Influx (39 page)

She had to find her way to an opening. There had to be one. All of this wind meant there was a hole somewhere. A glance at the heads-up display in her helmet visor told her she was already at twenty-two thousand feet and rising. As the atmosphere thinned, they’d rise even faster. Before long even she would have trouble breathing.

“I’m not letting you leave here, Alexa!” Morrison was panting.

He suddenly grabbed her feet, and she rolled, kicking him off. She looked back at him as she clamored through the crack in a shattered interior wall. “I have to hand it to you, Morrison. You don’t quit.”

“Damn right I don’t!” He pulled himself hand over hand. “That’s why I excelled . . . in the service.” He was panting like a dog now. “It’s knowing one’s . . . limitations . . . and then ignoring them.” Halfway to her he grabbed a shard of glass—or diamond more likely—that was floating between them. He tried to bring her within reach, sweeping the shard before him as best he could.

She ducked under his swing and rained a series of sharp blows to his face. A couple of his teeth floated free along with blood and spit.

But still he pulled himself toward her in free fall against shifting and moving walls.

“Morrison, is your brain even connected to your body?”

He braced his feet against a wall and launched himself at her. She pushed off another wall and shrank back from a wicked swing that nearly slit her throat.

“The BTC is finished! We need to get out of here.” She could see he was panting for breath. “I can bring you out of here. Just surrender.”

Morrison shook his head. “We’re not . . . leaving. If it’s the . . . last thing I do . . . I’ll prove . . . I’m better.” He rolled the diamond shard in his hand expertly.

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe that . . . makes me better.”

He launched himself at her again, and she pulled herself along a bent and twisted stairwell. Suddenly a sucking wind started to rush past her, and she could see daylight.

There was a two-meter opening in the wall ahead, down a twisted and shuttering corridor filled with free-falling debris.

She glanced back to see Morrison climbing hand over hand to the top of the stairwell, diamond shard between his teeth. Blood all over his face, missing teeth reflected in the surface of the knife. He grabbed the shard and shot a furtive glance at the tear in the side of the building.

“That’s it? You afraid . . . to face . . . me?”

She shook her head. “No interest. That’s something you probably never realized, Morrison.
Homo sapiens
never killed off Neanderthal; they just outlived them.”

“The technology . . . it’s going with me . . . and this tower . . . into oblivion.”

“Looks that way.”

Morrison was panting, finding it harder and harder to exert himself at this altitude.

“It’s over, Morrison. Give up, and I’ll take you down to the ground.”

Morrison sucked for air. “Fuck you. How the . . . hell . . . can you breathe?”

“I have a third more lung capacity than you, and each of my breaths metabolizes twenty percent more oxygen.”

“Goddamned freak.”

She studied him as he clung to the twisted stairwell handrail. His weathered face and scar-ridden body. His uniform shredded around him. “Why didn’t you ever get cell repair therapy, Morrison? Why did you let yourself grow old?”

He was growing visibly more sleepy now. “There’s such a thing . . . as aging gracefully.”

Alexa laughed in spite of herself. Her visor display told her they were at twenty-eight thousand feet now.

He tapped the handrail with the knife. “Erasing . . . my only failure.”

“A man so demanding even his clones disappointed him.”

Morrison’s eyes were closing as ice started forming around his mouth. “Gotta have standards . . .”

“You’re not coming with me, are you?”

He held up the shard of diamond but was unable to speak.

Alexa glanced at the visor. Thirty thousand feet. She realized suddenly what Cotton was doing. “You’re going to collide with Kratos. You know that? That’s where this building is headed. Cotton’s going to destroy Kratos with the BTC itself.”

Morrison laughed, delirious. “It had to be Cotton . . .”

“Good-bye, Morrison.”

He saluted with the knife unsteadily, as if drunk.

With that she leapt from the opening, aiming to get as far away from the building with her leap as possible. However, she needn’t have worried because the wind blasting away from the blunt front of the BTC building swept her out and then down, away from the artificial gravity field and out into the morning sun. The bitter cold burned.

She glanced up to see the black tower rising into the sky, debris still trailing off it. The light shone dully from its black sides as it headed into the heavens.

 • • • 

Grady adjusted his angle of descent, following the erratic trajectory of the sleek, black GMV—which was like a bird clamped to a weight. The exhibit mount apparently was outside the radius of the vehicle’s gravity mirror, dragging it down. Not quite like a stone, but inexorably down nonetheless.

Grady was half a kilometer behind Hedrick and could see Hedrick’s arms moving frantically, trying to keep the vehicle in a controlled descent.

They were just a couple thousand feet above the city now, and Grady glanced back to see the tower of black and white smoke that rose above the city. Debris appeared to be raining down everywhere. It was like a scene from the Rapture—but localized to Detroit. As if the city hadn’t suffered enough.

He didn’t know whether to blame Hedrick or himself for it. He wondered how many had perished. It had been dawn, though. He could see a twenty-story building downtown lean over and then disappear into the maw of the great hole the BTC tower had left behind. A waterfall of river water still roared after it with a great plume of steam, smoke, and dust.

He turned back toward Hedrick with renewed anger. And it became clear where Hedrick was headed. They had descended a couple miles south of downtown, and out here there were fewer large buildings—light industrial sites and scattered houses and businesses. As Grady came down behind Hedrick’s odd-shaped craft, he noticed only one large structure amid what was clearly a decayed urban stretch—a massive twenty-story art deco building shaped like a letter
I
laid on its back. The building stood beside a curve of rusted railroad lines, which branched out toward it into a series of railheads.

Grady nodded to himself. Hedrick might be making toward the nearest tall structure in order to land his vehicle somewhere where he could try to free it from its mount without being disturbed.

Sure enough, a thousand feet above and hundreds of meters behind, Grady watched the GMV descend at an angle onto the long flat rooftop of the massive building. It kicked up debris as it did so—apparently landing hard. He lost sight of it in the dust cloud and fell toward it at terminal velocity.

As Grady drew near, he realized this was the largest abandoned structure he’d ever seen. It was obviously a massive rail station with many floors of office space above it—and literally all of the hundreds of windows were blasted out. Nonetheless it was an artful structure—architecturally amazing. Grady couldn’t believe the place had been left to rot. It was surrounded at its base by barbed-wire fences, with huge arched windows and pillars—all of the glass broken, and the stone slathered here and there with graffiti.

Grady descended toward the crash-landed GMV below. It was half sunken into the rooftop, but he noticed the canopy was open. Not far away Hedrick was running along the rooftop toward a yawning stairwell door. To Grady’s dismay Hedrick glanced back behind him and on seeing Grady’s approach sprinted as fast as he could toward the door.

Hedrick didn’t appear to have any more weapons, but now the man knew he was coming. Grady touched down next to the stairwell doorway. The roof groaned as he glided toward it, and Grady realized that the decrepit structure wasn’t going to withstand odd directions for gravity. In truth it probably had its hands full dealing with regular gravity.

He killed the power to his gravis and rushed into the darkened stairwell, crunching across trash, broken plaster, and glass. He came down onto the next floor to see that many of the interior walls were missing. There was, instead, a forest of pillars stretching out in both directions and fields of debris and names spray-painted on the walls. The windows here at the penthouse floor were arched, providing a broad view through their empty panes to the Detroit River and lakes beyond.

More sirens than he’d ever heard in his life were wailing in the distance. There were even air-raid sirens going off mournfully somewhere.

Grady listened. He then leaned down to look between the railings of the stairwell. He saw a form race in front of the light on the floor below, and he gave chase, rushing down the stairs. Halfway down he activated the gravis to gain speed and heard a horrendous cracking sound. He turned off the gravis as he touched the landing and dove aside as a concrete slab collapsed where he’d just been standing.

He took a deep breath. Apparently gravity modification was not advisable in here . . .

He moved out onto the floor in the direction he’d seen the fleeing shadow move and was relieved to see that this level, too, had few walls. He studied the layout and started moving toward the far corner—where he was pleased to see that another stairwell door was bricked up with newer cinderblocks. There did not appear to be an exit that he couldn’t easily see. And he knew Hedrick didn’t have a gravis.

Or a weapon. Hopefully.

Grady crunched across brick dust and garbage, listening carefully and glancing in every direction. He was moving toward the tall windows now, and he could see there was broad ledge out there. Another glance and he realized that the thick window columns were the best cover for getting past him on the floor. So he carefully edged out toward it, standing in the shadows for a moment before leaning out.

Ten feet away, clinging to a corner, was Hedrick in his now torn and dirty business casual clothes. He was bleeding in several places, his normally immaculate hair disheveled. Hedrick clung to a corner wall on the ledge but risked wagging a finger at Grady.

“Do you realize what you’ve done, Jon?” Hedrick pointed up into the sky.

Grady followed his gaze to where the BTC office building still rose into the sky like an alien mother ship.

“You’ve destroyed the greatest storehouse of knowledge since the library at Alexandria. You have doomed the Western world to be eternally decades behind a . . . a synthetic intelligence in Russia and some mnemonic freak in Asia.”

“I know you have other facilities, Hedrick. Hibernity for one. And I need to know where it is.”

“Where?”

“And you have copies of those technologies—of all the plans for making them.”

“There are no backups, you idiot. We couldn’t keep those plans off-site because of the danger of BTC Asia or BTC Russia raiding us. Keystone technologies like the cure for cancer, immortality, the gravity mirror—all of that went up with BTC headquarters. Don’t you realize what you’ve done?”

Grady felt a sinking feeling, but after a moment he nodded grimly. “We can reconstruct them. Especially if we have the innovators behind those technologies—and they’re at Hibernity.”

Hedrick gritted his teeth as he looked out across the decayed building. “This is what happens when we don’t act as responsible stewards, Jon.” He gestured to the ruins. “Michigan Central Station—done in by the automobile. Disrupted out of existence. The entire city practically in ruins.”

Grady stepped out on the ledge. “You’re coming with me.”

“No! Stand back.” Hedrick peered nervously over the edge. “I’m the only one you know who’s aware of Hibernity’s location.”

Grady considered this. “You need to tell me where Hibernity is, Graham.” He started walking closer.

“I’ll jump.”

Grady could see Hedrick was shaking—coated in sweat. “I don’t think you will. And even if you do, I’ll jump off after you with the gravis and stop you.” Grady moved forward and reached out for Hedrick’s sleeve. “Just come with me.”

But then Hedrick raised the arm he had hidden around the corner—and in his hand was a piece of rebar with a chunk of concrete on the end. He lashed out with surprising swiftness and strength, and only then did Grady realize Hedrick might have had some genetic enhancements as well.

Grady ducked back against the wall as the chunk of concrete grazed his cheek, then impacted his bulk-diamond helmet—which sent Grady falling backward. He caught himself on the window frame and pivoted to see Hedrick—teetering on the ledge, wavering his hands for balance.

Hedrick had apparently been propelled toward the edge by the counterforce of his own swing.

“Jon!”

And just like that, Hedrick tipped over the edge, screaming as twenty stories yawned below.

Grady leapt over the ledge after him, punching the gravis’s power button as he did so. He dove straight down like a diver, twenty feet behind Hedrick, whose screams trailed off as the floors raced past them. Hedrick’s panicked expression and outstretched arms reached for Grady. But Grady couldn’t close the distance. And after straining with everything he had, he reluctantly had to reverse gravity—slowing and slowing as Hedrick screamed anew. Receding.

“No!”

Grady came to a stop hovering four floors above the massive roof of the main station hall. Below him Graham Hedrick slammed into the stone roof like a bug on a windshield. Rivulets of his blood drained into a nearby rainspout. Grady felt a sensation of utter failure come over him as he looked down on the body of the former BTC director.

Moments later Alexa descended into the air near him.

He looked toward her with some measure of relief to see her safe.

They exchanged grim looks.

Grady looked down at Hedrick’s remains. “Newton’s third law is a bitch . . .”

G
rady and Alexa descended in
broad daylight onto the roof of the Fulton Cold Storage building—discretion be damned. Skyscrapers were falling into the sky today. They didn’t care who saw them.

Grady approached the stairwell security door. “How do we get in?”

Alexa glanced back at him as she ran. “I’ll tear this building down with my hands if I have to.”

Alexa moved like a panther toward the security door, passing Grady. She slowed suddenly as they both noticed the thick door was slightly ajar—with a brick holding it open.

“Careful . . .”

Alexa just pulled the door open and raced down the stairwell. Grady rushed to keep up, but he had trouble taking the steps six at a time without a gravis—ill advised indoors. By the time he’d gotten to the bottom of the stairwell, he could see that the diamond-aggregate nanorod door that Cotton was so proud of was open, and Alexa had already raced inside.

“Damnit! Alexa . . .” Grady rushed in after her and saw her striding through the place.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Cotton! Where the hell are you?”

Grady glanced around the kitchen and living areas but didn’t see any signs of movement. He soon followed Alexa toward the large workshop, and there they heard motors whirring.

It was immediately obvious that Cotton had gone. Most of his equipment had been removed—the shelving empty and the laser cutters and robotic milling equipment missing. The space echoed with their footsteps as they moved across it.

But there was still one well-lit workbench with holographic displays flickering above it against the far wall. Robotic arms there were busy working on something, and as they approached, they could see the screens were filled with images of cellular biological activity—cells dividing in culture.

On the workbench the robotic arms appeared to be tending the cultures. The video was a close-up of one petri dish.

As they stood looking at it, another holographic screen popped up nearby: Cotton’s face.

He smiled apologetically.
“Yeah, hi, guys. I know I’m just a recording, but even I can tell you’re mad.”
His hologram held up his palms.
“Way out of line launching those pricks and their headquarters into space. But if you’re here, well then . . .”
He shrugged.
“You’re here, right?”

Grady stood with folded arms watching Cotton’s smug face, and he felt like tipping the table over.

“You’re probably wondering what the deal is with the viral synthesis rig. Little hobby, actually. Personalized viruses are gonna be the next big thing—mark my words. Lot of information can be stored in DNA. But then you both know that.”

Grady and Alexa peered more closely into the screen depicting cell division as Cotton’s recording continued.

“Now, promise not to get mad, but . . . you remember that inoculation we all took against neurotoxins? Yeah, that’s not what it was. It was a DNA virus.”

“Goddamnit, Cotton!” Alex glared at the screen.

Grady turned to her. “So he’s killing us, too?”

“Don’t panic. Funny thing about DNA viruses—they tend to leave their genetic code in us. About eight percent of the human genome is viral-inserted DNA. And I thought it was time I left my mark in humanity, too.”

Grady had started examining diagrams on neighboring screens, and he could see that several were text strings whose forms he recalled from the video projector Chattopadhyay had given him.

Alexa was nodding to herself. “Guanine, thymine, cytosine, adenine . . .”

“There’s a good chance you’ll transmit this virus to other humans you’ve come in contact with. And it will spread in your body—make changes to your DNA.”

Grady looked up at her. “What has he done?”

“Well, here’s the thing: It wasn’t enough to destroy the BTC. My goal was to break all those innovations out of that black tower of theirs. And I thought, what better way to make sure no one hoarded these advances ever again than imprinting them into our very DNA?”

Suddenly several screens started showing animations of technical specifications for fusion, gravity mirrors, and molecular diagrams of pharmaceuticals being synthesized into DNA strings.

“So that it can decoded by anyone—even tens of thousands of years from now. I guess you could call it the world’s first intellectual property virus.”

The animations started showing the DNA being restored to technical specifications again. It was the BTC’s entire storehouse of secret knowledge from the looks of it.

Grady laughed out loud, his voice echoing in the empty space.

Alexa stared in bewildered amazement.

“Cotton, you son of a bitch. You really did steal back the future . . .”

Cotton smiled down on them with his Wyatt Earp beard and hair.
“See, I don’t know about you guys, but I plan on retiring—doing some traveling. And spreading some knowledge.”
He shrugged.
“If you know what I mean. I suggest you do the same.”

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.”