Paolo Bacigalupi - The Doubt Factory

Alix was secretly relieved to have Cynthia getting off her back, but as Alix let her out the door, Cynthia stopped and turned to Alix again. “You’ll ask your dad, right?”

Alix tried to look obedient. “Yes, I will.”

“Seriously, Alix. This isn’t like you. This is the kind of thing Denise or Sophie would do. At least talk to your dad about this. Don’t turn into some kind of weird thrill seeker on me. I don’t do the whole good-girl-turns-rebel cliché.”

Alix saluted. “Okay, Tiger Mom. Will do.”

Cynthia laughed and made her hands into claws as Alix pushed her outside. “ Rawr! ” she said. Alix closed the door on her. The door clicked.

Alix leaned against it and sighed with relief.

It was great that she and Cynthia listened to the same music and liked to rave and that Cynthia was always free to go out for coffee or talk about Jane Austen. But sometimes she could be freakishly overbearing, as if she was trying to prove that she could be more adult—

“Talk to your dad about the stalker!” Cynthia’s voice filtered through the door.

Alix winced. “I heard you already!”

Even though she’d shut Cynthia outside, the girl’s admonishments refused to go away. Tiger Mom had done her job, apparently, and managed to get Alix’s conscience involved.

With a sigh of frustration, Alix went to her father’s office door and knocked. Inside, the talking stopped.

“Come in!”

Hesitantly, she pushed the door open. “Dad?”

Dad looked a little annoyed to be interrupted, but he at least made the effort to smile. “What is it, Alix?”

“Can I talk to you?”

He glanced over at George. “We’re sort of in the middle of something. Is it important?”

“Yeah.” She hesitated, trying to decide how much she really wanted to push. “I mean, well, I don’t know.”

Smooth, Alix. Real smooth .

Dad smiled at George. “Could you give us a second?”

“Sure.” George got up. “Take all the time you need. I was feeling parched anyway.” He squeezed past, patting her on the shoulder as he left. “Good to see you, Alix.”

“Yeah. You too.”

“Well?” Dad asked.

Alix settled gingerly into George’s still-warm chair. The office was large; it had been expanded when Dad did the renovation so that he could work one day a week at home.

“What’s going on?” Dad asked. “Why aren’t you at school? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She paused. “I don’t know. Something weird happened at school today, and… I wanted to talk about it.”

“Something bad?”

“No. Yes.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a prank at school. I left a voice mail.”

Dad frowned. “I’ve been on calls all day. Something happened?”

As Alix outlined the events, Dad’s face turned more and more serious. She found herself avoiding the real reason for going into his office, but, finally, she couldn’t talk around it anymore. “So…” She hesitated and then blurted out, “The guy who did it talked to me.”

It took a second to register, but when it did, Dad’s response was just as bad as she’d expected it to be.

“What?” He looked shocked. “What do you mean, he talked to you? How did he talk to you? When?”

Alix found herself rushing to explain. “He snuck up on me. He sort of whispered in my ear—”

“He touched you?”

“No! It wasn’t like that! Why does everyone think that’s what happened? He didn’t do anything like that. He just said I should watch the prank. And…” There was no way to minimize it, and Alix knew it would sound terrible as soon as she said it.

“He knew my name.”

Dad’s expression went from surprise and concern to the intense look that she saw only when he was solving a serious work problem. She’d seen it when he talked about having to fire someone or when a client was being difficult or when there was a PR crisis. He was suddenly totally focused on Alix, and his voice was dead serious.

“Tell me everything, Alix. Everything you can remember.”

And she did. She told him about the prank and how the stranger had looked totally different from the day before. She told him how the guy, whom she was starting more and more to think of as 2.0, had whispered in her ear and how he’d told her to ask her dad what was going on.

“He wanted you to talk to me?” Dad looked puzzled.

“That’s what he said.”

“But he went after you.”

Alix could see anger rising on her father’s face. She rushed to explain. “He didn’t do anything to me, though.”

“He did, actually.” Dad’s voice was rising. “He targeted you. Some lunatic activist is targeting my daughter.”

“He didn’t look like an activist.”

“Not every activist douses himself with patchouli and dreads his hair, Alix. Let me lay this out for you. This is serious. He knows your name. He knows where you go to school. He probably knows where you live. He just told you he’s after me, but what he didn’t say is that he probably knows Jonah and your mother and all your friends.”

“He said I should ask you what all this was about. Why did he say that?”

“There are a million possibilities.” Dad’s brow furrowed as he considered. “With the rats, it could be some animal rights activist who doesn’t like the lab-testing one of my clients does. It might be some religious fanatic who doesn’t like stem cell research. I do government work. It could be antinuclear….” He stood up and went to the door. “George! I want a security detail here at the house, ASAP. Alix and Jonah will need someone to take them to and from school.”

George didn’t even blink at the weird request.

“Williams and Crowe?”

“Yes. Definitely. Get them. I don’t want to have to waste time bringing people up to speed.”

George pulled out his cell and started dialing. His Santa Claus features no longer appeared calm or jolly. He looked as dead serious as her father.

“Who’s he calling?” Alix asked, feeling unmoored as the two men went to work on the problem.

“A security firm I’ve worked with in the past,” Dad said. “They’re the best.”

“Dad!” Alix said. “I don’t need security. Nobody’s trying to hurt me.”

“You don’t know that.” Dad started ticking off points on his fingers. “This is someone who has already assaulted the headmaster. Someone who has managed to bypass all the security at your school. Someone who has the technical skill and willingness to use explosives. Someone who is obviously methodical, and who is clearly targeting us. Just because you don’t feel like you’re at risk doesn’t mean you’re safe. I don’t want to give him an opportunity to take you.”

“You think I’m going to be kidnapped ?”

“If I knew, Alix, I wouldn’t be worried. But that’s the point, isn’t it? If someone takes you, what can I do? The world isn’t a safe place. Everyone’s a crazy, these days. Radicals come in a dozen different stripes, and they all think the ends justify the means. Maybe I can get you back, maybe I can pay enough to make someone set you free, maybe I can beg for them to let you go alive, but if someone takes you, it will mean that that’s all I’m doing: begging. I won’t let you get hurt—” He stopped short. “Where’s Jonah?”

“I—” Alix’s heart gave a flip of worry as she realized that she didn’t know. “He ditched me at school,” she said. “I was trying to keep track of him, but you know how he is….” She stopped talking. Dad was staring at her. Alix felt suddenly, coldly, afraid.

“Did he leave on his own?” Dad asked. “Or did someone take him?”

“I don’t know—”