[Contributor 02] - Infiltrator (2013) (22 page)

“I’d better go,” Dara said, standing up and shouldering her bag. She’d been in Letizia’s apartment for almost twenty minutes, and she was beginning to get antsy.

“Just remember, if you need anything—”

“I know, Letizia. Thanks.” Squeezing her former master’s hand, she kept her eyes focused on the functional clock hanging on Letizia’s wall, so she wouldn’t have to see the worry on Letizia’s face.

“Want to go see that new film tonight?” her father asked a week later, on what should have been her last day of work for the week. Not surprisingly, her free time had diminished with each day that passed since Andersen’s supposedly bringing her more on board. Dara was beginning to suspect that what was actually going on was that she was being kept out of the way. It was true that Andersen was providing her with more details about his project, but they were minute, unimportant details about things like waterlines and motors for air circulation systems. She became convinced that the privacy she’d given up, her sense of safety and well-being, had all been sacrificed for nothing.

She was exhausted, and she knew her father could see it. Unpleasant as it was to be in their apartment, she could at least sleep at home. Magnum couldn’t pry its way into her thoughts—not yet, anyway—and sleep offered an escape from her prison, though of late she’d developed the paranoid fear that she might talk in her sleep and reveal something. Even so, the thought of going out to the theater and sitting through another dull, Magnum-approved film while trying to keep up the appearance of being normal overwhelmed her, and she wanted to say no. But there was a pleading look in her father’s eyes, and it made her say yes.

“What’s going on?” she asked him under her breath as they left.

He shot her a warning glance, and she pressed her lips together, holding her questions in. Ballasts and Cores thronged the thoroughfares, discussing the new film, and she had a vague memory of several people in engineering talking about it with great fascination. She’d felt no interest. Fiction couldn’t hold her attention, not when her reality demanded every last ounce of her concentration.

The theater was packed, every seat filled. Animated chatter filled the air, and she made an effort to add to it, feigning excitement over what they were about to see. Her father seemed composed, but his eyes kept darting around the theater, and Dara knew something was up. Frustration rose within her, and she felt a sudden urge to stand up, there in the middle of the theater, clamp her hands to her head, and scream at the top of her lungs. It terrified her how much she wanted to do it, and she suppressed the urge by clenching her fists until her nails left bloody crescents on her palms, the pain the one thing that could distract her.

The crowd settled down when the lights went out. Her father had selected last-row seats in the upper right corner of the theater, which was strange. He usually preferred to sit in the middle, which should have tipped her off, but she was still barely able to suppress a gasp of surprise when the woman next to her stood and moved to the seat on Joshua’s left. A longed-for face claimed the vacant seat next to Dara.

“Raj,” she gasped under her breath, her heart pounding as she took in his Contributor attire. He gave her a tense smile and a slight nod. “What are you—”

“Your dad set it up,” he said, his voice so low that she almost couldn’t hear it over the boom of the film soundtrack. She glanced around, frightened that someone might overhear them. “Don’t worry. We’re secure.”

She opened her mouth to ask him how he could possibly know that, but he raised his eyebrows at her and she understood. The woman to her father’s left, the people sitting in front of them, they were all there because the Free Thinkers had arranged it that way. A couple of them she recognized, and it was a shock to have them revealed as infiltrators as well, but others were strangers, likely part of a team that had snuck into the dome with Raj. Risky as it was for them to sneak in, it was easier than trying to devise a way to sneak her out, she realized.

“We think we know what’s going on, but we need proof. I know you have a lot of questions, but I’m asking you to trust me, Dara. I don’t have time to give you much information, and even if I did have the time, I wouldn’t give it to you.”

Stupid as the feeling was, his words hurt. He had to protect the other Free Thinkers just like Mal did, and Dara had already compromised one of them. Who knew what kind of damage she could do if they gave her any real, concrete information?

“What do you need?”

“First, I want you to know you have a choice. You can walk away from all of this, right now. I’m here with a team, and we can get you and your father out tonight. Everything has been arranged.”

Her heart leapt, and she wanted to jump from her chair and run out of the theater. For a minute she allowed herself the indulgence of fantasizing about leaving. She’d never again have to worry about Andersen and the Authorities listening in on her and her father. She could move into one of the Free Thinker housing facilities, help them out in some small but useful way. She’d scour toilets for the rest of her life if that was what it took to keep them safe. They could start a new life, her and her father, and maybe her mother could eventually join them. At the very least, maybe they could have regular visits with her. They could be a family again, even if it wasn’t the same as it used to be. The limitations imposed by life under the protection of the Free Thinkers meant little. This time, she and her parents could be honest with one another, open, without fear. The sense of freedom the thought inspired was so heady it made her vision go fuzzy around the edges.

Then she returned to herself and understood that what Raj was about to ask of her was huge, much bigger than anything the Free Thinkers had asked of her yet. If they had gone to such lengths to talk to her, it had to be important. Could she walk away from that? Could she live with the knowledge that when her help had been needed most, she had turned her back, thinking only of herself and her own protection?

“Take my father tonight.”

He shook his head. “We can’t risk it. Either you all go or no one does.”

“All?”

“Letizia too.”

Dara’s blood ran cold. “You can’t ask me to make a decision like this.”

“I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am.” Regret was plain on his face, and she could see the torment in his eyes. “We’ve already talked to both of them, and they’ve agreed that it’s your call.”

The responsibility settled on her like a ton of lead. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Despite that they were surrounded by Free Thinkers, his face tensed and he scanned the area. “We think Magnum is planning to build a dome exclusively for Creators. Everyone else would be left behind in the old domes.”

“What?” The word came out louder than she’d intended, and he grimaced, fear flashing in his eyes. She clamped her mouth shut and joined him in surveying the crowd, but everyone else appeared fixated on the screen.

“Shah told us.”

“Letizia said she wouldn’t talk.”

“Mal forced her.”

“How?”

“He told her he’d give her friend up if she didn’t help. He promised to extract her friend if she did.”

Dara’s stomach churned. She couldn’t process the information Raj had just given her. It was too huge. “You need me to find evidence.”

“You and Letizia.”

“And my father?”

“He’ll have to be lookout.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Joshua hissed, his intensity making Dara jump. She hadn’t known he was listening. “Don’t argue, Dara. This is my decision.”

She turned her fury on Raj, incensed that they had all discussed this plan without her knowledge, without including her, incensed that she saw no way out other than to say yes. “Did you take a page from Magnum’s book about how to trap people?”

“Never forget, I was a Contributor once too,” he said wearily.

It was unreal. It made no sense that she was sitting in a theater full of Magnum Ballasts and Cores while discussing how to break into Andersen’s apartment, but she was. For almost two years her focus had been on saving her family, on doing whatever it took to protect them, and now she was putting herself and her father right in the middle of the greatest peril imaginable.

Yet she’d wanted this. She had wanted to be a part of the Free Thinkers, had wanted to do something important. This was her chance. How could she say no?

This was about more than her ego, though. She had wanted vengeance against Magnum more than anything else. Heroics hadn’t figured much into her plans, and that hadn’t changed. She wasn’t looking for anyone to laud her, wasn’t trying to garner adulation or praise. But she couldn’t turn her back on this. The implications weren’t yet clear to her, but it was obvious enough that creating new domes solely for the use of the Creators would lead to further stratification of society. The real question was whether she could walk out and condemn countless people to that fate.

She couldn’t, the answer was that simple. Tempting as it was to walk away and pretend she’d done everything she could, there was nothing at the end of that path but the bitter taste of her own self-centeredness. She and Javier were more alike than she had imagined, and if she didn’t try to infiltrate Andersen’s apartment, there would be countless others like the two of them. The responsibility wouldn’t directly be hers, but she would have played a role, and she couldn’t bear that thought.

They had to act fast. The Free Thinkers’ scouts had already spotted transports from not just Magnum, but Zhang, Desai, and others patrolling the wasteland in grids. They had ventured out much farther than they had in decades, and they had geological survey equipment with them. They were searching for a site, one far enough away from the existing domes that the new one could go up without detection. None of the Ballasts or Cores would be aware of what was happening until the Creators moved.

Even so, there was still a tiny part of her that was desperate to believe, and she asked Raj if there were any plans to improve the existing domes.

“Not that we can find,” he whispered. “Our guess is that will factor in somewhere down the line, out of necessity if nothing else. Think about it. It gives the Creators yet one more means of control. If the people in the old domes don’t behave, don’t fall in line, the Creators will be conveniently unable to assist. They’ll sit in their own high-tech dome, safely away from the rabble, and they’ll enjoy their state-of-the-art conditions while everyone else suffers.”

Biting her lip until it bled, she picked at his theory, tried to poke holes in it, but was forced to acknowledge its soundness. The Creators needed the rest of them, but only to a certain extent. If they had their own domes they would be free to focus on themselves. She thought about the schematics Andersen had given her, and she saw the truth of what Raj was saying. The exhaust systems, the water lines, all had been designed to be almost impervious to damage. The innovations were ingenious, and she had been in awe at the thought of the added security, the added peace of mind the domes would bring to their inhabitants. Now she understood that the security and peace of mind was for the Creators alone, wiping out any fear of an uprising.

It made her flash back to something she and Raj had once read, the fragment of a memoir from a Creator who had detailed the gated compound in which the Creators had lived before the Great Famine. History was about to repeat itself. The Creators had already withdrawn once to a safer location, leaving people behind to their fate. They would do it again.

“When do we go in?” she asked, her decision made.

Raj didn’t look any happier. “Two days.”

Two days. So little time. She was glad for it, though. It would be less time for her to think, less time to worry about what might happen, about what probably would happen.

“Javier gave us some information about renovations to Andersen’s apartment, and the data miners were able to find more.” He handed her a tablet. “This is as complete a schematic of the apartment as we can put together. We’re fairly certain this is a safe, and that’s where he would hide whatever information he has. The most the hackers can do is bring down his security grid for ten minutes so you can get to it. ”

“You don’t know for sure that he’s keeping anything at home, do you?”

“We have no real way of knowing,” he said, his voice bitter. He hated the plan, that was obvious. He hated having to be the one to ask her to put herself in such danger. She appreciated his concern, even if she was still angry with him for not including her in the discussions.

As if reading her mind, he said, “I wanted to talk to you about this, Dara. You have no idea how hard it’s been to be cut off from contact with you. I tried everything I could think of.”

There was no doubting the sincerity in his eyes, and she felt her hold on her anger slipping. It wasn’t so much him she was mad at, it was the situation. She was angry it had come to this, angry to witness the destruction of every last illusion she’d ever held about the Creators. In short, she was angry at the world, and she was taking it out on him.

She leaned close to him, breathing words into his ear in an effort to make them inaudible to her father. “Whatever happens, you’ll take care of my mother? And if you can’t get me out, get my father out. Promise me.”

Grasping her hand, his lips brushed her ear as he breathed his response. “I promise.”

Her heart pounded as she drew back and focused on the schematic, trying to commit it to memory. She had to make the most of her chance to study the information. It wouldn’t be safe for her to have a copy in her possession, and she doubted it would be feasible to meet with Letizia before they were to infiltrate Andersen’s apartment.

Dara pushed away her rising panic, ignored the fear that she would overlook something, that she’d make a mistake, that she’d blow the whole mission. There was a very good chance she would be caught, and her mind filled with terrifying images of what the Authorities would do to her. She didn’t tell Raj, but she resolved that if her capture did seem imminent, she would evade it, no matter what it took. She would rather sacrifice herself than let the Authorities drag her to their underground lair, where they would make her wish to die every second, only granting that wish once they’d taken everything they needed from her. Her dying thoughts would be of all the people she’d compromised, all the other lives she might have cost, and she refused to go out that way.