Paolo Bacigalupi - The Doubt Factory

“Do you want another?” he asked.

Alix didn’t, but she said she did just to make him feel like he wasn’t the only one. Mom told him to control his caffeine because he was intense enough and it would ruin his sleep, but he couldn’t help the urge for just one more cup.

Alix watched him go to the counter, and he seemed like someone carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Once again, she thought she should tell him about 2.0 and her conversation with him. But then, she rationalized, they were already fixing the house security. And he hadn’t done anything to her, after all.

Why are you protecting him?

2.0 had said their truce was over. That she was collateral damage. So why couldn’t she just rat him out and be done with it?

Dad came back with the new skinny latte and more espresso for himself. “I got decaf,” he said gloomily.

Alix couldn’t help smiling. “Mom will be glad.”

“I’m sorry about all this, Alix.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Alix sipped her new latte, setting it next to her other, still nearly full one. “So why did 2.0 want me to ask you about all of this? Why did he think you’d know?”

Dad sighed. “We’ve got people going over all our files and client lists, trying to identify a reason. It might be something as simple as the fact that we have a client 2.0 hates. Or it could be that we show up on a donor list, or we were photographed at a fund-raiser. We don’t know if they want to kidnap, or ransom, or terrorize.”

“You said they were vandals before.”

“Did I?” He nodded vaguely. “Oh. In the beginning.” He rubbed his eyes and sipped his espresso. “Of course. No, this is different. These people have a history of attacking laboratories. Research facilities. We originally thought they might be associated with PETA.”

“Because of the rats.”

Her father smiled sardonically. “Yes. They stole a large number of rats from a company that uses rats as subjects for chemical-safety testing.”

Alix made a face.

“Yeah,” Dad said. “I know. It’s not a pretty thing sometimes to see how much our prosperity depends on things like making sure products are safe. I’d rather test on rats than people, though. Science might not be pretty, but it keeps us safe.” He shrugged. “Other people see it differently.”

“So…” Alix puzzled. “They’re like animal rights activists?”

“When they were just attacking testing labs, the FBI thought so.”

“But you don’t now?”

Her father looked troubled. “We have no idea. None of it makes any sense.” He leaned forward. “I know this is difficult for you, but please be patient. We’re hoping they’ll make a mistake or the case will break open somehow, and we’ll figure out what they’re about or who they are… and then we’ll all be able to go back to our regular lives, and we can just forget all this.”

Alix’s heart broke. Dad looked so sad and lost and troubled that she realized she couldn’t keep anything from him.

You have to tell him .

“Dad…” Alix lost her nerve and trailed off.

Dad looked up at her. She hesitated. Now or never. Pull yourself together, Alix . “I saw him again.”

Dad’s expression went from puzzlement to slow comprehension. “2.0?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Alix blew out her breath, feeling relieved to finally be coming clean.

“At school?”

She shook her head. “At home. A couple nights ago. When I said I saw a shadow, maybe, in the backyard. I… It was more than that. I was downstairs… getting a drink of water. I saw him through the glass. He was looking in….” She was about to continue, to tell him the rest, but Dad’s expression was changing even as she talked, turning from caring attentiveness to shock and disappointment and severity. Now that the words were coming out of her mouth, they sounded horrible to her, too. She broke off, unable to keep going in the face of Dad’s anger.

Dad’s voice was tightly controlled. “Why didn’t you say something when it happened?”

“I didn’t… I don’t know.”

She felt herself wanting to cry and forced down the reaction. It was the little-kid-nailed-by-her-parents response. She never went against Mom and Dad. She’d almost never lied to them about anything. They’d always had a policy of letting her tell them everything so that she wouldn’t feel the need to lie.

Once, when she’d been a sophomore, she and Denise and Sarah Landow and a bunch of guys had gotten wasted over at Sarah’s house while Mr. and Mrs. Landow were in New York for the ballet. They were completely hammered, but Denise was desperate to get home, so Sarah was going to drive her. And even though it was 1:00 AM, Alix called her dad to be picked up. She just told him that Denise needed to get home and that they were all too drunk to drive. It was the first time she’d ever been so drunk, and Dad drove over, picked up Alix and Denise, dropped Denise off, and took Alix home, and all he did was tell her she needed to drink Gatorade.

In the morning, when she was sick and hung over, he just sat by her bed, amused, and suggested that maybe there was a lesson in this somewhere. He never did anything about it other than to talk with her about alcohol poisoning and addiction patterns. He thanked her for calling him, and for not getting in a car with a bunch of drunks, and that was it.

A couple of months later, when she asked him why he hadn’t busted her harder, he just looked at her, puzzled. “How can we learn if we don’t make mistakes?” And then he said, “I just want to make sure you don’t make any mistakes that are permanent. Keep me in the loop, okay?”

Coolest dad ever .

Jonah pointed out that Dad was never like that with him. But Jonah didn’t seem put out about it. After all, Jonah knew he wasn’t trustworthy.

But Alix was. And yet she’d let a stalker inside her house, and as soon as she said even the first part of the truth, she realized how serious it actually was. 2.0 had been looking in their windows, she’d talked to him, and it hadn’t shown up on a single security tape.

Now, seeing her father’s disappointed expression, she realized that she couldn’t bear to tell him the rest. That she’d actually been stupid enough to open the door. To talk to her stalker. She couldn’t bear to see her father looking any more disappointed in her than he already did.

“I’m sorry,” Alix whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

The look on Dad’s face was so shocked and horrified that it made her feel sick. She braced herself for the angry dressing down she knew she deserved.

Instead, Dad reached out to her and pulled her into a hug. “Hey. It’s okay. Just tell me what happened. Don’t worry, honey….”

He kept comforting her, and Alix started to cry, ashamed that he was still so forgiving, even when she didn’t deserve to be forgiven.

“YOU IDIOT!” KOOK SHOUTED ATMoses. “You were at her house ?”

“I was scouting,” Moses replied as he dug in the fridge. “Nobody even caught a whiff of me.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “I can’t hack every damn camera all the time. There’s bound to be new spycams…. Gahh!” She grabbed her blue hair and stalked back and forth in the kitchen. Adam wandered in, huge headphones on his ears, head moving to the beat of his own internal sense of groove. He opened the fridge, oblivious to Kook’s shouting at Moses a few feet away.

She grabbed his shoulder and yanked his headphones off.

“Ow!” He jerked away. “What the hell, Kook?”

Kook pointed at Moses. “You know he was over at her house?”

Adam glanced at Moses. “Seriously?”