The Doubt Factory
Page 35
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 permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: October 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-22074-3
E3