Daniel Suarez - Influx

He started navigating through the intranet directory on his laptop. “I’m confused, Denise.”

“It’s past midnight in D.C. Why are they even in the office?” She glanced up at him. “Not the Web directory. I want something printed. Preferably a few years old.”

“You’re really losing it.”

“Ah!” She pulled a small binder off a shelf and started flipping through it.

“It’d be in the front probably. Near the bureau seal…”

She heard a ding as an email landed in her inbox. Davis glanced up. It was from Jeffrey Royce, deputy director of the FBI—and it was over their internal system. It was cc’d to the Chicago Special Agent in Charge, with the subject line “Priority One Special Assignment.”

“Damn.” She found the FBI headquarters’ main number and pounded it into her desk phone. “I am such an idiot…”

Falwell leaned down to look at her laptop screen. “Hey, you got some spam from the deputy director. Should I delete it?”

“Ha. Ha.” She waited for the FBI operator to pick up. “Yes, this is Special Agent Denise Davis returning a call from Deputy Director Jeffrey Royce.” A pause. “I believe he’s still in the office.” A pause. “Yes, I’ll hold.”

Falwell leaned back in his chair and spread his hands.

In a moment another man answered.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll hold.”

And a few seconds later the deputy director picked up. “Agent Davis.”

“Yes, sir. My apologies. I just needed… never mind. You were saying, sir?”

“Mr. Grady asked you to meet him in New York—next week at Columbia University—is that correct?”

Davis felt the shock go through her. “I… How do you know that, sir?”

“We have a highly sensitive surveillance operation under way, Agent Davis. You’ll still need to be in Chicago preparing for the Cotton trial, but we’re going to put you temporarily under the direction of a special task force—and we want you to meet Mr. Grady as he requested. Your supervisors have been notified, and any scheduling conflicts will be resolved through our office. You’ll report to a safe house in New York—you’re not to contact the New York field office or discuss this with anyone except your supervisor. Is that clear?”

Davis looked to Falwell uncertainly, then nodded. “I understand, sir.”

“The email I just sent has instructions about where to meet your plane next week and the supervising agent for this operation. Can I count on your discretion and cooperation, Agent Davis?”

“Yes, sir. But…”

“What is it?”

“I just… What’s going on, sir? Is it Jon Grady? What’s his connection to Cotton?”

“I can tell you that he isn’t Jon Grady—but the rest is well above your pay grade. The only reason you’re involved is because he contacted you. But you should know he’s dangerous, and that you need to listen closely to your task force leader when you reach New York. Can I count on you, Agent Davis?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. Yes, of course you can count on me.”

Graham Hedrick sat in hisoffice chair gazing out at Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor. Junks and container ships plied the glittering water below. His jaw clenched as he listened to the report on Grady’s escape.

“Grady didn’t do this alone, Mr. Director. He was helped.” The head of Jon Grady’s security detail, a Morrison named Beta-Upsilon, stood nervously before Hedrick’s desk. The elder Morrison stood nearby looking even angrier than Hedrick felt.

“We had no reason to expect he’d have a personal utility fog.”

Morrison barked, “Did you scan him before transport?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Be advised: I will check the surveillance log.”

“We scanned him, sir.”

“Then I’m not understanding. Do you mean someone on your team helped Mr. Grady?”

“No, sir. Someone at Hibernity must have helped him. That van was clean. The hypersonic transport was clean.”

Morrison got in his face. “You’re suggesting the guards at Hibernity had access to unregistered foglets?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“The garrison there doesn’t even have access to tech level eight.”

Hedrick rotated his chair to face the young BTC officer.

Morrison placed a glittering diamond on Hedrick’s desk. “The response team found Grady’s q-link in a ventilation shaft.”

Hedrick picked up the diamond, studying it—then looked up at the young Morrison clone. “Am I to believe Jon Grady dug this out of the base of his spine on the spot?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“And how did he even know about his q-link?”

Varuna’s voice chimed in from above. “Beta-Upsilon is speaking the truth to the best of his knowledge, Mr. Director.”

Morrison glowered. “An honest idiot is still an idiot.”

“Dad, we had no way of anticipating—”

“I sprayed surveillance dust onto the headliner. I know you were all watching the Tigers game instead of the prisoner. I have the whole god-awful mess on video. Grady had unregistered utility foglets collapsed on his person, and you didn’t spot them.”

“The scanner said he was clean.”

“Some clever son of a bitch manufactured unregistered nanotech. That’s why you have to do this thing we call ‘searching’ prisoners. With your eyes and hands.”

“We patted him down.”

“And how much cash did he take from your wallet?”

The guard looked suddenly sheepish. “Uh, I don’t…”

“Yes, I saw that, too. How much?”

“Probably four or five hundred in dollars, sir.”

“All of it.”

“Maybe half that in other currencies.”

“You really make me ashamed of my genomic sequence.”

“Dad—”

“Don’t try that ‘Dad’ crap on me.” Morrison looked to Hedrick. “And someone tipped off Grady not to take the guards’ equipment. We have no direct method to track him.”

“Enough. Get him out of my sight.” Hedrick dismissed the guard with a wave of his hand.

The young man nodded grimly and left; the doors opened and then immediately closed behind him.

Hedrick sighed. “Varuna, reassign Beta-Upsilon and his team to the Hibernity garrison for a year.”

“Yes, Mr. Director.”

Morrison came up alongside Hedrick’s chair to gaze out the window at the faux Hong Kong below.

“Who is the warden at Hibernity, Mr. Morrison?”

“Theta-Theta.”

“We need new leadership there, apparently. And a top-to-bottom review of their operation.”

“How could they get their hands on a utility fog? That’s advanced weaponry.”

“I don’t think they did.”

Morrison cast a confused look at Hedrick.

“Min Zhao is in Hibernity.”

“Okay…”

“He perfected foglets less than a decade ago.”

“You really think prisoners are creating their own technology? Prisoners?”

“I don’t know.”

“But…” Morrison pondered this gravely. “I don’t see how it’s possible.”

Hedrick felt a fear he could hardly contemplate. “Your number-one priority at the moment, Mr. Morrison, is to find Jon Grady. Escaped, Mr. Grady is an existential threat to this organization. I don’t think either of us relishes the idea of a gravity weapon like Kratos in the hands of our enemies.”

“When we locate him, I suggest we fry him from orbit.”

“No. I still need him alive. If he won’t work for us voluntarily, we have no choice but to use force. But it appears his consciousness is truly unique. So I want him captured. Is that clear?”

Morrison nodded. “I’ll need a higher tech level approved for the forward team.”