Paolo Bacigalupi - The Doubt Factory

Now, though, the glass reflected their own tense forms, and it was impossible to know who was standing outside. The glass wall that had once made Alix feel so happy suddenly made her feel vulnerable. What was there to stop someone from just taking a hammer and smashing it?

“So how long do we have the goons?” Jonah asked, scooping ice cream.

Dad gave him a sharp look. “They’re not goons, and you’ll speak about them with respect. They aren’t here because they want to be; they’re here because I’ve asked them. They’re here to protect you and Alix, and they’ll be here until we understand who this group is and why they’re targeting Alix.”

“She should be flattered,” Jonah said. “She scares off all the guys at school.”

Alix smacked him on the arm. “I do not.”

“Chad Dennison’s scared witless of you. None of the guys will even go near you now.”

Mom frowned at Alix. “What did you do to Chad?”

“Nothing he didn’t deserve.”

“Alix, I play tennis with his mother.”

Jonah snorted. “Don’t worry. He won’t ever mention it to her.”

What a brat . Alix couldn’t believe she’d actually been worried about him a few hours ago.

“How do you know all these people?” Alix asked her father, waving toward where Terek was posted outside the front door.

“Williams and Crowe? Some of my clients use them.”

“Use them…”

“One of their specialties is executive protection.”

“And executive protection is…”

“Bodyguarding,” Jonah said. “They’re mercenaries, Alix. Duh.”

“Mercenaries?” Alix asked, shocked. “You know mercenaries?”

Dad snorted laughter. “Jonah’s being melodramatic. Some of my clients have investments in places where there is very little or no law enforcement. They need to protect oil platforms from pirates off the coast of Africa, or else they need to keep their CEOs from being kidnapped in Kazakhstan, or they’ve got factories that need security in places like Mexico. And, yes, I suppose that all sounds exciting, but to be honest, it doesn’t have much to do with me at all. Mostly, I’m just lucky that all those companies need PR expertise as much as they need companies like Williams and Crowe. It means that when my family is threatened, I have experienced people who I can call.”

“Dial-a-Merc,” Jonah enthused. “Cool.”

Dad shared a look of affectionate exasperation with Alix. “In any case, we’re lucky that we know them, because I don’t know what we’d do if we had to rely just on local law enforcement.”

Alix couldn’t help but think of the slow response of the rent-a-cops on Seitz’s campus. “So how long will they be with us?” she asked.

“I doubt it will be too long,” Dad said. “We’re following up leads from the school. Now that we know there’s a connection between that event and you and a couple of other vandalism attempts, the police are more likely to make progress. With the FBI helping, I’m sure a pattern will turn up.”

“So they’ve done other things that you know about?”

Dad and Mom exchanged glances, looking pained. “We didn’t want to worry you,” she said. “The boy who was stalking you has done things to some of your father’s clients as well.”

“I didn’t think it had anything to do with us,” Dad said, looking embarrassed. “I was wrong.”

“So what does it have to do with us?”

Dad shook his head, looking both baffled and angry. “I wish I knew. They stole the rats from a lab that specializes in human-safety testing. The most likely explanation is that they’re animal rights activists of some kind.”

“Fur kills,” Jonah intoned seriously as he reached for the container of Coconut Almond Fudge Chip. “Also, PETA girls are hot.”

“Jonah,” Mom said warningly.

“What? I’m just saying that adult-content filters don’t work if you search on PETA.”

“Don’t antagonize your mother,” Dad said, but Alix could see a slight smile on his face. It made the night suddenly feel normal again: Jonah being a pain, and Mom and Dad trying to get him to settle down. Alix was surprised how much of a relief it was. If she didn’t look at her reflection in the kitchen window, and think about the dark outside that she couldn’t see, she could almost pretend the last couple of days hadn’t happened.

Jonah finished scraping out the ice-cream container. “So are these bodyguards going to, like, come to school with us and stuff?” he asked.

Alix smirked, suddenly seeing the upside. “You’ll never be able to cut school now.”

Jonah glared. “Shut up, Alix. I’ll bet you can’t drive, either.”

“Dad?” Alix looked over at him, suddenly feeling her freedom and privacy being stripped away. “I can’t drive? Seriously?”

“It’s just for a little while. You’ll be taken to school and picked up, and we’ll have a specialist in the school as well.”

“You mean they’re going to be with us every minute of the day?”

“This isn’t a game, Alix.”

“How do we know that?” Alix protested. “Maybe it’s nothing. Jonah came home just fine. If they’d wanted him, they could have grabbed him for sure. Maybe this is all nothing!”

But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. Whoever 2.0 was, and whatever he wanted, he was serious. And he was still out there. As Cynthia had pointed out, he’d gone to a whole lot of trouble if it was for no reason at all.

So what was the reason?

Ask your father , 2.0 had said, but Dad seemed almost as confused as everyone else. Dad was supposed to know, and he didn’t.

Alix stared at her reflection in the glass, hating that somewhere out there 2.0 was plotting and that she couldn’t see what was coming.

“SHOULDN’T YOU BE ASLEEP?” TANKasked.

Moses looked up from the video feed at the skinny brown boy standing next to him. Black ringlets framed the kid’s face, and a welding mask was perched atop his head. In one hand he was holding an acetylene torch, and in the other he had a tangle of soldering wire. The boy was so slight that the nickname he’d given himself always felt like a sick joke to Moses, but if the kid wanted to be a Tank, then Moses would make him a Tank.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Moses said. “I had you working all night.”

“Still too much adrenaline,” Tank said. He pulled out his ever-present inhaler, took a puff, held his breath, and then let it out slowly.

“You doing okay?” Moses asked.

“Better than some days, anyway.”

“You should rest.”

Tank nodded in agreement but still didn’t move. He eyed the high-def video streaming in.

“Is that her?”

Moses glanced over at the video streams. Tiled views of a hypermodern house. Curved rooflines and iron struts and high balconies.

Alix Banks and her friends were lying out beside a pool in the backyard.

“I wanted to see how she reacted,” Moses said.

“And?”

“They bitched a lot about their cars being searched.”

Tank shook his head mournfully. “Nothing shakes these people, does it?”

Moses grinned. “We’re just getting started.”

“The prank went good, though, right? It did what you wanted?”

“Yeah, it was tight. You did good.” Moses patted Tank’s shoulder. “You wired that up. You’re like Michelangelo, except with squirt guns and electric pumps.”

A smile ghosted across Tank’s features at the compliment. “So now what?”

“I don’t already got you doing enough?” Moses laughed.

“Metalwork.” Tank shrugged. “It’s not complicated.”

Moses leaned back and stretched. “Well, right now I’m going to watch and see how they all adjust. See how our old friend Simon Banks reacts. Maybe poke at our girl Alix a little more and see if she does something interesting. I kind of want to see how that father-daughter relationship holds up now that our girl’s got some questions in her head. Once we see how everyone reacts, then we’ll pick our next play.”