Prologue
For over three hours, a sea of stars disappearing into a dark horizon had been Dr. Arin Yalin’s only view from the window of the private plane. Then a glow split the horizon—growing larger and larger with each passing moment.
Arin’s new home came into view like a luminous mothership emerging from the horizon, drowning out the night sky from the ground as he drew closer. When the intense light started coloring the air a pristine shade of white, Arin pulled safety glasses from his shirt pocket and slid them on.
He’d reached Summit City’s outer security perimeter. When armed, the security system could blast an electromagnetic current into the sky strong enough to turn a satellite into a hunk of useless space junk. No unauthorized planes ever flew out this way. But if they did, this was where they would disappear. No one would ever look for them.
No one would be allowed.
The only way to get to Summit City—called 5-Tek by customers—was to be a genius willing to sign up for the one-way ticket, or a test subject no one would miss. Once you checked in at Summit, you never checked out.
Those were the rules.
Only one pilot and one plane had clearance to land there. Rumor had it that the pilot’s only navigation tools were the stars, like navigators of old, and that he lived on a private island whenever he wasn’t flying.
Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. But there was no questioning that Summit City was a one-way trip for anything without wings and permission. That was a fact.
And Arin did not have wings.
He didn’t even have self-respect anymore. He had a Hail Mary of a shot to pull off the impossible, with every likelihood failure would be the ultimate reward for his efforts. That didn’t bode well for his future. But, as a scientist, Arin had to accept that his self-interest had no collective benefit for the rest of the world. Only global harm.
Maybe it was too late to fix what he’d done, but it wasn’t too late to try.
If he failed, a whole lot of people were going to die. Millions, certainly; billions, likely. All because of him. Because he’d figured out how to turn a curious phenomenon into a weapon that immediately became the intellectual property of his employers.
And they had plans for it.
Arin had tried to undo the damage himself, but he was one man against a multi-billion dollar corporation with more power than most countries. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the only way out was all the way in. And, while failure was almost certain, the only greater failure was not trying at all.
For the next six months, Arin would be the perfect 5-Tek employee in order to gain access to all the tools he needed. And, when the time came to make his move, he would go all in no matter what happened. Fate could take things from there.
Fate, Arin scoffed as the plane flooded so full of light he could no longer see the window or any other part of the plane, even with his glasses on. The luminous deluge shimmered and flexed as if it was alive, but Arin knew there was nothing sentient about it. Energetic currents did as they were told, to disastrous, neutral, or miraculous effect. It had no conscience. It was what it was.
The blinding light dimmed, revealing Arin’s surroundings bit by bit, until the glow of it hovered behind the plane like a man-made aurora borealis. Night stars once again twinkled overhead, and a five-pointed structure dominated the ground below—all light and metal. Arin removed his protective glasses.
This was it. He’d arrived.
One way or another, this was the beginning of his end.
A soft click sounded over the speakers before the captain’s voice spoke. “Good evening, Doctor Yalin. As you can see, we have arrived at Summit City.”
Yes. He would have needed to be in a coma to miss that fact.
“Management likes me to give you a fly around, at this point,” the captain’s voice continued. “You’ll see pictures of the city later on, but imagery never quite does it justice.”
Arin didn’t want to be impressed, but he was. His bosses were often overconfident in their creations, but Summit City merited the swagger.
“This will be your one chance to take in the design of the city with your own eyes,” the captain added. “Cameras up to 12 megapixels are allowed, and you will be permitted to keep your images afterward.”
Yes, please, Arin thought, pulling out a cell phone that would never have service again. It seemed like a good idea to have one familiar object with him when cabin fever set in, and the camera on the phone fell within standards. He’d wiped everything else on the phone clear, except for the SIM card with three pictures he needed for his work.
When the plane banked for its first loop, Arin took random shots out the window while studying the structure with his eyes.
Summit City was an architectural beast designed to survive any eventuality, whether dished out by men or gods. The most powerful bombs known to man could be dropped right on it, and people inside wouldn’t even feel a rumble. They would just keep working. No interruption.
At least, that’s what the introduction video boasted. Arin had been skeptical. Until now. Knowing a building was five miles in every direction, and seeing a building five miles in every direction, were two very different prospects, even with Arin’s mathematical mind.
As terrible as 5-Tek might be, Arin sensed that his reputation for being the smartest man in the room would not follow him here. For once, he might learn more than he taught.
When the pilot started a second loop around the city, Arin took it all in through the lens of his phone, snapping pictures that were a little less random. Yes, the full image of the building was inspiring and all, but Arin was a scientist. He cared about the minutia. The twelve megapixels management allowed for capturing details in unofficial images weren’t going to show him much, but it might show him enough.
He spent the next couple minutes zooming in on various access points, where the structure should hypothetically be weaker. If something was too miraculous to be true, it probably was.
In fact, it definitely was.
Summit City might be billed as the only thing on earth that could outlast the earth, but there wasn’t exactly third-party verification on those claims, which made the propaganda worth the paper it was printed on. There had to be a weakness. There had to be a way out.
Half-way through the third fly around, Arin went back to taking tourist-style photos of the full pentagram. Five was said to be the number of life in his circles, so Arin knew it was no accident that a five-pointed city was the hub for creating the technologies that decided what on earth got to live, and what didn’t.
Not that long ago, he’d believed humans had the wisdom to make decisions like that. He thought differently now.
“That concludes our fly-around tour,” the pilot said. “Please secure your seat belt. We’ll be landing shortly.”
Arin tucked his phone back into his pocket. He had no luggage. None was allowed. He would even have to surrender his clothes after landing. He didn’t care, so long as he got to keep the phone and the photos.
Moments after settling in for landing, the plane was swallowed into a vast indoor landing strip with glowing runway stripes. The wheels touched down an instant later, but Arin was too busy trying to look up high enough to see the ceiling of the hangar to care that they were on the ground. The hangar was much too vast for this simple plane to be its sole customer. A small skyscraper could fit in the space, and the roof definitely looked like it opened. It wasn’t proof that the rumors were true, but it upped the chances.
Three men approached the taxiing plane, one dressed in the 5-Tek scientist uniform, and two guards. Summit City was an unabashed police state. Arin considered the resident militia an inefficient use of resources in a city where the floor could kill one person while leaving the person next to him untouched. But Arin wasn’t here as a quality inspector. He was here to invent.
And invent he would.
Undoing his seatbelt, Arin stood and gave his muscles a stretch. When the plane jerked to a complete stop, he gripped the seat to stay upright before taking a breath and walking to the main door. The door opened before he reached it, and one of the guards lowered the stairs for him to deplane. The fellow scientist waited for Arin to start down the steps before speaking.
“Welcome to Summit City, Dr. Yalin.”
“Thank you,” Arin said, covering the distance between them and gripping the man’s hand.
Firm, unforgiving, and a little too tight.
A handshake said a lot about personality, and this guy was pretty much what Arin expected.
“I’m Dr. Matthews,” the man said, releasing Arin’s hand. “I manage all new acquisitions. I understand you brought a camera phone with you?”
Arin reached into his pocket. “I did.”
Dr. Matthews took it, plugging a small device into its main port while watching the screen. Several seconds later, three soft chimes sounded.
That couldn’t be good.
Arin took an even breath and played it cool as Dr. Matthews’ eyes narrowed on the phone before turning it to show what had been flagged—the three pictures Arin had been hoping to hide under copious pictures from the plane.
Time for Plan B.
“This woman is wanted,” Dr. Matthews accused.
“I know,” Arin said, smirking a little bit as Matthews’ eyes went back to the pictures with interest. It was human nature to look at pretty images. The woman in all three pictures had olive skin that seemed to glow, paired with ice-blue eyes and coffee hair. The striking face was a nice cherry on top of a body that could sell any kind of athletic apparel it wanted.
To say the woman was wanted was to toe the line of double entendre.
Arin leaned in closer. “I figure that makes these pictures fair game, right? We can’t catch her with just headshots. There are other features to recognize her by.”
Arin had read the rules carefully while planning, and they were oddly undefined on this particular topic. Technically speaking, the images were neither approved nor forbidden, which meant what happened next all came down to Dr. Matthews’ discretion.
“I plan to bring her in within the next six months,” Arin said, letting Dr. Matthews see how serious he was. “To do that, I need visual access of all relevant dimensions for my program.”
Dr. Matthews’ face gave away nothing. “Private images are prohibited. Anything that stays gets added to the global library.”
“That’s fine,” Arin said, knowing all his images had already been uploaded to the mainframe. The question now was whether he’d get to keep them on the up-and-up, or if he’d be forced to adjust his approach.
Matthews thought for a moment before handing the phone back to Arin.
“For science,” he said with a smirk that almost seemed friendly. Was it possible Matthews liked him? That could definitely help work things in Arin’s favor.
The man reached out to shake hands with him. “We’ve been looking forward to your arrival. You already have a few fans making molds for prototypes you submitted with your application. Hope you’re ready to hit the ground with both feet running.”
Arin shook his hand and released it. “I don’t see any other way if I want to test the prototype in six months.”
“An ambitious timeline,” Dr. Matthews said, a skeptical curve to his brow.
“I heard you like ambition here.”
“True enough,” his supervisor agreed as if he had bets and backup plans going both ways. “For now, let’s get you changed and show you to your quarters.”