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“I activated a radiation alert for this section minutes ago.”
The massive vault door rolled closed again behind them.
Grady gave her an ominous look. “I hope you trust this thing.”
“We have no choice.” Alexa holstered her pistol and placed her hand on a sca
He rolled it around in his hands, trying to figure out which way to hold it. “I know how to get shot by them. Does that count?”
She turned it around and wrapped his hand around it, then powered it up. “Aim the dot at your opponent’s head. It’ll put them to sleep—unless they’ve got armor on.”
Varuna’s voice interrupted. “The most direct route to the Gravitics Research Lab from your location is down elevator shaft eleven. Go straight, and I’ll guide you there. Unfortunately, I will also have to try to kill you along the way.”
Grady gave her a confused look. “How is that helping us?”
“I’ll explain later. Just move . . .” And she grabbed him and ran down the corridor, weapon drawn and sca
As they ran through the deserted corridors, Varuna’s voice guided them left and then right—finally saying, “There is a ceiling-mounted laser turret ahead. It’s capable of fifteen thousand fatal pulses per second. There is no chance of a human getting safely past it or firing a weapon fast enough to hit it before it kills.”
Grady grabbed Alexa’s shoulder. “Why the hell are we listening to this thing?”
“It needs to try to kill us or they’ll shut it down. It’s juggling a lot of contradictory actions to keep antisingularity controls off its back.”
“The performance of such a weapon system would be seriously degraded by carbon fiber smoke. There is a supply of carbon microthreads in the lab across the hall.”
“Thank you, Varuna.” She got to the corner of the hallway and drew her positron pistol again. A glance at the side of it confirmed only a three percent charge left. It was already on its lowest-powered setting.
Grady nodded to the pistol. “You do realize how reckless it was for the BTC to build that, don’t you? To explode, a nuclear weapon requires a complex chain reaction—but antimatter is just itching to explode—any contact with matter and . . .” He spread his hands. “BOOM.”
“Yeah, thanks for the safety lecture.” She flipped down his visor. “This is going to be loud. Get down, cover your ears, and open your mouth to equalize overpressure.”
Grady did so, and Alexa aimed the pistol blindly at a diagonal at the far wall some twenty feet away. A light squeeze of the trigger sent a trillionth of a gram of antimatter into the white polymer wall—which detonated with the force of ten kilos of dynamite, throwing Alexa down the corridor past Grady.
In a few moments he was helping her back to her feet. “I rest my case.”
As she got up, billowing black smoke filled the hall, and now sprinklers had kicked in. “Varuna, are we good?”
“I am regrettably unable to kill you with my laser turret.”
“C’mon.” Alexa led Grady around the corner and through the smoke, coughing as they groped their way along the near wall. In a moment they came out to the far side and up to a bank of elevators—all with red lights above them. As they reached it, one of the elevator doorways opened, revealing a shaft.
“You need to go down forty-six floors to level B-ninety-four. The elevator is currently locked far below here.”
Alexa leaned in to look upward, and the vertiginous shaft looked clear, emergency lighting revealing a series of landings that receded to a vanishing point. She motioned for Grady to keep back and activated her gravis—putting it into equilibrium. “Follow me. And stay as close as you safely can.”
Grady had already activated his own gravis. “How big is this place, anyway?”
“Big enough.”
They both fell through the opening at roughly half speed. Grady looked around. “No elevator cables?”
She nodded. “Elevators were one of the first uses of your invention.”
It took under a minute for them to reach level B-ninety-four. The label was stenciled next to the sealed doors.
Varuna’s voice reached them. “Beyond these doors is the entrance to the Gravitics Research Lab. I’ve escalated the team leader’s credentials to grant you access. But security perso
The elevator doors opened, and Alexa fell through them, Grady close on her tail. She decided to keep falling, tearing out ceiling tiles in the wake of her gravity field, and as they approached the first set of clear diamond security doors, she could see the Kratos logo of a lightning bolt coming from the stars. The doors slid open silently to admit them.
Alexa glanced up at half a dozen laser turrets arrayed in the ceiling and walls. “Varuna, why are these turrets not firing on us?”
“It is increasingly difficult to conceal what I’ve done, Alexa. I’ve locked down these turrets directly. You need to hurry. There’s no longer time for subterfuge.”
“You shouldn’t have done that! What about you?”
“Don’t fail, Alexa.”
They passed through another set of diamond security doors. The place was deserted—with Klaxons sounding and warning lights flashing. Alexa recognized it as lockdown. They shouldn’t even have been able to move from section to section. To do so in lockdown, Varuna would have had to give them emergency clearance codes. She had no doubt what it would cost Varuna if she failed.
Moments later they came to the edge of a long section of clear diamond walls looking down on an empty control room with large holographic displays of the Earth. They could see a couple of researchers in lab coats below. The Kratos logo was tiled into the floor before the entrance—and these thicker doors hissed open as they fell into the large control room with an overlooking gallery. The gravises made their movements across the large space swiftly.
The researchers heard the doors open and turned. Grady and Alexa alighted nearby as she shouted:
“I need immediate access to the Kratos q-link array.”
Grady turned off his gravis and looked up in surprise at one of the two researchers. The man was staring back at him as if he’d seen a ghost. And suddenly the face became familiar—although it was much younger than when he’d seen it last.
It was Bertrand Alcot, his old mentor—but no longer so old.
CHAPTER 31
Compromised
B ert. Is that you, Bert?”
“Jon. I can’t believe it.”
“Bert.” Waves of emotion swept over Grady.
Alcot looked not a day older than forty. He had a full head of hair again, just a bit of gray at the temples. He looked distinguished and vigorous. His cane was nowhere to be seen. He gave Grady a look of deep affection and moved forward to hug him. “My God, Jon, I can’t believe it is you.”
Grady kept him at arm’s distance. “I thought you were dead!” Grady examined the massive laboratory complex around them, and he could see various prototypes of the gravity mirror design all around them. “You’re working for the BTC.”
Alcot lowered his arms and grew somber. It was u
“I think I do understand. I think I understand perfectly. You accepted their deal. You helped them build Kratos.”
Alcot stared at him. “Kratos was my idea, Jon. Gravity projection—the extogravis.” Alcot gestured up to the large screen on which was a live image from far up in orbit. “This is a confirmation of everything you theorized. It’s—”