Free [Contributor 02] - Infiltrator (2013) by Nicole Ciacchella

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