“I am,” she swore.
“Mal, it’s time to bring her inside,” Raj said, staring at him with a challenging gaze.
Pressing his lips together in a firm line, it was obvious Mal wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, but he didn’t argue with Raj either.
“Raj is right,” Tasha said. “There are things Dara needs to know, bits of information that will give her a better idea of the big picture. You can’t have her going into this blind.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Dara said in a tight voice.
“All right. You two might have a point,” Mal said, the expression on his face suggesting he didn’t like how the words tasted.
“We can’t afford to blow this,” Raj said.
“No, we can’t. Very well. Dara, I think it’s time to give you a better idea of who the Free Thinkers are and what we know. I hope you’re truly ready for this.”
She hoped so too.
Chapter 12
“The Free Thinkers were originally a group of people who were meant to serve as watchdogs of the Creators, to ensure they didn’t overstep their bounds,” Mal said. “The retreat to the domes was an act of desperation, a last-ditch effort to try to save as many people as possible, and there were those who recognized that the arrangement represented a potential power imbalance. The Creators’ ostensible mission was to save humanity, but a few of the original Free Thinkers recognized that this gave the Creators enormous power over those they claimed they wished to protect.”
“Don’t make them sound so benevolent,” Tasha said. “The Creators played a large part in the problems that caused the Great Famine in the first place. It was their greed, their desire to control all the wealth and concentrate the power, that was instrumental in causing the food system to collapse.”
“I was getting to that,” he said, giving his sister a look.
Dara threw her hands up and shook her head. “Wait a second, how can that be? I was taught that the Great Famine was a result of unavoidable environmental disasters.”
“Environmental problems did cause the Great Famine, but they weren’t unavoidable, whatever the Creators may claim,” Raj said, his voice gentle. He glanced at Mal, who pressed his lips together more firmly and sat back, letting Raj take over. “What you need to understand, Dara, is that what happened, what caused the collapse of the food system and the environmental destruction of the planet, wasn’t a concerted effort to destroy, but a combination of unintended consequences and unfettered greed.
“For instance, Zhang Agritech Systems developed lines of what they thought would be beneficial genetically engineered seed, along with pesticides and herbicides designed to increase the effectiveness of the seed. They were aware that the success of the products would mean huge profits, but the original intent was to increase yields while simultaneously making life easier and more profitable for farmers, and to feed the burgeoning population of the Earth. However, farmers became dependent on the seed and chemicals, and their overuse led to unanticipated problems like soil depletion and herbicide-resistant weeds, which in turn prompted scientists to develop other chemicals and genetic modifications. Before anyone knew it, food science had reached the tipping point and fallen over the edge, and, despite their best efforts, there was nothing Zhang could do to reverse the damage.”
“Zhang wasn’t alone either,” Tasha chimed in. “The other Creators’ factories spewed pollution into the air, dumped it into the water supply, and toxic waste seeped into the soil.”
“Everyday people were responsible too,” Mal said. “The more technology they had, the more they demanded. There was a lack of will to scale back, to make the necessary changes to stop the environmental destruction. In some ways the Creators were only responding to the demands of the people, though the obscene profits they made provided them with plenty of motivation to do so.”
“How do you know all this?” Dara demanded. “How do you know this isn’t propaganda being fed to you by interested parties? The Creators have done a lot of bad things, but that doesn’t negate the possibility that people are seizing on whatever they can to blacken the Creators for their own gain.” Mal and Raj exchanged glances, and she knew there was something they weren’t yet telling her.
“Let’s put it this way: we can’t be sure the motives of everyone involved with the Free Thinker movement are pure. In fact, we know some of them aren’t. Some people want revenge. There’s no point in us denying it, but does that mean we should stop taking a critical look at the Creators?” Raj asked.
“No, but it doesn’t mean you should stop taking a critical look at yourselves either.”
“You’re right; it doesn’t,” Tasha said. “You asked how we know all this. There’s a historical record. We have old textbooks, have managed to salvage fragments of information available on what used to be called the Internet, old news stories and opinion pieces. There wasn’t a consensus, that much is obvious, but you can piece things together based on what you read. Mal told you there have been Free Thinkers since the domes first went into operation. The original Free Thinkers did all they could to gather and preserve the old texts. Modern Free Thinkers have many different roles, and some are scholars, devoting their lives to studying the past.”
“We have to learn from history if we want to make changes for the better,” Raj said.
“If you want to become one of us, you will have to study as well.”
“How is any of this different from what the Creators have taught me all my life?” Dara asked. “They’ve presented me with one story, and you’re saying you’ll present me with another. It doesn’t mean either of them are true.”
“The difference is that we’ll present you with more than one story,” Mal said, his eyes flashing. His voice was intense, and he leaned forward, causing Dara to sit back instinctively. “Then we’ll ask you to draw your own conclusions based on what you’ve learned. That’s how it’s different. That’s why we’re called the Free Thinkers. The Creators program. We question.”
Dara didn’t respond. She was too overwhelmed. Her head swam with everything the three had told her, and part of her simply refused to believe it, even though she heard the ring of truth in what they had said.
Raj held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, we don’t expect you to buy into this immediately. What you’ll need to do, what everyone who wants to join the Free Thinkers does, is join us for study. We’ll teach you about the tech we use, provide you with instruction on our standard practices, such as what you should do in the event you suspect your cover has been blown. It’s what I thought we should have done with you all along.” She didn’t miss the glare he sent Mal’s way.
Mal ignored him. “Should you want to leave at any point, you’re free to go. We don’t compel anyone to stay, but you need to know that we have to protect our secrets at all cost. There’s too much at stake, too many lives on the line. Should we start to think of you as a liability, we will take steps to prevent you from doing us any harm.”
He wasn’t threatening her, not exactly, yet his flat tone told Dara this was a matter of life and death seriousness. A cold finger dragged up her spine, and she couldn’t suppress a shiver. It made sense, but it also made the Free Thinkers sound more like the Creators than they might want to admit. Weren’t the Creators just as concerned about protecting themselves?
“I’ll be your mentor if you want to do this,” Raj said, calling her attention back to him. She could see from the faint line between his brows that he was worried about how she’d taken Mal’s proclamation.
“What is your ultimate goal?” she asked. She needed to know. She couldn’t take part in the Creators’ charade anymore, but she couldn’t let herself be drawn into something without knowing what she was getting herself into.
“We’re not here to wage a war,” Tasha said, and Dara felt a little reassured. “The ultimate goal is to provide people with the information they need, information the Creators have worked hard to keep from them.”
“Once we have a better handle on where Andersen intends to take this project, we can start to leak information about it,” Raj said.
“The Free Thinkers are about choice,” Mal said. “We want to give people a chance to make their own decisions about the Creators, and when they have the information they need, they must choose how to respond to it.”
It sounded reasonable enough, but Dara was still uneasy. What they were proposing could change her world profoundly, and who was to say that what would follow would be any better? Then again, what Andersen wanted to do would change the world profoundly, and she doubted it would be to the betterment of people like her, people like her mother. She couldn’t support the evil she knew, but she wasn’t about to plunge blindly into what could be a different flavor of evil. The only way to know, though, was to join and see for herself what the Free Thinkers were like.
“All right,” she said, the words coming out slowly and with some reluctance.
Chapter 13
Much as Dara would have liked to dive into her studies immediately, she couldn’t stay any longer. The discussion about Andersen’s plans had eaten up a lot of their time, as had her journey from the dome to the bunker. Staying much longer might lead to her absence being noted in the dome, and she couldn’t afford that. She’d have to get on the transport when her chauffeur arrived.
“I’ll walk you out,” Raj said.
Neither Mal nor Tasha protested, and Dara could sense an unspoken exchange between the three of them. It didn’t surprise her, given the perilousness of what they did, but she wasn’t comfortable with it either. Raj seemed like her friend and had done a lot for her family, but hadn’t her apprenticeship taught her that the appearance of camaraderie could be deceiving?
“Thanks.”
He waited until they were well away from the room, a steel door separating them from Mal and Tasha, before he spoke. “It’s a lot to take in, and I don’t blame you for being suspicious. To tell you the truth, I’d have been worried if you hadn’t felt at least a little suspicious.”
Choosing her words with care, she said, “I’ll never be able to repay you for what you did for my family. You devoted a lot of your time to us without expecting anything in return, which would have been a big deal in and of itself. But when you factor in the personal risk you took, there’s no real way of quantifying what you did. I’m more grateful to you than I could ever express, and so is my father. I want to think you’re my friend, Raj, but you wouldn’t be the only one to have done something important for me because it got you what you wanted. It’s what Magnum has done all my life. I want to believe in your cause, want to believe that what you’re doing will result in a better world, but I have no real way of knowing that you won’t use me and discard me when I’m no longer useful to you, like Magnum did with my mom.”
“I know.”
It surprised her that he didn’t argue, but it didn’t make her any less wary. She thought of how implicitly she’d once trusted people and how much pain it had caused her. Yet it didn’t feel any better to refuse to trust anyone. Mal rubbed her the wrong way, but she didn’t doubt the strength of his conviction, and she couldn’t fault him for that. Tasha seemed like a nice enough girl, but Dara knew so little about her. But Raj, Raj was the one person she felt she knew better than most anyone else. She had seen what he had done for her mother, what he was still doing, and there was no payoff in it for him. A cynic might believe he was doing it to earn her trust, but she knew he would continue to watch out for her mother even if she refused to help the Free Thinkers. It made her want to trust him.
“I don’t know who to trust anymore, other than my dad,” she said.
“Honestly, none of us do.” He gave her a crooked smile and a half-shrug, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“What about your parents? Do you trust them?”
Pain flashed in his eyes and he turned away, inspecting the featureless concrete wall. “I don’t know either way. They don’t know what happened to me.”
“They don’t?” Her eyes widened in shock and she stopped walking, staring at him.
“I couldn’t risk it. When I found out—when I realized some truths about the Creators, I didn’t know if I could go to my parents. I didn’t know who they would believe and, anyway, I didn’t want to implicate them in anything. I just… I left. They don’t know where I am.”
His shoulders tightened as he withdrew into himself, and she ached for him. As much as she hated having her father involved in something that could have such dire consequences for him, what Raj had suffered was far worse.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He glanced over his shoulder and gave her another crooked smile, the pain in his eyes plain. “Maybe someday things will be different. I hope they will be.”
“I hope you’ll be able to see them again sometime, if that’s what you want.” Putting a hand on his shoulder, she felt the tension in his body, the way his muscles were bunched until they were as tight and hard as the concrete box in which they stood.
“It is.” His voice was so faint it was difficult to hear, and neither of them spoke for a long moment. “Come on. We need to get you to the door,” he said at last.
Dara chewed her lip as they continued, and she couldn’t resist asking him the question that was nagging at her. “What did you mean by when you realized some truths about the Creators? What truths?”
He took a shuddering breath, and her stomach felt leaden with dread. What could be worse than what she’d already heard?
“We don’t have time to get into it, and, no offense, it’s not something I’m about to share yet. Someday I might tell you, but they’re truths I can’t trust to just anyone. I hope you understand.”
“Okay,” she said, not sure if she did understand. Rubbing her weary eyes, she thought about the web of secrets and lies in which she was now entangled, and it made her feel tired, so tired.
Was it better before, when you lied to your mother, lied to Andersen, lied to everyone about what was going on at home? Your whole life has been a lie.
Clinging to the steel railing, she had to expend a lot of effort to trudge up the stairs. This wasn’t the life she had expected to lead, but she was mature enough to recognize that any life she had ever expected to lead had been nothing but an illusion. At least with the Free Thinkers there was a chance that she might one day be able to build something more honest.
When they reached the top, Raj faced her, his eyes searching hers. “This never gets easier, you know.”
“Recruiting?”
With a bitter smile, he shook his head. “I know how it seems. What I meant was that it never gets easier having to watch as other people have the veil pulled from their eyes. Mal thinks it’s a good thing, but he’s the kind of person who’d have made a horrible doctor. He’d have ripped the bandages right off, told people to suck it up and deal with the pain.”
The unexpected bit of humor made her smile. “Yeah, I can see how this would be hard.”
“I guess my point is, I hope you’ll realize this is hard for all of us. It’s hard for you, it’s hard for me, it’s even hard for Mal, though he doesn’t like anyone to suspect that it is.”
“It’s a fair point.”
Placing gentle hands on her shoulders, he met her gaze. “I hope, I really do, that this will be good for you, Dara. It won’t be easy, but what you’re going through with Andersen isn’t easy either. Ask yourself, what would become of you if you didn’t know what you know about him? What kind of person would you become then?”
The thought made her stomach twist, but she didn’t answer him.
“Sorry.” He sighed and released his grip on her. His arms fell to his sides, and for a moment he looked like a lost, helpless boy. “I don’t want to push you. I want to be a good mentor, and I want to help you as much as I can. You can always tell it to me straight. With me, you don’t have to pretend about anything. If you’re mad, tell me you’re mad.
If you have second thoughts, tell me about those too. Trust me when I say it’ll be better for everyone if you do.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, catching the expression on her face. “I don’t expect you to tell me all your thoughts, though you could if you wanted to. That’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself.”
“Thanks.” It meant more than she had anticipated, to know she had choices, however small they might be.
“See you next week?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll let your mom know you liked the cookies.”
“Thanks, Raj. I…I appreciate it.”
“It’s the least I can do.” His eyes were haunted, making her wonder what secrets he kept.
Chapter 14
Joshua’s relief was palpable when his daughter returned, drenched in sweat. She had pushed herself all the way home, running much faster than her normal pace. It helped to work off some of her nervous energy, though she wasn’t sure exercise was the only reason she had chosen the grueling pace. She felt like she was running from something, running as fast as she could.
“Shower,” she gasped, doubling over, hands on knees, as she sucked in air.
“Of course,” her father said, though she could tell by his tone he was dying to know what had happened with the Free Thinkers.
The shower revived her, and when she went into the living room her father sat waiting, a pitcher of water ready for her.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said, flashing a grateful smile at him. She sank down on the couch, pouring herself a glass and draining its contents before she said anything. Exercise and the warm shower water had helped calm her nerves, though her head was still painfully full of everything she’d learned that day. It was going to take a long time to process everything.
[Contributor 02] - Infiltrator (2013) Page 6