Grady felt the thrill of the chase and immediately fell downward after her. He was rapidly getting a feel for how to direct himself and how to increase or decrease his speed. It was a physical experience of the laws of motion he’d studied for so many years. He could almost see the mathematical arcs he was tracing through the air as he increased this variable or decreased that one. Living proof of his perceptions.
Grady hurtled through the night air, passing over the rooftops of shorter skyscrapers at a hundred miles an hour. Once clear of the last row of buildings, he angled down toward the lake, aiming for a spot about a half mile from shore. He descended to five hundred feet and sped silently across the dark water.
As he came up to a few hundred meters from the blinking stone lighthouse at the end of a lone stone quay, he eased up on the speed and brought himself to within yards of the water’s surface. When he reached the lighthouse, he rose to a full stop alongside the railing at its peak, where Alexa stood waiting for him patiently—apparently in normal gravity.
She smiled. “You’re taking to this quickly.”
He floated ten feet away from her like a child’s balloon on a string. “It’s like everything I imagined. It seems so natural.”
“Just don’t forgot the old rules of physics when you take the belt off.” She looked up. “We still need to experiment with interlocking gravity fields. It’ll be safer if we go high up for this.”
“How high you want to go?” He craned his neck into the cloudy sky.
“How about just below the cloud deck? Meet you up there?”
He nodded, but even before she launched, he did—laughing like a maniac as he plummeted into the heavens.
He glanced back at the city as he kept rising. It was truly breathtaking—the best elevator ride in the world. It wasn’t until about four thousand feet that he started coming to the bottom of the cloud cover. He dialed to equilibrium and stopped slowly. The mist was clearly defined and dense above him. It was also much cooler up here, and he could feel the dew point was near, as moisture seemed to be coming out of the air.
He looked down to see Alexa rising up, and in a moment she was across from him at a distance of ten yards. The clouds formed a roof above them, but there were gaps here and there where he could see the stars. He could smell the moisture. Below them the city of Chicago glowed in the night.
“All right, Jon. Let’s fall toward each other slowly—one tenth gravity. I want you to try to grab my hands as we pass.”
“Like objects passing in space.”
“Right. Our gravity fields will make it seem like we’re objects of much greater mass, so we’ll behave like stars passing by each other—we’ll disturb each other’s trajectory.”
“Okay. Say when.”
She nodded. “Go.”
They started falling toward and past each other, but as they got close, their trajectories were disturbed to a degree Grady felt that he could anticipate. They were now proof of the physical laws he knew so well. They sailed past each other on altered courses.
Grady shouted back. “Let’s try it again. This time come in at a slightly steeper angle toward me. Just slightly.”
“Change your angle of descent.”
“Done. Here…” He looked ahead as they started to drift toward each other again. He felt it the moment their trajectories interacted. A tug as he fell in toward her, and she fell in toward him—then they passed, brushing outstretched hands.
And then they began to orbit each other, revolving without either one adjusting their controls. They were now a binary system.
She smiled lightly as they continued to go in circles, getting closer with every revolution and spinning faster. “We could get dizzy doing this.”
He nodded but watched her face in the semidarkness. “How many more until we meet, do you think?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know…”
“I say six.”
“Six, eh?”
He nodded.
“All right.” They went around again, gradually increasing speed. “That’s two.”
He kept his eyes upon her as the natural laws of the universe brought them closer together with each revolution.
“Four.”
At their sixth revolution they were face-to-face. They locked hands until their rotation began to slow. They turned to look at city lights far below.
“How did you do this, Jon?”
“Simple physics.”
“No. I mean this… the gravity mirror. Even the BTC doesn’t understand how it works. No one does.”
He thought for a moment. “It’s not me. It’s the universe. I was just the first person to see it.”
Her beautiful eyes studied him.
CHAPTER 28
Tipping Point
Graham Hedrick stood in the BTC command center as technicians scurried about in the control room below. He knew that beyond his sight AI bots were scouring consumer data, telecommunications signals, surveillance camera imagery, and satellite reconnaissance for any sign of Grady, Alexa, or Cotton. Every form of communication known to man was being sifted and resifted. With every passing hour they widened their search radius.
Hedrick turned to Morrison, who, as usual, stood nearby. “What happened to those underwater signatures—the ones in Lake Michigan?”
Morrison looked grim. “They disappeared. The teams up there have been looking, but nothing so far.”
Hedrick studied the screens. “An underwater escape. That must mean Alexa has cavitating gear. Check the inventory and see if anything is missing.”
“Let’s just assume she has it. What difference does—”
“Capabilities.” He turned back to Morrison. “If they have deepwater gear, I think Mr. Grady’s going to try for Hibernity. His compatriots there helped facilitate his escape. He’ll try to rescue them. That can’t happen.”
“If we recall the search teams, I’ll have enough manpower to go down to Hibernity and clean house.”
“No.”
“But if Grady and Alexa secure those prisoners, they could cut a deal with BTC splinter groups. Or they could trade them to the U.S. government—which would help them catch up to us technologically.”
“Yes. And if not the U.S. government or BTC splinter groups, then a hundred other enemies.” Hedrick gazed up at the world on the screens. “It’s all spinning out of control. It’s getting harder and harder to contain all this technology.” He turned back to Morrison. “How many people in Hibernity have invented fusion now—sixty? Seventy?”
“One hundred and twelve.”
“See? No, this can’t go on. That’s why it’s time to resolve this situation once and for all.”
“Meaning what, sir?”
“Meaning that the mission of the BTC must evolve. We’ve been trying to protect society from disruption since the Cold War, but it’s become increasingly obvious to me that we’re the only society that matters now. What’s important is preserving our store of knowledge—the hard-won advances of mankind—against the chaos that’s coming.”
“What chaos, sir?”
“The chaos you’re going to create. Perhaps our Winnower friends had the right idea; the outside world should not have so much knowledge.”
Morrison looked at Hedrick warily. “What are you proposing?”
“Undermine global financial markets—set our AIs loose on power grids, transportation and communications networks. In a few weeks the industrialized world will begin to come apart. We’ll just make sure there are no nuclear missile launches but otherwise let the chaos spread for as many years as is necessary.” Hedrick studied the satellite screens. “By the time it’s over, no one will be able to oppose us.”