Paolo Bacigalupi - The Doubt Factory

He looked at each of them. “I’m not much for democracy, but this one time, we need to vote. I need to hear that you’re all in. I already got one vote, but I need to hear it from you three. I’m ready to go on. But if you don’t want to carry this weight, I get it. You can back out now, and I’d understand. So… are you in?”

Moses found himself holding his breath, wondering if he was making a mistake of leadership doing this. He knew he could talk them into it. He could poke and prod and cajole. He was good at that. He could con a body just as well as Simon Banks. He knew which words would produce which results, and it was tempting to use them. He shook off the urge.

There’s no other way. There’s no way to do this . And then, on the heels of that thought, came another. It’s too much. This is too much to ask of anyone. I shouldn’t be pulling them into this at all .

Kook blew out her breath. “Yeah. I’m in. I was in before. I’m in now. All the way down the rabbit hole, if that’s what it takes.”

Adam gave Moses a lazy mock-salute. “You don’t have to ask me. The ride’s been good so far. I’m definitely around for the finale.”

Tank nodded, his welding helmet wiggling. “In. Most definitely in.”

Moses looked around at the group, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

“Like you say,” Tank said. “We’re family. Nothing’s going to change that.”

Moses blinked and looked away, afraid they’d see tears in his eyes.

Sometimes he felt so alone that it felt like his body was being ripped apart by the loneliness, and then, at times like this, he felt so complete that he wondered how he’d even been able to walk down the street without them, let alone breathe.

He pulled them close. “That’s it, then,” he said. “We’re going for it.”

LIFE SETTLED INTO A ROUTINE.Alix and Cynthia defaulted to going home every day and hanging out in her room or playing Xbox with Jonah in a weirdly domestic habit that got Death Barbie off their backs.

Alix got the feeling that Cynthia was taking pity on her and wanted to be elsewhere, but, still, she loyally went home with her even though it would have been more fun to spend time driving out to the ocean, or going shopping with Sophie, or teasing Derek—or doing almost anything other than staying at Alix’s house.

“You think you’re ever going to get your life back?” Cynthia asked as she fiddled with the Xbox and swapped out Jonah’s SwordSlayer IX game.

“Ask 2.0,” Alix said. “Why?”

Cynthia looked uncomfortable. “There’s that rave….”

Alix got it immediately. “And nobody’s going to be excited to see my security detail show up.”

“It’s not me,” Cynthia said. “But everyone else is sure that Death Barbie is going to rat them out to their parents. Either that or call the cops.”

“Thanks for the trust.”

“I’m just saying.”

Alix felt the gulf between her and Cynthia widening. “I get it if you want to go without me.”

“You idiot,” Cynthia said as she booted up Left 4 Dead. “I’m not trying to ditch you. I’m trying to figure out a way to bust you out.”

Alix laughed. “My dad would kill me.”

“Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission,” Cynthia quoted.

“Is that one of those sayings from your father?”

“I think it was some admiral.”

Alix sat with the idea. Her parents would lose their shit if she actually did this, but she’d been cooped up for the last week with Lisa. Even if she had started feeling bad about calling the woman Death Barbie, she was dying for some time alone.

“What am I supposed to do about 2.0? He’s out there somewhere.”

“Have you seen anything from him?” Cynthia asked. “Has he done anything else? Has he even shown his face since the school thing?”

“You mean other than when he was stalking and staring into my kitchen?”

Cynthia snickered. “Yeah. Other than that.”

“When did you get so blasé about all this?” Alix asked. “2.0 basically said he was coming after my family.”

Cynthia shot her a serious look. “Yeah. I’ve been reading about that.”

“About what?”

“Assassinations.”

“What?????”

“No! Sorry!” Cynthia waved her hands frantically. “Not like that! Not like someone’s going to snipe you. Just about people who get targeted. What I read is that the most dangerous thing a target can do is have a routine. The routine is what makes it easy for the bad guys to get at you. If you don’t have a routine, then they don’t have a chance to set up on you.” She glanced around the house. “It could be that the most dangerous thing you’re doing is coming home every day and playing Xbox.”

“I don’t know.”

Cynthia looked bummed. She pulled out the flyer. “Check it out.”

“Where is this?”

“Some warehouse in Hartford.”

“Long drive.”

“It’s an out-of-the-way, out-of-the-pattern long drive. It’s as safe as houses.”

“I thought you said my house wasn’t safe,” Alix cracked.

“You know you want to go.”

Alix considered the unpalatable idea of another weekend alone in the house with bodyguards watching her swim in the pool.

“Yes,” she said decisively.

Cynthia perked up, looking more like a happy puppy than a girl. “Yes?”

“Yeah.” She laughed. “I definitely need it.”

“Hell, girl. You deserve it!”

Alix felt a frisson of excitement. Hell yes. I deserve it .

And what were the risks, really? Cynthia’s theory of safety pretty much matched what Lisa had been telling Alix about how Williams & Crowe thought about security. A target needed to have a pattern in order to be vulnerable. It was why Death Barbie and Hulk took a different route to school every day. They changed up their travel a lot, to make it harder for Alix to be picked out.

So it made sense that if someone was looking to mess with her, the one thing they definitely wouldn’t be prepared for was the same thing that Lisa and the rest of the Williams & Crowe people wouldn’t be prepared for—Alix’s ditching them all unexpectedly.

“I can’t make my parents worry, though.”

“We’ll leave a note.” Cynthia’s eyes glinted with mischief. “And we’ll have you back before dawn. Well,” she amended, “at least by late morning.”

Alix laughed. “So how are we going to do this?”

“Are you kidding, girl? I’ve been thinking about this for days.” Cynthia tapped her head. “Been using my big brain to work it all out.”

“So Derek’s right. You never do study.”

“I never study boring things, that’s all. Ditching Death Barbie is actually kind of awesome.”

Alix’s heart was pounding as they went into the mall. Cynthia had chosen it because of the layout of the back doors. The trick was all about pulling a switch. Denise and Sophie were happy to help.

“We just need a little misdirection,” Cynthia had explained. “Lisa’s job is to keep an eye on you, but she isn’t actually watching you. She’s watching to make sure nobody grabs you. So we’re going to take advantage of that….”

Denise and Sophie would be the decoys. It would take a quick switch of people in the changing rooms at Aritzia. Denise would go in earlier and wait for Alix to go in. Lisa would want to watch the dressing room door where Alix went in, but she wouldn’t know that Denise was already in there.

Everything was going as planned as she shopped around, and Alix made her way to the dressing rooms. She slipped into the stall and met Denise. Silently, they swapped outfits. After a minute, Alix leaned out of her changing stall. “Lisa?”