[Contributor 02] - Infiltrator (2013) (6 page)

“’Today is a fine day to contribute, wouldn’t you agree?’ I know, Dara, I know. We’ve been over this time and again.”

“I know.” Her shoes tied, she could no longer maintain the pretense that she was distracted by them, and she had to look up and acknowledge the worry in her father’s eyes.

“You know I’m behind you, but are you certain about this?”

“Yes, I am. What else can I do, Dad? You know how huge this information is. I can’t just sit on it. Maybe the data miners will stumble across it themselves, but maybe it’s behind the highest security firewalls possible, and maybe they’ll never hear a whisper of it. I can’t take that risk. I’m not sure what it means yet, but if this project happens, it could change everything.”

“You’re right.” He sounded reluctant to say the words, but she appreciated that he didn’t try to deny the truth of them. When she’d told him what she’d discovered about Andersen’s projects, his eyes had gone wider than she’d thought possible.

“So that explains what has Jasmine in such a lather,” he’d blurted, the expression on his face suggesting he half-wished he could take the words back.

His inner struggle was obvious, though Dara knew he’d made an effort to conceal it. Caught between his desire to do war with the system that had taken his wife from him and his fear of what effect that war would have on his daughter, the past months hadn’t been easy for him. He wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever he could to protect her, would grit his teeth and go along with his role as Contributor if that was what she wanted. But it wasn’t what she wanted, and it meant a lot to her that he supported her decision. He might still see a little girl whenever he looked at her, but he was treating her like the adult she was, and she appreciated it.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you either. I didn’t want anything to happen to Mom.”

Her father flinched, and Dara felt a twinge of guilt, but the point needed to be made. “Be careful,” he said, squaring his jaw. He gave her a fierce hug and a kiss on the forehead before releasing his grip on her shoulders, and she took a deep breath to steel herself as she headed for the door.

Disappearing for a day was no easy feat. She had been told to get out in public so that people would remember seeing her, in the event that anyone asked. No one would be able to account for every minute of her whereabouts, but that wasn’t really necessary. As long as people caught a glimpse of her, that was what they would remember, not the fact that they hadn’t seen her at all, which would stand out far more. It wasn’t unusual for Contributors to spend an off day in their apartments, but ensuring that people saw her added a layer of insurance by helping to maintain the appearance of the mundane.

Magnum encouraged its Contributors to keep themselves in shape, which she had thought of as a good thing—and it was, on the surface. People were very open about their pursuit of fitness, whether it involved spending time in the Magnum gym, participating in Creator-organized sports, or jogging through the dome’s parks. Contributors boasted about their stats on the social networks, the challenge to others both overt and implied. Each year Magnum gave an award to the male and female Contributors with the best fitness records, and the competition was intense, everyone anxious both to make an example of themselves and to obtain the prize of a considerable stack of privilege vouchers.

Dara had posted the evening before about her intent to go for a long jog, noting a few stops along her route. On the way to the rendezvous point, she would pass the locations she’d mentioned, and she would make a point of greeting other Contributors as she jogged past. Magnum issued exercise monitoring devices to all its Contributors to help them track their fitness goals. Mal would have someone hack hers to make it appear she’d worked out longer than she had, providing her with cover. Most importantly, it wouldn’t implicate her father in any way, something upon which she had insisted.

Her ruse established, she headed for the access corridor where she was to meet a Core Free Thinker. She’d never before seen the woman, but they exchanged the coded greeting, and the woman used her access card to take Dara down to the lower transport bay, where Dara would climb aboard a waste truck.

She’d hoped to see Ricky, the driver who had once transported her and Letizia, but she had a different chauffeur, which she ultimately decided was a good thing. This one was a great deal more reticent and said nothing other than to greet her and grunt in acknowledgment when she thanked him for dropping her off. She was too nervous to make conversation anyway.

Aware as she was that the confines of the domes weren’t the safe haven she had once thought them, it nonetheless made her uneasy to be out in the wasteland. Before she got out of the waste truck, she pulled a jumpsuit over her exercise gear, exchanging her running shoes for a pair of boots. Tucking the shoes into a drawstring bag, Dara slung it over her shoulder and hurried to the shattered remnants of the building looming before her. The jumpsuit and bag would protect her clothes and shoes from being coated with a telltale layer of the wasteland’s grime.

This particular set of ruins was new to her, and after several minutes of searching she still hadn’t found the access door. She panicked for a moment, thinking the chauffeur had dropped her off in the wrong location, then went limp with relief when she finally managed to locate the security panel. Something crashed a short distance away, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Whether it was another part of the building collapsing or the sound of a human digging for scrap, she didn’t know, nor did she intend to investigate and find out. Had a human made the noise, there was no way of knowing if she’d encounter a wary Root or a member of one of the violent, roving gangs.

With a quick glance around to ensure no one was in the immediate vicinity, Dara hastened to type in the access code. The adrenaline surging through her made concentrating a challenge, and her frantic mind scrambled to recall which sequence of the rotating code she’d need. Typing it in with shaking fingers, her knees buckled when she heard the lock release. She yanked the door open a crack and threw herself into the darkness.

Jerking the door closed behind her, she checked three times to make sure it was really locked, then she paused for a moment to let her racing heart slow. The adrenaline left her feeling sick and shaky, and she squatted, lowering her head and taking in a few deep breaths. When she lifted it again she could make out a faint light below, and she slid her foot forward, taking care to find the edge of the steps so that she didn’t plunge down them headfirst. Her hands trailed over the walls, closing around a metal railing, and she made slow progress down the stairs, drawing closer to the light. The glow came from a small strip near the floor at the bottom of the stairs, just enough to penetrate the darkness, but not enough to enable her to see very well.

Standing still and allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim light, she saw that her only option was to turn right, but couldn’t make out what was around the corner. She slipped carefully around it, in case she was on a landing leading to another flight of stairs, and found herself in a long corridor. Relieved not to have to navigate more stairs in the gloom, she started walking down the corridor, gasping and throwing her arms up to shield her eyes as a bright light suddenly flared, searing her vision.

“It’s Dara,” a voice said, and the light dimmed to a more reasonable level. She lowered her arms a bit but kept them up in a futile gesture of protection. Spots danced in her vision, and she attempted to blink them away.

“Sorry about that. We had to be sure it was you,” the voice said, closer now. It had been hard to tell at first, what with her blood roaring in her ears, but she recognized it as belonging to Tasha.

“Thanks for the warm welcome,” Dara said, the words coming out with a harder edge than she’d intended. She understood why Tasha had to ensure it was her who’d entered, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed suffering multiple heart attacks in rapid succession.

“Hello to you too,” Tasha said sharply.

“Take it easy on her, Tash. That must have been one nasty adrenaline rush,” another voice said, approaching them.

“Raj,” Dara said. She hadn’t known if he’d be there, but she’d hoped he would. She was eager for any news of her mother.

“Hi, Dara,” he said, catching her wrist. He pressed two fingers to it, taking her pulse. “Try not to scare her half to death next time,” he said to Tasha.

“That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?” Tasha asked, her voice laced with sarcasm. “It’s not like we want to welcome intruders with tea and cookies.”

“I wouldn’t say no to tea and cookies,” Dara said, dropping her arms to her sides and offering Tasha a smile.

The other girl’s face broke out in a warm grin. “Tea I can probably rustle up, but cookies I’m not so sure. I think we can find you a peanut butter sandwich, though.”

“Is that all you guys eat?” Dara asked in a dry tone.

Tasha snorted. “Like you have a wealth of choices in the domes.”

“Keep it up and I’m not bringing you any more of those delicious emergency rations.”

“I’m not sure I can handle that level of disappointment.”

The banter surprised Dara, but then Tasha had a gift for making her feel instantly at ease. Part of it was due to Tasha’s warm and welcoming personality, but another part of it was due to the knowledge that she didn’t have to put up a front with Tasha—or with any of the other Free Thinkers, for that matter. She wasn’t used to being able to speak her mind without fear of repercussion. It was liberating in a way she hadn’t anticipated. This was both good and bad, as it made it that much more difficult for her when she returned to the dome and had to erect her façade once again.

“Speaking of cookies…” Raj said. He handed Dara a small package, and she was surprised to find that there were, indeed, cookies nestled within. “They’re from your mom. She asked me to wish you a happy eighteenth birthday.”

Pain flooded her, and her smile went rigid. She cradled the cookies with extreme care, afraid she might crush them. “These are from her?”

“She made them for you.” His voice was gentle.

“She did? Is she getting better, then?” Staring down at the cookies, she tried to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. She pulled a cookie from the bag and took a small bite, reluctant to eat them, yet knowing she couldn’t afford to bring them back to the dome with her. Raj had assured her and her father that the facility where Leona would live was nice, but Dara hadn’t imagined they might be able to do things like bake cookies there. The taste wasn’t the same as when they were made with the fine, white flour and sugar used in the cookies she received on rare occasions in the dome, but as she swallowed she felt as if her mother’s love was filling all the dark places inside of her. It wasn’t just the cookies that amazed her, but also that her mother had remembered Dara’s birthday. She suspected she and Joshua had shared the same fear: that once Leona moved away, she would forget about the family that loved and missed her.

“A little. When Mal told me you were coming for the meeting, I went to visit her, to see her for myself. I figured you’d want a full report, and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Despite her heroic efforts, a few tears escaped, and she kept her head down as she brushed them away. “Thank you, Raj. Thank you so much. You said she’s a little better?”

“Yes. Making cookies was part of her life skills training, and the reports there are good. She still suffers from headaches, but she’s learning to better manage them, and the doctors are working to find good drug therapies for her, to lessen her pain. Her memory is improving, but there are still holes in it, and it causes her some confusion. She always asks about you and your dad whenever I see her, though.”

Sniffling, Dara managed to say, “We miss her.”

“She misses you too. I have a stick with a full report for you, but I didn’t want you to have to wait until you got back to the dome.”

Taking his hand, she squeezed it and raised her eyes to his, soothed by the compassion she saw in his dark gaze. “I appreciate that.”

“We should get going,” Tasha said, sounding sorry to break into the conversation.

“Right, yes,” Dara said, taking another nibble of cookie. “Do you see my mom often?” she asked Raj as they walked.

He shook his head. “Every few weeks or so, usually if I’m assisting with integrating a new patient into the facility.”

“Do you think I could…” She let her voice trail off, afraid to allow the small spark of hope to ignite.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

From the tone of his voice she could tell that getting to the facility would involve a fair amount of planning. He had said he would tell her and her father where the facility was located, and she was tempted to ask, but she knew he was right when he said it was better if they knew as little as possible. It was the same reason Mal kept her so in the dark. The less she knew, the less she would be able to tell should she be caught by the Authorities.

The thought made her shiver, and she hoped neither of them had noticed. What she had already done was dangerous enough, but getting herself in deeper with this Andersen affair would increase her risks exponentially. She would be dancing on a razor’s edge. Andersen was both suspicious and vicious, and she would have to be meticulous to ensure she didn’t set off any of his warning signals—no easy task.

Pushing the thought aside, she followed Tasha and Raj through a steel security door, closing her eyes for a brief second and letting her mother’s gift take her back to a much less complicated time.

The last time she had seen Mal was in a command center, but this was more like the bunker where she and Letizia had stayed after they’d been stranded in the wasteland. Dara wondered how many were scattered throughout the wasteland. It made sense that the Free Thinkers used multiple shelters. Many different people coming and going from the same bunker would garner too much attention.