As her research deepened, Alix started finding more and more connections. But often she wasn’t sure if it was from her own work or things 2.0 had told her.
Deep in the middle of the night, Alix found herself working through the thick sheaves of notes that she had compiled, hunting for a connection that was just at the edge of her conscious brain. Something about one of the doubt companies, as she was coming to think of these PR specialists. Something important… Exponent, maybe? Or was it The Weinberg Group again? Some connection to her father? Or maybe George?
Alix couldn’t help thinking of Moses and 2.0 as she laid out another row of stickies on the floor.
“I should have taken some photos of those banners,” she muttered. “I’m reinventing the whole frigging wheel, just to catch up to everything they already knew.” She frowned at her arrays of information. If only she had access to what 2.0 had already researched…
Maybe the TV crews had the footage. Could she get that?
She sat back, surveying the arrayed notes. Something important was here, she just couldn’t quite pick it out…
“Um, Alix?”
Jonah was standing in the doorway in his sweats, squinting in the light, with tousled hair. “Do you know it’s, like, 3 AM?” he asked blearily.
“Why, am I making too much noise?” she asked.
Jonah shook his head, started to leave, then came into the room instead. He was still blinking in the light but seemed to be waking up. He sat down on the floor with her and surveyed her work. “Are you doing okay?”
“Sure,” Alix said shortly. She wished he’d leave so that she could get back to the puzzle, but Jonah wasn’t leaving. He picked up a sticky note on beryllium. “So… what are you up to?”
“Oh, nothing… just… you know… research.”
But now, as she looked at her work spread out across the floor, her laptop open, printed website articles and news clippings with sticky notes attached to them, long lists of chemicals, companies, and product-defense firms (all in different color pens so she could keep track of where the pieces fit—pink, blue, green, red)… Alix swallowed, suddenly seeing her work through Jonah’s eyes
Wow. You really are nuts, she realized. You have completely lost it.
Jonah was watching her warily. “You’re kind of acting strange, Alix.”
“I’m fine,” Alix said shortly, but as she said it, even she wasn’t completely convinced. “I mean,” she amended, “I’m crazy, but I’m starting to figure some things out.”
“This is about 2.0, isn’t it? They got in your head somehow.”
Alix frowned, looking around at the sweep of papers and sticky notes and printed-out documents, along with some plates that she’d brought up from the kitchen and a surprising number of venti-sized coffee cups that had been accumulating in the room.
“Does Dad know?” she asked.
“Well, you’re not exactly acting normal. We’re all kind of talking about it. Mom and Dad keep asking about you.” He lowered his voice to a serious, parental-caring tone. “ ‘How is Alix doing?’ ” He shrugged. “That kind of thing.”
“Shit. I have to hide this stuff.” She’d been so involved in the search that she hadn’t realized what it would look like if Dad saw it. “Help me clean up.”
“Um. Okay. Now?”
“Yes, now! I shouldn’t have all this out.”
“Okay…” He started stacking the papers.
“No!” Alix stopped him. “Those are product-defense companies. They’re coded red. These ones”—she took the papers out Jonah’s hands—“are client companies. They’re green. Put all the green inks together.”
Jonah looked at her quizzically. “You’re really getting into this.” He picked up another note and started reading a list of acronyms that Alix had collected. “OMB. FDA. EPA. OSHA. NIOSH. CIAR. OMFG. STFU.”
“Cut it out. Those are serious.” She took the list back.
Jonah let her take it, frowning thoughtfully. “You know how you’re always telling me there’s a fine line between clever and stupid?”
Alix eyed him warily. “Yeah. Why? Are you going to tell me that I’ve crossed that line?”
“Actually, I was just thinking there might be another line: the fine line between brilliant and crazy.”
“I know I’m crazy,” she said as she continued sweeping her papers and notes into piles. “You don’t need to rub it in.”
“I was actually leaning toward brilliant.”
Alix glanced up at her brother, surprised.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Jonah rushed on, “you’re acting weird as hell, but this is actually kind of brilliant.”
Alix flushed and looked down. “I’m not, really.” For some reason, she felt embarrassed at the compliment. She stared at the papers spread around her. “I mean, it’s just research. You start doing it, and you get all this information. Mostly, it’s just about focusing and doing the work. Anyone could do it.”
“Yeah, but most people don’t. Most people don’t worry about what…” he picked up the sticky note of acronyms again “… CIAR is.”
“Center for Indoor Air Research,” Alix said promptly. “That was a front group for Big Tobacco. There are a ton of front groups.” She cast about, irritated that all her files weren’t spread out for easy searching. “I’ve got a list just of front organizations somewhere…” she started hunting again.
“Front organizations?”
“Sure. It works better if someone like CIAR funds research that says secondhand smoke is safe. And then it looks even better if they can get some legitimate news organization or scientific journal to report their results. It makes it look like there’s more perspectives on the debate, and it keeps your brand out of the fight. So you make up some kind of neutral-sounding nonprofit like CIAR or The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, and you have them do the dirty work…”
She trailed off as she realized Jonah was still looking at her.
“What now?”
“Just remember the line, Alix. Brilliant or crazy. It’s a superfine line.”
But he was smiling as he said it.
Alix grinned back. “Okay, yeah.”
They started gathering up the rest of her papers and putting them in stacks, with Jonah being surprisingly good about taking her directions as they put everything together. Alix yawned. 3:30 AM. She really was tired.
Jonah paused on the way out the door.
“Are you okay? I mean otherwise?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” She made herself nod definitively. “I’m good.” She hesitated. “Don’t tell Dad, though, okay?”
“Are you kidding? He’d lose it. Just don’t go running off to join the resistance without telling me, okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not that brilliant.”
“Well, at least stick around until tomorrow night.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
Jonah gave her an annoyed look. “The party? The stupid company party Dad’s making us go to? The Kimball-Geier shindig? The one on the ginormous boat that Mom’s been talking about for the last week, about how I have to be on good behavior and not do anything inappropriate that would embarrass Dad? Any of this ringing a bell?”
Alix looked at him blankly. “I don’t remember…”
“Gah!” Jonah threw up his hands. “You really are as bad as Dad, now. You act like you’re listening, but you aren’t. Everyone hassles me about all this—Jonah do this, Jonah don’t do that—but at least I listen to people when I’m looking right at them—”
Alix stopped listening. Kimball-Geier. Why did that name ring a bell? She started digging back through her notes. Kimball-Geier…