The Doubt Factory

  The shout of “Clear!” echoed distantly.

  Derek was standing right behind Alix, leaning over her shoulder, cheek close, his breath hot on her ear.

  “Watch this,” he said. “It should be good.”

  Alix froze.

  That’s not Derek.

  Alix tried to turn in the constricting crowd. She barely managed to twist, and when she did, she gasped. The black guy from yesterday was right there, smiling slightly. Mirror aviator sunglasses reflected her own surprised expression back at her.

  “Nice to see you again, Alix.”

  He looked completely different. His head was shaved smooth now, and he was wearing an expensive sports coat over a button-down shirt. TAG Heuer wristwatch. But it wasn’t just the change of hair and clothing. Everything about him was different. The style of him was different. The guy yesterday had been loose, carefree—cool in that I don’t give a damn about all of you sort of way. Hip-hop cool. But the way this guy held himself, the first thing that popped into Alix’s mind was cop. Or even more: Secret Service. Like the cold men who had observed from the alcoves the time Dad had been invited to a dinner for the president’s reelection campaign.

  But still, this was definitely the same guy who had punched Mulroy. She was sure of it. He was an inch away, and he looked completely different, but he was the same guy.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “You’re going to miss the show if you keep looking at me,” he said. And then he smiled and raised his sunglasses, showing dark, flashing eyes. Alix felt like she’d been hit by a train. Definitely the same guy. The same blaze of wildness and laughter. The same frightening promise.

  His eyes flicked toward the school. “You’ll like this, Alix,” he said. “This is for you.”

  Another preparatory call echoed up from the SWAT team members arrayed around Widener Hall’s doorway, and then the air shivered as their explosives went off. A booming rush rolled over the crowd and left everyone murmuring. Alix jerked her gaze back to the school. Smoke was billowing up from around the doorway.

  Widener’s doors had been blown wide, and then…

  Nothing.

  Everyone waited with bated breath, expecting whatever they were supposed to expect when SWAT blew open a door in the movies. Gunfire. Dragons. A nuclear apocalypse… Something, at least.

  Instead, there was silence.

  The SWAT team dashed inside, assault rifles pointed ahead, ready to fire.

  “Wait for it,” the stranger whispered in her ear. His hands were on her shoulders, lightly holding her, keeping her looking at the events unfolding.

  Wait for what? Alix wanted to ask.

  She wanted to turn around and see him fully, ask him who the hell he thought he was—

  A dull thud echoed from Widener Hall.

  Alix gasped as blood splattered up against the windows.

  It was a massacre. There was so much blood that it looked like every single SWAT guy had been run through a blender and splattered on the windows.

  Shrieks of shock and terror rose up from the crowd, and suddenly everyone was trying to get away. Alix tried to run, but the stranger’s fingers dug into her shoulders, holding her in place. His lips pressed against her ear.

  “Don’t panic!” he whispered. “Read! You see it, right?”

  And even as everyone was shoving and pulling back and screaming about all the blood, Alix did see. Right there in the windows, a message inscribed in red, now dripping down.

  Suddenly all the SWAT guys who had disappeared into the building came barreling back out, shouting and hollering, wordless and panicked, their rifles held carelessly, stumbling down the front steps in their heavy armor.

  Behind them, a seething wave of snowy motion erupted from the doors, a tumbling rush pouring out in a river. White fur, twisting-clawing-thrashing bodies, a tidal wave exploding through the open doors and cascading down the school steps.

  “No way!” Jonah exclaimed from somewhere in the crowd, delighted.

  Rats.

  Thousands and thousands and thousands of rats, gushing out of the building and down the steps. More and more of them coming every second. They swarmed the cops and the SWAT team. They surged across the lawns. They scattered every which way. The people watching up front tried to run, but everyone was too jammed together. People were scrambling up on Seitz’s wall. Police were standing in the middle of the rodent horde, kicking and shaking the rats that ran up their legs. The TV crew was balanced up on the wall, recording the whole weird thing.

  Alix caught a glimpse of Jonah laughing and pointing at how all the cops were running, and then everyone was running and shoving and fleeing as the rats came scrambling through. Someone smashed into Alix and she stumbled, barely catching herself before she fell. A white furry streak bolted past, followed by another and another.

  Alix spun, trying to find the guy who’d been standing right behind her, but the stranger was gone. Lost in the scrum. Gone entirely except for the rats and the word that he’d left dripping in red paint from the windows of the science building:

  Alix dodged another surge of rats coming her way and scanned the crowd, frantically trying to spot the stranger again.

  There!

  He was striding away, moving confidently through the chaos. The same careless, arrogant stride she’d seen after he’d punched Mulroy.

  He could be dangerous. You shouldn’t—oh, fuck it.

  Alix went after him.

  Behind her, she thought she heard Jonah shout, but she kept her eyes on the stranger, fighting to keep him in sight as people fled in every direction.

  Later, she couldn’t even really say why she went after him. She was angry, sure. Pissed that he was so smug and that he thought he could just come up on her like that. She did it because she was angry; that was what she told herself later.

  She caught up to him as he was pulling open the rear door to a black town car.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his sleeve.

  He turned so fast she flinched. She took a step back, suddenly reminded that this was the guy who’d punched Mulroy. She took another step back, swallowing uncertainly.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “How do you know my name?”

  She could see herself reflected in his mirrored lenses. It made her feel small. More like a little girl than a grown woman: brown hair French-braided, Seitz school uniform with its prim blazer and skirt. He’s tall, she thought inanely.

  “You want to know who I am?” he asked, and there was so much sadness in the words that she was struck nearly speechless. She felt even more horribly aware of her school uniform. It was as if she was looking at someone who had seen the entire world. Not like she’d seen Paris or Barcelona on vacation, but more like the Bastille or the slums of India. And here she was, in all her naïveté, trying to grab hold of that. It took all her will to press him again.

  “What’s all this about?” she asked. “What’s 2.0?”

  The guy’s expression was so different that she almost wondered if she’d grabbed the wrong black guy in the crowd. It reminded her of how Cynthia complained about people not being able to tell her and Alice Kim apart. Improbably, Alix heard Cynthia’s voice in her head—Alice is Korean, for Christ’s sake.

  “You’ve got questions now, don’t you?” he said, and abruptly the heavy sadness disappeared and the brilliant smile was back. The same boisterous, knowing smile that she’d seen twice before.

  A new explosion went off, right among the parked cars. Alix ducked instinctively. Smoke enveloped her, wild and thick and yellow, hiding everything from sight. Suddenly the stranger grabbed her. Hard and tight.

  “Hey!” Alix tried to knee him in the balls, but he must have turned away because all she hit was thigh. She struggled against him for another second, then changed tactics and let herself be pulled close.

  She bit him.

  She heard a satisfying yelp of pain, but to her surprise the stranger didn’t let go. Instead, he spun her ar
ound and wrapped his strong arms around her, pulling her into a tighter embrace.

  “Should have known you’d have some bite to you,” he murmured in her ear.

  The amusement and play were back in his voice.

  “You want to see how much bite I’ve got?” she asked. She tried to twist free again, but he was ready for her now. He had her pinned against his chest. She rested, gathering strength. Looking for a chance to hurt him again.

  The stranger chuckled. His breath was hot on her cheek. “How about we call a little truce?”

  “Why? So we can go for coffee?” If she threw her head back fast, she could hit his face with the back of her skull. She might crush his nose if she was lucky.

  “You want to know what this is all about?”

  Alix stilled, suddenly alert.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  The smoke was thick around them. Alix could hear cops shouting and people running, but all of it was distant. She and the stranger were in a bubble of smoke, separate from everything around them.

  She was suddenly acutely aware of how closely he held her. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he panted, the exertion she’d put him through. He was holding her so tightly she could feel his heart beating.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked.

  “Ask your father.”

  “What?”

  “Ask your father. He’s the one who knows all the secrets.” He shoved her away abruptly.

  Alix spun to pursue, but he was lost in the smoke. Everything was shadow forms.

  By the time the smoke cleared, he was gone, as if he’d blown away in the wind.

  4

  ALIX SAT ON SEITZ’S LOW perimeter wall, trying to get her shaking hands to be still.

  Derek and Cynthia and Jonah were all missing, lost in the running crowds. She was pretty sure Derek and Cynthia would find their way back to where she was, but she suspected Jonah had seized the opportunity to escape and wouldn’t be back home before dinner.

  Alix was almost glad for the moment alone. It gave her a chance to try to wrap her head around what had happened. Behind her, Widener Hall was being gone over by the police and bomb squad, and now Animal Control had shown up as well. Every so often, another clot of rats burped out of Widener’s main doors and made a break for freedom, dashing across sunny lawns for wherever the hell white rats went when they pulled a jailbreak.

  2.0’s four-story tagging job continued to drip proudly down Widener Hall’s windows.

  I should tell the cops, Alix thought, but that thought was followed immediately by another.

  What are you going to say? That some creeper just left you a four-story love note? That he knows your dad? That you’re involved in this, somehow?

  That would go over well.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Derek and Cynthia’s return. “There you are!” Cynthia said breathlessly. “We’ve been looking everywhere!”

  “You look terrible,” Derek said. “Are you okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Have you seen yourself?”

  Alix looked down. She was dismayed to find that her blazer’s shoulder and pocket were torn. “I didn’t realize.” She patted her hair. Her French braid was undone as well. She was a total mess. “It had to have happened—”

  When you were busy wrestling with your tall, dark stranger.

  “I—” She stopped, feeling flustered, teetering on the edge of blurting out what had just happened to her. “I lost Jonah,” she said spontaneously. “We got caught in the crowd, and I lost him. I think he ditched.”

  “Again? Seriously?” Derek asked. “That kid should have been expelled last semester.”

  Cynthia elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Ow. What?” Derek asked.

  “We’ll help you look for him,” Cynthia said.

  Alix felt guilty for the deception, but now that the lie was out, she couldn’t think of a good way to undo it, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  It’s better this way, she told herself as they started patrolling the grounds for signs of her delinquent brother. Once she had events sorted out in her mind, then maybe she’d discuss it with people. But not yet. Everything was still too weird: the vandalism of the school; the stranger—2.0 or whatever his name was—approaching her; the fact that he knew her name. She needed time to think through what she wanted to say—and whom she wanted to say it to.

  Dad was always lamenting that his clients didn’t call him for advice before they started opening their mouths in the news. When Alix had been in junior high, she used to sit and watch TV with him and rate CEOs’ and politicians’ announcements in the wake of scandals.

  Dad had a scoring system that went from Teflon (trouble would slide right off) to Self-Immolation (lighting yourself on fire for the entertainment of the public). Sometimes he also awarded Just-Add-Gasoline points for those who were really determined to double down on their own stupid.

  It had just been silly fun for Alix at the time, a way to spend quality time with her father on something they both found interesting. But now the lessons of those scoring sessions felt uncomfortably relevant. If this was going to turn into news—and it was looking more and more like it would—she had to think everything through. The last thing she needed was to run around blabbing that the merry prankster who had just destroyed Widener Hall had something to do with her and her family.

  “Ask your father,” he’d said.

  “You’ll like this, Alix.”

  “This is for you.”

  This had all the hallmarks of a Just-Add-Gasoline moment.

  Across the grounds, SWAT guys were marching out of Widener Hall. Alix blinked, startled. “Are they carrying paintball guns?”

  Derek started to laugh in disbelief. “I think they’re Super Soakers.”

  Whatever they were, they were toys, for sure. Plastic and shiny and primary-school colorful: red and green and yellow and blue, and all of them dripping bright red paint.

  Cynthia pulled out her cell phone and started snapping shots. “Check out the color contrast!” She laughed.

  The news crew clearly had the same idea. The camerawoman was dashing over to capture the image of the SWAT guys in their black paramilitary uniforms with their oh-so-serious bulletproof vests and riot helmets—and their arms full of cheerful toy guns.

  Alix couldn’t stifle her own laughter. She half expected the SWAT guys to suddenly break into a song-and-dance routine. Some kind of plein air musical show with waltzing SWAT guys and candy-colored guns for props.

  Maybe this was what 2.0 wanted to show me, she thought as more and more people started snapping pictures. If it was, it was actually kind of… sweet.

  He grabbed you, Alix reminded herself. He’s dangerous.

  So how come he didn’t hurt you? You bit him hard enough.

  It was strange, when she thought about it. She’d hurt him for sure, and he hadn’t done anything in return. Given the way he’d punched Mulroy, she was certain he could have done almost anything he’d wanted to pay her back. But all he’d done was pull her close and whisper in her ear.

  Maybe he liked her.

  Get a grip, Alix, she thought.

  “He’ll turn up,” Derek said.

  “What?” Alix turned, confused.

  Derek gave her a funny look. “Quit freaking,” he said. “Jonah always turns up.”

  “Oh. Right,” Alix said, covering for herself. “Mom’s going to freak, though.”

  “That kid would already be feral if it wasn’t for you,” Cynthia said. “Your mom should be grateful.”

  Sophie came over, interrupting them. “Are you guys walking home, too?”

  “No.” Alix looked at her with surprise. “I’ve got a car.”

  “No, you don’t. You’ve got a car behind yellow tape.” Sophie pointed. “The whole parking lot is locked down. They’re sniffing all the cars with dogs.”

  “But that’s where they told us to park!” Alix pro
tested.

  They hurried over to the lot, and, sure enough, squads of police were going from car to car, running mirrors under all the undercarriages, while German shepherds barked and sniffed and lunged against their leashes.

  “How long are they going to be at it?”

  “Until they find the people responsible, I guess,” Cynthia said.

  “Or all the coke in the school,” Derek suggested.

  “Is it even legal to search like that?” Alix wondered.

  “Good thing you stopped dealing,” Cynthia cracked.

  “Like anyone’s hiding anything in their cars.” Sophie stared up at the blue sky. “It’s too hot to walk.”

  Alix watched the search continue from car to car. It looked like the German shepherds had a thing for German automobiles. Every time they came up on an Audi or Mercedes, they went nuts. “This is going to take forever.” She dialed home. Her mom’s and dad’s phones both went to voice mail.

  “No answer?” Derek asked knowingly.

  Alix made a face. “They’re always hammering on me to pick up immediately when they call. But when I call…”

  “I think in the old days they used to call us latchkey children,” Cynthia said. “Now it’s more like voice-mail children.”

  Alix considered texting, then blew it off. Let them find out on their own about the school.

  “I told you we were walking,” Sophie said smugly. They all shouldered their bags and headed out. Alix glanced back at her MINI longingly.

  Cynthia caught the direction of her gaze. “So close, and yet so far.” She laughed.

  “I parked right where they told me,” Alix complained again.

  “And I’m sure Big Brother appreciates your obedience.”

  “You think we’ll have school tomorrow?” Derek asked. He was gazing back at the vandalized science building. The red shape of the 2.0 tag was amazingly clear now that they were standing farther away from it.