Daniel Suarez - Influx

Kulkarni took another deep breath. “A tier-one.”

“Correct.”

“I see.” He paused for a moment. “What is the ETA for a harvester team at my location?”

“Harvester assets are already standing by.”

Kulkarni was taken aback. “Then you were expecting this?”

“If validated, the disruption risk is high. What are your findings, Tirthayatri?”

He steeled his resolve. “I can confirm that a tier-one branch event has occurred at incubator sixty-three. Incident imagery and supporting measurements submitted at eleven, three-nine, GMT.”

“Stand by for confirmation.” A brief pause. “Submitted materials confirm that a tier-one incident has occurred.”

“Have there been any communication leaks from this location in the past seventy-two hours?”

“Checking.” A pause. “There have been forty-seven emails and eight voice messages intercepted—along with fourteen submissions to social media. All were contained or rerouted to the Decoy Net, with simulated responses from recipients.”

“Has word of this discovery escaped this facility?”

“No data concerning the tier-one event has escaped incubator sixty-three’s IP enclosure.”

Then it was still his to decide. “Recommended course of action?”

The response was nearly instantaneous. “Intellectual containment. Deploy harvester assets.”

Kulkarni nodded to himself. “I concur. Initiate containment. Record the time.”

“Time noted. Harvester assets inbound. Nonoperations personnel, please clear the area…”

Jon Grady watched a collectionof billiard balls revolving around one another in wild orbits within the gravity modification field. It looked like a tiny solar system, except that the orbits slowly eroded in the drag of air. He laughed as the young lab techs, Raharjo Perkasa and Michael Lum, tossed more billiard balls into the gravity well created by the towering apparatus in the center of Grady’s lab.

Leaning on his cane, Bertrand Alcot stood next to Grady. “Well, it looks like the universe is as crazy as you are, Jon.”

“That’s a frightening thought.”

“Agreed. And yet you succeeded.”

“You mean we succeeded. You know I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Alcot waved this aside. “I spent years trying to convince you why your ideas would never work.” He gazed at the orbiting spheres. “And I was wrong. As I was wrong about most things in my life.”

Grady turned with concern. “What you did was challenge me, Bert. Force me to refine my theory. To change it. And change it again. And then change it again.” He laughed as he gripped Alcot’s shoulder. “There’s no way I could have done this without you. Don’t you realize that?”

Alcot pondered this. After a few moments of silently observing the orbiting billiard balls he said, “The truth is I had nothing else to do. My own work has come to nothing. Greta and I… all our lives we looked forward to my retirement. Now with her gone…”

“You’re definitely needed. I need you.”

Alcot seemed to be grappling with complex emotions. Eventually he looked up. “Your parents will be very proud of you.”

“And I’m sure your children will be proud of you. You should reach out to them.”

“I barely know them.” Alcot squeezed the handle of his cane. “Listen to me. You have to promise me something, Jon.”

“Okay. What?”

“Don’t do what I did.”

“I love my work, too, Bert. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He gestured to the gravity mirror. “That’s why we succeeded.”

“You need to love more than work. You need to have people who care about you—otherwise what’s the point?” He stared without seeing. “That girl of yours—what’s her name?”

“Well… Libby.”

“What happened to her?”

“She met someone at yoga class. She’s already pregnant. They’re happy.”

Alcot nodded to himself.

Grady took another glance at the wondrous gravity mirror on display before them. “This is not the conversation I thought we’d be having right now, Bert. This is a historic discovery. We should enjoy it.”

Alcot turned to face Grady. “Life waits for no one.”

“Is this not life?”

“Just promise me you’ll live outside your head as well as you live inside it.” Alcot gripped his shoulder hard. “Promise me.”

Grady could tell his mentor was serious. He finally looked Alcot in the eye and nodded. “I promise, Bert. Now would you shut up and start thinking about your Nobel acceptance speech, please?”

Alcot grimaced and then gave Grady a slap on the back. “This ridiculous hair. You know, the first time I met you, I told Greta that a dirty hippie was stalking me.”

Grady laughed. “Hey, hair is nature’s calendar.”

Just then Grady noticed forms moving out of the shadows at the back of the darkened lab. He straightened up. “Who the hell is this?”

Alcot turned as well. Perkasa and Lum looked up from their miniature solar system. Close by, the visiting investment advisers, Albert Marrano and Sloan Johnson, stopped trying to dry their suit jackets over a space heater and with curious looks came to join Grady and his team.

A dozen intruders moved into the light—men dressed in reflective crocus-yellow jumpsuits emblazoned with Jersey Central Power & Light logos. But along with hard hats they wore black gas masks and carried work lights and tools. They silently and efficiently fanned out through the room, deploying equipment, acting as if the research team weren’t there.

A glance toward the fire exit showed a dozen more coming in from that direction.

“What’s going on here, guys? Hey, guys! If it’s about the power consumption, that’s normal. We have permits for all this.”

Marrano, Johnson, and the others turned to Grady with confused looks on their faces.

“You don’t need the gas masks.” Grady pointed up at an alarm panel and a row of green lights. “There are no chemical leaks.”

Grady noticed one of the workmen had a large, older video camera on his shoulder; the red light indicated it was recording. A bright light suddenly illuminated him.

“Hey! Turn that off! What are you filming us for? You have no right to film in here. This is a private facility. How did you get in here, anyway?”

A man emerged from among the intruders. Unlike the others he wore simple work clothes—flannels and jeans with work boots. He was tall and handsome, with blue eyes and dirty-blond hair and a Donegal-style beard running along his broad jaw. He was athletically built with a charismatic, compelling look—like some rustic fashion model. And he had a vaguely familiar appearance. Grady felt certain he’d seen him somewhere before.

Grady eyed the man warily. “Are you the foreman for these idiots? What’s going on?”

The man stood before the camera, gazing into its lens. Then he turned and raised an accusatory finger at Grady as he spoke in a booming voice. “His judgment be upon you, Jon Grady!”

“Judgment? What the hell are you talking about?”

“In Proverbs it is written that the wise winnow out the wicked.”

“Who’s wicked?”

“Your research robs us of our humanity—creating a hell of this earth. We have come to return mankind to our natural state. To bring us back into harmony with God’s creation!”

Grady felt a sinking feeling as the intruders surrounded them. “You guys aren’t with the power company.”

“There is but one power.”

Marrano shouted, “All right, that’s it! You guys are trespassing. I’m calling the police.” He raised his smartphone and started tapping.