Daniel Suarez - Influx

Ahead of him was the top of a hill overlooking the small town and the lands beyond, so he slowed and pointed his angle of descent downward, dialing down gravity to just a quarter of its normal pull.

As the moonlit, lightly wooded landscape came up to meet him, he scanned for anyone who might see, but he was far out in the countryside. He then pulled his gravity back to almost zero and coasted down onto the ground with his forward momentum.

Grady was pleased with himself when he alighted with only a slight misstep, stood, and finally turned off the gravis entirely. He now stood on a grassy hilltop in the dark, crickets thrumming around him.

Before him was a view of the little town of Empire, Michigan, in a shallow valley.

Were there bears in Michigan? He looked around in every direction. But then he remembered he could fly. As he stared up at the stars, he smiled to himself. The situation was terrible, of course. But the universe could still be so beautiful. He thought about Alexa and hoped his diversion would help her get into BTC headquarters safely. He would make sure of it. He just hoped Cotton’s mole was reliable, and that she could get close enough to BTC headquarters to enact their plan.

After falling the two hundred and thirty miles from Chicago to Detroit (the slow way since she didn’t have a pressurized suit), Alexa came in toward the nondescript BTC headquarters using the cover of the Penobscot Building downtown to shield her approach. It stood forty-seven stories—ten taller than the aboveground portion of the BTC, and once she alighted onto one of its art deco ledges, she found herself nearly six hundred feet above the pavement.

She glanced below and around her to make sure no one was nearby and that she’d triggered no security alarms. She also scanned for the presence of surveillance dust. It would have been too late not to trigger an alarm, but if they knew she was here, she’d rather know now so she could attempt escape.

But there were no advanced sensors on this far side of the Penobscot, whose roof was about seven hundred feet away from the BTC. She knew the surveillance system covered the BTC headquarters in every direction—and this building gave her the most advantageous cover to draw close unobserved. Given Hedrick’s quarrels with the government and the destruction he’d wrought with Kratos, the BTC was still no doubt on high alert.

Alexa withdrew a diffraction scope from her harness and aimed it off to the side, at a perpendicular angle to the BTC building. She then activated the diffraction element, bending incoming light until the BTC building came into view. If she understood it correctly, the device gathered reflected light from numerous directions and used software to piece together the photonic puzzle pieces, discarding anything else. The picture was usually grainy, but it was safer than a periscope—BTC surveillance AIs would spot those immediately.

She spoke into her q-link. “Cotton. I’m in position and standing by. Over.”

Cotton’s voice sounded in her earpiece. “No active alarms. Yet.” A pause. “Mr. Grady, are you in position?”

Alexa heard Grady’s voice. “Yeah. I’m ready when you are.”

“Then proceed to the shipwreck. Land on deck and try not to look like you’re waiting to get captured.”

“All right. I’m headed out. Give me five minutes.”

Alexa wondered about Grady. For a civilian he seemed remarkably sane. She hoped to see him again. In the meantime, she sat on the ledge, watching intently through her diffraction scope for what seemed like an eternity.

Grady rose up to five hundred feet and then fell across the last ten miles. Cotton had assured him there would be an obvious landing spot on a shipwreck off the coast of the island. Grady activated the night vision on his visor and before long he could clearly see the wreck of the Francisco Morazan . It was a cargo ship that had run aground back in 1960—although only the rear portion remained above the water. Its hull was rippled and rusted, but Grady could see birds nested upon it.

He eased down toward the upper deck and finally came to a masterful landing on rusted plates next to what appeared to be the pilothouse and the funnel. He powered down the gravis and heard the ship’s decking creak beneath his weight. Birds rustled in their nests in the glow of his night vision. He decided to turn the gravis back on and keep it at quarter gravity just so he didn’t fall through the floor. Then Grady cast a wary eye in every direction. There was no one in sight.

There was only the sound of waves lapping against the hull and birds cooing.

A holographic display of a young Morrison appeared at Hedrick’s elbow as he sat in the command center. “Mr. Director, surveillance dust just picked up a positive ID on Jon Grady.”

“Show me.”

The elder Morrison leaned in with interest.

Suddenly a three-dimensional hologram of a half-rusted ship hovered in front of them. Hedrick grabbed the edges of it and spun the model around. He then zoomed in to see a live, ultrahigh-resolution video image of Jon Grady pacing nervously on the bird-dropping-stained upper deck. They could hear his footsteps.

“Fantastic! Finally a break.” He turned to Morrison. “Where are our closest assets?”

“Here at base.”

“But I sent teams up there.”

“There was no reason to keep them there. They dusted the wreck and left. Look, if the teams had stayed, they might have tipped off Grady and the others.”

Hedrick watched the three-dimensional avatar of Grady pacing. “Looks like he’s wearing what’s left of your assault gravis. And an older scout helmet.”

Morrison clenched his jaw. “Cotton must be helping them. Grady couldn’t have done those mods without serious equipment.”

Hedrick spoke to the operations controller. “Scan the entire area for significant heat, radiation, or other signatures.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to Morrison. “Cotton might have a workshop nearby. Grady’s definitely there. Alexa’s almost certainly with him.”

Morrison looked positively stoked. “Let me send assault teams.”

“Send every available operator. Focus on capturing Grady first. Return him here under guard, while the remaining teams look for Alexa and Cotton nearby. Cover the whole area with surveillance dust, and if either of them cross that grid, blast them from orbit.” Hedrick zoomed out to a satellite map of the region as seen from space. He circled the peninsula and islands, including the small town of Empire. “If you have to incinerate ten square miles to make sure they don’t escape—do it.”

Morrison nodded. “Understood, sir.”

Alexa’s q-link came to life, Cotton’s voice in her ear. “Red alert sounded. They’re sending five teams up north to get you, Mr. Grady. Two teams already ascending from the remote airfield. ETA twenty-six minutes. Expect the others not long after that.”

Grady’s voice came in answer. “Okay, I’m here. Be careful, Alexa.”

She took a deep breath. “You, too.”

Cotton’s voice returned. “Mr. Grady, it’s time to destroy your q-link. Otherwise, once they capture you, they’ll be able to monitor our communications with it. Do you remember the instructions?”

Grady’s voice replied, “Yeah, I remember. Good luck everyone.”

She answered. “Good luck, Jon.”

With that they heard from him no more.

Cotton’s voice came to her. “Alexa, at the twenty-minute mark, you make your move. Not before.” A countdown appeared in her visor’s display. “You should see the reference dot on the side of the building when you approach. As long as you stay on a level path to it, my contact says you’ll go undetected. He was able to build in a two-meter blind spot into the security array—no more. Don’t stray from that corridor no matter what. Understood?”