Daniel Suarez - Influx

“Did you come here to convince me or convince yourself?”

“I want to try to reach you. To help you understand.”

“Then why not brainwash me? Why not just change my thoughts? You guys can do that, can’t you?”

There was a moment of silence.

“That would damage you.”

“I find it hard to believe that’s stopping you.”

“The human mind is the most complex object in the known universe. Innovation only arises from free will. We don’t yet understand the mental processes behind it, but it’s what makes people like you so rare, Jon.”

“But you are admitting that you’ve researched mind control.”

“Technologically it’s possible, yes, but only in a very limited way.”

“Well then. That definitely makes things easier.” He grabbed the crystalline rock from the desk. “Here’s my answer—for the file…” And he smashed the rock into the robot’s forehead, sending it backpedaling toward the kitchen table.

“Jon. Don’t do this.”

Grady pursued the robot, smashing it repeatedly in the head as it flailed its arms crazily to keep its balance. Already the top of its head was dented. A brushed-steel panel flew off.

“What you’re doing is counterproductive.”

He grabbed one of the machine’s arms to anchor it and pounded it in the head again and again. “Are you getting all this?”

“Violent outbursts won’t accomplish anything.”

Another massive blow and the rock broke in two. The robot stood, its head battered, but appearing otherwise unaffected. Grady was disappointed.

It gazed at him. “I came here to speak with you before I turn over your case file. You haven’t been using the Omnia. You haven’t been doing research. You keep resisting. But you still have a chance to come back from this place.”

“I agree. I was hoping to smash your head open and steal the radio transmitter.”

The robot cocked its head. “Surely you don’t think you can use it to signal for help?”

“The thought had occurred to me. You are remotely controlling this tin can, after all.”

“We don’t use radios, Jon. Our communications transit a compactified fifth-dimension, not three dimensional space.”

Grady was taken aback. “Hold it—like a Calabi-Yau space? Are you serious? Brane theory has been proven?”

“If you want to know, then stop resisting us. And in any event you can’t harm the critical systems of this unit with anything you can find on the island. Trying to hurt me is pointless.”

He stared at the machine for several moments then sighed. “Fine.” Grady opened the front door. “Then let me show you out.”

“Why do you resist what’s in your and humanity’s best interest?”

“Because I don’t believe that it is. You’re telling me everything will be fine if I agree to be your slave.”

“We’re not asking you to be a slave.”

“Then you’re asking me to be a slaver—and that’s even worse.” He approached the robot and knelt—grabbing one of its legs.

“What are you doing?”

He pulled the robot’s foot out from under it, and it started bouncing on one leg. Even the one leg felt heavy. “Jesus, what is this thing made of?”

“You’re acting irrationally.”

Grady shoved the robot back against the kitchen table, where it fell backward. He then grabbed both legs and pulled it off its feet. Its head hit the stone floor with the weight of a lawn mower engine, and he started dragging it toward the door as it flailed uselessly. The machine weighed easily a couple hundred pounds and left scrape marks on the flagstones.

“I was defending you against other case officers. They said you were unreachable.”

“They were right.” He struggled as he dragged the robot over the threshold and down the stony pathway alongside the cottage. It writhed about, trying to get up.

“You realize that you’ve left me no choice but to relinquish your file to the containment division? Prisoners who reach that point have only a point-five percent chance of joining the organization.”

“Really? That high?”

“It means that I’ll no longer have any authority over you.”

“You don’t have any now. And neither will they.”

“I’m trying to reach out to you, Mr. Grady.”

“You’re trying to make me obey. And that’s never going to happen.” Grady suddenly dropped the robot’s legs. It tried to right itself. “Next time you stop by, could you do me a favor?”

The robot deftly rose back onto its feet. “What?”

“Tell me how deep the water is…” With that Grady shoved the robot over the low wall at the cliff’s edge. It pitched over the rim and dropped hundreds of feet into the gathering gloom below.

Grady approached the edge and looked down, watching closely until he made out the glowing blue eyes for a moment. Then they were lost amid the white water and powerful waves crashing across rocks a thousand feet below.

The cold wind cut into him, and after a moment more, he trudged back to the warmth of the cottage. They had his final answer.

Jon Grady awoke on hisback, staring at a domed but otherwise featureless gray ceiling. No continuity existed between where he was now and where he’d just been. He was simply here—wherever “here” was.

Containment division.

Within a few moments, he leaned up to see that he was on a bare cot in the center of an otherwise empty circular room about five meters in diameter. Everything was fashioned of the same featureless gray material. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot and sat up to examine his surroundings.

No cottage. No windows. There wasn’t a seam or door or air vent anywhere. The chamber was shaped like a squat bullet, its domed ceiling rising perhaps seven or eight meters. Hard to judge distances for sure since everything was devoid of architectural detail. It all appeared to be carved out of solid granite. Even the cot he lay upon was a solid pedestal with a cushion of memory foam spliced into its top somehow—no seam visible between the two materials.

A diffuse light illuminated the entire room, though no lamps were evident. The glow seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The air was odorless. Clean.

It was in this omnipresent radiance that Grady noticed his feet were bare—that, in fact, he was nude. A glance at his arms showed no forearm hair whatsoever. He looked down at his chest and groin, only to find them hairless as well. He rubbed a hand over his scalp and instead of hair felt a bizarre bristle brush of fibers standing straight up on his scalp. Almost immediately he felt a sharp sting in his fingertips.

“Ow…” Pulling back his hand, he saw his fingers oozed blood. “Jesus Christ…” He resisted the temptation to touch his head again and instead swept his unhurt right hand over his face.

No beard. No eyebrows even.

“Damnit…”

Somebody had ejected him from the mammalian club. His head was covered with flexible needles instead of hair. Blood droplets from his left hand spattered the floor. He applied pressure to his fingertips with the other hand.

Okay. So maybe throwing the robot off the cliff wasn’t such a good move.

His fingers also felt oddly soft, and it was then that Grady noticed he was missing his fingernails, too. Another glance. Toenails as well. In their place was soft pink skin. It felt as though his fingertips were made of cotton. No sign of trauma or scarring. His nails were simply gone .

And where his navel once had been, there was now a white ceramic or plastic plug of some type—like a socket—sealed shut.

It took him an unknowable amount of time to emerge from the shock of these dehumanizing changes, but after minutes or hours Grady finally stood.