It Matters

Mello had stopped posturing somewhere around the time when Roger had first mentioned a brain injury. When asked if Matt had recently received a blow to the head or a severe shaking, he'd quietly answered, 'yes.' Now that Matt had been sent to the Orphanage's infirmary, Mello had his head in his hands on the desk and his eyes tightly closed.



Roger placed another mug of hot chocolate in front of him. When he spoke it was stating a fact, neither judgmental nor disapproving. "You lost your focus, Mello. That's not like you." There was a clink of teaspoon against porcelain. "I could ask you now and you would list for me every sympton of concussion. You achieved 100% in anatomy and all of the medical classes. What is it that blinds you when you look at Matt?"



Mello's head snapped up and he glared at Roger.

"He'd also had an emotional trauma. It could have been either."



"Yet you did not even consider concussion. You let him drive."



A snort, then Mello grasped the hot chocolate and brought it under the canopy of his long fringe.

"He didn't tell me he had concussion."



"Possibly because he had concussion and therefore couldn't reason it out for himself?" A wry smile now. Roger pushed his glasses further up his nose and peered at Mello. "It's been nearly five years and you look like you've been in the wars. I hear things about you, now and again. Are you alright, Mello?"



"Don't try the caring father approach with me. I'm not a child to fall for it."



"You never were."



"I've had my theories over the years as to what this place is about." He indicated with a wide arm-length gesture the entire of The Wammy's House. "Some kind of intellectual experiment. All the best equipment; the best teachers; the endless pressure to study and be the best; competition all the time, pitting one child against another, always pushing them to be the best. Normal children didn't have the lessons that we had. We were being taught at degree level, postgraduate level, before we hit puberty." Mello slammed down his hot chocolate, spilling some on the polished mahogany surface. "Grooming our generation as apprentices and then as heirs to Lawliet, but before that? What was the motivation for what you did to his generation? Streamlining all of us into becoming detectives, regardless of our natural talents. You've made Matt feel like a failure."



Roger raised his eyebrows.

"There it is again, Mello. Sharp as always. Precise and accurate deductions right up until you mention Matt. He's clouding your judgement."



"No!" Mello was on his feet, hitting the desk with his fist. "You will not put me in competition against Matt."



"That is not what I intended." Roger sighed. "I merely wanted to point out that when you become preoccupied with a certain individual you lose focus. Near is the..."



"I'm not here to talk about Near."



A staccato beep sounded unobstrusively from the depths of a drawer. It was the ordinary warning of a text message having been received, but the effect on Roger was profound. The colour dripped from his face and his expression was stricken. Mello, suspecting a heart attack and immediately wondering at the implications there, took several steps towards him, before Roger panted out a breath and moved the barest inch forward in his chair. Mello gave him a long appraising look, then opened the drawer from which the sound had been emitted. "Why are you so worried about a text message?"



Roger had recovered himself somewhat, yet still appeared ill.

"The only person who would text on that telephone is dead."



Mello flicked it open and read the message aloud.

"Hacked."



Roger exhaled, long and loud. He pointed towards the computer.

"The Wammy's House has its own mainframe. It also feeds," a pause, "other servers. There are perhaps four, maybe five, children here with the intellect to hack it..."



"If it's anything like our day, you've underestimated that figure." Mello snapped off chocolate with a loud crack. "It was practically a rite of initiation."



"You misunderstand. Every child in this place should have the capacity to hack it." Roger gave a half-smile. "If they haven't then we have certainly failed in their tuition."



Mello's eyes widened a touch more.

"But there are hidden layers and we only hit the first one. You have set it up to look like it's the main goal, but that isn't it. The child has to know to go deeper in the first place, then to do it." He stared at the telephone. "L set it up. Someone probing deeper will automatically set off a SMS. L typed this message a long time ago." In his hand, the telephone beeped again. Roger gasped, startled, but Mello merely read the message. "It's a false alarm. Apparently." He was smiling and followed Roger's gaze towards the monitors. "You can't blame him. He's still in the infirmary, look."



"Help me out here, Mello. Are we or are we not being hacked?"



Mello took a long look at the sea of monitors, then turned to survey the row of identical, unlabelled telephones lined up on Roger's sideboard. He walked across to them and traced a single gloved digit over each of the receivers, before stopping at the second but last. "If you aren't, then you will be before the day is through." He sniggered and the telephone beneath his hand rang out, shrill. Mello switched it onto speakerphone. "Near."



A long pause, then the familiar deadpan voice,

"Mello."



"Bit of a headfuck isn't it?"



Silence. Mello ate chocolate. The faint smirk upon his face intensified just a little when he looked at Roger. He sighed, rolling his eyes,

"Near, we're freaking Roger out. Want a word with him? You know, tell him everything is alright. You're eating well, changing your underwear on a regular basis, trying not to get sucked into the drink and drugs scene etc." Mello snapped off more chocolate with his teeth. "Tell him how much you love him."



"The server is being hacked."



"We received the message that it's a false alarm."



"Nevertheless, the server is being hacked."



Mello's smile grew more charming,

"I know." Then he whispered loudly, conspiratorily. "But what makes you think so, Near?"



Roger had leapt to his feet. He was hurriedly clicking his mouse and typing. A look of panic washed across his features.

"Mello! Near! For once in your lives will you work together! You cannot know the severity of this. I cannot over-ride it!"



From the other end of the telephone, Near commented blandly,

"Roger shouldn't be worrying. Mello is hacking the server. He will not..." A sudden silence. "I've changed my mind."



"Oh good." Mello sucked loudly on a square of chocolate. "No pressure, Near. Roger's in a state. Don't get it wrong now."



"Mello is trying to use the power of negative suggestion to stop me thinking." Near replied calmly.



"Just don't get it wrong because..."



Alarms sounded shrill both in their room and Near's. Roger looked faint. He rushed across to gush out,

"I'm sorry, Near! I can't stop it. I can see all the internal suspects on my monitors. Three are at their computers, but I can see the screens. They are innocent. Two are in French class and... ah-hem... that is to say one is in the infirmary."



Near sounded utterly unfazed, as he replied.

"Mello is enjoying himself. Mello either doesn't care and likes to watch to see if Near is inconvenienced or Mello is an accomplice."



"Don't presume anything about me, arsehole, you're never right."



"Mello cares about The Wammy's House even if Mello hates Near. He is an accomplice. Mello is wasting our time to stop Roger noticing the clues that Mello has seen. Mello is the hacker."



A polite knock sounded at the door. At Roger's bidding, Matt entered, still intent upon his Gameboy Micro.

"Yeah, concussion." He sat down on the settee, apparently oblivious to the chaos all about him. Roger looked wildly from him to Mello, but the latter just smiled back.



"Hey, Matty, say hi to Near."



Matt didn't look up from the game.

"'Sup, Near."



A breath, then Near responded.

"Matt is the hacker."



Mello burst out laughing. He seemed suddenly high, dancing on the spot.

"Oh! Do make up your mind, Near. Is this your final conclusion? Don't get it wrong now."



Roger sat down heavily.

"Matt, did you just hack into The Wammy's House computer?" He glanced at the monitor, all was in order.



"Yeah."



"But you were in the infirmary."



Mello squeezed the older man's shoulders.

"He hacked the camera feed first. He was in the garden." He pointed towards the tree-house. "That leaf that's been eddying in a loop has finally disappeared." A snicker of a laugh. "I got it immediately. Near, it took you at least five minutes and about ten changes of mind. How does that feel?"



Matt sniffed,

"He can't answer that. He's got Aspergers."



Mello's eyes darted to the telephone and his smile was wiped by pensiveness. A flood of memories suddenly made a lot more sense.

"Roger, we should have been told that."



Near responded for him.

"It would have made no difference. Mello has pleasure in making people sad."



Mello bowed his head.

"I mean this sincerely, Near. I am truly sorry if my behaviour towards you, over the years, has confused you more than you deserved. If I had been told, then I would have acted more appropriately. Shouted at you intellectually instead of trying to get you emotionally."



"Mello can't beat Near intellectually. Mello has points that I have not and I have points that Mello has not, but Mello cannot beat me."



Mello rolled his eyes.

"If it gets you through the night, just keep right on believing it. Are we done?"



"Matt will tell us why he hacked the mainframe and what he did when he was in there."



Matt shrugged, attention trained on the handheld, fingers still rapidly clicking.

"It never said I was tested for ADHD last time I hacked into it. That wasn't so long ago." He gazed intently at the tiny screen. "'Cause I was looking for Mello when I left here. Two secs." The clicking sped up. "Just get this boss... sec."



"Roger." Mello strode around until he was face to face with their erstwhile guardian. "It's never been hacked to that level before, has it? You and Near didn't have a clue what to do. You had a procedure, but it's not rehearsed. Your reactions were of people who have never had to do this before. I'm right, aren't I?"



"Yes." Roger had succeeded in switching off the alarms. He just looked ill.



"He worked it out and then hacked it, in... how long? Twenty minutes tops, Matt?" Mello's mood flashed suddenly from smug reason into anger. He yelled, "Tell me that you would have diagnosed fucking concussion in someone who can do that! There's no way I can be held accountable for missing that. No way."