The Doubt Factory

  Other things started making sense, too: Adam and Tank riding their skateboards in the cavernous, empty factory. The gutter girl, Kook, her face pierced and tatted up in ways that she’d never seen a girl her age modified. And at the center of it all, Moses.

  This motley group of teens, living in this factory. Not an adult in sight. No family dinners.

  No supervision. Just a bunch of kids, throwing raves and partying. Feeding gourmet cheese to their rats.

  “You’re orphans,” Alix said slowly.

  “Told you she was smart,” Moses said to the others.

  “You all live here, for real?” Alix asked.

  “For now,” Moses said. “We’ve got business here. Might keep us in town for a little while longer.”

  “My dad,” Alix said.

  “We like to think of him as the target,” Kook said.

  Alix felt light-headed. She wanted air, and there was no way to get out. The room was feeling tighter and tighter. “My dad didn’t kill your families!”

  “Nobody’s saying he did,” Cynthia soothed.

  “We’re not?” Kook raised her eyebrows. “I thought that was exactly what we were saying.”

  Alix felt nauseated. They were all orphans. “My dad didn’t kill your families,” she said again.

  Moses said, “Well, me and Cynthia, our parents were Alantia heart attacks. Adam’s aunt was asbestosis. Kook’s parents were a cancer cluster. Tank didn’t have parents, but Azicort did his sister, and then did a pretty good number on him before the doctors figured out what was happening.”

  “I—” Alix started, but her throat caught. The room felt smaller and smaller. She couldn’t breathe.

  “If you really want to split hairs, I guess your dad didn’t kill our parents directly,” Moses was saying, “but he sure helped the people who did. Every time someone needed protecting, he was there to give them good, profitable advice. Every time. He’s at the center of it. He’s the connection to all of them. He’s the one who helps them get away with it.”

  Alix was beginning to feel as if she wasn’t in her body. Everything felt surreally distant. Blackness pinched the edges of her vision.

  Breathe. Just breathe.

  She gripped the table, trying to anchor herself. Her father was… what? A criminal? A killer?

  She stood abruptly. Swayed. Grabbed a chair for support. Everyone leaped up, ready to block her from escaping.

  “I need air,” Alix gasped. “I need…” She started for the kitchen door.

  Adam blocked her. “We aren’t done talking.”

  Alix looked around desperately. Found Moses. “Please,” she begged. “I won’t run away. I just… I just… bathroom.”

  Cynthia came to her rescue and shoved Adam aside. “Cut it out, Adam. Let her go.”

  Adam said something in retort, but Alix wasn’t paying attention. She was already stumbling out into the wide factory expanse. The building loomed around her, huge and empty. She realized she was lost.

  “Bathrooms are back over there,” Cynthia said, pointing.

  She barely made it. She dashed to the row of sinks and threw up. Cheese sandwich and bile. She gagged again, but nothing else came up except ropes of spit. Alix stared down at the sink, at the contents of her emptied stomach. She ran water, trying to make it go away, trying not to think about the kids in the kitchen. All of them looking at her accusingly. All of them without parents. All of them alone.

  Her stomach twisted and she puked again.

  When she was finally done, she carefully washed her bile down the sink. She felt numb to the world. Everything still felt distant, as if someone else was performing the task of cleaning up.

  Small things. Just focus on small things.

  Alix found herself staring into the cracked mirror over the sink. A washed-out face stared back at her. The girl’s hair was tangled from a shower, unbrushed. Deep circles of exhaustion bruised the skin around her eyes. She didn’t recognize herself.

  A cold thought circled in her mind:

  If everything you know about yourself isn’t true, how do you know who you are?

  How do you know what truth is?

  How do you know if someone is lying to you?

  And then another, colder thought:

  What if everyone is lying to you?

  Alix remembered Dad sitting with her, watching TV, making jokes about CEOs who were lighting themselves on fire. Remembered his sneaking another cup of coffee when Mom wasn’t watching. Remembered his bringing her home drunk from a party and never busting her. Just telling her to stay safe, because he loved her and didn’t want her to ever make a permanent mistake.

  Who are you if you can’t trust anyone at all?

  Alix felt like she was going insane. She couldn’t peel the truth away from the lies. Who could she trust? Moses? Dad? Cynthia?

  Cynthia had lied to her for the last eight months. She’d sat beside her in AP Chem, pretending to really care about her. Alix’s eyes narrowed at the thought. That betrayal was something she could hold on to. That was real, at least: Cynthia had been lying to her for the last eight months.

  Alix stared at her reflection and watched herself nod deliberately, an acknowledgment of that single fact. She’d been a fool, and Cynthia had used her.

  And that led to another thought, an anchor she could hold tight to: You can’t trust any of them. They’re using you.

  That thought was followed by another realization. She was alone. Cynthia had followed her across the factory, but had let Alix be alone.

  Alix quickly scanned the locker room, looking for an escape. She spied a few windows, high up above the lockers.

  As quietly as she could, she dragged a bench over to a window and climbed up. The glass was smudged with grime and dust. She wiped it with the sleeve of Cynthia’s hoodie and peered out.

  Bars on the outside. Alix was disappointed, but not surprised. She couldn’t see anyone outside, anyway. She wondered if she broke the window and started shouting if someone might hear her. A last option, she decided. If she started screaming, Cynthia would hear, and everyone else would come running. But still, she needed some way to alert anyone who might be outside.

  A note?

  Alix craned her neck, trying to see where the factory was. Hunting for landmarks. The factory area had been deserted when they’d arrived at night, and from the lack of sound outside, she didn’t feel particularly hopeful that someone would conveniently wander by to help her out, but still, maybe a note dropped from the window…

  But too much time had passed already. Cynthia was sure to check on her any second. Rescue notes and screaming would have to wait. Alix climbed down and carefully dragged the bench back into place. She returned to the sink, drank a little water, and swished her mouth.

  It was then that Alix realized each sink had its own toothbrush on the sill. Six basins in a row, five toothbrushes beside the basins. Even Sophie didn’t have that many sinks in her bathroom.

  Alix smirked. They were just people. Just kids. Just crazy kids. They weren’t superhuman. The mundane thought of the whole 2.0 crew brushing their teeth at their individual sinks gave her a kind of strength.

  She stared again at herself in the mirror.

  They want something from you. They wouldn’t be talking to you if they didn’t want something from you. That means you’re in control.

  She wanted to laugh at the idea that she had any control at all, but still, it was something to hold on to. They might have her trapped, but she had something they needed.

  So all she needed was to fool them. To make them believe that she was a reasonable person. They wanted someone to listen to their story.

  So let them talk.

  She’d listen. She’d let them talk. She’d let them use as much time as they wanted, talking.

  And then…?

  Alix stared at herself in the mirror. She hardened her expression.

  You’re a fighter, she told herself. So fight.

  21
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  WHEN ALIX CAME OUT OF the bathroom, she found Cynthia waiting for her.

  “You okay?” Cynthia asked, looking concerned.

  It’s all an act, Alix reminded herself. She doesn’t care about you at all. She’s just someone who wants to use you.

  Alix made herself smile wanly. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  The 2.0 crew were all out of the kitchen. Kook was riding a skateboard, showing Tank how he could really kill himself. Adam was sitting on the floor with one of their rats, dropping a nugget trail of what looked like deeply veined blue cheese in front of it, encouraging it to follow where he led. Moses was standing a little ways off, keeping one eye on his crew, and one on Cynthia and Alix’s approach.

  Kook shot up the skate ramp, caught its edge one-handed and kicked her feet over her head. She held the stand, one-handed, frozen, graceful, then let herself drop and come swooping down. As she shot past, she had the most intense expression Alix had ever seen on anyone’s face. She looked like some kind of pierced demon.

  Tank tried the same move and crashed.

  Despite the fact that the kid had apparently welded her cage, Alix couldn’t help wincing. The crash looked brutal.

  “So,” Alix said, trying to find her way into conversation with Moses. “Why don’t you just blow up my dad if you hate him so much?”

  “That’s not what we’re about,” Moses said.

  “You don’t want to kill my dad. You don’t want to ransom me. So what do you want?” Alix asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

  Cynthia cleared her throat. “Your father trusts you.”

  “And?” Alix prompted.

  “We want to get access to his main office network. We can’t get into his offices in DC. But if you get us on his laptop in his home office, we think we can get inside.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. He doesn’t tell me things like that.”

  “It’s not that difficult,” Moses said. “Kook’s good with computers. We just need a little of your help. Your dad trusts you. All you need to do is install a little bit of software, and we’ll do the rest.”

  “I’ve seen his computer,” Alix said. “It’s password-protected. He’s not going to tell me his password. I’ve never even been on that computer.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. We just need you to be able to get physical access to his laptop while he’s logged in. Just need you to do something like spill a little coffee on him in his study, and while he’s gone, plug in a special something we’ve got rigged up. We think we can do the rest.”

  “Stuxnet, baby!” Kook called from where she was making another run at the ramp. “It’s a worm. DoD-certified badass wormtastic. I modified it. You just plug it in the USB drive. As long as it gets plugged in while he’s logged in, I can do the rest.” She shot up the ramp, did another handstand, and came whooshing down again.

  “What’s that going to accomplish?” Alix asked.

  “We want the Doubt Factory’s client files. All of them. Your dad’s clients spend a lot of time denying that their products are dangerous. We know they’re lying, but that’s almost impossible to prove. If we can get those files, it would show exactly what they know, and exactly what they’re trying to protect themselves against.”

  “And then…”

  “And then we’ll put the news up all over the Net. We’ll send the juicy bits to every newspaper and website that still knows how to report a story. We think there are enough smoking guns in your dad’s files to indict a couple dozen CEOs. It would open the door to civil suits, wrongful-death suits, class actions, government investigations.…”

  “And destroy my family in the process,” Alix pointed out.

  “Karma is a bitch,” Adam observed from his place on the floor where he was feeding his rat.

  “Screw you,” Alix shot back.

  “Sorry, don’t swing that way. Moses is into you, though.”

  “Shut up, Adam,” Moses and Cynthia said at the same time. They both said it so quickly and automatically that Alix had to laugh. Moses glanced over, looking embarrassed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Alix said. But it was sort of funny, how automatic they’d sounded. As if everyone was in the habit of telling Adam to shut up.

  Then she realized what Adam had said, about Moses being “into” her, and she felt herself blush suddenly. Why are you blushing? She looked away, concentrating on Kook and Tank, watching them skate, and avoiding meeting Moses’s eyes.

  Cynthia must have sensed Alix’s discomfort because she said, “Come on. We can watch them skate from over here. You can sit down.”

  She led Alix to an old storage rack and climbed up onto the first level of shelving. Alix followed, and soon they were both perched five feet off the ground. Alix let her legs dangle off the edge as she watched the activity below.

  Kook finished her run and kicked the skateboard to Adam. He passed the rat into Kook’s arms. A second later he was rolling away. Neither of them said anything during the exchange. It was like they knew each other so well they didn’t have to say anything at all. Perfectly intertwined, and yet Adam and Kook were completely mismatched compatriots. The sleek boy who seemed so concerned about his every pose and the pale gutter-punk girl who seemed bent mostly on putting as much hardware into her face as was humanly possible. And yet they traded skateboard and rat without friction or comment.

  All of them were like that. It was as if Moses had gone around recruiting the most bizarre group of misfits he could possibly find. If Adam and Kook looked like an odd pairing, what about Tank, the frail Latino-looking kid who reminded her of a Hobbit? And Cynthia, the perfect Seitz student? Not a single one belonged with the others. Like glassware at the thrift store. A mug next to a martini glass, next to a chunky wineglass, next to a shot glass, and only hopeful arrangement made them seem as if they belonged together. And yet this strange crew of kids still somehow managed to fit.

  Alix snuck a glance at Moses. He was watching Tank, and she was surprised to see the affection on his face.

  Tank crashed again. Moses flinched and leaned forward, as if he were about to rush to the boy, then caught himself and leaned back against the storage racks, pretending to be nonchalant about the whole thing.

  Alix couldn’t help smiling. The hard version of Moses was gone again, replaced by the… what?

  The decent version?

  She realized that Moses was now looking over at her, somehow aware of her eyes on him. Alix looked away.

  Why do you even care?

  But apparently she did.

  My world is insane.

  Moses took her look as an invitation to join her. He climbed up to where she and Cynthia had found their perch.

  “So,” Alix said, “have you changed your mind and decided to let me go?”

  “Don’t know. Have you decided to help us?”

  Alix knew the smart thing would be to say yes.

  “No.”

  “Then I guess not.”

  “Why would you trust me, anyway?” she snapped. “I could just lie and tell you whatever you wanted to hear.”

  “So why don’t you?” Moses asked.

  “Because—” She broke off. Why don’t you just lie? It made sense. Just tell him whatever he wanted to hear and then run like hell. And yet here she was, stupidly saying the wrong thing.

  “Maybe I’m stubborn,” she said.

  “You want to know what I think?” Moses asked.

  Alix snorted. “Yeah. Sure. Give me your theory of Alix.”

  He laughed. “‘Theory of Alix.’ I like that.” He paused, smiling. “Okay, here’s my theory of Alix.”

  “Constructed from long hours of observation,” she added.

  “Indeed.” Abruptly, Moses’s smile disappeared. “From many long hours.” And his expression became so intense that Alix felt a sudden chill of self-consciousness.

  She realized she didn’t want to hear whatever he had to say.

&nbsp
; He was looking at her too seriously, as if he were carving her up into tiny pieces and inspecting each part. It was so intense and invasive that she felt as if she were naked. She was surprised to find that she felt an almost overwhelming shame.

  She didn’t want him to say anything. He was peeling away all the layers of who she was, and she knew before he opened his mouth what he would say.

  He would look at her vacations to Saint Barts and her parties in the Hamptons and all her stupid obsessed conversations about boys with Cynthia and all her worrying about SATs and whether she should go to Harvard or Dartmouth or Bryn Mawr, and he would see her as a joke.

  She suddenly could see herself in his eyes, and she hated what he saw.

  “Never mi—”

  “You’re ethical.”

  “What?” Alix looked at him, confused.

  “You’re ethical.”

  Alix wasn’t sure she liked that assessment any more than the one she’d been expecting.

  “You make me sound like some kind of Goody Two-Shoes.”

  He laughed at that. “I didn’t say you were obedient. I said you were ethical. They’re different. It’s why you’re stuck now. You know we’re right about your dad—”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “—and you also know you love him. So you’re stuck in a lose-lose situation, and you keep trying to find some way out.”

  “The way out would be to lie to you.”

  “So why haven’t you?” He was smiling as he answered his own question. “Because you’re ethical.”

  Alix rolled her eyes. “Because I’m stupid.”

  The truth was, she had no idea why she hadn’t just told him what he wanted to hear. Was she actually starting to believe his crazy conspiracy theories? Was she having some kind of Stockholm syndrome moment? All she knew was that each time she considered lying to him, she felt queasy.

  “I know you, Alix,” Moses said. “I really have been watching you for a long time.”

  “Yay,” Alix said bitterly. “Me and my shadow.”

  “You can try to make a joke out of it, but I see you. I’ve seen you with your brother, trying to take care of him. I saw you take Cynthia in.”