Hacking Einsteiner (Einsteiner, Book 2) Read online

  Despite the commissioner’s most intense efforts, an expression of surprise appeared on his face. Isaac put the helmet on Pellegrini’s head and explained.

  “Now your experience and creativity will serve the world together with many talented minds, but separate from you, unfortunately, or more precisely, from your brain. You’re a great supporter and even defender of the program, now you’ll have a chance to be involved in it for a while.”

  “You won’t dare,” the commissioner said in a dry, tense voice.

  “Why not? Believe me, it will all be done fair and square. We’ll measure your creativity level and calculate its price. You’ll sign a standard contract with your instructions and wishes. And Pascal will transfer the standard fee to you. You’ll find him very interesting to talk to, by the way. He was a Happy too, not so very long ago.”

  “What do you mean, was?”

  “He was, but he isn’t any longer. Now he’s a normal person again,” Isaac said, smiling.

  “But how? That’s impossible.”

  “Impossible for some, entirely realistic for others.”

  “You won’t dare,” hissed the commissioner again, turning pale.

  A large piece of the jigsaw suddenly fitted into place in his mind. If not for his hundred-per-cent certainty that Happies didn’t come back, of course he would have realized that Pascal was too strange. It was obvious that his behavior was different. Right through the interview with Pascal, the commissioner had been haunted by a strange feeling that he was normal. But who could ever have thought it? The commissioner had clung so tightly to the idea of extortion that he had totally neglected this suspicious point.

  “Why not, commissioner? Surely it is only humane to bring you closer, so to speak, to your ideals?” said Isaac, calmly continuing to attach wires to the helmet, but Pellegrini was already thinking of something else and didn’t try to argue.

  “Hey! Commissioner!” Pascal called, rousing Pellegrini from his stupor. “I have something to tell you. I’ll reassure you. I was a Veggie and I looked happy. You will too. I spent over two years as a boiled vegetable, it was like a dreamless sleep, you know? I don’t remember anything about those years, anything at all! Being a Happy is like being in a coma. You won’t feel a thing and you won’t understand a thing. And where there is no understanding, there is no fear. You’ll become a blissful fool who won’t be bothered by any discrepancies in the behavior of that liar Isaac, or that strange Pascal. That’s what it will be like. Now isn’t that wonderful?”

  The commissioner followed Pascal’s words with a struggle. He was barely in a fit state to listen. For probably the first time in his life, he was genuinely frightened. He realized they wouldn’t let him go.

  Initially, when he understood that these people were not planning a murder he somewhat relaxed, but what he heard after that made him change his mind. They won’t let him go, it was clear, because otherwise they wouldn’t have told him the whole truth. And was it the whole truth?

  “Hey, Pellegrini, wake up! There is one piece of really good news,” said Isaac, trying to bring the commissioner to his senses. “Our ultimate goal is to return the energy to all the Happies, so think of this as a kind of medium-term leave, six months to a year, I hope no longer than that. Fill out the contract, please. Write the instructions, and I promise to deliver them to your relatives. They’ll take you to California, or Hawaii, or Florida, or Goa. Nothing personal, this is a battle of ideas.”

  A foggy swamp, a thunderstorm. That was how Pellegrini could have described his train of thought. Flashes of light and total confusion, a kaleidoscope of pictures flashing through his mind: his sister Janette, his god-daughter, the Eiffel Tower seen through the window, salmon fettuccini, his office in the Department, and a Happy settlement. Himself together with his colleague Gautier who had sold his creativity long ago.

  “I’d rather shoot myself. I’m an officer and I have the right to choose.”

  His mouth seemed to pronounce the words on its own, as if it was his sub consciousness speaking.

  “An interesting shift in your life philosophy,” said Isaac, surprised. “Only half an hour ago you were prepared to tear us to pieces for the sake of your ideals, and you’ve renounced them so easily.”

  Pellegrini’s mouth went dry, he had to respond to that.

  “My ideal had always been a world in which there is no crime or violence. I’m not renouncing that world. And I’m not the only one in this room who has shifted his philosophy of life! I think this is your invention, Professor Link?” Pellegrini glowered at the professor. “Why have you suddenly changed your mind and organized an entire underground movement as well?”

  “Unfortunately, commissioner, I created an awful problem. It has given the world many things that are beautiful. The planet has taken a miraculous booster pill, you could say. Became healthier, stronger. But I’m afraid the remedy has side effects that I now have to put right.”

  “What are these side effects, if you will pardon my curiosity?”

  “Pascal has told you everything already,” the professor replied sadly. “The condition of being a Happy is not a real life. It’s a new form of coma. The people die, not physically but emotionally, so to speak. The brain doesn’t work any longer. No memories, as it turns out. We’ve given Pascal his orange energy back, as you see. But what we’ve really done is brought him back from the afterworld. Believe me, it wasn’t easy for me to admit that.”

  “Maybe you did something wrong when you returned his energy and accidentally erased his memory?”

  “Now that is why we didn’t go to the police,” Isaac answered for the professor. “Someone would say we returned the energy incorrectly, someone else would suggest we were conducting additional research. Do you think it would be easy for the Agency to renounce the power like that? Can you recall any similar instances from history? And what if they declare us insane and stick us in a madhouse? The fact that all children of Veggies have a zero level of creativity doesn’t seem to have stopped the downloading.”

  “But not all the children are born Veggies!”

  “It's ironic you call them Veggies just like we do, and not Happies. Have you done any DNA paternity tests on them? Why have you decided that both parents are definitely Happies?”

  “Well, that’s really getting ridiculous, Leroy,” Pellegrini tried to protest.

  “No sir, I’d call it ‘assessing the risks soberly’,” Isaac replied firmly. “If we give another thousand Veggies their creativity back, it will be an indisputable fact. Not an isolated case that they could interpret any way they like. Think about it. Without the professor, the back transfer will be declared unscientific, because it wasn’t carried out in proper laboratory conditions, for instance. And if we present the professor to them, we know where they’ll stick him away the next day. And who’ll actually do it? The terrorists or the security services? And they could even cast doubt on Link’s statement. How can you prove that the transferring back the creativity was carried out correctly? They could dispute the fact that Pascal was ever a real Happy. Maybe he’s a con artist who got hold of some money and then coolly pretended to be a Veggie? If our plan fails, of course we’ll tell all of this to the police. And to the journalists as well.”

  “Well, yes…” Pellegrini couldn’t help but agree with Isaac’s reasoning. Going to the police didn’t guarantee anything. Except that to start with, they would all be placed under arrest. After all, a theft had been committed, even if it was an unusual one.

  “Listen, Isaac, I have a god-daughter, I have a sister. I have to think about them in the first instance.”

  “No problem. Think. If everything goes smoothly, you won’t be a Veggie for all that long.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Commissioner,” Isaac said with a smile, “it seems to me that are you starting to root for us to succeed!”

  Pellegrini caught himself thinking that that was exactly right. He was worried they wouldn’t suc
ceed, and he would remain a Happy forever, and this thought was unbearable.

  “Just imagine, practically all the donors had relatives, people near and dear to them, friends. Had. Because someone who becomes a Veggie is an emotional corpse,” put in Pascal, who didn’t want anyone to become a Happy, not even his enemy the commissioner. “The most terrible thing is that someone who has turned into a Veggie is no longer himself. And you must admit, Pellegrini, that the only thing a person has is himself. Ultimately. Every person is an immense world or, to put it less grandly, every person is a radar station. He beams out waves around himself – these are his actions, ideas, interactions with other people. And from the way these waves come back to him, from the feedback, a person evaluates the way he lives. So there are billions of radar stations on earth, each one radiating and evaluating. Each one living by making sense of the signals that it receives. Each one of a billion separately, and all doing it together. Thinking about it can drive you crazy. A Veggie is a radar station that can’t send out radar beams. I wonder, is it possible to imagine a crueler act of violence than taking away a person’s own self? Turning him into a walking device for processing food?”

  Pellegrini listened attentively to Pascal, trying to imagine his own future condition. He had come to terms with the idea that he was inevitably going to become a Happy, although still dreaded it.

  “I decided to download for the sake of the woman I loved,” Pascal continued. His hands were trembling. “But she left me in less than three months. And I didn’t even try to stop her. I couldn’t care less! I really, really care now, but that ship has sailed! She’s been with someone else for ages! You can’t imagine what it’s like to fall asleep in the arms of the woman you love, then wake up in the morning and realize that she’s already been with someone else for a year!”

  Pellegrini lowered his head. He wouldn’t have wished on his worst enemy the fear he was feeling now. How he hoped that everything would work out for this damned Isaac!

  Bikie saw that the Commissioner is trying to keep it together, but inside he was turning over, so he decided to intensify the effect and thus, picked up a pile of clean sheets of paper off the table and held them out to Pellegrini.

  “You can write a letter to the top brass in the Agency. You’re important for them, you work in the main department that collaborates with them directly. Write and tell them they’ve made a mistake and they have to put it right. And write to the Minister of the Interior too. It might help us if the operation fails.”

  “We’ll leave you for a short while,” Link concluded, taking the helmet off the commissioner’s head. “I’m sure you need some time on your own.”

  They all went out, leaving Pellegrini alone with his thoughts. It turned out that there had been a girl in the room as well, and she went out last. All this time she had been sitting somewhere behind the commissioner. He didn’t see her face, but one glance was enough to take note of the long, black hair and mind-blowing figure.

  The first thing he did when he was left alone was try to free himself, but didn’t get anywhere. Only his right arm from the shoulder down was free, so that he could pick up a pen and start filling in the documents lying there.

  The entire team gathered by the pool, as far as possible from the house, so that Pellegrini wouldn’t overhear them accidentally.

  “Looks like he’s ours,” the professor declared with a pensive smile.

  “I hope so,” Isaac agreed.

  “Professor, you really are a genius!” Bikie exclaimed excitedly. “What a fabulous plan! I swear, being in the same team as you is not only an honor, but the most fascinating event in my life. And Isaac, you’re some kind of megastar actor! Really convincing! I believed it all! It was a pleasure just listening to you.”

  “Thank you, my friend,” said Pascal, hugging Isaac. “You’re like a brother to me. A genuine one! By taking those risks, you effectively saved my life. I’ve been born again!” And he added with a smile: “So now you’re like a father to me. A godfather! Big-time scary!”

  Instead of praise, Michelle rewarded Isaac for his acting with a long kiss.

  “Bikie, Isaac, guys, working with you is a pleasure too,” the professor said with a smile. “My best students ever! The most important thing in any partnership is the buzz you get from succeeding together. You have someone to chew things over with and have a drink to celebrate.”

  11

  The professor’s plan, which they have now carried out, was as simple as all ideas of a genius: after listening to Isaac when he got back from Pellegrini, he immediately sent Pascal home, supplied with a little packet of a sleeping drug. Pascal had to call the commissioner and tell him about the threat in a frightened voice. Naturally, the overconfident Pellegrini, like some super-hero, would prefer to arrest Isaac in person, without assistance from anyone else, and he would immediately go dashing to Pascal’s home. In order not to frighten Isaac off, he would probably dump his car a couple of kilometers away and run for a short distance. Which meant that he would be thirsty. Even if he wasn’t thirsty straight away, Pascal would offer him water or coffee. That was the first part of the plan, and it went like clockwork.

  The commissioner fell into the trap just as Link had predicted. While he was sleeping, they brought him to Wolanski’s villa, where they had emptied one room of everything that might give Pellegrini a hint of where he was. They curtained off the window. After that, they had to get him to believe in the downloading. They had a downloading helmet, but they had nowhere to download anything to. According to the plan, they had to win him over to their side. A man with a police badge, and one who held such an influential position, could really help them a lot. Whether they had managed it or not should become clear in the next couple of hours.

  “What do we do next?” asked Pascal. “What’s going to convince you he’s ours?”

  “We gave him a contract and paper to write letters. When he crumples them all up and tosses them away, that would mean that he realized that it’s pointless writing to the top. That would be the right moment to sow the seed of hope!”

  Half an hour later Michelle walked into the room where Pellegrini was sitting. He had crumpled sheets of paper lay around him.

  “Commissioner, do you need any help?”

  Michelle could barely hold her smile. She obviously played with dolls as a child, but a human puppet was so much fun!

  “No, thank you,” Pellegrini replied sadly. “I’ve already finished half of it.”

  “Would you like me to sit with you, so you won’t be so lonely?”

  “Yes, please. Do sit for a while, of course.”

  “My name is Michelle. Michelle Blanche.”

  “And I’m Luca. The fact that you tell me your full name only confirms that I’ll be downloaded.”

  “Don’t you worry. They’re already flying to America next week. I’m sure they’ll pull it off. They’re so clever.”

  “Yes, I’d like to believe that. Although right now that probably sounds strange, coming from me.”

  “It’s not strange at all. I understand everything. Now you know what it means to be a Happie, I understand your attitude towards downloading. You'll most likely agree that it's strange. More recently, we were so glad to see Einsteiner at work. At first was shocked and couldn't believe it.”

  “Listen, Michelle. I wouldn’t want to tell them…” Pellegrini paused. “The Professor and Isaac, that is… but they need to go sooner.”

  “What do you mean? What for?”

  “I wrote a request to the prosecutor for Isaac not to be allowed to leave the country. It will be processed on Monday, and he won’t be able to fly anywhere. And bearing in mind that I’ve disappeared, I think he’ll be arrested. They need to fly sooner.”

  “Whoa! What a good thing you told us! I’ll warn them immediately. You don’t mind?”

  “No, I don’t. Tell them,” said Pellegrini. Although his whole being cringed, he did not have a feeling that he became a traitor.<
br />
  Michelle walked out to tell everyone the important news. Bikie immediately started checking the options for a flight to America that weekend.

  “But what about me? Have you come up with anything?” Link asked.

  “Not so far, professor, sorry. But there’s still time,” Isaac replied.

  “What’s the problem with the professor?” Michelle asked.

  “He’s wanted. We don’t know how to fool the checks at the American border. Three months ago they installed new devices that identify everyone from their DNA. We don’t know how to get round that. Link will be spotted immediately.”

  “That’s strange,” Michelle replied. “I recently was in America, and my DNA wasn’t checked at all.”

  “Which airport was it?” Isaac asked.

  “From Nice to Miami. I was shooting in lingerie, I think,” caustically added Michelle, in response to Isaac's smile.

  “What kind of flight’s that, I’ve never heard of planes flying from Nice to Miami?”

  “It’s not a scheduled flight. Was a private jet.”

  “Hell and damnation!” exclaimed Bikie, exchanging glances with Isaac.

  “Could you tell us about that flight in more detail, please?” Isaac said.

  “Sure,” Michelle readily agreed, with a pleasant feeling that she was fitting into the team. “Well, I’m not a poor girl,” she said with a slightly guilty air. “Sometimes I travel on private flights. There’s a separate terminal in Nice that private jets fly from. They fly anywhere at all, I landed in Miami at the main international airport. But I didn’t cross the border where the passengers on schedule flights do, there is a separate terminal for that. Without crowds or lines. They have nice rooms there, VIP halls. You give them your passport and a few minutes later they bring it back, already stamped by the customs and the border control. At the exit, of course, they check you against the photo in the passport, but they don’t take any DNA.”