Soul Fire

distracted by something.’
    ‘My handsome face, obviously.’
    ‘No! Not that it isn’t handsome, but . . .’ I point at the screen. In the top right-hand corner, there’s a page headlined Breaking News from the Hackosphere , with
news items scrolling underneath.
    He turns, too. ‘ New North Korean Crackdown on Civil Rights Challenged by Uni Hacker ?’ he reads aloud. ‘Yes, he’s a good guy. They’re doing great work out
there.’
    ‘Not that story. That one.’ And I point to the headline that caught my attention:
    Kidnappers of Tragic Teen Gretchen Found Guilty in Berlin: Sentenced to Life
    He scowls. ‘Oh. That. Hmm. Very depressing case. Her dad was some high-up in the German government, Erik Fischer. Poacher turned gamekeeper, used to try to guess what the hackers would do
next. But he got too good at it.’
    Gretchen Fischer . It is her. Javier’s new best friend.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘It was meant to be classified, but geeks are terrible gossips. Fischer built a program that can get into pretty much anything. Starts off as multiple clumsy hacking attempts, like a
million houseflies, but while the anti-virus systems are swatting them off, Phase Two kicks in. It’s a classic Trojan Horse, but so elegant. They call it Fischer’s Ghostnet.’
    ‘But what did that have to do with Gretchen ?’
    ‘She was kidnapped for the program, not money. Ghostnet would have been the prize that kept on giving. It’s intelligent, you see. Learns from its mistakes. With something like that
you could blackmail governments: pay up, or we mess with your hospitals, your defences, your nuclear power stations.’ He clicks on the link.
    The first thing to load is a school picture of Gretchen; on the giant screen, it’s larger than life size. I feel a shock of recognition, even though the Gretchen I know doesn’t look
quite like this one. On the Beach, her hair is more blonde than red and her eyes bluer, her features more delicate, her skin less freckled. But there’s an innocence in the real
Gretchen’s wide smile. She doesn’t know what’s coming. How could she?
    ‘Poor kid. The police found her alive, in the derelict recording studio where they’d been holding her. But they’d . . . cut her. First her hair, to prove to her father that
they had her. Then worse. She died in hospital. Blood poisoning.’
    Below Gretchen’s photo, there are defiant mug shots of three men with harsh faces.
    Lewis scans the story. ‘One Russian, one German, one Czech. The German claims he was coerced, that he tried to persuade the others to release her. His evidence meant the trial was over in
a day. It didn’t help him, though. They all got life.’ Lewis shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe in capital punishment but what they did to her . . . An eye for an eye begins
to make sense.’
    There’s a last image at the bottom of the page, of an older man with freckles in a butterfly pattern across his cheeks, like Gretchen’s. He has hippie-length salt-and-pepper hair,
and wears a collarless suit jacket. But what I notice most is the sadness in his hooded grey eyes.
    ‘Her dad?’
    ‘Yes.’ Lewis touches the screen, and the photo comes to life.
    ‘This is no happy ending,’ Gretchen’s father says, in perfect English. ‘Nothing can bring her back. She suffered terribly. But even in hospital, she fought. My daughter
was special, worth a thousand, a million , of those cowards, those killers.
    ‘But at least now we know what happened. They failed to break her and they failed to get what they wanted. Their conviction is not enough, but at least it is a kind of justice.’
    ‘Justice.’ I whisper the word as Mr Fischer’s image freezes again.
    If Gretchen has justice, then tonight she may also find her freedom. But what will that mean for Javier? I don’t know if he can cope with losing another friend.
    I have to be there for him.

23
    Lewis must be immune to caffeine because pretty soon his eyelids start to droop. He offers me his bed, says he’ll take the sofa.
    ‘No. You don’t have to be a gentleman. I’d prefer to sleep in here, so long as I can go online, too. I’m still getting serious withdrawal symptoms because of the bloody
internet ban.’
    He knows better than to argue. I wait till he’s closed the door to his bedroom before I log on.
    My email loads super-fast, and as I click on the link to the Beach, the huge screen fills with colour. On the horizon, the sky glows apricot, shot