Brazil Nuts

Alex sat with his laptop on the soft covers of the bed in his room.

Somewhat naïvely, he hadn't planned for the event of being unable to find Smithers. It was a sort of hope that had convinced him that when he found the gadget-maestro, everything would turn out. Sitting with the cool breeze coming from the open window – it was probably due to the need for breezes that the window was large enough to fit a whole bed – Alex reluctantly began to formulate a new plan.

His first thought was that fishhead was his only connection to the attackers. Alex had talked to him, just before the call in Greenland. But what else did he know? His skimmed the touchpad, and opened a word document.

He only got as far as two dot points, before he leaned back and surveyed the information.

1. 'fishhead' and 'icy' were collaborating – at least, both of them had referred to a 'kid', namely Alex Rider.

2. 'fishhead' had internet access. Or he had a minion, or minions, with internet access.

As Alex scoured his brain for any more information he could add, Alex fitted the points on a neat line each, re-sizing the document so that the points were framed by only a centimetre margin or so, adding a title and by-line, and changing the colours to a subtle charcoal. It suited the shadows that fishhead was shrouded in, he told himself.

With some more thought, he changed the Windows theme to blue. Now fishhead was swimming in the sea, like a true fish. He changed the font to Arial – although fishhead wasn't really a mermaid, it was sort of appropriate – and smiled, satisfied.

What next?

Alex stared at the laptop screen, willing the pixels to bring him inspiration. Instead, they induced a strange hypnotic effect that caused the words to magnify and shrink, until they started to look more like misspellings than actual words.

With a jolt, Alex realised that it had grown darker outside, and he still wasn't any further in his quest. There was nothing more he could remember nor deduce, and he had to get at least something done before dinner. What was more, the laptop was running out of batteries. He connected it to its charger and sat in the corner of the room.

Once more, The Omega Sector was opened, in a vain attempt to squeeze informative juice from the rocky site. It certainly was rocky: one misstep, one wrong word on the site would – almost had – lead to certain death back in Greenland, at least according to the phone caller. For some reason he was particularly metaphorical today. He wondered if it had anything to do with the food he'd smelled outside. While he waited for the page to load and pondered his metaphorical mindset, he absentmindedly changed each letter of the title of the word document – fishhead – into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and, after some consideration, black.

Rainbows were pretty. He looked back at internet explorer.

INERNET EXPLORER CANNOT DISPLAY THE WEBPAGE

Calmly, Alex went to the desktop, disabled the connection, re-enabled and tried again.

INERNET EXPLORER CANNOT DISPLAY THE WEBPAGE

There was something disconcerting about the repetitiveness of the laptops found in Greenland. Alex opened the Network and Sharing Centre, and clicked 'Connect to a Network'.

No connections were available.

AR*GH%PW9#'PF:S4N&F! Alex dropped his head onto the keyboard and pummelled it with his fists. The pousada had boasted wi-fi access, for crying out loud! What was he supposed to do now? Investigate the old way, with sources and newspapers and things? Noooooo…

Even worse, the laptop had not appreciated his fit on the keyboard, and had switched views to a blinding blue screen of death, glaring malevolently. All was lost; all the happiness was gone from the world, and he'd never be happy again. Hope was extinguished by the blue screen of death: none remained… except for… except for that white asterisk on the bottom left of the screen. Was that normal?

With trembling fingers, hoping against hope, Alex pressed the SHIFT key and the number eight on the keyboard. Asterisk.

The screen flashed black. Alex's heart lurched.

And then, as if pouring all the colour and warmth back into the world, a stream of information appeared on the screen, pages and pages of any transmissions he had made or received. Looking closer, Alex could see that they detailed auxiliary information, like the locations of the transmissions and even a special-looking number that was obviously supposed to identify the person's IP address or something. Eureka!

His eyes skimmed the words, eventually landing on ". (fishhead). Location: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema."

fishhead was in Brazil? Even more alarming: he was in Rio? What a coincidence… It had to be coincidence. It had to. Unless Blunt had somehow known, already, and Smithers was in on it…? Perhaps they couldn't have told Alex directly, and Blunt had been trying to give Alex a hint.

Unfortunately, that was it. Whatever tracking devices the laptop used could not be any more specific, so without knowing which house fishhead lived in, the man was hidden from him. This called for some old fashioned investigation.

But first, sleep.

xxx

Ten o'clock the next day saw Alex exiting the pousada and catching the tramcar down the mountain, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Well, his eyes weren't so much bright except in contrast to the dark circles surrounding them, and the bushy tail was mainly the rumpled bed hair he was too lazy to brush.

The laptop, despite its imprecision, was still good enough to provide a rough area of where fishhead may have been during that particular transmission. Alex had decided to start at one corner, and scour the patch until he found a possible lead.

The tramcar deposited Alex outside a large white building, in the middle of a terrace paved with white stones. Palm trees ringed the area, and tourists milled about in couples, murmuring and pointing at the white building. While Alex would have loved to stay and learn all about the architecture and significance of the place – there was a large man proclaiming to give the best tours in the world, for the extra special price of only 20 Brazilian Real! – he had to get moving.

But how to get to Ipanema? Alex didn't want to waste time, but neither did he want to stand out as a tourist. It could be dangerous to stand out as an outsider. Besides, he'd always appreciated Ian's version of holidaying, where they blended with the locals. It felt weird otherwise, and he'd hated the awkwardness of visiting Venice surrounded by schoolboys who didn't know how to keep their enthusiasm in check. The teachers had been no better, excited by the 'exotic' place they were visiting.

Once more, the loud man caught Alex's attention – how could he not? His booming voice permeated every inch of the area. But it wasn't the tour the man was promising; he'd already lured in a middle-aged couple, slightly overweight, wearing designer polo shirts and Gucci sunglasses. Apparently, this place was home to a fantástico subway station, which went all the way to the faraway city of Ipanema, and it was lindo maravilhoso! It was also just where Alex wanted to go. How convenient.

Discretely, Alex followed the trio to the correct subway.

xxx

Tantalising smells greeted Alex upon exiting the station, and a quick look around revealed the source. A bakery, yellow on the outside, called with a smiling front. Alex went. fishhead could wait.

The inside was just as charming as the outside, with dark wooden floors and furnishings, and warm lighting that accentuated the smiles on people's faces as they received their parcels of glory. The counter itself was a treasure chest, displaying wares as fine as any Swarovski display case, with ten times the temptation for less than a tenth of the cost.

Alex read the little placards (which had English translations) with growing glee: fried beef pastries, golden and steaming; sourdough loaves sprinkled with coffee crystals. The coconut sweet bread caught his eye and held his attention for several minutes, but eventually it was the cheese buns, Pão de queijo, that stole his heart – or rather, his stomach.

Smiling to the girl at the counter, Alex bought a small bagful and held it in both hands as though receiving a precious gift. Well, he was. It was a very happy Alex that left the bakery.

From there, munching on his breakfast, Alex ambled to the Jardim de Alah, the Garden of Allah, a place of palm trees and grass edged with water on opposite sides. Dark clouds filled the sky from behind the distant mountains, threatening rain, but for the moment, taking no action. Light suffused the grass and trees with an ethereal quality, and painted the water a dark gunmetal grey.

There weren't many people in the garden, but Alex spotted a particularly friendly looking man, walking his dog and looking with a frown at the dark clouds. "Hello, do you speak English?" Alex greeted him.

The man looked at him. Alex withdrew his phrasebook from the subway station with a flourish, and tried again. "Você fala Inglês?"

No luck; the man shook his head and continued walking.

Disappointed, Alex looked around for someone else to enquire about fishhead. A girl of about university age, holding a large textbook, was his next choice. Hopefully, she was educated and had been taught English. "Você fala Inglês?"

The girl examined him with suspicious eyes. "Yes."

In front of the bemused girl, Alex sighed with relief, "A-ha!" he cheered. "Ahem. Do you know of someone called fishhead?"

The girl stared at him blankly, and started walking away. Quickly.

"Hey, wait!" Alex jogged after her, but she too broke into a jog, and soon he was chasing her at full pelt down the pathway.

Eventually, the girl ran up to a man, older than Alex and taller too. Alex took one look at the man's menacing face, and decided to cut his losses. Before he left, however, he called tentatively, "fishhead?"

The man's face contorted into a snarl.

Obviously not.

As he left the park, the gods of the sky finished their bureaucratic rumbling and filled the air with a torrent of rain that hammered down like a thousand gavels carrying judgement from the heavens. The palm trees, previously sedate, were whipped into an indignant frenzy.

Alex sought cover under the shade-cloths of some shops surrounding a square with a large stone pole in the middle. A plaque beneath the pillar proclaimed it to be "O Obelisco de Ipanema" – the Obelisk of Ipanema, he translated with his handy-dandy phrasebook.

Even under cover, the rain continued to beat a rhythm on Alex and his phrasebook, so he decided to seek cover inside one of the shops behind him. The particular shop that Alex entered looked to be more of a café than an actual shop, selling lunch alongside coffee and cool drinks.

Once more, Alex found himself surveying the various foods for sale, with the practised eye of a gastronome.

Behind the separating glass pane, black bean and meat stew stimulated Alex's salivary glands; pastry envelopes filled with all manners of goodies drew his gaze; other stews with seafood, tomatoes and eggs exuded steam filled with promises. Well, it wasn't like he was going anywhere anytime soon. And he might as well eat now – who knew when he'd next find food? Especially with the finding of the mysterious girl who had seemed to recognise fishhead's name.

But it was the espetinhos that Alex finally chose, with simple chunks of chicken on skewers providing a familiar sight and guarantees of enjoyment. To wash it down, Alex paid a little extra for a free açaí smoothie.

Casting an eye out the window to the chaotic scenes outside, Alex sat down to wait.

The food arrived pretty quickly, emanating smells that assured Alex of his good choice, despite the odd purple colour of the smoothie. He lifted a skewer and took a bite. The skewer dropped from trembling fingers, which sought out the smoothie. Clearly, the food was very fresh; Alex's tongue throbbed in burnt indignation. However, strange-looking though it was, the açaí smoothie provided a brief respite from the heat.

This time, when Alex went to take a bite, he approached the skewer cautiously, testing its temperature with his teeth. In mere minutes, both food and drink were gone, leaving the plate and glass empty.

With the satisfied sigh of a man whose stomach has been filled to satisfaction, Alex leant back in his chair. The storm outside had subsided a little, leaving the trees bedraggled and surrounded by the musty smell of petrichor.

Alex emerged to this scene, along with several other shopkeepers who opened their doors once more and set up tables outside. They showed great dedication, Alex mused, persisting to provide alfresco dining despite the many thunderstorms. One shopkeeper seemed to go beyond a mere defensive strategy, and was standing on a nearby hill waving a fist in the air, covered in copper pots and shouting, "Todos os deuses são bastardos!"

Alex shook his head and continued on his quest.