begin with, he had come to realise that Embezzlement was never going to be his favourite subject. While his interest was sometimes sparked by things like corporate money-laundering trees, he couldn't always follow Brendan's way of thinking. Their minds seemed to work in different ways. What's more, Brendan's manner often disconcerted him. It was becoming clear to Cadel that Brendan didn't recognise him when they pa.s.sed each other in the corridors a that Brendan didn't even acknowledge his separate existence, most of the time. To Brendan, Cadel appeared to be part of a subset, the different components of which were interchangeable. If Cadel had started calling himself Douglas, Brendan wouldn't have been surprised.

So while Cadel admired Brendan, he couldn't work up much enthusiasm for Brendan's subject. Hence his performance in Brendan's cla.s.s. Though technically accomplished, it was less than inspired. He wasn't a very creative embezzler. He could follow models, and juggle uncleared funds, and competently disguise bad loans as good ones (on paper), but he never surprised Brendan with new ideas for siphoning off profits, or falsifying net interest income. Only with credit cards did he display any real flair a and that was mostly in the area of computer processing.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that he displayed even less natural flair in his Forgery cla.s.s, he enjoyed it far more than he enjoyed Embezzlement. Never having devoted much time to building model aeroplanes or wiring up remote-control toy cars, Cadel's fine motor skills weren't very well developed. He didn't have the sort of coordination required by a really good forger, let alone the necessary eye for colour and detail. He hadn't even liked studying art at school. Yet he threw himself into his Forgery course with great enthusiasm, perhaps because, with Forgery, he could see a point to it all. Drawing pictures of fruit in a bowl had always seemed a futile exercise, in his opinion. Why do it, when you could take a photograph? Reproducing a bank cheque, on the other hand, was a challenge. You had to get it right, or it wouldn't work. Cadel didn't always get it right. His fake university degrees and drivers licences rarely pa.s.sed inspection. But as his teacher pointed out, forgery wasn't just about ink on paper.

'It's about expertise,' Art often said, 'and expertise can be slow to acquire. It's not just about forgery; it's about knowing what to forge. A good forger has an interest in historic doc.u.ments, for example. A good forger knows that the only money worth forging is antique. A good forger spends a lot of time, not just poring over encoded deposit slips or international drafts, but also looking at stamp catalogues and visiting museums.'

Cadel took this advice very much to heart. Therefore, while some of his practical work needed improvement, his theoretical work was superb. He began to demonstrate a genuine understanding of the trade in rare doc.u.ments, and the procedures for processing cheques. (His Embezzlement course proved most useful in the area of bank doc.u.mentation.) When he finally received an 'A' for a birth certificate, he couldn't bring himself to destroy it, as his teacher had recommended. Instead, he took it home and hid it in the lining of a winter jacket.

His first successful pa.s.sport received the same treatment. As did many of the forged doc.u.ments that came after it.

In the rest of his subjects, Cadel excelled. None of them a except Infiltration a was especially demanding. The Case Studies course required little more than dutiful attention. In Dr Deal's cla.s.s, there was a huge amount of rote learning, and Thaddeus's Basic Lying unit consisted largely of role-playing scenarios and 'bluffing' games, all of which Cadel won with ease. As Doris complained, he had the face for it.

'This isn't fair,' she pointed out on one occasion. 'He's got an advantage over the rest of us. He's really young. He looks innocent. Of course he's going to do better.'

'Even if he's asked to impersonate an airline pilot?' Thaddeus raised an eyebrow. 'We all have our strengths and weaknesses, Doris.'

'I still don't think it's fair,' Doris grumbled, and Thaddeus spread his hands.

'Life isn't fair, Doris. We wouldn't be here if it was, would we?'

His tone was slightly impatient because Doris often whined about things. In fact she was disliked by pretty much everyone at the Axis Inst.i.tute, with the possible exception of Luther Lasco. The twins, who were in Doris's poisoning cla.s.s, maintained that he was in love with Doris, because he treated her with such respect. But the twins, as Clive had repeatedly pointed out, were 'full of c.r.a.p'. They couldn't be trusted. More than once they had given rashes to their fellow students by applying poisons to their stick-on fashion nails, and dragging those nails seductively across bare arms or necks. It was a trick they had learned in their poisoning cla.s.s, so they didn't try it on Doris. Nor did they touch Cadel, after Thaddeus's warning. And Gazo, of course, was never out of his suit. Clive, Kunio and Abraham were the twins' main targets. During the first three weeks of the semester, Abraham showed up twice with puffy red weals on his pale skin.

The twins also began to play around with knockout sprays in perfume bottles. They seemed to be throwing themselves into their poisoning studies with far too much enthusiasm. 'Production, application, detection,' they would chant, and collapse into giggles. It was hard to know what the joke might be. Cadel did wonder, sometimes, if they were actually reading each other's thoughts.

Increasingly, he tried to keep out of their way. He also avoided Doris. Clive was irritating, but he did provide Cadel with important information about the Yarramundi campus, which Cadel hadn't visited. Clive would talk about Adolf a 'the Fuhrer' a who taught guerilla studies and was in charge of campus security. He would describe Adolf 's private little regiment of security guards, which was used sometimes to help with military training. These fifteen or so mercenary types were known as 'the Grunts'. They tended to hang out at Yarramundi.

According to Gazo, Yarramundi was not a safe place to be.

'It's real weird,' he told Cadel. 'The security's worse than it is here. They have clampdowns all the time. Random checks, and stuff. They make us lie on the floor, and search us for concealed weapons. Sometimes they seal you off in a room for hours a I dunno why.'

'Radiation leaks, perhaps?' Cadel suggested. 'Radiation Studies is located out there, isn't it?'

'I fink so. I never saw it. I don't do Mutation.' Gazo sighed and changed the subject. 'What did you get in Dr Deal's test?'

'An "A",' Cadel replied.

'I got a "D". I didn't pa.s.s. What will happen if I fail the year? Do you know?'

'You won't fail the year,' said Cadel. He didn't mean it, but had got into the habit of being polite to his fellow students. He'd discovered that it threw many of them off balance; they had forgotten how to deal with sympathy. Most were perpetually on the defensive because they never knew what to expect. They would turn up to cla.s.s with broken bones from their guerilla training cla.s.ses, or inflamed membranes from poison gas. Carla was famous for her screaming rages, and the Fuhrer was always a.s.saulting people. Hot-wired technology might give you an electric shock when you tried to make a telephone call; other common tricks included concealed razor blades and tainted food. Students ended up with radiation burns, mysterious rashes, breathing problems.

Little wonder that people soon became surly and aggressive. Doris had always been like that, but Cadel noticed the others growing less sociable too. Even the twins stopped chattering to Clive and Abraham. They spent more and more time whispering to each other. Clive, who had once been a big-mouth, talked less and less about possible aliases. (Cosmos? Photonus? Magog?) Kunio's English hadn't improved, and as for Abraham Coggins a half the time, he was barely able to talk. His gums would be swollen, or his voice would be hoa.r.s.e. In fact he appeared to be disintegrating before their eyes.

While most of the students' injuries were the result of cla.s.s work or practical jokes, or occasionally accidents, Abraham's were self-inflicted. Cadel knew this because Abraham would actually talk to him. Abraham loved to talk about his work, when he was physically capable of it, and Cadel was the only other student who impressed him as being clever enough to understand. So Cadel heard all about the microbiology labs, and Terry's experiments with gene-splicing, and how every few nights a whiskered figure in a baseball cap and blue overalls would quietly deliver to the seminary a load of stray cats and dogs for experimental purposes.

'I spend a lot of nights up there,' Abraham once confessed. His eyes were ringed by dark bruises, and his voice was like the rasp of a crosscut saw. 'It's a great set-up. The atmosphere's perfect. I'd feel right at home, if I was a vampire.'

'I'm sure,' said Cadel, politely. 'And what are you actually working on, so late into the night?'

'Oh, I'm looking at various blood disorders,' Abraham replied. 'Genetic blood disorders can be mimicked, you know. Either chemically or with radiation treatment. And it wouldn't be impossible to rewrite DNA sequences, not with the right kind of nanotechnology. You see, I'm really trying to create a new blood disorder.' His tone became eager. He and Cadel had arrived early at their Law cla.s.s, and by now he was leaning over Cadel, who was pressed up against a wall. 'With vampirism, you have what is essentially a metabolic problem and an allergic reaction. The allergic reaction is a skin condition similar to that experienced by a lot of albinos. The metabolic problem is related to haemoglobin levels, and to digestive acids. All you have to do is identify the right combination of factors, and then reproduce them genetically a'

'You're not trying to reproduce them on yourself, are you?' Cadel interrupted. It had suddenly occurred to him that Abraham was looking more and more like a vampire every day. 'You've got very pale, did you know that? You don't seem well.'

Abraham stiffened. 'It's a legitimate method,'he rejoined. 'Many great medical researchers have infected themselves.'

'Yes, but haven't they usually died in the process?'It alarmed Cadel that Abraham was willing to turn himself into a vampire. Abraham had always struck him as a fairly intelligent bloke, and if a fairly intelligent bloke was capable of doing something so stupid a well, it confirmed all Dr Darkkon's opinions about the state of the world. 'I mean, isn't there some other way? Can't you try it out on rats first?'

'Human cells are different from rat cells.'

'Yes, but a'

'You never heard of a vampire rat, did you?'

'No, I a'

'It's like Professor Roth said ano pain, no gain. That's what Axis is all about, surely you understand?'

Seeing the fanatical gleam in Abraham's eye, Cadel gave up. There was no point arguing. Abraham might be intelligent, but he was also obsessed. Very soon, Cadel was sure, he would be seen flitting around the inst.i.tute's dormitories wearing a black cape and fake plastic fangs. Not that he would have looked out of place. On the contrary: at least two-thirds of the student body would have alarmed any security guard at a normal inst.i.tution. There was one young man who seemed to have melted half his face off; one who scuttled from shadow to shadow like a crab; one who wore infra-red goggles permanently clamped across his eyes; one who never removed his latex surgeon's gloves. There was a girl who ran everywhere, mouth open, lungs heaving, eyes bolting from her head, as if she were fleeing from a monster. There was a cowled figure in a monk's robe whose hands were always concealed in his or her sleeves, and who never lifted his or her head to reveal a flash of expression. There was a hairy youth who walked around swinging a length of pipe, and another whose shoes were fitted with long, steely spikes on their toes.

Among these people, a vampire wouldn't have attracted much attention. Nevertheless, Cadel resolved to stay out of Abraham's way. This was more easily said than done because Abraham, like Gazo, would hunt Cadel down. Cadel was easy to talk to. There was nothing threatening about him. Thanks to his father's influence, he was safe from random attacks, and could afford to be pleasant. At Crampton College, he had picked up a lot of interesting information by fading into the background and offering no kind of challenge. At the Axis Inst.i.tute, people would confide in him because he looked harmless.

He didn't make much noise, or take up much s.p.a.ce. He wasn't enrolled in any of the more dangerous subjects. He was small, with a sweet smile and a disarming gaze. He seemed so insignificant that people underestimated him.

They didn't realise that, almost through force of habit, he was collecting information to feed into a special database.

They didn't realise that he was well on the way to designing his behavioural prediction program.

NINETEEN.

'I'm wondering if you're trying to start this from the wrong end,' the Virus remarked on one occasion, after he had spent several minutes watching the computations unroll on Cadel's screen. 'You're starting with populations and moving in. Why don't you start with the human brain and move out?'

Cadel sighed. 'In other words, why don't I create a precise neurobiological map of the human brain?' he said.

'It can be replicated. Theoretically. You know that.'

'Oh, right a theoretically.' Cadel pointed out that the number of neurons in the human brain, 1011, was comparable to the number of galaxies in the observable universe. 'It would be a bit of a challenge, don't you think?'

The Virus shrugged. 'We have a supercomputer.'

'Yeah, but does it really have the capacity?'

'It can calculate up to eight billion digits of pi.'

'So? You're still talking about ten thousand post-synaptic potentials for each neuron. Every two milliseconds. It's big numbers, Vee. Especially when you're talking about probabilities.'

'Oh, big numbers.' The Virus waved his hand. 'What's so scary about big numbers?'

Kay-Lee agreed. If Georg Cantor wasn't afraid of big numbers, why should you be?' she teased Cadel. 'We've been talking about the number of infinite numbers, and you're worried about 10,000 1011? Get a grip on yourself! Of course, she didn't know the true reason behind Eiran Dempster's sudden fretfulness about big numbers. Cadel hadn't mentioned neurobiological maps; he had simply been unburdening himself as much as he possibly could, without arousing her suspicions. She came up with the idea that he was suffering from a peculiar form of mathematical vertigo. I get it sometimes myself, she a.s.sured him. You hit the infinite, and you get dizzy. The best thing for it is to go outside and sit in the sun. Though I don't suppose you have much sun in Toronto.

With the Virus on one side, keeping him on his toes, and Kay-Lee on the other, soothing his over-heated brain, Cadel felt that he was finally realising his true potential. It was stimulating, enriching, and surprising. He became utterly immersed in theory, to the point where he sometimes forgot to eat. The Piggotts often heard him singing as he got dressed in the morning.

The trouble was that, while his Infiltration and Forgery cla.s.ses were making him very happy, other aspects of the inst.i.tute weren't quite so pleasant.

Cadel was growing used to the odd explosion on campus, and the sudden sprays of water or gas that always followed. He was growing used to the strange cries that occasionally reached his ears, faint and m.u.f.fled, as he waited for a lift or crossed the front lawn. He didn't worry much when his cla.s.ses were invaded by teams of Grunts with sniffer dogs or electronic field detectors. While at first he was surprised to see an unexplained hole punched in a wall, or a dead dog on the gra.s.s, he soon began to take such things in his stride. He just tried to ignore them and concentrate on his studies.

Then Clive Slaughter combusted a and Cadel began to experience a faint sense of unease.

The accident took place at Yarramundi, so Cadel never saw any evidence of it. He simply heard about it the next day, from Gazo Kovacs. Gazo had taken to joining Cadel for lunch whenever possible; though Gazo himself couldn't eat in a public place like the refectory, he would sit and watch Cadel consume the inst.i.tute's soggy fare.

'Poor Bludgeon,' said Gazo. 'He was a real mess. He only half-combusted.'

Cadel grimaced. 'Don't tell me,' he complained. 'I'm eating.'

'The Fuhrer made us look,' Gazo went on glumly. 'He said we'd afta get used to it. I dunno why. I ain't gunna be killing n.o.body.'

'What did they do with the corpse?' asked Cadel. 'What about his parents? They must be kicking up a stink.'

'They staged a car crash. The petrol tank exploded. It musta looked like a accident.'

Cadel grunted. Though he hadn't much liked Clive Slaughter, he felt queasy at the thought of what Clive must have gone through. So when Thaddeus organised a memorial service at the inst.i.tute, Cadel attended, even though he realised that the event was designed solely to placate Clive's parents. No one else had ever been given a memorial service at the inst.i.tute because no one else had ever had family who were interested enough to appreciate one. Most of the Axis students either hated their relatives or were alone in the world, like Gazo.

Gazo himself joined Cadel at the service, which took place outdoors. A plaque, engraved with Clive's name, was embedded in one of the seminary walls, and a little bush was planted underneath it. Gazo was impressed.

'I'd like me name put up, when I die,' he confided to Cadel. 'Somefink nice like that.'

For a week or so, Cadel noticed Clive's absence. There was a sense of something missing whenever he walked into his Basic Lying or Forgery cla.s.ses. Then, just as Cadel was growing used to the idea that Clive's s.p.a.ce would never again be filled, something happened to Jemima.

One morning, she and her sister arrived late for their Case Studies lesson. This wasn't unusual. The twins were often late, and would creep in giggling, trying not to make any noise. This time, however, they banged the door open and marched in, heads held high. Jemima, Cadel noticed, was sporting a thick gauze bandage on one cheek.

Luther Lasco, who had been speaking, paused while they crossed the room.

'Ah,' he said, when they had planted themselves defiantly in the front row, 'now here's a good ill.u.s.tration of what I've been talking about. You try to cheat, you pay for it. Isn't that right, Jemima?'

Jem stared at him stonily, refusing to comment. She and her sister barely moved for the next half hour. At last, when the cla.s.s was dismissed, Cadel approached her in the corridor outside Lecture Room One.

'What happened?' he asked. 'Did Dr Lasco do that?'

'None of your business!' snapped Jemima. Niobe took her arm and led her away protectively. Behind Cadel, Doris snorted.

'That'll teach her,' Doris said.

Cadel generally tried to avoid talking with Doris. But Abraham was quick to seek an explanation.

'Do you know what happened?' he inquired. 'Was it Dr Lasco?'

'Sure was,' said Doris. 'He cut her.'