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 . . .”

FURTHER READING

You can learn more about the technologies and themes explored in Influx by visiting www.daniel-suarez.com or 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)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DANIEL SUAREZ is the author of the New York Times bestseller Daemon, Freedom™, and Kill Decision. A former systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, Mr. Suarez has designed and developed software for the defense, finance, and entertainment industries. His fiction focuses on technology-driven change, and he is a past speaker at TED Global, NASA Ames, the Long Now Foundation, and the headquarters of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. An avid gamer and technologist, he lives in Los Angeles.

In 1864, E. P. Dutton & Co. bought the famous Old Corner Bookstore and its publishing division from Ticknor and Fields and began their storied publishing career. Mr. Edward Payson Dutton and his partner, Mr. Lemuel Ide, had started the company in Boston, Massachusetts, as a bookseller in 1852. Dutton expanded to New York City, and in 1869 opened both a bookstore and publishing house at 713 Broadway. In 2014, Dutton celebrates 150 years of publishing excellence. We have redesigned our longtime logotype to reflect the simple design of those earliest published books. For more information on the history of Dutton and its books and authors, please visit www.penguin.com/dutton.