accompanied by a whirring noise. Once Dave was satisfied there were no flames, he reached in and flipped on the light. The room was engulfed in a grey haze. Dave stepped across to the window and flung it open. James followed him in and realised the smell was coming from the back of the computer.
‘I must have left it switched on,’ James said, reaching under the desk and yanking the plug out of the wall.
Both boys leaned over the tower case standing on the desktop, as the whirring fan slowed and a plume of dirty air began seeping out via the CD-ROM drive at the front.
Dave tried to turn the computer around, to get a look in the back and locate the source of the smell, but the metal case was hot to the touch. He grabbed a dirty tracksuit top off the floor and used it as a mitten.
‘Jesus,’ Dave gasped, as he squinted into the back of the computer. ‘This fan is all clogged up with dust. Didn’t you clean it out before you plugged it in? Didn’t they teach you that computers run hot when you learned about computer hacking?’
‘I didn’t think …’ James said weakly.
‘Man,’ Dave said, as he wafted his hand under his nose. ‘It’s totally clogged up with grease and dust in here.’
James was furious. ‘My bed and all my clothes and everything are gonna stink,’ he sulked. ‘I’ll have to wash the whole lot tomorrow.’
Dave peeled a greasy worm of dust from between the fan blades at the back of the computer and flicked it at James.
‘If this had been left much longer, it could easily have gone up in flames.’
Dave’s tone changed abruptly from shocked to curious. ‘What the … ? I’ve never seen that before.’
‘What?’ James asked, as he crouched down beside Dave to take a look.
‘There’s something behind the fan. See, like a plastic bag.’
‘Oh yeah,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll get my multi-tool.’
James grabbed the fold-out tool from a sports bag under his bed and Dave used it to undo the four screws that held the computer case together. The metal was still warm, so Dave draped the tracksuit top over before lifting it away. The bag Dave had spotted was taped to the inside of the case and the clear plastic felt tacky, like it had been close to melting. He ripped the bag away and unravelled it. There was a mass of green strands, like tealeaves, in the bottom.
‘Marijuana,’ Dave grinned, as he gave the contents a sniff. ‘I think we’ve uncovered Will’s stash.’
‘Makes sense,’ James nodded. ‘Hannah said Will was stoned off his head half the time.’
‘And if his parents snooped, they might have turned out his drawers and looked under the mattress, but you can bet they wouldn’t have opened up his computer.’
James stared at the computer’s innards and spotted something else. It was a purple envelope, wedged under the hard drive. He slid it out and removed a cheap-looking birthday card with a picture of a footballer on it.
James read the inscription out loud. ‘Dear William, have a fabulous eighteenth birthday, Nana and Pop.’
But the envelope contained more. James’ eyebrows shot upwards as he pulled out a thin wad of ￡50-notes and a CD-ROM with PATPaT written on the label.
‘And the plot thickens,’ Dave said dramatically. ‘How much is that?’
‘You count,’ James said, throwing the money at Dave. ‘I want to know what’s on this disk.’
James slid his laptop out from under the bed. He put it on the desk and flipped up the lid.
‘Two thousand, two hundred smackeroos,’ Dave said, while the laptop booted up. ‘Not a bad haul for an unemployed eighteen-year-old.’
James blew the dust off the CD-ROM before putting it into the drive on the side of his laptop. It spun for a few seconds before an error message popped up:
This disk is not Microsoft Windows compatible. Do you wish to exit Windows and run this program in MS-DOS mode?
YES/CANCEL
James had done an entire lesson about MS-DOS when he’d learned computer hacking, but he could hardly remember it.
‘Dave, help us out here will you?’
Dave looked at the screen. ‘Click yes,’ he said. ‘MS-DOS stands for Microsoft Disk Operating System. It’s what everyone used before Windows came out.’
James was confronted by a black screen with a single marking on it:
C>:
‘I should know this,’ James groaned. ‘What’s that thingy I do to get a list of all the files on the disk?’
‘Pass it over,’ Dave said, grabbing the laptop. ‘You need to type DIR, which