Daniel Suarez - Influx

Grady and Alexa just exchanged looks.

“Oh, and Jon, one more thing: Your gyroscope wasn’t broken. I just needed you to focus on getting into that tower and getting control of Kratos. Maybe sometime I can make it up to you. Cook you a meal or something.”

A hologram of a large spinning globe spun into existence in front of them. It zoomed into a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic. “Hibernity is located beneath a remote island that’s actually named—and I’m not making this up—Inaccessible Island. Try 37° 17 ’ 6.88 " S and 12° 40 ’ 22.14 " W, and that should get you there.”

A smile spread across Grady’s face.

Alexa grabbed Grady shoulder. “Found it, Jon.”

“Yes. Yes, we did.” He stared at the holographic map.

Cotton’s hologram tipped an imaginary hat to them. “See you around.”

Jon Grady and Alexa hurriedaway at a crouch from the chopper wash of the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion and finally stood beneath the sunshine. There were a dozen more choppers landing or taking off farther down the tiny, barren island. And in the near distance surrounding Inaccessible Island were U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships and Aegis cruisers, and in the far distance an aircraft carrier.

Hundreds of heavily armed U.S. Marines and companies of 82nd Airborne Rangers were standing around in groups or moving across the treeless, windswept grasses. A sharp-featured woman in her sixties dressed in denim, a sweater, and hiking boots waved to them from a cluster of plain-clothed men carrying assault rifles with full tactical harnesses a hundred meters away.

Grady nudged Alexa, and they both moved across the trampled grass toward her. As they closed the distance, Grady recognized the island with certainty. It was the island he’d been exiled to years ago. His eyes were drawn to the distant stone cottage, right where it had to be, on the edge of the thousand-foot bluff. It was swarming with soldiers now, and they appeared to be pulling out all the furnishings, turning everything inside out.

As Grady and Alexa walked up to the plainclothes group, the older woman stepped forward, smiling, her hand extended. “Mr. Grady, Ms. Adenine, I’m Kaye Monahan, U.S. director of national intelligence. I must say it’s an honor to meet you both.”

Alexa shook her hand, but Grady was already looking past Monahan toward a dark opening in the nearby hillside—it was of unusual uniformity. Clearly man-made. It descended into the darkness like a big ramp.

“Have they located Hibernity, Director Monahan? And my friends?”

She moved aside and gestured into the opening, toward approaching flashlights. “It’s why we brought you in just now. I thought you’d want to be here.”

Grady and Alexa moved forward, down the ramp and into the darkness. Grady pushed through dozens upon dozens of heavily armed plainclothes operators and uniformed soldiers both. He finally stood at the front rank as scores of flashlights approached them from the cavernous darkness. And soon enough squads of uniformed soldiers came to the edge of the sunlight, turning off their flashlights as they emerged.

Grady scanned the faces of the passing people. And the first thing he noticed were young Morrisons in BTC uniforms—at least fifteen or twenty of them, zip-tied and talking animatedly, apparently just as glad to be free from their prison as anyone.

Grady pushed farther in as the men walked past, Alexa close behind him. And then there was a break in the flow of prisoners as another group approached.

And before he realized it, Grady stood before an elderly Indian man he recognized. Several dozen men and women stood behind the man, all wearing a uniform Grady was familiar with. The simple uniform that the Indian man had taught him how to print.

The prisoners stopped and stared for a moment. The soldiers guarding them looked up with curiosity at Grady and Alexa—most of their eyes lingering on Alexa.

But Grady moved forward toward the Indian gentleman, whose smile was even now expanding.

Grady closed the distance, and they clasped hands firmly.

“My dear boy. How fine it is to finally shake your hand.”

“Archie.” Grady then embraced Chattopadhyay.

The other Resistors, both men and woman, young and old, gathered around Grady and Chattopadhyay, tears on many faces as they held each other for the first time.

Alexa looked on as Grady ushered them all outside, into the sunlight, where they looked up disbelievingly—raising their hands to the sun.

Jon Grady stared out acrossthe predawn sky, glowing purple at the eastern horizon. The stars and the Milky Way arched overhead.

A thousand feet below he saw the shoreline of Oregon’s Crater Lake curving away, the indigo water still as glass beneath him, reflecting the stars. It was perfect. He drank in the view.

Then he heard a welcome voice.

“There he is.”

Grady turned to see Alexa holding their six-year-old daughter’s hand, both of them bundled in coats against the chill morning air as they floated in equilibrium, their eyes catching the first rays of dawn.

Grady smiled toward them, and he thought about how marvelous the universe was. How fortunate he was to have lived to be here at this moment. There was a unity in it. A perfection that went beyond math and physics. Though fleeting, it also felt somehow enduring.

He extended his hand toward his daughter.

“This way, Varuna.” He looked up. “I want you to see this…”

You can learn more about the technologies and themes explored in Influx by visiting www.daniel-suarez.comor through the following books:

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku (Doubleday)

The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State by Timothy Melley (Cornell University Press)

God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World by Cullen Murphy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall (Ecco)

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)

First and foremost I want to thank my brother, Adam Winston, for contributing the seed upon which this story is based, in addition to certain characters. Both of us have always written stories, and this was one idea that I thought held great promise as a high-tech thriller—my particular specialty. With his encouragement I have expanded and revised that idea into the book you now hold.

Bringing life into gravity mirrors and the BTC was a daunting task, made easier by the patient advice of physicist and friend Eric Burt, who carefully reviewed early drafts of the manuscript. Whatever crimes against physics remain in the book are my own, not his.

Sincere thanks to Michio Kaku, Timothy Melley, Cullen Murphy, Sir Roger Penrose, Lisa Randall, and Tim Weiner, whose published works greatly enriched this rather fantastical story.

Thanks also to my literary agent, Rafe Sagalyn, and the entire team at Sagalyn Literary. And, as always, heartfelt gratitude to Ben Sevier, my editor at Dutton, both for his story advice and the confidence he has shown in me.

Yet, this book would still not exist without the love of my life, Michelle, who keeps me from wandering into traffic while I contemplate stories… .