Daniel Suarez - Influx

“Surrender your facility to lawful authorities, or you will be forced to comply with U.S. law.”

“General, for the moment there’s been no public confrontation that could sow mass hysteria and undermine faith in rule of law…” Hedrick glanced to the right to see the WaveRider missiles tracking in, still hundreds of miles out. “We should take our responsibility to safeguard social order seriously. Let’s not make any hasty actions that cannot be undone.”

“Do you refuse to comply with a lawful order to surrender control of your facility?”

Hedrick sighed. “Don’t make me do this.”

“I’m giving you one minute to relinquish your post and to start marching your people into Congress Street.”

Hedrick drummed his fingers on his armrest. “Well, seeing how you’ve already launched hypersonic cruise missiles at us, and they’re not due here yet for another eight minutes, I’d say you’re cheating me on time.”

The general barely hid his surprise that Hedrick knew about the incoming ordnance. Apparently they had expected the stealth surfaces to hide them; however, the AIs observing from satellites in geostationary orbit had no trouble spotting objects moving at three thousand miles an hour against a backdrop of terrain.

“General, let’s prevent this from becoming a major incident…” Hedrick brought up another holographic window displaying the face of a technical operations officer—a young Morrison clone.

“Yes, Mr. Director?”

Hedrick said, “Deploy DPD to eliminate the incoming missiles. Report when complete.”

“Wilco, Mr. Director.”

Hedrick turned back to the general, who was distracted by someone talking into his hidden earpiece. “Give my regards to Madam Director, General. Now, I’m going to chalk this up to institutional youthful enthusiasm, but I want this to be the end of it.”

He looked up at the big map of North America. DPD—or dynamic pulse detonation—had been around a while. BTC teams had harvested it from Russian physicists back when there was still a single BTC. Now all the BTC groups had the technology, and it was the reason why missiles and rocket-propelled grenades were largely obsolete in advanced combat. DPD used short, intense laser pulses to create tiny balls of plasma in the air, which were then struck by a second laser pulse to generate a supersonic shock wave within the plasma itself. This created a bright flash and a powerful bang—tiny plasmoid explosions, up to several hundred of them a second. These would be directed at the nose of an incoming missile, causing its trajectory to rapidly erode as it hit higher-pressure air and eventually causing the missile to tumble, breaking up within a second or two. He knew that even now DPD lasers were firing from orbit, peppering the air in front of the missiles. In moments all six of the incoming trajectories disappeared from the map. He imagined in the predawn sky over these rural locations there was a hell of a light show as the hypersonic missiles broke apart into flaming wreckage.

The Morrison clone reappeared in a hologram projection. “Incoming missiles destroyed, Mr. Director.”

Hedrick turned back to the general. “Your preemptive strike has been canceled, General. I suggest you tell the public there was a meteor shower. Our publicity people will send along some sample press releases and footage to make the messaging convenient.”

The general glared. “Surrender your facility immediately.”

“That isn’t going to happen. What’s going to happen is you’re going to start working with us cooperatively, just as before.”

“You’re no longer the director of anything. You’re a criminal organization as far as we’re concerned.”

“Be reasonable about this, General. I haven’t taken out your satellites or jammed your communications because I’m on your side. And you can’t jam—or even detect—our communications because we’re so far ahead of you technologically. Everything continues as before. We can all just simply forget this ever happened.”

The general continued staring.

“Are we clear, General?”

Instead of answering, the general’s transmission ended abruptly.

As Hedrick pounded the armrest of his chair, a bruised Mr. Morrison entered the gallery. Hedrick narrowed his eyes at the man. “Jesus Christ, I thought you were going to handle this, Morrison. Thanks to you, now I not only don’t have Jon Grady, but Richard Cotton is missing, Alexa has betrayed us—and she’s run off with tech level nine equipment to boot! As if I don’t have enough to deal with already from competing board members and meddlesome government bureaucrats.”

Morrison seemed calm but stared intently. “I’m not the one who gave ‘her majesty’ an unregistered positron gun as a sweetheart gift. Sort of odd—considering it’s not really useful for anything other than BTC-on-BTC warfare. Specifically, defeating advanced nanorod armors. The type of thing one might give someone if one wanted to prevent a palace coup. Was she supposed to be your last resort, Graham?”

Hedrick paused for a moment and then turned back to the screens. “Let’s talk no more about it. We’ve both got enough enemies as it is without turning on each other.”

Morrison dabbed at his bruised face. “Where is she?”

“They may have dumped all their registered gear, but Varuna was able to sift through all the moving objects on satellite surveillance of the ground in Illinois. Tracing back from where you were overpowered, it looks like they headed to the shore of Lake Michigan, and they appear to have gone underwater from there—deep underwater—headed north. Which would make sense. It protects them from orbital weapons, and they might have thought it would hide their movements.”

“Their destination?”

Hedrick brought up another holographic window showing a close-up satellite image of the eastern coast of Lake Michigan, near South Manitou Island. He zoomed in to show a tracking marker. “Varuna thinks they might be heading to this half-submerged wreck—it’s the only thing for miles around and a way to take shelter unseen.”

Morrison nodded. “We can fry them from orbit when they surface.”

“We’re not frying anyone. I still need Grady alive.”

“But if they separate by even fifty meters, we can eliminate the other two. It’ll make it easier to catch Grady.”

“I have teams handling it.”

“You’re not referring to my teams, I hope?”

“They’re not your teams; they’re BTC teams. And you were missing in action. Varuna gave me a plan, and I sent several teams out. Do you disagree?”

Morrison pondered it irritably. “What’s going on with these government knuckleheads?”

“They launched a handful of missiles. Nothing serious. I say we let them get it out of their system.”

The technical operations officer’s hologram reappeared. “You have a call from L-329 at BTC Russia, Mr. Director.”

“Damnit! Why does this thing always call at the worst times?”

“Can’t appear weak. It’s fishing for an opening. Probably saw the missile launches.”

Hedrick nodded. “Varuna.”

“Yes, Mr. Director, I’ll modulate your voice for confidence and honesty.”

“Good.” Hedrick spoke to the operations officer. “Send the call through.”

In a moment a familiar cartoon cat appeared on a holographic screen. It spoke with apparent concern on its face. “Director Hedrick. I see you’re having a disagreement with your host government. Would you like me to resolve the problem for you?”

“No. Why would we need that? Our host government is hardly a concern—and certainly no concern of yours.”