It was then that Alix realized each sink had its own toothbrush on the sill. Six basins in a row, five toothbrushes beside the basins. Even Sophie didn’t have that many sinks in her bathroom.
Alix smirked. They were just people. Just kids. Just crazy kids. They weren’t superhuman. The mundane thought of the whole 2.0 crew brushing their teeth at their individual sinks gave her a kind of strength.
She stared again at her own washed-out face in the mirror.
They want something from you. They wouldn’t be talking to you if they didn’t want something from you. That means you’re in control.
She wanted to laugh at the idea that she had any control at all, but, still, it was something to hold onto. They might have her trapped, but she had something they needed.
So all she needed was to fool them. To make them believe that she was a reasonable person. They wanted someone to listen to their story.
So let them talk.
She’d listen. She’d let them talk. She’d let them use as much time as they wanted, talking.
And then…?
Alix stared at herself in the mirror. She hardened her expression. Then made herself smile.
You’re a fighter, she told herself. So fight.
21
WHEN ALIX CAME OUT OF the bathroom, she found Cynthia waiting for her.
“You okay?” Cynthia asked, looking concerned.
It’s all an act, Alix reminded herself. She doesn’t care about you at all. She’s just someone who wants to use you.
Alix made herself smile wanly. “It’s a lot to take in.”
The 2.0 crew all out of the kitchen. Kook was riding a skateboard, showing Tank how he could really kill himself. Adam was sitting on the floor with one of their rats, dropping a nugget trail of what looked like deeply veined blue cheese in front of it, encouraging it to follow where he led. Moses was standing a little ways off, keeping one eye on his crew, and one on Cynthia and Alix’s approach.
Kook shot up the skate ramp, caught its edge one-handed and kicked her feet over her head. She held the stand, one-handed, frozen, graceful, then let herself drop and come swooping down. As she shot past, she had the most intense expression Alix had ever seen on anyone’s face. She looked like some kind of pierced demon.
Tank tried the same move and crashed.
Despite the fact that the kid had apparently welded her cage, Alix couldn’t help wincing. The crash looked brutal.
“So,” Alix said, trying to find her way into conversation with Moses. “Why don’t you just blow up my dad if you hate him so much?”
“That’s not what we’re about,” Moses said.
“You don’t want to kill my dad. You don’t want to ransom me. So what do you want?” Alix asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
Cynthia cleared her throat. “Your father trusts you.”
“And?” Alix prompted.
“We want to get access to his main office network. We can’t get into his offices in DC. But if you get us on his laptop in his home office, we think we can get inside.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. He doesn’t tell me things like that.”
“It’s not that difficult,” Moses said. “Kook’s good with computers. We just need a little of your help. Your dad trusts you. All you need to do is install a little bit of software, and we’ll do the rest.”
“I’ve seen his computer,” Alix said. “It’s password-protected. He’s not going to tell me his password. I’ve never even been on that computer.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. We just need you to be able to get physical access to his laptop while he’s logged in. Just need you to do something like spill a little coffee on him in his study, and while he’s gone, plug in a special something we’ve got rigged up. We think we can do the rest.”
“Stuxnet, baby!” Kook called from where she was making another run at the ramp. “It’s a worm. DoD-certified badass wormtastic. I modified it. You just plug it in the USB drive. As long as it gets plugged in while he’s logged it, I can do the rest.” She shot up the ramp, did another handstand, and came whooshing down again.
“What’s that going to accomplish?” Alix asked.
“We want the Doubt Factory’s client files. All of them. Your dad’s clients spend a lot of time denying that their products are dangerous. We know they’re lying, but that’s almost impossible to prove. If we can get those files, it would show exactly what they know, and exactly what they’re trying to protect themselves against.”
“And then…”
“And then we’ll put the news up all over the net. We send the juicy bits to every newspaper and website that still knows how to report a story. We think there are enough smoking guns in your dad’s files to indict a couple dozen CEOs. It would open the door to civil suits, wrongful-death suits, class actions, government investigations….”
“And destroy my family in the process,” Alix pointed out.
“Karma is a bitch,” Adam observed from his place on the floor, where he was feeding his rat.
“Screw you,” Alix shot back.
“Sorry, don’t swing that way. Moses is into you, though.”
“Shut up, Adam,” Moses and Cynthia said at the same time. They both said it so quickly and automatically that Alix had to laugh. Moses glanced over, looking embarrassed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Alix said. But it was sort of funny, how automatic they’d sounded. As if everyone was in the habit of telling Adam to shut up.
Then she realized what Adam had said, about Moses being “into” her, and she felt herself blush suddenly. Why are you blushing? She looked away, concentrating on Kook and Tank, watching them skate, and avoiding meeting Moses’s eyes.
Cynthia must have sensed Alix’s discomfort, because she said, “Come on. We can watch them skate from over here. You can sit down.”
She led Alix to an old storage rack and climbed up onto the first level of shelving. Alix followed, and soon they were both perched five feet off the ground. Alix let her legs dangle off the edge as she watched the activity below.
Kook finished her run and kicked the skateboard to Adam. He passed the rat over into Kook’s arms. A second later he was rolling away. Neither of them said anything during the exchange. It was like they knew each other so well they didn’t have to say anything at all. They all seemed so intertwined, and yet Adam and Kook were completely mismatched compatriots. The sleek boy who seemed so concerned about his every pose and the pale gutter punk girl who seemed bent mostly on putting as much hardware into her face as was humanly possible. And yet they traded skateboard and rat without friction or comment.
All of them were like that. It was as if Moses had gone around recruiting the most bizarre group of misfits he could possibly find. If Adam and Kook seemed like an odd pairing, what about Tank, the frail Latino-looking kid who reminded her of a Hobbit? And Cynthia, the perfect Seitz student? Not a single one seemed to belong with the others. Like glassware at the thrift store. A mug next to a martini glass, next to a chunky wineglass, next to a shot glass, and only hopeful arrangement making them seem as if perhaps they might belong together. And yet this strange crew of kids still somehow managed to fit.
Alix snuck a glance over at Moses. He was watching Tank, and she was surprised to see the affection on his face.
Tank crashed again. Moses flinched and leaned forward, as if he were about to rush to the boy, then caught himself and leaned back against the storage racks, pretending to be nonchalant about the whole thing.