Dark Choices - I. T. Lucas Page 0,55

on her own time.

When she reached the bottom of the box and moved it to the scanner’s other side, Eleanor noticed that it was a little heavier than the others. Giving it a little shake, she heard something move and put it down. Reaching inside, she pulled at the cardboard floor and lifted it out. The thing had a double bottom, and sandwiched between the two pieces of cardboard was a simple student notebook.

She’d expected to find Simmons’s most secret notes contained inside a fancy leather-bound journal, not a thin notebook with fraying edges. But since the thing weighed very little, it had been clever of the director to use it instead of a heavy journal. If she hadn’t removed all the papers from box after box to scan them, she would have never noticed that this one was just slightly heavier than the others.

Even though she was dying of curiosity to peek inside it, Eleanor put the notebook in her purse and kept on scanning. Later, when she was certain that Bella was asleep, she would lock the office door, get comfortable in Simmons’s chair, and learn his most treasured secrets.

Or so she hoped.

She wouldn’t be surprised if what he had in there were the addresses of his mistresses and his favorite hookers. If she found nude photos of him, she was going to puke.

37

Kalugal

Jacki opened the sliding door to the backyard and stepped out. “Jin and Mey are on their way. Are you going to stay out here?”

Kalugal put his book down and patted the spot next to him on the outdoor sofa. “Come sit with me.”

Smiling, she did as he asked and put her head on his shoulder. “It’s so nice out here. The trees make all the difference. Out on the mountainside, it was so hot because there was no shade, but here it’s cool and comfortable.” She looked up at the lush canopy above them. “The village is steeped in greenery to camouflage it. How is Kian hiding the construction work over there, though? Someone might see it from the air.”

“I need to ask him about that. He is so concerned with security, and yet he uses a Chinese contractor. I guess there is no way to keep the village as completely hidden as he wishes to.”

She looked up at him. “What do you have against the Chinese?”

Kalugal snorted. “Where do I start. They are slowly but surely becoming a superpower, and once they supersede the United States, they will take over the world. What boggles the mind is that no one is paying attention to what they are doing. And if anyone is, they are not doing anything about it.”

“Except for having a billion and a half people and growing, how do they plan to do that?”

“Any way they can. The thing is, they don’t answer to anyone, morality and scruples don’t concern them, and they can do as they please with that huge population of theirs.”

Jacki smiled. “You are just worried that they are going to beat you to it.”

“Absolutely. Their social credit program is pure genius.”

“Yeah, I remember you telling me about it. What’s going on with that?”

“It’s being implemented in more and more places across China, and they are selling it to other totalitarian regimes. They don’t have a free press to hound them about it, and people are afraid to step up and say anything negative about their government. Especially now that almost everything is monitored. It’s like living under a magnifying glass.”

Jacki sighed. “We are lucky to be living in a democracy.”

“It’s far from perfect and getting worse instead of better. Free speech has become a joke in this country, and if everyone is forced to have the same opinion, how different is it from China? That’s what keeps me awake at night. The ground is fertile for China’s credit system to spread over here.”

“Isn’t that a little hypocritical of you? After all, you plan to do the same thing.”

Kalugal frowned. Apparently, he hadn’t done a good job explaining his plan to Jacki. "Not at all. Under my rule, people will be free to express their opinions. I want to control the politicians and cut out the evildoers’ resources. I’m not going to limit people’s liberties. I’m going to free the oppressed.”

“It all sounds very noble, but I still think it’s never good for one person to hold so much power. It’s corruptive and corrosive. And even if you do the best you can, it won’t be enough. Many