It's the easiest thing in the world to set up a website, if you know code. Jim knows code. There are books for that sort of thing, and now the internet has made it easier than ever to look up information. Within the week he has an online presence. Nothing in particular is listed on his website- there's just his name, Jim, and what he does, and an email. He is after all only nine. No time yet to build up a resume.
If you want to contact me, the website says, please send an e-mail to the address below.
He places discreet notices in forums where teenagers and young adults- young, vulnerable people -like to chat. Under an assumed name, he begins exchanging mail with them. It's very easy to win their devotion-some implied connections to this or that organization, some reference to his plan to change the world, and they are hooked, fascinated. They're bored too, of course, looking for a purpose, and that's why they will do what Jim says, when the time comes. These people are his practice for bigger and better things. If Jim is going to carry out his plan for the future, he needs to figure out which methods work and which are flawed: obviously, he can't rely on a schizophrenic to do the dirty work for him every time.
The first one, after Carl, is a music professor at a college in London. One of Jim's correspondents, a young lady from Soho, complained about him to Jim: she says he frequently made sexual advances toward her after class, once touching her intimately, and she knows he's coerced several other students into having sex with him. Jim won't stand for that, and he tells her so. The girl is scared, and she doesn't know what to do, so Jim helps her. It's the best way to go about things. She gives him her address, and, free of charge, he sends her the materials and instructions. A special service, since she's his friend.
There's a story in the paper the next week about a college professor who's been found hanged in his office with his pants pulled down around his ankles and, interestingly, his ribcage hacked open. It is determined that the cause of death was not hanging, but loss of blood. There is no blood in the office except a tiny puddle just beneath the professor's feet, so this is off. There is an awful lot of coverage in the newspaper and on the television. The police, however, cannot figure it out, and after a few days of media attention the story is moved to the back pages of the news and then disappears. Jim feels rather proud of himself, and the girl he helped is thrilled with the results. The evidence is gone; she has, she tells Jim, disposed of it in just the way he instructed. The body bag wrapped in the cello case is floating at the bottom of the Thames. The instruments have been sterilized and replaced in the university laboratory. The man who did the dissection, a medical student from Scotland, also contacts Jim and thanks him for the plane ticket to Egypt, which Jim had paid for out of his stepmother's bank account (this was taking a risk, but Jim did like risks once in a while). Everything works out, and this is the most fun that Jim has ever had. It's the real world he's controlling out there, playing the way some kids play video games with little pink pixilated monsters. Jim realizes, slowly, that he must be unique, that he must be incredibly smart. None of the other children his age can even play chess competently, and here he is controlling people, real grown-up people, like they're little dolls. Then Jim realizes that it's not that he is especially smart. It is that he is motivated. It is that all of the other people are simply too dull to do anything by themselves but everyday things, like watching the television or eating or sleeping. Jim is the catalyst, he decides. He is going to make the world fun again.
And then, of course, something had to go wrong. It was several months later, near Boxing Day, after two more of Jim's friends had gotten his help with their problems. The story showed up in the news again. Clues Found Indicate Conspiracy Caused Professor's June Death.
Jim throws a tantrum in his room. He throws things. His stepmother shouts at him. He e-mails the girl he helped with the news but she does not reply, so he sends a virus to her e-mail address that will delete all of the information on her computer, should anyone open her mailbox. He wishes he could do more. He doubts that his computer will be located based on the information, but if the police discover his website and his other correspondents, he will have to shut it down, at least for a while.
And then. Jim's tenth birthday, a birthday he will remember forever. His stepmother comes home from her job with her boyfriend, and an ice-cream cake for Jim, and the television's switched on the news. They are reporting on Jim's case, the professor case, and they have figured it out. The girl Jim helped is there, in the foreground, not speaking to the cameras. Jim had never seen her face before. There is no mention of e-mails, but the reporter says that the police suspect a second person was involved in the murder. There is suspicion that the crime was motivated by revenge, as the girl has stated that the professor molested her. It is all very shocking, Jim's stepmother says. She is back on her medication now; Jim switched her back after Carl's death. Jim eats his cake and watches the boyfriend talk about economics. Jim can tell that his stepmother's boyfriend is cheating on his stepmother by his hair and his pant leg and the perfume that hangs around his coat. That is not the point, though. The point is this: as the camera pans out and the reporter is shown standing in front of the courthouse, reporting, there's someone in the background that catches Jim's eye. Two detectives-Jim can tell by their stance and their distance from the defendant that they are detectives-are speaking to one another in hushed tones and glancing furtively around as questions fly from the sea of journalists and television reporters. There is a person next to them, a small person, a child of eleven or twelve. The image is poor-quality, and Jim can't even tell if the kid is a boy or a girl, but Jim sees that the child is speaking to the detectives, right there in front of all the television reporters. Calmly and matter-of-factly, the child is giving the detective inspectors instructions on what to say, and the men are relaying it to the reporters. Jim can see them glancing back at the child for approval. The detectives are listening. Nobody seems to notice or to think this is odd. Perhaps it is assumed that the child is the offspring of one of the detectives and simply demanding sweets or something? Jim can never tell what keeps normal people so unobservant. But, as Jim watches the kid disappear back into the courthouse, Jim is pleased. It wasn't the police that solved his case. He has found his equal.