We both turned to stare at him and he muttered, “I know ‘cos I’ve, like, tried it out myself.”
Twelve
For a full five seconds after Trey made his announcement, nobody spoke, then Henry said faintly, “What do you mean, you’ve
Trey shrugged again, kicking at the curling edge of the mat with studied casualness. “Dad wanted to integrate a neural network into the program, which is, like, artificial intelligence,” he added to me, with that airily precocious tone I disliked so much. “He did all the setup on it, but he couldn’t get results that were, like, consistent enough and he gave up on it. So I’ve been kinda playing around with it some.”
“And you’ve gotten it to work,” Henry said. It was a statement, not a question, with a touch of something in his tone that could have been wonder.
“Not yet,” Trey admitted, colouring, “but I’m real close. I reckon Dad just expected it to learn real quick. He just kinda underestimated how long you gotta spend hitting the neural net with data before it learns the patterns, breaks it down into numbers. It just needed more time, that’s all.”
“Your dad must be real proud of you,” Henry said. I glanced at him sharply but his face was as guarded as his voice.
Trey flushed. “He doesn’t know,” he said. “Not how far I’ve gotten with it, anyhow. I’ve been kinda working on it someplace else – where he wouldn’t hang over my shoulder all the time, y’know?”
“Bet that took some processor power,” Henry said, and Trey nodded.
“So that’s why you were nicking stuff from that computer shop at the Galleria,” I put in and he flushed again.
“Dad’s never believed I can do anything,” he threw back at me, and the old whiny note was back well in evidence. “Even when I was a kid, he’d buy me model aircraft and stuff, then he’d kinda take them off me and put them together himself. It was like he never trusted me to do it right.”
“So nobody knows you’ve been working on this alongside your dad?” Henry said. There was something calculating about him now. “You’ve done this all by yourself?”
“Yeah,” Trey said, defiant.
Henry shook his head, smiling. “That is outstanding,” he said at last. “Absolutely outstanding. I would sure love to see some of what you’ve done.”
Trey stared at him for a moment as the realisation of actual adult approval settled on him. “No problem,” he said, his enthusiasm bubbling over. “It’s all with—”
“Hold it right there,” I cut in. I turned to Henry who quickly hid his flash of annoyance at my interruption. “You’re the one who told us to trust no-one. What makes you an exception to that rule?” I demanded. “Half the people we thought we could trust have been trying to kill us over the last twenty-four hours and now – finally – I think I know why.” I glared briefly at Trey. He dropped my gaze like a hot brick. “You said you could help us, Henry. Well before Trey goes handing over anything, I think you should show us how exactly you intend to do that.”
Henry pulled a rueful face. “OK, OK, I can appreciate your caution. And you’re right, why should you trust me?” He leaned back in his chair. The frame creaked under the strain. For a moment he just smiled at us, spreading his palms wide. I could almost hear his brain turning over furiously while he tried to think up a good reason. At last, he said, “Let me just ask you this, Charlie – what other choices do you have, huh?”
I didn’t answer. Silence is always the best course of action if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say.
“Face it, you
“How?”
Henry indicated the array of computer equipment surrounding him. “Check it out,” he said with pride. “I can reach anyone with this setup, anywhere in the world.”
“How are you going to find them? We don’t even know for sure who they are,” I said, ignoring Trey’s quick wriggle of dissent.
Henry gave me a crafty look. “I got a few ideas where to start. I been following the story kinda closely and besides—” he tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger, “—I’ve kinda done this sorta work before.”
“Yeah, so I’ve been told,” I said, cynical. “Desert Storm, wasn’t it? You must have been about twelve at the time.”
He had the grace to colour, glancing at Trey. “Yeah, well,” he said, shrugging, “the kids go for that kinda thing. Sometimes you gotta embellish a little, y’know? Adds to the rep.”
I regarded him for a moment with my head on one side. “So what’s your angle, Henry? Why are you offering to help us?”
“Easy – I want a copy of that program,” he said, and his voice had hardened now. “Maybe a little startup capital, too – though I can round up enough to get me started,” he added hastily when he saw the warning glint in my eye.
I raised an eyebrow at Trey. After all, he had more say over what happened to this program than I did.
The kid shrugged. “OK,” he mumbled. “I guess.”
“OK,” I said to Henry. “You’ve got a deal.” I gave him the number of Trey’s phone. “Call us when you have something to tell us, OK?”
“No problemo,” he said, struggling to his feet. He was almost bouncing now, his glee almost uncontained. “You won’t regret this.”
“I hope not,” I said, keeping my gaze flat and my voice cool. “I sincerely hope not.”
***
I declined Henry’s offer of a return trip to the car park by the bridge in the ailing Corvette. Instead, we left on foot. Trey phoned Scott as soon as we were off the front porch and we walked to intercept him.
Apart from that brief call, Trey trudged along in silence with his head bowed and his hands deep into his pockets. I left him to ferment his thoughts for half a block or so before I butted in.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the program?” I said quietly. “Why all that bullshit about your dad working for the government, hmm?”
He didn’t answer right away. In fact, he took so long I nearly repeated the question. Finally, he looked over and regarded me gravely.
“I guess I was scared to, like, tell you the truth,” he said at last and his voice sounded raw, teetering on the edge of tears.
“Scared?” I echoed, nonplussed. “Scared I’d do what?”
He hunched his shoulders. “Want it for yourself, I guess,” he said.
I thought of Henry’s greedy face and nodded slowly. It was a reasonable fear, I supposed.
“Trey,” I said. “My first duty is to protect you. Everything else comes after that.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Whatever.”
Stung, I grabbed his arm and yanked him to face me. “No, I’m serious,” I snapped, “Don’t just dismiss me like that. This is what I do. It’s what I am.”
Trey met my eyes for a moment, his face stubborn with his disbelief. “Yeah,” he said. “Just like Ms Raybourn and Mr Whitmarsh and Chris, huh?”
For a moment I didn’t reply. What could I say to him?
He pulled out of my grasp and spun away so I wouldn’t see him crying. I let him weep. I suppose, in the circumstances, I would have felt pretty gutted, too.
***
Scott picked us up two blocks away from Henry’s place. His shiny Dodge looked too cool and too new in the shabby neighbourhood where all the cars had a two-tone thing going between the paint and the rust.
Scott clearly wasn’t prepared to wait until we got back to the house before hearing all about the meet. He jumped straight in with a hundred questions. Aimee and Xander had shifted to the back to let Trey and me have the seats in the cab, but it didn’t stop them chiming in through the small sliding window behind us. They were too full of
