The Doubt Factory

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The Doubt Factory Page 35

by Paolo Bacigalupi


  She hung up without waiting for an answer.

  “How long to our car switch?” Cynthia called up to Adam.

  “Van’s waiting in a parking garage at the next exit.”

  They all waited in tense silence. Kook was listening to her headphones. Abruptly she broke into a wide smile.

  “False alarm. They’re sending out a new description. The emergency vehicle is a false alarm.”

  A spontaneous cheer erupted in the back of the ambulance. Alix slumped against Moses, relieved.

  “Nice,” he murmured. “You sounded downright dangerous.”

  “That’s because I am.”

  Moses laughed and wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. Their blood stuck together.

  “Yuck,” Cynthia said. “You two really are a mess.”

  She was right. Blood soaked their clothes, smeared their skin, and matted their hair. But as Alix let her head rest on Moses’s sticky, bloody shoulder, she thought that she had never felt so clean.

  EPILOGUE

  Dear Dad,

  By the time you read this, our lives will have changed so much that we may not even be the same people anymore.

  I’m sure you think I’m crazy for doing this, and I know you feel like I’ve betrayed you, but I finally understood that even though you were always willing to talk to me, you weren’t actually willing to listen.

  I know you’ll say that there’s no law against the kind of work you do and that everyone deserves a voice, and, for sure, I can’t think of any way to stop companies like yours from existing, and I definitely can’t think of any way to make companies like yours just shut up.

  I mean, free speech is free speech, right?

  Anybody can get up and say anything. Anybody can get up and twist and lie and exaggerate and obfuscate. And for money, people like you and George will. But if that’s what you’re willing to do, then you should be famous for it. If that’s your job, you should be proud of it.

  You’re the Doubt Factory.

  You’re the place where big companies go when they need the truth confused. You’re the place companies go when they need science to say what’s profitable, instead of what’s true. You’re the place companies go when they need to convince people that up is down, and blue is red, and night is day, and wrong is right.

  And I can’t change that.

  But it’s funny how you also don’t want people to know about you or know what you do. You never want people to see you. I mean, if you’ve got free speech, it seems like you should be standing right by it, saying it loud and proud, with your name and your clients’ names attached. Not some front organization. Not some fake science journal. Not some fake research group.

  You.

  I realize that there’s nothing I can do to change who you are, and probably can’t change what you do, but I can change whether people see you.

  I’m uploading your client files today, and even though your clients are going to make the first headlines, I think you’re going to turn out to be the story.

  Congratulations. The Doubt Factory is going to be famous.

  Love,

  Alix

  PS—Tell Mom I’m sorry for making her worry, and tell Jonah that I miss him and that the Xbox is still bugged.

  Alix folded the letter and stuck it in the envelope and put a stamp on it. She’d drop it in a mailbox in some no-name town. Some nice place without any surveillance cameras on its streetlights. The letter would eventually find its way to him, long after she’d moved on.

  She tucked her black-dyed hair into a ball cap and stepped out of the motel.

  Moses was leaning against the rail, waiting. “All set?”

  “Yeah.”

  Down in the parking lot, Kook honked the van’s horn impatiently.

  “Next stop, Gulf of Mexico!” Adam called, waving up at them. “All aboard!”

  “A beach vacation.” Alix sighed theatrically. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”

  Moses laughed. “Well… just until the heat dies down.”

  Alix glanced over. “Does that mean we’re going to go after the money anonymizers? The ones I told you about?”

  “Well, like you said, there’s an awful lot of cash flowing through them. American Petroleum Institute… Donors Trust… A lot of money funding a lot of doubt… and no one knows where that money’s coming from.”

  “I don’t like anonymous money.”

  “Yeah. I think it would be worth shining some light and seeing who’s paying for doubt these days.”

  “You think Kook can get us in?”

  “She says she can.”

  “I don’t want this one to be like the last time. We get in and we get out and we have a real backup plan—”

  “It’ll be fine.” He was looking down at the parking lot, where the rest of the crew was out of the van: Tank and Cyn and Adam and Kook, all of them waving their arms impatiently. “We aren’t alone this time.”

  Kook leaned on the horn again.

  “Family’s getting restless,” Moses observed, smiling.

  “Are we going or not?” Cyn shouted.

  “Are we?” Moses asked, holding out his hand.

  “Yeah,” Alix said, sliding her hand into his. “We’re going.”

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank a number of people who inspired me, supported me, and kicked me to make this a better book.

  Holly Black, Malinda Lo, Sarah Rees Brennan, Cassandra Clare, and Cristi Jacques helped me brainstorm the heart of this book while on retreat in Mexico, and sparked the creation of many of the characters who populate this story. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun planning a novel. Other people who provided support, problem solving, and detail fixing along the way include Tobias Buckell, Rob Ziegler, Charlie Finlay, and Ken Liu. Diane Budy read early drafts and cheerfully acted as a reading lab rat. My wife, Anjula, took time out of her own busy schedule to read through a draft of the manuscript and provide responses, and she was immensely encouraging and supportive as this book crashed toward deadline. I owe her more than I can say, and I’m grateful for every day I have with her.

  I am particularly grateful to the many people at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers who believed that a book about public relations was worth supporting, and I’d especially like to thank my editor, Andrea Spooner, and assistant editor, Deirdre Jones, whose help and wisdom and candid assessments gave me better insight into this book, and whose dedication and willingness to work too many long hours helped me push this book through to completion. As in all things, details matter, so I owe a tip of the hat to my fact-checker, Christoph Berendes, for saving me from a number of embarrassing gaffes, but most especially for making sure that I didn’t confuse livers and kidneys. If there are remaining errors in this book, they are my errors solely.

  Much gratefulness also goes to my friend Michelle Nijhuis, whose article for Pacific Standard, “The Doubt Makers,” jump-started my interest in this topic many years ago, and whose guidance and research suggestions for this book were invaluable. I’d also like to thank Dr. Theo Colborn and Dr. Frederick vom Saal for a long-ago conversation in which they shared their experiences as science researchers who had to battle the product-defense professionals. On a personal note, I’d also like to thank the many scientists, journalists, and public servants who continue to drag the ever-evolving tactics of the doubt industry into the light.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my much-neglected son, Arjun. I swear, now that this book is done, we’ll have more time to read together.

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  WELCOME

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1 CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTE
R 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  PART 2 CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Paolo Bacigalupi

  Cover photographs © Robert Daly / gettyimages and © JJRD / gettyimages

  Cover design by Greg Stadnyk

  Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  lb-teens.com

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  First ebook edition: October 2014

  ISBN 978-0-316-22074-3

  E3

 

 

 


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