Teaching Chay

Chapter 6

"Kim or P'Kim is enough. No need to be formal," he says. He hasn't officially given Porchay the OK to drop the 'Khun' in front of his name, as he outranks him. But now he has.

"I also liked Lego. I was obsessed with the SpongeBob and Avatar sets they had. I either ran around dressed in yellow from head to toe or wanted to wear trousers like Aang."

Porchay giggles. "I can't see that here."

"Neither could my father. He fired my nanny when I shaved my head with one of Khun's razors to look like Aang. Then he banned all Legos and toys from the compound, saying I was too old for them anyway."

"How old were you?"

"About five or six? I'd just started school. I remember because I had to wear a hat for the class picture." Kim tells Porchay, leaving out the part where his father also beat him with a stick and he couldn't sit properly for a week. It wasn't the worst beating he ever got from him, so it doesn't really matter.

"But back to the bugs and hidden cameras. Where would you put them if I gave you some to plant in here?"

"In the movies they are always in lamps or smoke detectors."

"Yes, true. Why?"

"I don't know. Because it's easy to get them in there?" Porchay speculates.

"That's also true, but it's really about the power supply. Depending on the type of device, it needs to be connected to a power source, and both lamps and smoke alarms have them. They're also both infrequently moved, so it's harder to detect the bugs in them, and you don't necessarily look at them like you do with a TV," Kim tells Porchay. Kim tells Porchay. "There are also some that come with a battery, but they don't last very long and the transmission can be a mess because of the low power going through them. If you're in a rural area or somewhere with fortified walls, the low-power ones probably won't get a signal.

"Is it normal to use bugs in the mafia?"

"Not normal, but it happens. My father loved them, though."

"Is that why people used to come into my room every few days with strange machines?"

"Your brother had your room swept, yes. And he was right, because when my father was alive, no conversation was safe in here. He went one step further and had software installed on all the phones that recorded every call and text message. It's easy to manipulate people and pretend to be wise as a god when you're just spying on everyone.

Kim walks over to the cupboard where he has already prepared things for today's lesson. "These are audio scramblers or jammers, you may have seen them if you have ever been in a meeting. Since my father knew how to spy on everyone, he was particularly paranoid about being spied on himself and had them installed in the meeting rooms. Even so, these remote ones were always used just to be on the safe side, which he must have hated because it was the only time he couldn't listen in." Kim hands Porchay one of the small devices. "Once you activate it, all anyone gets on a microphone is white noise. Just press this button, put it close to whoever's talking and you're good to go."

Porchay turns the device over with a pensive look on his face. "Did you... did you bug my house... back then?" He asks without taking his eyes off the device.

"No. It wasn't necessary. I knew you weren't involved in any evil plans since our first conversation in the studio when you told me about your brother. I knew you were telling the truth."

"How? Did you hook me up to a lie detector?" Porchay is angry again, and Kim prefers that to the sad and dejected look of before.

"Lie detectors are easy to fool. I'll never understand why some law enforcement agencies still insist on using them. But no, you were just being truthful, I could tell by the way you talked about your brother."