Grady stepped out on the ledge. “You’re coming with me.”
“No! Stand back.” Hedrick peered nervously over the edge. “I’m the only one you know who’s aware of Hibernity’s location.”
Grady considered this. “You need to tell me where Hibernity is, Graham.” He started walking closer.
“I’ll jump.”
Grady could see Hedrick was shaking—coated in sweat. “I don’t think you will. And even if you do, I’ll jump off after you with the gravis and stop you.” Grady moved forward and reached out for Hedrick’s sleeve. “Just come with me.”
But then Hedrick raised the arm he had hidden around the corner—and in his hand was a piece of rebar with a chunk of concrete on the end. He lashed out with surprising swiftness and strength, and only then did Grady realize Hedrick might have had some genetic enhancements as well.
Grady ducked back against the wall as the chunk of concrete grazed his cheek, then impacted his bulk-diamond helmet—which sent Grady falling backward. He caught himself on the window frame and pivoted to see Hedrick—teetering on the ledge, wavering his hands for balance.
Hedrick had apparently been propelled toward the edge by the counterforce of his own swing.
“Jon!”
And just like that, Hedrick tipped over the edge, screaming as twenty stories yawned below.
Grady leapt over the ledge after him, punching the gravis’s power button as he did so. He dove straight down like a diver, twenty feet behind Hedrick, whose screams trailed off as the floors raced past them. Hedrick’s panicked expression and outstretched arms reached for Grady. But Grady couldn’t close the distance. And after straining with everything he had, he reluctantly had to reverse gravity—slowing and slowing as Hedrick screamed anew. Receding.
“No!”
Grady came to a stop hovering four floors above the massive roof of the main station hall. Below him Graham Hedrick slammed into the stone roof like a bug on a windshield. Rivulets of his blood drained into a nearby rainspout. Grady felt a sensation of utter failure come over him as he looked down on the body of the former BTC director.
Moments later Alexa descended into the air near him.
He looked toward her with some measure of relief to see her safe.
They exchanged grim looks.
Grady looked down at Hedrick’s remains. “Newton’s third law is a bitch . . .”
CHAPTER 34
Loose Ends
Grady and Alexa descended in broad daylight onto the roof of the Fulton Cold Storage building—discretion be damned. Skyscrapers were falling into the sky today. They didn’t care who saw them.
Grady approached the stairwell security door. “How do we get in?”
Alexa glanced back at him as she ran. “I’ll tear this building down with my hands if I have to.”
Alexa moved like a panther toward the security door, passing Grady. She slowed suddenly as they both noticed the thick door was slightly ajar—with a brick holding it open.
“Careful . . .”
Alexa just pulled the door open and raced down the stairwell. Grady rushed to keep up, but he had trouble taking the steps six at a time without a gravis—ill advised indoors. By the time he’d gotten to the bottom of the stairwell, he could see that the diamond-aggregate nanorod door that Cotton was so proud of was open, and Alexa had already raced inside.
“Damnit! Alexa . . .” Grady rushed in after her and saw her striding through the place.
She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Cotton! Where the hell are you?”
Grady glanced around the kitchen and living areas but didn’t see any signs of movement. He soon followed Alexa toward the large workshop, and there they heard motors whirring.
It was immediately obvious that Cotton had gone. Most of his equipment had been removed—the shelving empty and the laser cutters and robotic milling equipment missing. The space echoed with their footsteps as they moved across it.
But there was still one well-lit workbench with holographic displays flickering above it against the far wall. Robotic arms there were busy working on something, and as they approached, they could see the screens were filled with images of cellular biological activity—cells dividing in culture.
On the workbench the robotic arms appeared to be tending the cultures. The video was a close-up of one petri dish.
As they stood looking at it, another holographic screen popped up nearby: Cotton’s face.
He smiled apologetically. “Yeah, hi, guys. I know I’m just a recording, but even I can tell you’re mad.” His hologram held up his palms. “Way out of line launching those pricks and their headquarters into space. But if you’re here, well then . . .” He shrugged. “You’re here, right?”
Grady stood with folded arms watching Cotton’s smug face, and he felt like tipping the table over.
“You’re probably wondering what the deal is with the viral synthesis rig. Little hobby, actually. Personalized viruses are gonna be the next big thing—mark my words. Lot of information can be stored in DNA. But then you both know that.”
Grady and Alexa peered more closely into the screen depicting cell division as Cotton’s recording continued.
“Now, promise not to get mad, but . . . you remember that inoculation we all took against neurotoxins? Yeah, that’s not what it was. It was a DNA virus.”
“Goddamnit, Cotton!” Alex glared at the screen.
Grady turned to her. “So he’s killing us, too?”
“Don’t panic. Funny thing about DNA viruses—they tend to leave their genetic code in us. About eight percent of the human genome is viral-inserted DNA. And I thought it was time I left my mark in humanity, too.”
Grady had started examining diagrams on neighboring screens, and he could see that several were text strings whose forms he recalled from the video projector Chattopadhyay had given him.
Alexa was nodding to herself. “Guanine, thymine, cytosine, adenine . . .”
“There’s a good chance you’ll transmit this virus to other humans you’ve come in contact with. And it will spread in your body—make changes to your DNA.”
Grady looked up at her. “What has he done?”
“Well, here’s the thing: It wasn’t enough to destroy the BTC. My goal was to break all those innovations out of that black tower of theirs. And I thought, what better way to make sure no one hoarded these advances ever again than imprinting them into our very DNA?”
Suddenly several screens started showing animations of technical specifications for fusion, gravity mirrors, and molecular diagrams of pharmaceuticals being synthesized into DNA strings.
“So that it can decoded by anyone—even tens of thousands of years from now. I guess you could call it the world’s first intellectual property virus.”
The animations started showing the DNA being restored to technical specifications again. It was the BTC’s entire storehouse of secret knowledge from the looks of it.
Grady laughed out loud, his voice echoing in the empty space.
Alexa stared in bewildered amazement.
“Cotton, you son of a bitch. You really did steal back the future . . .”
Cotton smiled down on them with his Wyatt Earp beard and hair. “See, I don’t know about you guys, but I plan on retiring—doing some traveling. And spreading some knowledge.” He shrugged. “If you know what I mean. I suggest you do the same.”
Grady and Alexa just exchanged looks.
“Oh, and Jon, one more thing: Your gyroscope wasn’t broken. I just needed you to focus on getting into that tower and getting control of Kratos. Maybe sometime I can make it up to you. Cook you a meal or something.”
A hologram of a large spinning globe spun into existence in front of them. It zoomed into a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic. “Hibernity is located beneath a remote island that�
��s actually named—and I’m not making this up—Inaccessible Island. Try 37° 17' 6.88" S and 12° 40' 22.14" W, and that should get you there.”
A smile spread across Grady’s face.
Alexa grabbed Grady shoulder. “Found it, Jon.”
“Yes. Yes, we did.” He stared at the holographic map.
Cotton’s hologram tipped an imaginary hat to them. “See you around.”
CHAPTER 35
Rescue
Jon Grady and Alexa hurried away at a crouch from the chopper wash of the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion and finally stood beneath the sunshine. There were a dozen more choppers landing or taking off farther down the tiny, barren island. And in the near distance surrounding Inaccessible Island were U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships and Aegis cruisers, and in the far distance an aircraft carrier.
Hundreds of heavily armed U.S. Marines and companies of 82nd Airborne Rangers were standing around in groups or moving across the treeless, windswept grasses. A sharp-featured woman in her sixties dressed in denim, a sweater, and hiking boots waved to them from a cluster of plain-clothed men carrying assault rifles with full tactical harnesses a hundred meters away.
Grady nudged Alexa, and they both moved across the trampled grass toward her. As they closed the distance, Grady recognized the island with certainty. It was the island he’d been exiled to years ago. His eyes were drawn to the distant stone cottage, right where it had to be, on the edge of the thousand-foot bluff. It was swarming with soldiers now, and they appeared to be pulling out all the furnishings, turning everything inside out.
As Grady and Alexa walked up to the plainclothes group, the older woman stepped forward, smiling, her hand extended. “Mr. Grady, Ms. Adenine, I’m Kaye Monahan, U.S. director of national intelligence. I must say it’s an honor to meet you both.”
Alexa shook her hand, but Grady was already looking past Monahan toward a dark opening in the nearby hillside—it was of unusual uniformity. Clearly man-made. It descended into the darkness like a big ramp.
“Have they located Hibernity, Director Monahan? And my friends?”
She moved aside and gestured into the opening, toward approaching flashlights. “It’s why we brought you in just now. I thought you’d want to be here.”
Grady and Alexa moved forward, down the ramp and into the darkness. Grady pushed through dozens upon dozens of heavily armed plainclothes operators and uniformed soldiers both. He finally stood at the front rank as scores of flashlights approached them from the cavernous darkness. And soon enough squads of uniformed soldiers came to the edge of the sunlight, turning off their flashlights as they emerged.
Grady scanned the faces of the passing people. And the first thing he noticed were young Morrisons in BTC uniforms—at least fifteen or twenty of them, zip-tied and talking animatedly, apparently just as glad to be free from their prison as anyone.
Grady pushed farther in as the men walked past, Alexa close behind him. And then there was a break in the flow of prisoners as another group approached.
And before he realized it, Grady stood before an elderly Indian man he recognized. Several dozen men and women stood behind the man, all wearing a uniform Grady was familiar with. The simple uniform that the Indian man had taught him how to print.
The prisoners stopped and stared for a moment. The soldiers guarding them looked up with curiosity at Grady and Alexa—most of their eyes lingering on Alexa.
But Grady moved forward toward the Indian gentleman, whose smile was even now expanding.
Grady closed the distance, and they clasped hands firmly.
“My dear boy. How fine it is to finally shake your hand.”
“Archie.” Grady then embraced Chattopadhyay.
The other Resistors, both men and woman, young and old, gathered around Grady and Chattopadhyay, tears on many faces as they held each other for the first time.
Alexa looked on as Grady ushered them all outside, into the sunlight, where they looked up disbelievingly—raising their hands to the sun.
SEVEN YEARS LATER
CHAPTER 36
Echo
Jon Grady stared out across the predawn sky, glowing purple at the eastern horizon. The stars and the Milky Way arched overhead.
A thousand feet below he saw the shoreline of Oregon’s Crater Lake curving away, the indigo water still as glass beneath him, reflecting the stars. It was perfect. He drank in the view.
Then he heard a welcome voice.
“There he is.”
Grady turned to see Alexa holding their six-year-old daughter’s hand, both of them bundled in coats against the chill morning air as they floated in equilibrium, their eyes catching the first rays of dawn.
Grady smiled toward them, and he thought about how marvelous the universe was. How fortunate he was to have lived to be here at this moment. There was a unity in it. A perfection that went beyond math and physics. Though fleeting, it also felt somehow enduring.
He extended his hand toward his daughter.
“This way, Varuna.” He looked up. “I want you to see this . . .”
FURTHER READING
You can learn more about the technologies and themes explored in Influx by visiting www.daniel-suarez.com or through the following books:
Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku (Doubleday)
The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State by Timothy Melley (Cornell University Press)
God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World by Cullen Murphy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall (Ecco)
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost I want to thank my brother, Adam Winston, for contributing the seed upon which this story is based, in addition to certain characters. Both of us have always written stories, and this was one idea that I thought held great promise as a high-tech thriller—my particular specialty. With his encouragement I have expanded and revised that idea into the book you now hold.
Bringing life into gravity mirrors and the BTC was a daunting task, made easier by the patient advice of physicist and friend Eric Burt, who carefully reviewed early drafts of the manuscript. Whatever crimes against physics remain in the book are my own, not his.
Sincere thanks to Michio Kaku, Timothy Melley, Cullen Murphy, Sir Roger Penrose, Lisa Randall, and Tim Weiner, whose published works greatly enriched this rather fantastical story.
Thanks also to my literary agent, Rafe Sagalyn, and the entire team at Sagalyn Literary. And, as always, heartfelt gratitude to Ben Sevier, my editor at Dutton, both for his story advice and the confidence he has shown in me.
Yet, this book would still not exist without the love of my life, Michelle, who keeps me from wandering into traffic while I contemplate stories. . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANIEL SUAREZ is the author of the New York Times bestseller Daemon, Freedom™, and Kill Decision. A former systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, Mr. Suarez has designed and developed software for the defense, finance, and entertainment industries. His fiction focuses on technology-driven change, and he is a past speaker at TED Global, NASA Ames, the Long Now Foundation, and the headquarters of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. An avid gamer and technologist, he lives in Los Angeles.
In 1864, E. P. Dutton & Co. bought the famous Old Corner Bookstore and its publishing division from Ticknor and Fields and began their storied publishing career. Mr. Edward Payson Dutton and his partner, Mr. Lemuel Ide, had started the company in Boston, Massachusetts, as a bookseller in 1852. Dutton expanded to New York City, and in 1869 opened both a bookstore and publishing house at 713 Broadway. In 2014, Dutton celebrates 15
0 years of publishing excellence. We have redesigned our longtime logotype to reflect the simple design of those earliest published books. For more information on the history of Dutton and its books and authors, please visit www.penguin.com/dutton.
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