“NANOTECHNOLOGY… IS DEFINED AS THE UNDERSTANDING AND CONTROL OF MATTER AT DIMENSIONS BETWEEN APPROXIMATELY I AND 100 NANOMETERS, WHERE UNQUIET PHENOMENA ENABLE NOVEL APPLICATIONS.”
VENICE, CALIFORNIA
NEW YEAR’S DAY, 2042
Emery Miller’s sixth fatal overdose killed him, an untimely death, and quite surprising.
He’d ordered SNAP, the most powerful—and expensive—of the recreational concoctions in the NMech pharmaceutical catalog. SNAP—Synaptic Neurotransmitting Acceleration Protocol—would amplify his mental pleasures. It would simulate the ecstasy of a Bach fugue, an algebraic proof, a perfect sonnet and extend the sensation into to a multi-hour reverie of almost unbearable bliss. So what if the drug was fatal? His NMech immunity subscription included an antidote to the concoction. When SNAP’s nanoagents detected death’s event horizon, it would pick apart the drug, reduce it to its organic constituents, simple wastes to be expelled. That is, as long as he paid his subscription fee. Without the pricey safeguard, Miller’s organs would be left with the vitality of pig iron.
Fifty-nine minutes before blood poured from his eyes and his heart stopped, Miller walked into an NMech pharmacy and greeted the pharmacist with a silent nod. Miller seldom spoke, save perhaps to his cat. The pharmacist said, “Welcome back, Mr. Miller. It’s a pleasure to see you.” His voice carried neither welcome nor pleasure. But Miller was wealthy enough to be accorded at least token courtesy, and as a Rudolph, he warranted special attention.
Behind the counter, sat a nanoassembler. This desk-sized factory built various compounds using prefabricated molecular pieces—carbon chains, neurotransmitters, ethanol, proteins, lipids, esters. Medicines, textiles, building materials, munitions, even food could be fabricated in an assembler. It had produced Miller’s SNAP in less than an hour and loaded the finished dose into an inhaler for the customer’s use.
The pharmacist handed Miller his purchase. “Will there be anything else?”
Miller ignored the man. He waved his datasleeve in payment, tucked the small package into a pocket, and walked out into the balmy Southern California sunset. Even in December, it was shirtsleeve weather.
Despite the day’s warmth, he shivered in anticipation of his SNAP experience. His respiration and heartbeat would slow to a nearly undetectable level. Blood at the surface of his body would plunge deep into its core to protect the vital organs. He would hover at the balance point between nirvana and death. In return for near-surrender to Thanatos, his reward would be hyper-cognition, an hours-long thunderclap of understanding.
Miller hurried eight blocks along Ocean Front Walk to his home, palmed the door open and ducked inside. An orange tabby cat curled around his legs mewling with impatient hunger. He hefted the cat and for a few seconds, the two nuzzled. Then the cat squirmed out of Miller’s arms and yowled. It was past dinnertime and appetite prevailed over affection. While the mouser ate, Miller took his own meal, if six ounces of amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose could be called a meal. It appealed to none of his senses save hunger.
He walked through his modest bungalow to a plain bedroom, furnished only with a smartbed. He programmed it to maintain his skin temperature and ensure a comfortable recovery. He neglected this step once, and upon awakening, every centimeter of his skin burned with the devil’s own pins and needles as warm blood returned to cold flesh.
Naked, trusting the smartbed to protect his skin, Miller lay down and activated the inhaler. He registered a brief tickle as billions of nanoparticles penetrated his nasal membranes. He could almost feel his brain flood with neurotransmitters. These chemical emissaries relayed messages to his body, barking orders to a fleet of corporeal agents. They slowed the nettlesome business of life support, system by biological system, putting vitality in nearly exclusive service to the mind. Miller was to be accorded a multi-hour experience of satori—Zen clarity without the fuss of zazen meditation.
At first he experienced the normal effects of SNAP. Seven seconds after inhaling, he felt his sinuses erupt and knew there would be a brilliant crimson trail where bloody mucus blanketed his face. The red stain was the source of the pejorative nickname: Rudolph. Then SNAP stilled his warming responses and he shivered. Even the hair on his body lay flat as the drug destroyed every source of thermal insulation.
But ah…the high! He was one with the cosmos—transcendent, omniscient. He danced among the stars, sang the music of the spheres and soared along simultaneous paths of quantum particles.
The coppery taste was Miller’s first warning that something was wrong. While he lay paralyzed in ecstatic thrall, blood began to puddle in his mouth. It rushed away from his core towards the skin’s superficial capillaries, a torrent at escape velocity from the body’s gravity well. It seeped from sightless eyes and deafened ears. It suppurated at a rate that would make hemorrhagic fever look like a bridal blush. Every centimeter of his skin oozed. It would be a race to see if he bled out or suffocated first. Five times before, NMech nanobots kept him alive. Today, he was swept across a biological Rubicon towards death’s cold embrace.
Still, the body is stubbornly attuned to one lodestone, the irresistible pull of survival. This most powerful of instincts punched its mighty way through the chemical interference, demanding life for an unresponsive body.
All for naught.
Emery Miller often imagined that his final thoughts would be a flashing montage of his short life’s events or that he would behold a mystical White Light proclaiming the Oneness of All. But Emery Miller’s last thought before blood saturated his thousand-thread-count silk sheets and flooded his smartbed’s sensors, before his heart stilled into silence, was to wonder, Did I remember to feed the cat?
Three thousand miles away, in the sixth-floor management suite of a Boston office building, a chief executive sat at an ebony desk custom-scaled to fit her frame. A long bank of bare windows gave the space a clinical feel that matched the businesswoman’s demeanor. She’d scattered mementos on the opposite wall thinking this is what executives did, but the diplomas, photos, and a framed, jewel-studded gold pin were as out of place in the woman’s barren office as a litter of puppies in an operating room.
A mat of dirty blond curls clung to her scalp like coiled worms. Her hands trembled, her legs kicked, and her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. The 33-year-old face betrayed emotion for the first time in over a quarter-century. She’d pushed her body and mind beyond the limits that evolution had designed and her endocrine system rebelled.
Confused steps replaced her once-certain movement. Only days ago, her muscles had obeyed with a speed and precision beyond normal human capabilities, but now, on the rebound, she was riddled with tics and twitches. As she lost control within, she sought greater control in the world outside her.
Eva had a plan. The task was a difficult one, to create a master switch that would control every NMech product, every NMech customer. She was a scientist, so she would experiment. She would learn. She’d picked her test subjects carefully, as any good scientist would. Emery Miller was first on her list.
Miller had no family, no friends, no one to miss or to mourn him, none to question his death—a perfect test case. She peered into a heads-up display and then grunted in approval at her short list. Like Miller, the other three on the list lacked family or close friends. The soldier’s entire world was his army. The scientist’s was her career, and the tea expert’s, his employer.
An electronic back door gave her control—not to the actual medical, recreational, military, and environmental nanoagents; any tinkering there would immediately be flagged to the systems that monitor product safety. No, Eva would control the accounting for these applications. It was simple: a bookkeeping entry thwarted all of the safeguards built into the company’s products. It simply cancelled his life-support subscription for nonpayment. One stroke of a pseudo-accountant’s pen had transformed Emery Miller from preferred customer to deadbeat, and then from deadbeat to…dead.
All NMech’s products were rigorously tested to ensure the safety and satisfaction of its subscribers. But bookkeeping entries? Insignificant. They were of no more interest to the ardent sentinels of product safety than an ant would be to Cerberus, the three-headed beast that guards the gates to the underworld.
Eva Rozen’s face twitched again, this time into a smile. Control was in her grasp. Cerberus was her pet, and programmed to do her bidding.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
MAY 19, 2038, 7:00PM
When Jim Ecco told Marta about Eva’s unexpected visit to the shelter earlier that day, he recounted her dramatic entrance, the receptionist’s flight, and Eva’s willingness to wait for Jim to finish his rounds with the dogs. Marta was skeptical, and at first refused even to listen to Eva’s proposal. When Jim outlined Eva’s plan to fund public health projects that Marta would administer, Marta immediately grasped the relationship between commercial nanomeds and paying for the costs of developing public health applications. But she was unmoved.
“I don’t even want to hear the details,” she said. “I don’t trust her.”
“Marta, if we can hold Eva to her word, you can save remedies that might be lost. You’ve said yourself that the cost to find the plants that have medicinal value, to isolate the active compounds, and then to synthesize the drugs means the pharmaceutical corporations are not interested in developing. Many of the remedies you’ve catalogued will be extinct before the drug companies think to fabricate them.”
“I can’t argue with that. But I haven’t spoken with Eva in years. Why should I suddenly trust her now?”
“This is not the same Eva Rozen. And if she and you can manufacture with nanoassembly, you’ll save some of the cures that will be lost if the rainforests die out. Maybe they’ll recover, maybe not. But we’ll have the medicines.”
“And make Eva rich,” said Marta brusquely.
“That’s the deal. She gets what she wants, and you get what you want.”
“What I want is for her to stay away from me. From us.”
“Marta—”
Marta held up a hand to stop Jim. “Sorry. My answer is no.”
“No? How can you say no?”
“I’ve been collecting plants since my first summer in Puerto Rico. There are still millions of hectares of rainforest to explore. I want to find and catalog what I can before the forests are destroyed.”
“You sound more like a librarian than a scientist. At least people use the information that a librarian files away so neatly.”
“That’s not fair,” Marta protested, but she knew that it was beyond fair: it was accurate. Worse, it was not what she wanted. She remembered Abuela’s words, “What becomes of adults? Do they follow their hearts or are they filled with discontent? Why not do what’s in your heart?”
Marta paced, considering the opportunity. Then she spoke. “Eva always says, ‘I have a plan.’ I can’t see doing this unless we have a plan to make sure that Eva keeps her word.”
Jim said, “You could insist on being equal partners.”
“That’s an idea,” Marta allowed, “but I don’t know if I can do it myself. I do like her idea of using commercial applications to fund public health, but I don’t think I can do this unless you have a role at NMech, too. And not just some sinecure. I want all three of us to be involved. I can’t square off with her by myself when we disagree. I don’t do well with confrontation.”
“But what about my work at Haven Memorial?” Jim protested.
“Querido, I know it’s important to you, more than important. And so is my research into rainforest-based medicines. But you’re right. This is a chance to do something that could change the world.”
“I don’t want to leave my training work behind. Leave me out of this,” said Jim.
“And I don’t want to abandon my exploration.” Suddenly, both were breathing hard. Marta pressed on. “You’ve built a terrific staff. That’s the mark of a good leader—your team could carry on without you. But I can’t face Eva alone. If you become part of NMech, then we’re two to one. Or she can have forty-nine percent of the stock and you and I split fifty-one percent so we have a voting majority.”
“Why would she give me that kind of a role at her company?” he asked.
“Jim, think about it. You’re great at organizing and leading people. I don’t have much in the way of people skills—”
“Yes, you do,” Jim interrupted.
“That’s sweet of you to say. But I’m not a leader. I like to be gracious, but you have a knack for getting people to want to do the hard tasks. I’ll consider working with Eva but I won’t do it without you.”
Jim sat and subvocalized and invoked a heads-up display. He saw his son tinker with an old dataslate. Dragonfly monitors—insect-sized sensors that combined specks of processing power—produced visual images and sound readings in Dana’s room. “What about Dana? Look at him. Eight years old and he’s taking apart and reassembling his slate like it was a construction toy. Haven Memorial lets me set my hours so I can be with Dana. I want to stay connected with him. He’s special, and I’m not just being a proud papa. He has a gift. What about that?”
Now Marta was silent. She paced their small apartment. The walls were drab, without the benefit of brightwalls—paint embedded with light emitting nanoparticles that allowed the walls, ceiling, and floors to provide variable lighting and heat at a command from a datapillar. There was no pillar, for that matter. Even something inefficient and underpowered was beyond the means of a family whose income was based on two soul-satisfying but low-paying jobs that kept a roof over their heads but little more.
She paused at a window. At least it had nanoglass, thanks to building codes rather than to any generosity on the part of their landlord. She touched the pane and it darkened. Looking out at an alley and a convenience store was dispiriting.
“There are afterschool programs at NMech,” Marta said.
“How do you know that?” asked Jim.
“I follow things,” she allowed.
Jim took a moment to digest that information. “So, let me get this straight. Eva knows about your exploration of rainforests in places like Brazil and Borneo. You know about kids’ programs at NMech. You two haven’t spoken in years, and yet you each know all about each other’s careers?” Marta nodded and Jim shook his head. “You’re like the boy and the girl in an old movie—fighting like cats and dogs throughout the film and lovey-dovey at the end.”
“Don’t count on lovey-dovey. I know about her because it’s hard not to notice what she’s doing. It seems like every scientific journal has a paper she wrote. Then there’s the financial press. She spent four years at Harvard telling me that she was going to be the richest woman in the world and she appears to be well on the way. As far as her knowing about me, well, she spies on people.”
“Is it any good?” asked Jim.
“Is what any good?”
“NMech’s afterschool program.”
“It’s supposed to be. Apparently, Eva put some decent money into it,” Marta replied. “You can look into it.”
“What do I know about kids’ programs?” asked Jim.
Marta smiled. “Guess you’re going to find out.”
“You mean you’ll do it? Work with Eva?” he asked.
“Yes, but only if you join me, Querido.”
Jim and Marta paced for a few minutes, mulling over the opportunity. They were excited. But the apartment was small, and they had to pick their paths carefully.
Finally, Jim said, “Will Eva want me as a partner?”
Marta looked at him for a moment, shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Men are so blind,” was all she said.
After dinner, Marta took a deep breath and held up her hand to receive a file. “Okay, let me see what Eva has in mind.” Jim reciprocated the gesture and subvocalized a command. Marta’s datasleeve pinged receipt of Eva’s proposal.
Marta invoked a heads-up holographic display and began to read through Eva’s plan in stony silence. When she finished, she looked up at Jim, careful to keep her expression neutral.
She took another deep breath, muttered, “I know I’m going to regret this,” and touched her commpatch and subvocalized a link to Eva. At first, her voice was controlled. Soon it became more animated and rose from an inaudible subvocalization to a clenched-teeth whisper, the commpatch equivalent of shouting.
She touched her commpatch and suddenly Eva’s voice was projected into the room so that Jim could hear both sides of the conversation.
Marta was angry. Her voice dripped with scorn. “I want to attack morbidity, and you want to cure lactose intolerance? So that people can eat ice cream? This is public health? You want to cure farting?”
“Don’t preach to me.” Eva’s disembodied voice shot out of the holograph that displayed her avatar. She sounded calm, as if she’d anticipated Marta’s response. She said, “Just listen. I know that lactose intolerance isn’t schistosomiasis, but who’s going to pay for that kind of medicine? Who cares about any of that besides you?”
Eva continued evenly before Marta could interrupt. “You’re right. Lactose intolerance? So what? But people love milk even though it’s indigestible for most adults. Ice cream consumption alone is nine billion gallons a year. You’re looking at a third of a trillion-dollar-market.”
Marta broke in. She bit off each word and joined them into a staccato indictment. “I don’t care about the money. Why did I link with you in the first place? I wanted nothing to do with you once we finished the Harvard project and now I remember why that was. You remind me of Humpty Dumpty—you make words mean what you want them to mean. You say, ‘public health’ and you mean ‘get-rich scheme.’”
Eva’s voice turned flat, matching Marta’s passion with an affectless recitation. “Just listen. Have you ever known me to act without thinking? Ever? Just keep your mind open for two damn minutes.”
“Of course, it’s not a medical issue,” Eva spoke with uncharacteristic vigor. “That’s why it’s our starting point. It’s not going to be regulated. You’ve got to see that. We can get it to market fast and make money—a lot of money. Then we can afford to do public health. I explained all this to Jim.”
Marta shot daggers at her husband. “What else did you two talk about?”
“Give it a rest, Marta. That’s ancient history.”
Marta drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly through pursed lips. “Okay, sorry. Go on. Say your piece.”
Eva pushed on. “First of all, just to be accurate, there is no cure for lactose intolerance. Nobody ever thought it was important enough. Sure, you can spray an enzyme onto your food. Add lactase to the production. But those remedies are afterthoughts. Billions in ice cream sales alone and nobody thought to cash in? Wake up, Plant Lady. NMech rolls out a nice little consumer nanoapp that builds the enzyme. An effective remedy. And it’s over-the-counter so that we don’t get stuck in trials for years. Dammit, everybody likes ice cream and nobody wants gas. So we fix it. We go to market. We make money. Then you take part of the profit and go cure something. Anything. Whatever you like. That’ll be your baby. But public health is a big investment and I’m not going hat in hand to some waste-of-skin bureaucrat for funding.”
There was a long silence. Eva started to speak but Marta held up her hand to stop the woman’s comments. The gesture was invisible, but Eva stopped in mid-sentence as if she were standing next to her.
Marta considered Eva’s explanation. At last, she spoke again. “Eva, where did you get the idea for this?”
“From you.”
“From me? I never spoke about lactose intolerance,” Marta said. “Didn’t say you did.”
“Then why do say you got it from me?”
Eva was silent. Marta waited. At last, she understood Eva’s cryptic comments and flushed. “Oh my god. Why didn’t you say something to me then?” When Eva didn’t answer, Marta blurted out, “Was it bad?”
“Uh-huh,” Eva said, stretching out the two syllables into simultaneous rebuke and exoneration. “Between you and Dana, when he needed to be changed, well, let’s just be ladies about it and say that Mother Nature has an odd sense of humor.”
“But that lab was tiny. It must have been… “Marta trailed off, embarrassed.
“Marta? You had enough on your mind back then. You had Dana. You weren’t getting much sleep. And you were pissed about your dataslate and barely civil to me. And besides, I’m not big on girltalk. You think I can find a diplomatic way to bring it up? Uh, no. Not my style. You liked your afternoon scoop from Toscanini’s. Plain vanilla ice cream, as I recall. But an hour later? Ewww. Gas. Every day. I never got used to it.”
“Oh, my god,” Marta repeated.
“But I can tell you one thing,” Eva said.
“What’s that?”
“If you still like your afternoon scoop? Then you’re going to be our first customer.”
Six months later, NMech released its first consumer product, Easy-Milk, every bit the success Eva predicted. They followed up with FreeSkin, a nanoagent complexion cream that targeted acne in teens and young adults. It was an even greater success. Nine months after the release of EasyMilk, before NMech went public and started Eva on the path to becoming the world’s wealthiest women, Eva delivered on her promise to fund medicine in the public interest. The uneasy alliance had worked.
Eva, Marta, and Jim met in the NMech boardroom. In keeping with Eva’s decorating sensibilities, the room was stark to the point of barrenness. A large oval cherry wood table dominated the room. The floor-to-ceiling drapes were set to a blood-red velvet, one that gave the room the look of an abattoir.
Marta subvocalized a command to the room’s pillar and the nanofiber drapes reorganized into calm green linen. Eva turned at the change and stared at Marta. Marta smiled.
“I just set the drapes. I like red,” said Eva.
“Well, good morning to you, too. Let’s have something with some life in it. I feel like I’m walking into a whorehouse.”
The two scientists regarded each other. Tension and the occasional contretemps seemed to be a permanent part of their friendship.
Jim walked in, too late to have heard the interchange. “Ladies, I feel like celebrating. Okay if I change the drapes to something festive?” Eva rolled her eyes and Marta managed a chuckle as Jim selected a display that depicted every recognized breed of dog. Marta took in Jim’s decorating sensibilities and lowered her eyes.
“Isn’t that better?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, Jim, very classy,” Eva said. Then she subvocalized.
The image shifted again and the room darkened as the drapes morphed to a black velvet. In place of Jim’s bright array of proud canines, Eva had substituted the image of a popular though gaudy painting. Seven dogs sat around a green felt table littered with poker chips and cards. Each had a highball glass half-full of melting ice and whiskey. A collie on the left side of the table held her cards close to her chest. Opposite her, a terrier with a worried expression stared at his hand. The black Dane smoking a pipe looked smug and the bulldog held an ace in his left hind paw out of sight, below the table. A small brown dog with its back to the viewer appeared to be winning.
Marta and Jim looked up at each other and Marta subvocalized. The drapes returned to Eva’s crimson.
Point and match to Eva Rozen.
Eva’s public health proposal surprised them. “I’ve got a great plan for public health.”
“Are we going to talk about it?” asked Marta.
“What’s to talk? I have a plan.”
“I’d like to have a say in what disease we choose.”
“Who said anything about disease?”
Marta’s temper flared. “Eva, you gave your word.”
“Yup.”
“And now you’re saying we’re not going to work on a disease? No medicine?”
“What’s so important about fabricating a medicine?” Eva, the Provocateur.
“What’s so important?” Marta exploded. “Our whole point in joining you was to give help to the people who couldn’t afford medicine.” Marta, The Crusader.
“Wrong.”
“You want to explain what you mean before I walk out the door?”
“Sure. You said public health. You, dear tolerant lady who always speaks so sweetly and never jumps to conclusions, are going to get public health. But nobody said we had to do pharmaceutical fabrication. It might not be too hard to assemble, but FDA trials and regulations would tie up our resources for years.”
“So, what? You’re going to give us an even better cure for gas?”
“Very funny. How about clean water?”
“What?” Marta and Jim said simultaneously.
“Yep. Good ol’ H2O.”
Marta and Jim froze. Eva displayed a rare smile. She subvocalized and smiled again, and, in an uncharacteristic display, she laughed. Eva, the Surprising.
Marta did a double-take. Eva chuckling? Public health was momentarily relegated to an afterthought. “What’s so funny?” Marta asked, incredulous now, rather than incensed.
“The looks on your faces. Priceless. I recorded it so I can watch it again whenever I need a bit of comic relief. Now let’s think big, shall we?”
“Infectious disease isn’t big? Fifty-five million deaths a year?”
“More like seventy million—a lot of it is uncounted,” Eva said. “But one-quarter of the world doesn’t have clean water. That’s over two billion people who are thirsty.” Eva stood and paced, hands clasped behind her back. Her shoulders hunched forward and she looked even smaller than her four-foot, four-inch frame. Her pale skin was a stark contrast to her black nanosilk cargo pants. She paused, and then turned suddenly. Eva chuckling, and now dramatic gestures? Jim and Marta stood spellbound, mouths agape at her sudden animation.
“And you think it’s bad now? We’re just beginning a cycle of even more severe water shortages, thanks to droughts from climate change, from over-pumping of underground aquifers and from relaxing clean water standards. Then there are all the construction practices that pollute drinking water.” Eva, the Jeremiah.
She held Marta’s gaze. “Compare clean water with inventing a new drug. Want to spin your wheels with FDA trials? And nobody’s mentioned patent issues. What if our fabbed meds are indistinguishable from another company’s test tube version? Suppose we assemble a drug someone else claims is theirs? You want to spend a decade with litigators over who owns the rights to what?”
“Come on, let’s focus on what we can deploy immediately. There’s a real need, Marta. Not to mention the commercial applications. I mean, if we happen to make a profit later on, would that be okay with you two Samaritans? Not to mention the publicity we’ll generate.”
“Eva, you are the most exasperating person I know.” Jim, the Peacemaker. His voice was couched in tones of admiration.
“Just exasperating, Jim? Come on, say it: I’m the smartest, most wonderful person alive, and you worship the ground upon which I tread.”
“Smartest, no question. Worship? Got to give that title to my wife and my son. But you are my oldest and dearest friend and I regard the ground upon which you walk on as something close to a national treasure. How’s that?”
Eva said nothing. She felt warmth suffuse her—she was touched by Jim’s affirmation of their friendship. She flushed.
So did Marta, the Insecure.
There was an uneasy moment as the atmosphere in the boardroom changed, like the stillness before a thunderstorm.
Marta drew a breath. “Do you have something specific in mind?” she asked, refocusing on the project.
“You ever know me to be unprepared?” Eva snapped and then continued without waiting for a response. “There’s a water desalinization project in Venezuela that’s perfect for us,” She subvocalized and the room’s pillar projected a globe onto the conference table. An image of the Americas and the Caribbean faced them.
“What are we looking at?” asked Jim.
Eva zoomed in. “This is the Paraguaná Peninsula of northern Venezuelá, on the Caribbean coast. There’s a desalinization plant there that keeps people in Central America and the Caribbean from dying of thirst. The plant can’t keep up with the demand anymore.”
“How old is the plant?” asked Marta.
“It went online twenty years ago.”
“Why can’t it produce enough fresh water for the region?”
“First of all, it wasn’t designed to be the primary source of water. The principal source of fresh water in the Caribbean is rainwater, which is scarce during the best of times. After twelve years of the NAMSEA drought, reservoirs and emergency supplies are exhausted.” Eva referred to the twelve-year water shortage that desiccated much of North America, the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia—hence the name, NAMSEA.
Marta asked, “How bad is NAMSEA? Compared, say, to the Sahel drought?”
“Which Sahel drought? 1910?” Eva asked, “The 1940s? 1960s? Or do you mean the 1970s? 1980s? 2000s?”
Marta frowned. “Uh, the bad one, I guess.”
“The 1970s drought is the one most people think of. About 100,000 people died and millions were left homeless. That one?”
Marta nodded, still staring into holographic display.
“That drought was severe—for its time. The PDSI rating was bad, but not as bad as we’re going to see,” said Eva.
“PDSI?” Marta asked.
“Palmer Drought Severity Index. A zero means no drought, average rainfall and water table levels. Negative scores go higher as droughts increase. Sahel measured about a -4 on the PDSI scale. Right now, NAMSEA is running about -6, depending on where you measure it. Two years ago, you had water riots that killed over 20,000 people in cities across the Caribbean. We’re starting to see dust storms like the 1930s. The dust smothers vegetation and destroys machinery. It shears off the arable topsoil. Not so good for agriculture.” Eva paused and then continued, “Put it this way, I wouldn’t put the Caribbean on my next vacation itinerary.”
“Is it getting worse?” Jim asked, and then shook his head. “Dumb question. How bad will it be and can we really make a difference?”
“Actually, that’s a good question. I’ve been following the work of the lead researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. NOAA is staying mum, but privately, its people predict that the drought will hit -8 by the end of the century. That’ll make the Dust Bowl look like a sauna.”
Jim and Marta absorbed this information in silence.
Eva said, “It gets worse. The Puerto Rican government dredged harbors to make bigger port facilities and managed to damage natural aquifers in the process. Same thing in every island that fancied a nice new port. Mother Nature spends a few million years to carve water-bearing bedrock caverns. Commercial agriculture and mining ruin the karsts in just a few decades.”
“Karsts?” asked Jim.
“Limestone caverns. Mama Nature builds ‘em. We drain ‘em.”
“What happened?” asked Jim.
“Acid rain. Over-pumping. Who knows? Who cares? It’s an opportunity for NMech. And the chance for you to do something in the public health arena.”
“So how does this place—Paraguaná? How does it figure in?” asked Jim.
“Well, before the drought, the desal plant was the margin of safety in the Caribbean. Now with the drought, and with other water sources ruined, Paraguaná can’t make up the difference.”
“What’s wrong with the plant?” asked Jim.
Eva said, “The key problem is that they use reverse osmosis.”
“We’ve been using RO for something over a half century. Longer even. Why is that an issue?” asked Marta.
Eva explained. “Old technology that made sense when energy was cheap. But you need a hell of a lot of energy to force water through a filtering membrane. Now it’s too expensive to filter water that way but they’re stuck with the plant. But the biggest problem is that RO works too well. It’s self-defeating. Water slips through the filter but salt and pollutants build up and clog the filters. The more water you try to process, the more the sludge builds up till it fails. Ironic, huh?”
“What’s the solution?” asked Jim.
“Nanomembranes,” said Eva, with an open hands gesture, as if the answer were so obvious a child could give it. “Nanopores made from carbon or boron nanotubes are about 50,000 times smaller than a human hair, but will process more water, by several orders of magnitude. The material is so slippery that the buildup sloughs right off. It’s like the difference between a cocktail straw and a fire hose. And since water races through the pores with almost no friction, the plant will be able to lower its energy consumption.”
“Can NMech do it?” asked Marta. “This would be fantastic.”
“Sure can. In fact, I have a plan for it.”
“Of course you do!” Even Marta laughed, caught up in her colleague’s enthusiasm.
Eva continued, “Look, we can build the filters in an assembler. That’s easy. We’ll have Paraguaná at capacity in four months. The initial yield may be ten times greater than what it is now. And the best part? We have a demonstration plant. We can turn around and sell the technology to industry.” She looked pointedly at Marta. “Are we all happy girls now?” then winked at Jim.
“What about logistics?” Marta asked, serious again. “Once production rises, can the existing pipelines handle the increased output?”
“Good point. We’ll need to make some upgrades but I think with the proper management, there’ll be enough transport capacity by the time the plant is ready.”
“Is that realistic?” asked Jim. “There must be thousands of miles of pipelines to carry water. If we up the production by a factor of ten, are we going to be able to get the water where it’s needed? It’s like expecting, oh, I don’t know…like expecting a bike path to handle a highway’s worth of traffic.”
“Actually, it is realistic. When the plant was built, the promoters overstated what RO could produce. Overstated it big time. So there’s been excess capacity since day one. We’ll need to do some building but nothing extreme.” Eva paused and looked to make sure she had their attention. The side of her mouth curled up in a half grin. “Besides, NMech just purchased the two local suppliers of pipeline and fittings so there’ll be some additional revenue.”
“Of course we did,” Jim laughed. “Great plan, Eva.”
The compliment cracked Eva’s impassive expression and a smile stole across her face and hovered for an instant like a hummingbird at a flower. A second later, her features resumed their characteristic impassivity.
“Well, I’m in, I guess,” Marta said. “But I want to get back together in, say, six months and look at what we accomplished. Lessons learned and all that.”
“Okay,” said Eva. “Anything else?”
“One thing,” said Marta. “I want you to meet an old friend of mine. She’s the developer of morphing nanocouture. I think there might be a place for her at NMech.”
“We have our own textiles division.”
“Exactly. But that’s military textiles. They’re tough and self-repairing, and the uniforms don’t change much. So that division is becoming less profitable. Think of nanocouture as cash flow. Styles change, and that means constant new business.” Marta smiled, her excitement evident at the opportunity to present a business case. “It also means that we’ll have a peaceful use for some of our military technology, and that’s important to me.”
“Well, well,” said Eva. “Listen to who’s talking like a business-woman. I like that. So you’ve got, what, a model for us? A fashion queen?”
“No, a scientist who’s interested in fashion. She’s an old friend of the family and I was waiting for just the right moment to suggest she join us.”
“You’ve known her long?” Eva sounded half-interested.
“She’s a close family friend. In fact, Dana calls her Aunt Colleen. But I’m suggesting you talk with her because of her science, not our friendship. Morphing couture can be huge, but she doesn’t have the capital to develop it and to compete with the established fashion houses.”
“What the heck is morphing couture?” asked Jim.
“It’s a way to use datasleeve and software rather than needle and thread. A command to a datasleeve and Colleen’s pieces reconfigure into various styles. Right now, you can only change the color and texture of a garment. With morphing couture, a single garment changes into a designer’s newest styles. It’ll be like nano-customized prêt-à-porter,” Marta said, her voice rising in excitement. “The styles can even be programmed to expire when each new line comes out. That means customers make multiple purchases.”
Marta said to Eva, “I told Colleen to meet me here so I could to introduce you two. She’s got a PhD in nanotextile materials engineering from Harvard. That’s where we met.”
Eva shrugged and returned to her model of the Paraguaná RO plant. Marta subvocalized and a moment later the boardroom door opened.
A young woman entered the boardroom and smiled. A lush cascade of auburn hair in a loose braid served to accent her slender neck. She’d brushed delicate metallic streaks into her hair that projected tiny electrical emissions like a subtle halo. They glowed and flickered to draw attention to an elegant face. Her features were precisely symmetrical—full lips, captivating green eyes, and an aquiline nose. The distance from eyes to lips formed a pleasing proportion.
Eva looked up and gasped involuntarily. She was looking at a woman who could have doubled for Gergana. The wide smile, the innocent eyes, the full hips, the perfect facial features. Eva blanched.
“Eva,” Marta began, “I’d like you to meet Dr. Colleen Lowell.”
Colleen stepped forward to accept Marta’s introduction. “I’m very honored to meet you, Dr. Rozen. You’re one of my heroes, an inspiration to women scientists, and—”
Colleen stopped and stared at Eva. “Dr. Rozen, are you all right?”
Jim and Marta turned to their colleague. She grimaced, as if in pain, and sat down heavily. She rested her elbows on the cherry wood conference table and held her head in her hands. She looked up again at Colleen.
“No,” muttered Eva, struggling to regain her poise.
“What’s wrong?” said Jim.
Eva looked at the bewildered trio on the other side of the table. She repeated, now in a firm voice, “No.” Then Eva rose and stalked towards the boardroom’s door.
“Eva?” Marta asked, concerned and confused.
Eva said nothing. She paused for a moment, and then turned back and scrutinized Lowell.
“No,” Eva said, for a third time.
“What the—?” Marta said. She turned to Colleen Lowell and spilled out an apology. “I’m sorry, Colleen, but our partner, uh, Dr. Rozen, she can be eccentric every now and then.”
“What’s going on, Marta?’ Lowell asked, an edge to her voice. “You said that NMech would take on my work.”
Before Marta could answer, Eva turned to the young woman. “Settle down, Ms. Lowell,” said Eva, in her customary flat voice. She had regained her composure.
“That’s Dr. Lowell, if you don’t mind,” Colleen huffed. “Materials engineering at Harvard. I believe that’s your alma mater.”
Eva stared at her, unblinking, and then said, “Marta, your idea is a good one. I do not want her up here in the executive suite. I do not want to come in contact with her.” Then, turning back to Lowell, Eva said, “Nothing personal.”
“Not personal? You tell me you don’t want to see me and that’s not personal? Well, it’s personal to me. I don’t care if you’re the smartest woman in the world. You dress like you’re going to a cattle auction—as the livestock. I deal with people in the fashion world who would eat you alive, you ugly runt! Marta, thanks for the invitation. Good luck with Raggedy Ann.”
The words, ugly runt, triggered a flood of memories for Eva. Others had hurled the same words. Mama did. Papa did, especially when he believed she did not hear. Schoolmates did. And Bare Chest did.
Each taunt cried out for recompense and Eva kept a ledger. Recording each offense was an automatic mental process, if not a conscious one. Each offense was tabulated with meticulous precision.
Eva remembered some of the offenses. There was the child—could she have been six? Seven?—who uttered those words. That child soon watched a shiny thing, half-hidden in Eva’s left hand, turn into a pair of scissors. Then she saw a hank of her pretty red hair fall to the playground tarmac…the boy, who returned from soccer practice shower to find every piece of his clothing glued together…the schoolmate who found her hair conditioner replaced by a depilatory.
The foulest and most memorable entry in her ledger was that of Bare Chest—Akexsander Yorkov—accomplice to Gergana’s murder. Eva remembered him clearly, and the price he’d paid.
Colleen’s angry retort may not have triggered a conscious memory of each violation. But it evoked an emotional response from a lifetime catalog of insults. This triggered a series of biological events. Eva’s endocrine system prepared her for fight or flight, flooding her with adrenaline and noradrenaline. Her heart raced and digestion slowed. Glucose pumped into her bloodstream and her pupils dilated.
Years of free-flowing rage found a target, not two feet away.
Eva smiled.
She touched Colleen on the forearm and spoke quietly, even soothingly. “Be careful, dear. You meet the same people coming down as you did when you were going up.” Eva held her hand on Colleen’s arm for a moment longer than necessary to make her point, and a series of software commands flowed from Eva’s sleeve into Colleen’s. She did not need to touch Colleen for the rogue software to jack into Colleen’s sleeve but the unexpected contact distracted the fashionista from Eva’s real purpose
Lowell jerked her arm away and stormed out of the boardroom.
“Well, that worked out nicely,” said Marta. “Thanks, Eva. Real professional. That was a very dear friend you just insulted. And one heck of an income stream you just threw out.”
“Disregard it. We have enough on our plate right now,” Eva snapped. “And nobody calls me that name to my face.”
Marta wanted to say, Which name? Ugly? Or runt? but she held her tongue.
Eva left the boardroom fighting to control her emotions. Something tugged hard at her memory, but it was frustratingly out of reach. Eva’s breathing became shallow, rapid breaths that drew in little air. She felt her pulse throb in her neck.
Eva was processing images, memories from her preverbal infancy. Lowell’s sculpted features matched Eva’s stored images of her sister and her onetime caregiver, Gergana, both alive and dead in Eva’s unconscious mind, where past, present, and future were indistinguishable.
Ego structures strained under the reanimated weight of memory and loss. Long-repressed images pushed insistently against the barriers that separated a violent past from a controlled present, like protestors overrunning a police barricade.
The din from the Table of Clamorous Voices had been dormant. Now it was an unquiet phenomenon.
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO
I was almost nine when my parents bought a home in Pill Hill, an upscale Boston suburb, named for its proximity to a cluster of hospitals. My father cycled to work, weather permitting, or rode with my mother in a P-car, a semi-private driverless automobile. Our house backed up against a ribbon of parkland called the Emerald Necklace. That was my western frontier, my Sherwood Forest, my mystical kingdom. If I wanted to meet Robin Hood’s Merry Men, cowboys, or elves, I had merely to walk out the door and into my backyard imagination.
My mother showed me plants in the parkland that were edible or medicinal. Today, when I walk through the parkland along the Muddy River, I can still spot trillium, wild asparagus, leeks, and Solomon’s seal.
My childhood was as ordinary as anyone raised by one of the greatest scientists of her age and tutored by another. I liked to listen to music, to play games—things adolescents have done for centuries—although sports never caught my fancy. I tried to play soccer a few times, and lacrosse just once. Evidently, an easy-going personality doesn’t match up well against big-boned bloodlust.
My playmates were more inclined to fantasy than to football. We found our castles, battlefields, and alien landscapes along the Muddy River. The fens and woodlands were forests and jungles inhabited by wild creatures. What courage, what daring we displayed.
I made friends with children of other scientists at NMech, explorers all. We hunted for treasure and found it, right there at NMech—ancient sensors, induction coils, spectrometers, rheostats, and voltmeters. I doubt that another school, private or corporate, boasted a scanning tunneling microscope, capable of nanoscale resolution, right alongside a considerable pile of building blocks, board games and baseballs.
Eva Rozen took an interest in my adventures. She listened to my tales of gallantry and adventure without once censoring me. I didn’t realize that she thought made-up stories were a fool’s task until I was much older.
Our family life was much like that of other families. I got along with my mother and father, debates over household chores notwithstanding. After my mother became a major stockholder at NMech and she hired the housekeeper I’d lobbied for, we found other duties over which to disagree.
I also lobbied for a dog, but my father surprised me and refused. He said that we’d be away from home too much. When I reminded him that we could take a dog with us to NMech since we owned part of the company, he smiled and said, “I’ll think about it”—the universal parent code for “no.” I think that after Ringer, he decided not to face the certain prospect of loss with another dog. Instead, he poured the part of him that craved primal connections with canines into his devotion to the dogs at Haven, and to my mother and me.
Schoolwork was easy until my parents decided to take over my education. Homeschooling was harder, but more enjoyable. My father, my mother, and Eva were my main teachers. Life sciences, like biology and botany and medicine, how the body works, how nature works was my mother’s area. I learned about the Taíno, about Abuela, but I wasn’t to meet her for a few years.
My father tried to teach me social sciences, but he’d ignored those subjects in high school. So it was up to me to learn at my own pace. Instead, we tackled literature and the arts together. We read a lot of the old mystery and science fiction stories—Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, Raymond Chandler, Asimov, Bradbury, Frank Herbert, and Julian May, for example—and called these the “Classics” to satisfy one of my educational requirements. He taught me what he called the people sciences: how to read body language and predict what people would do, how to pick up clues from their habits and grooming that would tell me about their lives.
My parents could monitor me when I was home or at school through the ever-present commpatch—until Eva showed me how to jack the patch so that I could choose background sounds for them to hear. Then I had a great deal more freedom.
During the years before the Great Washout, Eva was as much a mentor as my mother. I studied chemistry, physical sciences, and computer science with Eva. I thought it was the most natural thing that the soon-to-be-richest woman in the world spent time nearly every week with the juvenile son of her business partner and scientific colleague. Our studies went a bit beyond the traditional sciences. Again, I thought it perfectly natural for my extracurricular activities to be preceded by the warning, “Don’t tell anyone”.
It was always “Eva.” She had said, “You’re like family for me, but don’t give me any ‘auntie’ or ‘sister’ or ‘Mama Eva’ crap. I’m just Eva. Got it? Maybe someday that will change. Maybe I’ll adopt you,” she laughed, “and then one day all this will be yours.” That was a running joke with us, especially when an experiment or a project failed.
So I called her Eva, as if she were an equal, not a teacher, and without realizing that laughter was a rare display and a precious commodity for her. I think she wanted a playmate, a child who could understand her and get excited by the things that made her excited. I can’t imagine her playing with other little girls when she was young. Dolls or tea parties would not have been within her repertoire. I doubt other children were interested in the periodic table of the elements or the Standard Model of particle physics.
I once asked Eva why she liked to play with kids—meaning me. She told me that when we spent time together her mind was quiet. Even so, there’d be times when she’d be distant, mute, and seemed to move under a terrible weight. I imagined that a giant hand pushed down on her. At first, I thought that’s why she was so short.
She was an exciting teacher and companion. She taught by telling the stories of scientific advancement, which was strange because she considered storytelling to be “worthless nonsense.”
The first story she told me was about Richard Feynman, the physicist who started people thinking about what would come to be known as nanotechnology. In December of 1959, he made a famous speech at Caltech and offered a prize of $1000 to anyone who could reduce a line of text to 1/25,000 of its original size. The scale was an inside joke: that was the reduction needed to be able to fit something called an encyclopedia on the head of something called a pin. I think that the encyclopedia was some kind of book of knowledge, or maybe it was several books. A pin was a fastener with a sharp point. I didn’t quite get the connection, but it was well-understood nearly a century ago when Dr. Feynman issued his challenge.
When a scientist tried to claim the prize, Feynman almost couldn’t pay. He didn’t expect anyone to succeed for years and was hard-pressed for the funds. “But that’s science,” Eva explained. “It moves a lot faster than people expect. Tell a well-educated idiot what science can do right now and he’ll call it science fiction.”
Not only was it hard for Feynman to pay, it was tough for the winner to claim his prize, because the text was so tiny compared to the relative size of the pin that the scientists had to search to find it. “If you ever want to hide something,” Eva told me, “you can leave it right out in the open. In fact, it’s harder to spot in the open. Just make it very, very small—nano-size.”
Eva told me the story of Feynman’s challenge many times and the lesson stuck with me. I liked the idea of hiding in plain sight. As it happened, this lesson mirrored another. My father and I had just read Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Purloined Letter.” Poe’s detective, Dupin, finds a letter that several people searched for but missed. The letter was left in plain sight, and overlooked, instead of in a hidey-hole that would have been searched. My father, with his ability to read people and the tiny details surrounding them was like Dupin, or Sherlock Holmes, who solved mysteries with the tiniest clues that nobody else could see until he pointed them out.
The lessons about hiding in plain sight would prove fortunate.
Eva was at her most exciting when she was ghosting—I think that the old term was hacking. She travelled through private cloud data like a hungry barracuda swims through a school of minnows and she was just as dangerous. I’d seen her track people she thought had insulted her and play havoc with their pillar or sleeve. I was a willing pupil and occasional accomplice—I enjoyed mischief as much as any kid does—but she could be mean. I didn’t like being with her then. The ways she got even were amazing, but if you were the target, you wouldn’t like it one bit.
Eva also taught me to keep a journal of what I learned. She kept one and told me that every good scientist keeps a journal. If you found her journal, you could read it—if you had good jacking skills. But you would have to know about advanced chemistry and nanotechnology just to understand it. And you would need a great deal of imagination to visualize one of her plans, and even more courage to contemplate it.
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO
Late one summer afternoon, Eva surprised us when she displayed a genuine smile and announced, “I’m going to take you out to dinner.”
My mother’s hair was drawn back in a loose ponytail. I could see her face register mild surprise and then incomprehension. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows arched to a peak well above the midline of her broad Taíno forehead.
“Why?” my mother asked.
Eva did the unthinkable. She smiled again. “No agenda,” she said quietly. “Hungry, maybe?”
“Oh, boy,” my father grinned and rubbed his hands together like a child rolling strands of clay spaghetti. “Merci, Dr. Rozen, mon amie,” he said with a contrived French accent. “Where are we going?” He sounded like a cross between a poodle and a Chihuahua with phlegm in its throat.
“North Shore. Company car and driver’s waiting. Come on, Marta, relax. When was the last time we had a friendly outing?”
“Not in a long time,” my mother conceded. “If ever,” she added under her breath.
If I heard her, then Eva did, too.
Eva snorted. “Oh, you kidder,” she deadpanned though her smile remained. “How about you let down your hair tonight?”
My mother looked startled and was about to reply when my father stepped between them, turned to Eva, and said, “Sounds great. You buying?” Eva nodded, with a brief roll of her eyes. “Then let’s go,” my father said. He turned to my mother with a smile, offered his arm, and said, “Mademoiselle?” This act of exaggerated gallantry defused the tension. Or maybe it was the ludicrous attempt at dialect. My mother took his arm and smiled at Eva. Her arched eyebrows settled first into the facial equivalent of parade rest, then, at ease. Eva’s face returned to expressionlessness. The strain that normally bound the two abated. She took Eva’s hand.
They were warily rebuilding their friendship. There were clumsy moments, like a musician stumbling over a difficult passage in a work that had lain unpracticed and the muscle memory lost. They were still friends when they moved from Los Angeles to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study at Harvard University. Maternity and a crushing pre-med courseload demanded all of my mother’s strength. Eva seemed to skate through her courses, a facility that likely nettled my mother. Perhaps it contributed to their falling out.
The driver opened the door for us and we piled in. My father got in the car and bounced on the resilient car seat a few times after the driver closed the door. He rubbed the seat covering and murmured, “Ooh. Could this be this real leather?” Then to the driver, “Are we sitting on cows?”
“No, Mr. Ecco, nanofabrics.”
“I wonder how many atoms had to die for us to have this luxurious ride.”
“And I wonder how many times I have to hear that tired old joke,” my mother said. She smiled and accepted the festive character of the day.
My father played with the various passenger controls. The air flow stuttered on and off, while the music alternated among disparate genres.
“Jim, will you please sit still? You’re worse than a child.” She looked at me and said, “Tell me you’re not going to grow up like that.”
He just smiled and continued to play. The many gizmos he now had at his disposal at NMech seemed to help him compensate for the rigors of New England life. He had been raised in Southern California shirtsleeves and never adjusted to the extended cold of northern winters. He complained every time he offered a friendly greeting to a passerby and was met by downturned eyes. A hidebound Puritan legacy had gripped Boston for four hundred years: “Keep your eyes down, mouth shut, and thoughts hidden.”
“Where are we going?” my father asked, as he settled down.
“Fine dining,” Eva said. “Nothing but the best.”
“I’m not dressed for anything fancy,” my mother complained mildly.
Eva bit off a retort. Instead, she replied, “I mean, fine dining as in good food.”
That evening her eyes afforded me an intimacy she seldom shared. The vulnerability was ephemeral and genuine. I could see a panorama of torment and joy—her madding fight for survival and the orderly structure of science in which she took refuge. My father, despite his uncanny abilities of observation, never seemed to notice, nor did my compassionate mother respond to this damaged woman’s concealed disquiet.
Decades later, at the funeral, one that was shunned by all except a few members of the media, her eulogy included a quote from an earlier century’s actress, Audrey Hepburn. Eva, the officiant said, “was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.”
It was an odd comment, given the context, but accurate. My birth gave Eva an outlet to express herself in a way that would have otherwise been impossible for the driven woman. We forged a curious bond. She was both playmate and mentor. My father told me that when I was an infant, she and I relished endless rounds of peek-a-boo. “Hello, Baby!” she’d call out, a bit too loud, and startle, then delight me. Otherwise, Eva never spoke to me except as she would to another adult. When we made up songs together—that was not her strong suit, it was too much like made-up stories—we were never quite able to work ‘graphene’ or ‘quantum particle’ into the lyrics and rhyme scheme of a child’s song. We didn’t care. We had fun.
As I grew, we competed. Our favorite contests were insults and math games and by the time I was ten or eleven, I seemed to hold my own with both. It’s hard to imagine a juvenile matching wits with one of the great minds of the time, but it’s equally hard to imagine Eva choosing to forfeit any competition.
There was one off-key note in those wonderful years. I think that my mother sometimes felt eclipsed. Eva held a role something like a grandmother and a grandmother figure evoked the pain and the loss my mother felt when her own mother died. Her eyes might glisten just before she issued an edict to end whatever game Eva and I had invented. “Dana, time for your bath”—or dinner, lunch, snack, homework, chores, or an errand for which my help was suddenly indispensible. Eva would give me a sly smile, as if to confirm the temporary nature of the interruption and then she would turn back to granite.
The car glided silently to a stop at a roadside stand in Revere, a seaside town just north of Boston. The eatery was famous for its fried clams and the aroma of fresh oil and the sea drew a hungry mob. They milled about the same service windows that greeted customers for close to a century. People pushed their way up to the front of the throng to order and then drifted back to wait for their food, and then returned when their dinners were ready. They were like geese in flight, a few birds flying at the point to carve a path in the atmosphere, and then moving back to rest and draft behind the skein before pulling forward again.
We took our food and walked across a pedestrian walkway to sit on the sea wall. The broad ribbon of concrete unrolled along the three-mile length of the beach. We relaxed, ate, and watched people strolling past. My mother seemed engrossed in the ocean, lit now by low-angled rays as the sun set behind us. The colors that dappled the ocean’s surface changed with the trajectory of the setting sun, violet and blue streaks giving way to yellow and orange, and finally blood red, the last wavelengths of the sun’s declension.
After the sun set, an onshore breeze chilled us. As soon as we were back in the NMech car I kicked off my sandals and stretched out along the bottom segment of the sofa-like seating area. My mother and Eva bracketed me, each sitting on opposite banquettes, uprights of the U-shaped passenger area. My father was next to my mother, engrossed in a holographic depiction that only he could see.
Eva selected some music, Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The simple aria that begins and ends the composition stands out in my memory. Even today, Bach’s melodies take me to a place of peace, and the counterpoint takes me to one of balance. My mother stroked my forehead with idle affection. I looked up at her face. It was framed by her sable hair and a slight smile caused her eyes to sparkle.
I felt another hand. Eva gently tickled my feet. Twin caresses bracketed me, like the music’s counterpoint. I floated in the music and the satisfied exhaustion of a day well-lived and hard-played. Then both sets of hands froze. I looked up and saw that my mother’s and Eva’s eyes were locked, one on the other, each with a gaze that held equal measures of compassion and possession.
My father must have noticed. He collapsed his heads-up display, reached out, and took Eva’s hand. He gently pulled her across the car to sit next to him and placed his other arm around my mother’s shoulders. All three looked contented—even Eva. I nearly laughed at their chained embrace, eyes closed and heads tilting back, resting on the car’s soft headrests. They were three dolls posed on a shelf for sleep by a child taking good care of her playthings.
The only sounds in the car were Bach and the slow, synchronized breathing of three friends, who were at peace. Anything seemed possible except failure.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
2042
NMech’s first foray into desalinization was a success. In a few short months, output skyrocketed at the retrofitted Paraguaná desalinization plant. Now Eva, Marta, and Jim were back in the boardroom, and once again vying to choose a color for the drapes. This time, Eva and Marta’s debate was relaxed, even diplomatic. This time Jim prevailed and the drapes showed a peaceful view: a bloom of jellyfish drifting in an endless ocean.
“Well, we’re heroes,” Eva began. “We got water to the masses and kept several nations from civil disorder, not that those countries would have even noticed a regime change.”
“Are they safe now?” asked Jim.
“Long as the plant keeps operating. But shut the spigot and I guarantee you’ll see some big time civil unrest down there.”
Marta said, “I’m proud of this one. I think we did well. Eva—thank you.”
“You’re happy, Marta, I’m happy.” Eva nodded slightly and with gravity, as an empress to a countess. “Now we can take this further. There are several commercial applications we can focus on.”
“What do you have in mind? I admit I had my doubts, but you pulled this off. What’s next?” Jim asked.
“Kidney dialysis for one. The Holy Grail of dialysis is an internal device instead of patients being hooked up to an inefficient dialysis machine for several hours per week. I think what we learned at Paraguaná can be applied to build an implantable dialysis device.”
“Sounds interesting,” Marta said. “How do we fund the public health part?”
“Fund it? We’re not going to fund anything. If people want to live without spending time in dialysis, then they become customers. The manufacturing costs are low enough that most people will be able to afford the gizmos. There are surgeons’ fees, but that’s not our concern.”
Marta spoke up. “I’d like to make that our concern. Paraguaná was supposed to be a public health project, but we’re going to recoup our costs with the commercial applications we’re licensing for desalinization. There’s money left in the pool we created from EasyMilk profits. Let’s take some of that cash and use it on dialysis for the hardest hit populations. I don’t mean we have to pay the bill for everybody, but I’d like to donate enough so that we can help, say, the poorest ten percent of renal failure patients.”
“I don’t think so,” said Eva. “You wanted public health, I gave you Paraguaná. The fact that we parlayed that into profit is irrelevant. We can give away some of the devices but I’m not paying any surgeon’s fee. I’ll put my own grandchildren through college, not some rich doctor’s.”
“Give me a break. You don’t have any grandchildren. You organized the desal plant and you did a great job. But you also found a way to get massive publicity and public good will. You made the good deed profitable,” Marta said.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Not a thing,” admitted Marta. “And I’m sure you’ll find a way to make this profitable too. All I’m saying is my charter is public health. I want to work with the poor.”
“Why them?”
“Because they’ll die if we don’t.”
“Why is that my problem?”
Marta glared. The pacific mood in the conference room turned stormy. “Well, look at it this way, Little Miss Charity. Say you keep an extra 10,000 people alive. They’re tied to NMech through dialysis. Wouldn’t most of them become NMech customers for all their medications? Then you can turn a profit on them.”
“Good point.” Eva missed or ignored the sarcasm. “Let’s see if the numbers back you up.” She invoked a heads-up display and peered into it. “It’ll take about two to three years for a charity customer to generate enough revenue with other purchases to recover the cost of implantation. That’s a bit long for break-even, but there’s the increased life expectancy from the dialysis. That should cover it. Okay, Marta, bring on the masses.”
“Just like that?” Marta asked. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch. The numbers add up. If this is what it takes to keep you happy and continuing to find cures in the jungle, then that’s what it takes.”
“They’re not jungles, they’re rainforests.” Even conceding to Marta, Eva managed to provoke her.
“By the way, Marta, your thinking is good but your math is off. Helping 10,000 people is on the low side. Think of the recipients as an investment. Couple years to hit break-even, and then each one is profitable. Think big.”
Marta stiffened, but Jim broke in. “Wait! Aren’t you two forgetting something?”
“What?” demanded Eva.
“Uh, don’t we have to develop this little invention first? I mean, nephrologists have tried for decades. Shouldn’t we set aside a couple days next week to invent a device that’s eluded science for the last half century?”
“Why Jim, now you’re starting to sound like your wife. Anyway, I think this is a bit closer to her expertise. You want to organize a research team?” Marta agreed after reconfirming that the project would include a public health component. The three reviewed the basics of what they would need to start and agreed to meet again to discuss strategy further.
The tension had evaporated in the boardroom and the three colleagues enjoyed a respite from quarrelling. EasyMilk and Free-Skin were stunning successes. The simplicity of the desalinization project, coupled with the scope of its potential benefit, had won even Marta’s trust.
Almost as a lazy afterthought, Jim asked, “Well, Eva, once we conquer every known disease, what’s next?”
Eva said, “I’ve got a bigger plan.”
“What’s that?” asked Marta. Flush with the success of Paraguaná, Eva could have suggested a time machine, immortality pills, even a cure for the common cold, and Marta and Jim would have taken up the cause. But her next brain child caught them by surprise.
“Ready? One word: remediation.”
“What the heck do we know about environmental cleanup?” asked Marta.
“What difference does it make?” said Eva
Marta stared and raised her eyebrows. She lifted her hands, palms up, in a ‘What do you mean?’ gesture.
Eva said, “Relax. We develop a good plan and we go to work.”
“But we don’t know anything about cleaning up toxic waste. I don’t even know what we don’t know,” said Marta.
Eva waved off Marta’s objection. “It’s just basic chemistry. I found the perfect project we can start with. It’s huge, and when we pull it off, we’ll be the leader in remediation. Ever heard of the Nuovo River? In Rockford, Virginia?”
“No.”
“Well, pretty soon the whole world will know about it. This one project could establish us as the hands-down leader in nanotechnology and put us into the remediation game—big time. Think about it. It fits right in with public health.”
“I agree with you, Eva,” said Jim, “but I also agree with Marta. We don’t know anything about remediation. I’m not sure anyone will take us seriously.”
“That is the major challenge,” Eva admitted. “But we can sell it. And if we can get our hats in the ring, we can do it.”
“Well,” Jim said, “your track record is pretty darned good, Eva. It’s hard to argue with success. Right now, I bet you could sell lies to a politician.” He and Marta chuckled.
Eva did not so much as smile. She had already dismissed the bucolic splendor of the Nuovo River, which many considered to be among the most beautiful in the world. She dismissed Rockford’s plight, a town wedged between environmental woes and economic concerns. Rather, she was impatient to see a stinking, nine-mile toxic stretch of water in southern Virginia where the river hugs the Rockford Munitions Plant. Into this aquatic embrace, the plant spews out pollutants and turns the watercourse from pastoral to poisonous.
The gunk had built up for close to a century, increasing and abating with arrival and departure of war. Eva’s attention was fixed on the Pentagon’s budget not the river’s despoiled beauty. When the military bowed to public pressure and announced that it would seek proposals for cleaning the site, Eva began to plan. Military business was big business. The textiles division sold armored uniforms to the military, but its profits were marginal. Rockford would be huge.
“So, what can you tell us about this project?” Marta asked.
“Not a lot. The military classified much of what was dumped into the Nuovo, but we’re pretty sure that there’s dioxin, mercury, lead, ammonia, and copper. Not to mention DBP—di-n-butyl phthalate—which causes fetal mutations.”
“Lovely,” said Marta, wrinkling her nose. “The stuff we know about includes heavy metals, carcinogens, and mutagens. Am I getting this?”
“Yup. There’s lots of it.”
“And then there are pollutants that the military refuses to identify?”
Eva nodded.
“And we don’t know anything about remediation?”
Eva nodded again. “No more than an undergraduate science major would.”
“Sounds perfect. Let me guess. You have a plan?” Marta asked.
Eva nodded. “The cleanup shouldn’t be too hard. The technology is mature. Use ZVI and scoop.”
“Huh?”
“ZVI. Zero valent iron. That’s iron in its pure state.”
“Iron?” A note of incredulity crept into Marta’s voice.
“Not just iron. Pure iron—zero valent iron. Doesn’t matter too much what’s in the water. ZVI takes it out.”
“Can you expand on that a little? Dioxin, I understand. It’s gotta be among my favorite industrial wastes. Who wouldn’t love a carcinogen? But I wanna hear about this, this…iron stuff.”
Eva ignored Marta’s sarcasm. “Okay. Start with iron’s instability,” Eva said.
“Give me a break. Iron isn’t unstable. What are you talking about?”
“Look, I don’t tell you how flowers grow. Don’t lecture me about chemistry.”
“Well, excuse me. Why don’t you explain how iron is,” Marta made quote marks with her fingers, “unstable.”
“Actually, in its pure form, it is very unstable. Iron has two, or sometimes three, electrons in its outer shell. It wants eight to be complete. So it wants atoms with electrons to spare, or to donate the electrons in its incomplete outer shell. It yearns to combine with other atoms. That’s how it binds with the contaminants. The pollutants become chemically locked to the iron. The iron-heavy sludge settles out of the river. Scoop it up, haul it away and, bingo. Your cesspool becomes a swimming pool.”
“Electrons yearn?” asked Marta. “Do they write poetry, too?”
“In a sense they do yearn,” said Eva. “They’re driven, compelled, motivated—you pick the word that makes you happy. But atoms want their outer orbits to be complete. So they either shed a few electrons or grab a few.”
“Interesting,” said Jim. “So, how come nobody’s done this before? After all, iron isn’t exactly a rare metal.”
“You’re right. It’s maybe the tenth most common element in the universe. The problem is one of logistics. How do you keep the ZVI pure before it comes in contact with a pollutant? I have some ideas, the beginnings of a plan. We need to be ready to submit a bid the beginning of next year. That’s six months. Figure another six months till the military makes up its mind. So, a year from now, we’re in the remediation business.”
Marta and Jim looked at each other and shrugged. Eva had said the magic word: plan.
“Wait a minute,” said Marta. “You may be superwoman, but developing a new technology, creating a manufacturing plan, a logistics plan, a cost accounting system for the project, and pulling together a comprehensive proposal in six months? That’s impossible! You could work around the clock for six months and you still won’t be on schedule.”
“That may be true for other people,” said Eva, “but I can do it.”
Jim said, “Do we have to do this one? I mean, there’s no harm in bidding on the next project. Lord knows there’s enough pollution to go around.”
“No.” Eva’s voice was emphatic. “This is the one I want to start with. I didn’t say it would be easy, but I can do it. Nailing this contract would put NMech at the forefront of ecological reconstruction. Granted, there are some problems, but everyone faces the same problems.”
“Problems? What sort of problems?” asked Jim.
“Pure iron or ZVI combines with anything it comes into contact with. Mostly it rusts since there’s plenty of oxygen in the air. So the biggest hurdle is keeping an inventory of ZVI. Most people fabricate it and haul it to where it’s needed. That’s expensive. I have a better approach.”
“Which is…?”
“I’ll get to that. Solutions are simple. It’s framing the question that’s hard. I can explain once I give you some chemistry background. Let me list the challenges first, then we can talk about the details.”
“What’s the second problem?”
“Here’s where it gets interesting. ZVI is way more effective when it’s nano-sized. I’m talking many times more effective.”
“How come?” asked Jim.
“Because as the size of the ZVI particles decrease, the proportion of surface atoms increases. Then there are more available atoms craving more interactions with the polluting substances. But that creates a drawback. The nanoparticles are so effective that they consume themselves rapidly. So it’s tough to maintain a supply of ZVI. These two problems are matters of logistics, not chemistry. So far, nobody’s been able to keep enough ZVI on hand to be effective in a project this size. Remember, we’re talking about cleaning an entire century of gunk.”
Marta was nodding. She had subvocalized and was peering into a heads-up display. Eva guessed she was accessing data on ZVI.
“Bottom line? None of the remediation companies knows much about nanoscale production. So what if we’ve never cleaned up an ammunition dump? Nobody else has either. But we know more about nanotechnology than anybody. And I’m telling you, this is going to be big. We get this contract and a relationship with the military and we have a chance to become the biggest company in the world. The military does not write small checks.”
“Uh, Eva. Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves? We still have to win the contract,” Marta said.
Eva grinned. “Don’t worry.”
“I know, you’ve got a plan,” intoned Marta.
Jim smiled. “Of course she does.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan.” Eva’s grin faded. “And nothing is going to stop us.”
“Of course not, Eva,” teased Jim. His smile was cut short.
Eva turned to face him. “Let’s get something clear,” she said. “This is the next step for NMech’s evolution. We are going to win this contract. Period. Nobody, nothing, is going to stop us. This is the future. Got that?”
“Sure, Eva,” Jim shrugged and backed up a step and offered a mock salute. “No half measures. Aye-aye, Commander. Full steam ahead.”
“Can the jokes, Jim. I’m serious.”
Jim and Marta sat back in their smart chairs. The temperature in the boardroom seemed to drop. They looked at each other and back to Eva. Marta said, “Eva, lighten up. No one is trying to trivialize your project. You enjoy making money? Fine. You want NMech to be the world’s largest corporation? Fine. Let us enjoy our work, too. Let us enjoy your friendship. Look, you and I have come a long way since Harvard. I know I rub you the wrong way sometimes, and God knows that you can push my buttons. But take it easy. Joking can be a good thing, so let’s go with the flow, okay?”
“What does that mean, ‘go with the flow’?”
“Look at the pictures of the jellyfish on the drapes. They can use the ocean’s currents to go where they need to go. Let’s not fight the currents. That’s what I mean. You can be yourself—determined, intense, and impatient, and that’s okay. We’re friends. But let us be ourselves, too, and part of that is Jim’s sense of humor. Or what he thinks is a sense of humor.”
Eva looked at Marta and nodded. “Friends,” she said. “Okay, I get it. Fine. Just don’t expect a group hug any time soon.” Her partners looked at Eva, trying to gauge her. Did she just attempt to lighten the mood?
Eva turned back to the jellyfish display. Keeping to herself, she saw the transparent hoods swaying in the currents. The Medusalike tentacles held her attention. Some hung for tens of feet, and each was packed with millions of nematocysts—specialized cells that bulged with venom.
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO
Zeus created Aeolus to control the wind. Aeolus calmed the wind and seas for seven days during the winter solstice to allow a certain kingfisher bird to lay her eggs in safety.
The bird that merited the Aeolus’s care was his daughter, Alcyone. The unfortunate lass had thrown herself into the ocean when she learned that her husband had drowned at sea. The gods then turned the storm-crossed lovers into kingfishers. I would think that a simple rescue would have done nicely—why not have another ship come along? But the gods have their own sensibilities, and human-to-avian transmogrification it was.
Those seven days of calmed seas came to be known as halcyon days. Take the letter, “H” from ‘hals’, Greek for seas, plop it in front of Alcyone, ditch the “e,” and you have the word halcyon, a nostalgic reference to the sunny days of youth.
Rockford ended my halcyon days. The winter that followed was severe, even by New England standards. There were no calm days for kingfishers—nor, as it turned out, for petrals, nor thunderbirds.
If Alcyone was a kingfisher, then Eva was another seabird, the storm petral, the smallest of the seabirds, with a short, squarish body, and dark plumage. It hovers just above the ocean’s surface and appears to walk on water. The metaphor was apt. When my parents considered Eva’s remediation project, she seemed to be capable of miracles.
She nearly was. Eva attacked the task of preparing NMech’s bid with a scorched-earth vigor that would rival General Sherman’s march to the sea. She commanded every resource at NMech’s disposal and quite a few that were not, in a frantic attempt to meet the submission deadline for Rockford.
If Eva were a storm petrel, then I was a thunderbird, a truculent and quarrelsome fifteen-year-old, creating storms as I flew. My parents mostly ignored the outbursts and tantrums. They could see me struggle to mature and they remembered their own painful rites of passage through adolescence. Eva, however, was beginning to fear that the bid would not be ready on time, and she lacked the time or the emotional resources to be empathetic with me, or to be patient.
She also lacked a model by which to put my behavior into perspective. A part of her was eternally juvenile, stunted, unable to follow me into adolescence. At another time in her life, she would have accommodated a new dimension in our friendship. But she was possessed of a single focus which brooked no competition for her attention.
She was not the only one of us with tunnel vision. My parents and I were blind to the demands she placed on herself, and the consequences of those demands.
It was a small thing, our spat. How many great events turn on a small detail? That day, I was fueled with bravado that went beyond the scope of our usually playful competition. Someone who understood that teen moods ‘blow in, blow up, and blow out’, to quote Winston Churchill, would have taken a deep breath, counted to ten, and ignored my bratty manners.
I wish Eva had ignored me. I truly wish my mother had.
There’s a saying that if a butterfly alters its path, then the course of history is changed. The Butterfly Effect, some call it. That’s a bit too philosophical for me, but my run-in with Eva about butterflies did indeed change history.
Just before I stormed out of Eva’s work area, my mother and I had pondered how a butterfly emerges from a cocoon. Her objective that day was to place science within the context of mystery, to find the sublime in nature. Butterflies lack teeth, my mother said, so they couldn’t chew their way out of a cocoon. If they were to secrete a caustic substance to dissolve the cocoon, would that not burn their delicate wings? My assignment was to look for the answer in the world of science but to preserve the sense of wonder. Awe and humility are essential research tools, my mother said. Science might have an explanation, but attunement with nature’s mysteries hones the researcher’s scientific intuition. Seek awe, my mother said, and you’ll find science.
I did the opposite. I turned clever. I tried to stump Eva rather than sharing my excitement.
The timing of my display of pride was bad, very bad. Eva was racing to complete NMech’s bid. Her usual short supply of patience was long since exhausted. When I nagged and teased her, she snapped. What she said to me wasn’t important, but how I reacted had a lifelong impact on Eva and my family and ultimately, the world: I burst into tears.
My outburst would have blown over as quickly as a summer squall but as I hurried from Eva’s lab, embarrassed by my artless attempt to play the bully and stunned by the strength of my reaction, I ran into my mother—literally. We nearly tumbled to the floor. Then chagrin escalated to humiliation. The last person on earth I wanted to see was my mother. She held me and kissed me and wiped my tears with her thumbs, as she had when I was a child. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small group of lab techs watching us.
Now my mortification was complete. I screamed at her. Eva heard me and came out of her lab with a look of confusion and concern. I ran out from the work area, out of the building onto Boylston Street, through the Public Gardens and the Commons, running until the tempest passed. The outburst was short-lived but the damage was permanent.
In my meditation, I return to that day to comfort my mother, Eva, and the child Dana. I return not as an older version of myself, not a wiser manifestation of the child, but as something ageless. I wrap my arms around the three figures to hold them intact. Fractures race along fault lines deep within the foundation of each one’s character. My strength flows from the present. It is tangible and luminous, like fire from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. My love for these ones fuses and anneals the flaws. The fire gathers into plumes and becomes an archangel’s wings, softly drawing gall and malignancy from Eva, and she knows peace. The alar radiance has a quilled sharpness, too, and it lances my mother’s greatest fear, that I would inherit her pain. Hot infection spills out of her in pustulant colors and she sighs deeply in relief. Then the child—always blameless—turns transparent and the angers and debts of these two women pass through, unretained.
This fine meditation brings me a moment’s relief. But the mighty seraph who returns to that moment to give succor is utterly impotent. My mother had previously sworn an oath. If she crosses a line that involves Dana, we will not have Eva in any of our lives.
When I ran from Eva’s lab into my startled mother’s arms, misunderstanding animated her vow. In that moment, her oath, sworn years earlier, was fulfilled.
I never learned what transpired between my mother and Eva after I stormed out but when I returned, a changeling had replaced Eva. The substitute was cool, polite, and distant to me. She would sport no teeth, exude no caustic dissolvant. What emerged from her cocoon was not a monarch or a swallowtail, but something dark, blood red, and fearsome.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
2043
Eva worked with the consuming passion of a New World missionary. The technical challenge was simple to describe—keep ZVI immersed in an inert gas like helium until it was injected into the polluted river. Expose ZVI to pollutants and you get remediation. Expose it to oxygen and you get rust.
The business challenge was to prove that NMech could provide adequate supplies of ZVI to keep the operation running smoothly. All of the other bidders relied on off-site ZVI manufacture. Transporting the pure iron to the remediation plant increased their costs and risks. NMech’s solution was elegant and unexpected. In theory, it looked simple: combine known elements in a new way. In practice, it looked impossible. How could NMech produce a working model in time?
Eva feared missing the deadline. At this rate, I won’t make it, she thought. I have to speed the process. She reviewed her notes and considered her progress, and the tasks that remained. The science wasn’t an issue. The solution she was developing was based on nanotechnological developments dating back to the early 2000s. She needed neither new technology nor methods in engineering. The scale of the project was the issue. She needed more time.
Eva ran her simulations, as she had a dozen times. She changed variables at each step, and then ran the simulations again. And again. The results were maddening and consistent: she would not meet the deadline.
If I could work all twenty-four hours of the day, I could do it. If Marta or even Dana understood the chemistry we could make it. If I had an extra couple months, I could do it. If Jim could write the proposal, even just be here for moral support. She couldn’t add hours to the days, or days to the month, and she was working as hard as she could. If only she could think faster and move faster.
Then an idea struck. Eva subvocalized and called up a series of neurobiology texts. It looked feasible. This is Marta’s area, she thought, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let her in on this. She’d have some objection or another. But if I can make this work, I can do it. In fact, this may be even bigger than remediation.
Eva read more. There. I can do it. I can achieve things that humans only dream of. Then we’ll see about Marta Holier-than-Thou. Jim will have to see me for what I am. She checked the texts one last time and headed to an NMech pharmaceutical laboratory.
A quarter century earlier, Eva’s older sister, Gergana, and the antiquarian, Coombs, and an English teacher named Erickson had all urged Eva not to ignore stories and literature. Understand yourself, they had argued, and you will better understand your science. But Eva ignored all three warnings, like Peter’s three denials before the cock crowed.
The lessons of literature were lost on Eva. The tale of Bellerophon or Icarus might have served to warn her before she began her own flight to Mount Olympus or to the sun.
It worked. Damn, this feels good! Going to do this yet. Look out world, here I come. This project is mine and nothing is going to stop me.
And the chorus from the Table of Clamorous Voices was sweet and, for once, harmonious. It sang on and on and on and Eva sang with it.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
AUTUMN, 2043
Jim Ecco was jittery. He might as well have chewed a crop of coffee beans. The smart bed could not lull him to sleep. Nor could it dampen his movement enough to protect Marta’s fragile slumber.
“Querido, what is it? What’s troubling you?” she asked in a strained voice.
“Bad dream.”
“Come here,” she said, and reached out for her husband.
“I can’t lie still. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Querido, come here. Let me hold you and you can tell me about your dream.”
Jim sighed. The dream was confusing, upsetting and finally, ludicrous—not one he cared to recount. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, and then exhaled through pursed lips. He repeated the exercise three times. Tonight, the rhythmic cycle of inbreath and outbreath brought no peace.
“Marta, I’m scared.” He laid his head in the crook of her left arm. She wrapped herself around him and reached her right hand up and stroked his hair.
“Tell me your dream.” She stroked his forehead until she felt him relax a little.
“We were at home. I saw white ash falling from the sky, like something had burned. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I went outside to look and the ash burned me where it touched me. I tried to warn you to stay indoors, but you couldn’t hear me. I wanted to shout but I couldn’t make a sound. You came out to see what was wrong. Then you were burned, too.”
“We were afraid that Dana would come out. We saw him at the door and shouted for him to stay inside, but he came out anyway. The ash landed on him, but he wasn’t burned at all. Dana just brushed it off and said, “I tried to tell you but you couldn’t hear me.”
“Then the dream shifted. Now it was just me. I was in an old-fashioned stationery store, the kind that had antique postcards. I was looking at different places I might like to visit. When I looked up, I saw superheroes from the graphic novels I used to read. I remember Superman in particular. I can’t remember who else. Then I saw my mother. She was angry. She reached over and touched Superman and he turned white, like plaster. She had drained his life force. She came through the store and touched the other superheroes and took their vitality as well. Then she was reaching for me. I was scared. She touched me but nothing happened. I realized that my own superpower was that I have good boundaries. That was my superpower. Weird, huh?”
Jim was quiet for several minutes.
“That’s the whole dream?” asked Marta.
“Yeah. It was scary and funny at the end. Weird.”
“Well, I think that’s a pretty good superpower,” Marta chuckled. “Hello, Boundary Man,” she said and in a moment, they were both laughing.
“Still restless?” Marta asked.
“I can’t sleep,” Jim said.
“Come a little closer. You may be Boundary Man but I’m a bohique and I know what’s good for you.” She rolled him onto his back grabbed his wrists and pinned him on the bed. She straddled him. “Here comes your medicine. A wise woman’s orders.”
Later, Jim, eyes wide, decided to get up rather than wait for morning. He slipped out of bed and looked at Marta. She had one arm flung up over her head and the other down by her side, as if she were demonstrating the size of the big fish that got away. She looked so peaceful in repose. Maybe her pain was gone for the rest of the night.
He’d left his clothes on a chair. He picked them up quietly and went into the bathroom to dress. He touched the wall to turn on the brightwalls and swept his hand down to keep the light low. He subvocalized and left a message for Marta that he was going to the office. Maybe he could do something useful as long as he was awake. Eva’d been working nonstop and promised results soon. He thought he’d go to the office and see how she was getting on.
The night air was cold. All the science in the world, he thought, and we still can’t touch the weather. Maybe it’s just as well—we’d just screw it up. Jim subvocalized a command instructing his clothing to warm him. His shirt had an inner layer of silk-like textile embedded with carbon fibers against his skin, and an outer layer, indistinguishable from cashmere. He wore denim jeans and a lining on the inside of them warmed. He tugged the back of his shirt collar and felt a moment’s resistance before it relaxed and allowed him to fashion a hood around his head. He invoked a heads-up display and from the transportation options, he selected a P-cab, a driverless personal taxi. He reached a corner parking lot where the car waited for him, glowing to identify itself.
By the time he reached the NMech offices on Boylston Street, he was warm. He left the cab and approached the building. After palming the door for entry, his clothing cooled to comfortable indoor wear.
Jim took the stairs to the sixth floor executive offices. He thought he would review the plans for the Rockford remediation project. He wondered if NMech would be ready to submit a bid on time. Perhaps Eva had managed some kind of breakthrough.
When he reached the executive suite, he was startled to see the entire floor alive with light and color. The brightwalls were dimmed, but so many holographs were illuminated that the suite resembled an outdoor celebration lit by paper lanterns. He saw displays of graphs, flowcharts, architectural drawings, and diagrams that had no meaning to him. He caught movement in his peripheral vision, almost too fast to notice, and he followed the blur to Eva’s office. She was coming back out. They were about to collide but Eva stopped faster than he thought possible.
Jim studied her. She was flushed, and a sheen of sweat made her glow. For a moment he thought he’d stumbled into a holographic display. She looked up and smiled. “We’re going to do it, Jim.” Her voice was uncharacteristically animated, loud even. “We’re going to do it. I’ll show you.”
Eva grabbed his hand and started running towards the conference room. “Slow down, Eva,” Jim said. “I can’t keep up with you. What’s going on?”
“I forgot. You move slower. I can fix that. First, I show you the proposal.”
“The ZVI bid? I didn’t think we were going to make it,” Jim said. He looked at her more closely. “Eva, what’s happened to you? You’re running around like a crazy person.”
“Ha! You know better than to call me that. But for you, all is forgiven. Come. Look!” She pulled him into the conference room. The glow from a dozen displays was unsettling. They were like grinning Jack-o’-lanterns. She pointed at one, then another and another. “See? See? Is ready. Is ready.”
Jim stood still and took in the room, understanding nothing. He looked back to Eva, still clinging to his hand.
“Eva, are you all right?”
“Better than ever, Jimmy Boy. We make proposal.”
“Eva, you’re acting strange. You’re even talking strange. You’re starting to scare me a little.” Jim tried a smile, to soften his words, but couldn’t move his facial muscles out of any arrangement other than slack-jawed astonishment.
“Not strange, Jimmy Boy. Alive.” Her words tumbled out in a rush. “They say people use ten percent of potential, but I use more now. Now I deal with all of, of…of what’s held me back. I can even deal with you. Come here.”
Eva was still holding his hand. She reached up with her other hand, behind his head and grabbed a hank of his hair. She pulled him roughly towards her. He felt an unexpected strength in her grasp. She leaned up and said, “Kiss me.”
Jim stiffened.
She repeated, “Kiss me. Isn’t that what Marta says to you? Kiss me!”
“Eva, you’re freaking me out.” He tried to keep his voice steady. “We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. But I don’t want to kiss you.”
“Yes you do! You hide it all these years.”
“No, Eva, I don’t. Your friendship means too much to me.”
“I’ve done everything for you, Jim. I kept you out of jail, yes? I helped your wife with her public health, yes? I make you a lot of money. I teach Dana the things that Marta couldn’t. I even help you get married. Now it’s time for you and me. Now I’m going to take care of you.” She pulled him down again and smashed her lips against his. Jim grasped both her wrists in his hands. He held her at arms’ length.
“Eva, this is not what I want. I think you’ve been working too hard.” He saw her face turn slack with shock. “Please, Eva, I care for you as much as anyone in the world. Anyone. But you are my friend, and I don’t want to lose my friend.”
Eva twisted and struggled to free her wrists. Jim gently but firmly pushed her away and said, “Eva, I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you’re not acting normal, even for you.” He tried to grin. She did not respond. “Listen, I’m going home. I’m not going to mention this to Marta—to anyone. This never happened.” He backed up with the same care he might show retreating from an agitated dog.
With a speed that astonished Jim, Eva leapt forward. She reached out and grabbed Jim’s wrists. Her grasp was like iron. He was trapped. He looked into Eva’s eyes, now twitching, feral, and in a sad and quiet voice, said, “Please, Eva. You’re breaking my heart.”
She let go and slowly crumpled to the floor. Jim turned back to her, but she held one hand out in a ‘stop’ gesture. Then she turned away.
Jim left the NMech building, numb to the cold even as his clothing refashioned itself to provide warmth. He looked up from the street to the sixth floor, the executive offices. The bright lights of Eva’s holo displays were flickering out, one by one.
Jim started to walk. The weatherproofing properties in his jacket were fully activated and repelled each of his tears.
Eva lay in the conference room. Something held her fast to the floor, something more than anguish, fatigue, or gravity. Her muscles twitched. At first it was a tremor, then a shiver, finally a feverish seizure. Her eyelids spasmed, like a parody of blinking back tears. She tried to subvocalize a message, to recall Jim, to entreat, to apologize. But she could form no words.
Then images replaced language. She watched from infant eyes as Mama and Papa looked at her, first with pride, then with horror. She felt Gergana’s arms and listened to her songs, then heard her screams. She saw Bare Chest’s face, looming and leering, then paling in death. Doran’s fat wattle reddened as he strangled Gergana and then bled as Eva strangled him with a length of piano wire wrapped around wooden handles.
Then blackness.
Slowly, consciousness returned. The holographic displays had extinguished themselves. She opened her mouth to subvocalize, to bring the displays back. She had work to do. As soon as she moved her lips, she heard a terrible cacophony, a roar from the Table of Clamorous Voices that demanded her attention. The loud voices, the soft voices—they were now unregulated by any agency, any construct. Thoughts and memories, images and stored sensations, rushing up from the deepest trenches of her unconscious. She was overwhelmed.
When Eva was an infant, Gergana’s presence helped her to manage the growing din of sensory impression. The din became a roar after Gergana’s murder and organized into the Table of Clamorous Voices. Eva invested Jim with the role of mediator, regulator of the Table, and the fantasy role of mate. The illusion helped her weather her inner turmoil in order to meet the demands of the saner world around her. But flesh-and-blood Jim Ecco had just destroyed fantasy Jim Ecco, the construct. The mediator was gone.
Eva lost consciousness again. Her body took to repairing the damage inflicted upon it over the last many days. Her swollen and overworked adrenal and pituitary glands relented. Hypopituitarism replaced her chemically-induced hyperpituitarism, fatigue replaced zeal, indifference replaced libido.
Time passed and Eva awoke to disoriented incomprehension. Was it day or night? Had seconds passed, or hours? She had a pounding headache and her vision had diminished to a dark tunnel, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
She tried to move, to organize her thoughts. These tasks seemed herculean. She rolled to her desk and pulled herself up. She saw her coffee mug, still half full. With a grimace she swallowed the cold liquid with the bitter ingredient that had permitted her to work as quickly as she had. It wasn’t enough.
Her overtaxed endocrine system was in a state of rebellion. It ignored the chemicals she ingested. There had been too many demands and not enough rest. She’d pushed her body past Mother Nature’s limits for this wondrous design, this human form. Now she was weak, unable to focus. Her body demanded rest to repair the damage.
I just need forty eight hours. I can sleep when I’m dead, she thought, and mixed another cup of the adulterated beverage. The effort was almost beyond her. Soon she would break a trail into new territory—all propulsion, no rudder, and with an impaired captain at the helm.
Ah, that’s better. I don’t care what it takes. Rockford is mine.
ROCKFORD, VA.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2044
A panel winnowed the field of prospective vendors to two finalists: established remediation leader, CleanAct, and upstart NMech. A year before the plant was intended to open, the competitors met to address the bid committee, a debate to help decide a winner.
CleanAct’s president, Fritz Reinhart spoke first. The Chinese-educated Texan of German descent was at ease. He knew several of the bid committee members from industry meetings. Two had worked for him in the past. Reinhart was tall and well-groomed, comfortable speaking to an audience. He wore his thin blond hair in a military-style crew cut and kept a well-trimmed moustache that drew attention to a full mouth with generous lips. His mannerisms were prim, almost prissy, but when he spoke, he transformed himself into a folksy cowboy. He wore a bolo tie, cowboy boots, and a western hat and spoke in an exaggerated drawl. He doffed his hat and bowed slightly—Fort Worth meets Frankfurt—when he took the podium.
“The single reason y’all want to accept our bid is that we’ve done exactly this kind of work for years. No one has anywhere near the experience we have in remediation.” Reinhart paused, making eye contact with each member of the bid committee. He was charismatic and easygoing. The committee leaned forward as one.
“We completed 45 major cleanups in the last five years. Clean-Act’s performance exceeded the contract specifications. We were right on time and right on budget. We have six more projects and all of ’em are even a mite ahead of schedule. And we aim to finish ahead of schedule on this one, too. That’s our corporate style. It’s also a guarantee to you. I promise to this bid committee, right now, that your remediation plant will be fully operational three weeks before the end of the performance clause in the contract. That’s part of our culture: better and faster.”
One member of the bid committee broke in with a choreographed question, a softball objection intended to appear challenging. “But the bid requires that you use nanoscale ZVI. You have no experience with nano production. And now you’re promising to finish early? How are you going to make that work?”
“Now that’s a good question. Heart of the matter, yes sir.”
“Yes, Dr. Reinhart, it is the central issue. How can you ensure that you’ll have enough of the ZVI in nano form? And how will you keep it safe? After all, you have no experience with it. Mismanagement of nanoscale materials can be hazardous.”
Dr. Reinhart drew a handkerchief from his inside breast pocket and mopped his forehead. He rubbed his chin. He might have appeared flummoxed by the question but his confidence never wavered. “If y’all are worried about hazards, I’d look to that river there. That’s what’s hazardous and we aim to clean it. As far as safety, well, we have an effective approach. We’ll flood the ZVI storage building with pressurized helium—good, safe, inert helium—before one particle of ZVI goes down the hatch. If even a single atom of helium escapes, we’ll know. We don’t expect any leaks, no sir, none at all, but if there are, we’ll find ’em and fix ’em and still be on time and budget. From transport to operations, the ZVI stays in helium so it doesn’t combine with anything at all until we inject it into the river.”
“But you have no experience with ZVI.” The friendly inquisitor pressed for more.
“True. But we have ourselves a real simple solution. We bought the experience.”
The Committee, dutiful and attentive, chuckled.
“I’m pleased to announce that CleanAct has acquired FeFree, the very best producer of ZVI. ‘Fe’ is the chemical symbol for iron, and we think FeFree has the best ZVI fabrication process in the world. We don’t have the experience to create the stores of ZVI that y’all need, but FeFree does. So, we bought ‘em, lock, stock, and containment chamber. Problem solved.
“So, ladies and gentlemen, CleanAct’s approach might not be sexy, but it works. Now, let’s take a peek at what NMech proposes. Those Boston folks claim that they can convert carbon atoms into iron atoms to solve the logistics problem.” He stared for a moment at Eva Rozen and then started to clap. “I have to give you a hand, Dr. Rozen. Rewritin’ the laws of physics. Now that’s one darned good trick.”
He failed to see the tightening around Eva’s eyes, the bunching of the muscles in her shoulders. Nor did he notice a trembling in her hands and feet.
Reinhart turned back to the bid committee and pressed on. “Now, I’m not the brains of our outfit. I just give our people a little nudge here and there to help keep things runnin’ smoothly. But we’ve got some darned smart folks in Texas. One or two of ’em even went to college in Boston, at Harvard, same as Dr. Rozen. They tell me that you can change one element into another, but only with highly radioactive elements. Give ’em a shake and they shed a few electrons. That turns ’em into some other mighty radioactive elements.”
Eva looked up. Had the bid committe caught it? Had anyone? No! Her head shook imperceptibly in disbelief. Stupid cows, they were, every single one of them.
Reinhart continued. “Carbon? Can it shed some electrons to become iron? Last I checked, carbon has six electrons and iron has 26. So, carbon doesn’t have enough atomic bits to shed. You would need atomic fusion to make it work, mashing your atoms together.” He mimed making a snowball, in case the idea was difficult to follow. “You find atomic fusion in thermonuclear weapons. I think we’re in the business of cleaning up after weapons, not makin’ new ones.”
Now Eva grinned.
“Well. Maybe Dr. Rozen wrote some new laws of physics. Maybe it’s different in Boston. But in Rockford, we go by the same God-given laws of nature that have run the universe for about four billion years. Give or take a few million.”
He winked. Pure charm.
“Mind you, I had our scientists look at changin’ atoms all around. After all, if NMech has something novel, it ought to be repeatable. NMech says it’s got the experts to do it but we don’t see anything published to show just how. Maybe they’re just keepin’ it a secret, or maybe they’re playin’ for time.
“Ladies and gentlemen, don’t sell CleanAct short in the area of fabrication. We bought the best in the business and we’re ready to start—and to finish ahead of schedule. That’s our corporate culture: better and faster.
“Let me close by quotin’ a proverb from the Bible, ‘There is a time to every purpose’—I believe that our time is now and our purpose is to clean up that dreadful river.”
Reinhart sat down to applause. He nodded to his rival as Eva mounted the lectern to address the committee. She showed neither embarrassment nor amusement by Reinhart’s barbs. She was not a compelling presenter. She tended to speak in a monotone and often employed a technical vocabulary that estranged her audience. Today she started in better form.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting NMech here today. I’m not here to tell you jokes. I don’t have Dr. Reinhart’s sense of humor. In fact, most people say I don’t have any sense of humor at all.”
The committee smiled. A good sign.
“Besides, the problem is too serious for quips. Let’s start by being accurate. Dr. Reinhart, your Bible quote is not from Proverbs, but Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, verse 1. This is the smallest of Dr. Reinhart’s inaccuracies. Second, Harvard is in Cambridge, not Boston. Small points, you might say. But they reflect Dr. Reinhart’s consistent fuzzy thinking.”
“His larger mistakes are astonishing in their stupidity. Nuclear fusion is the result of combining the nuclei of atoms, not by adding or shedding electrons. Atoms give up electrons in the normal course of forming molecules. For example, sodium sheds an electron when it binds with chlorine. Is the result dangerous? Radioactive? No. The result is table salt.”
“I’m not sure why this committee would entrust the largest remediation project in history to a company run by a man who does not understand the fundamentals of chemistry. How can this man expect to manage cutting-edge nanotechnology? That’s like asking an illiterate to read an anatomy text in order to perform surgery. Reinhart’s fundamental ignorance should frighten you.
“As far as their proposal, so what if CleanAct bought FeFree? FeFree is best at producing advertising, not ZVI. If they had a workable solution, they could have made a fortune licensing the process to remediation companies instead of selling themselves to Clean-Act. We estimate that the successful remediation of the Nuovo River will use approximately $11 billion of ZVI over the next decade, but CleanAct paid less than that to buy FeFree. Why would FeFree sell themselves so cheaply if their process were dependable?
“But let’s assume for a moment that FeFree really can produce the ZVI needed. CleanAct’s approach relies on transporting ZVI to Rockford. The problem is safety. If there’s a leak in transport, or in the containment module, the helium escapes. Dr. Reinhart, the last time I checked, helium is lighter than air and iron is heavier. That means that if there’s a breach, your helium goes north and your ZVI goes south. If you’re lucky, it rusts. If not, then it explodes.”
Eva saw confusion on the faces of the bid committee and explained. “If the ZVI leaks anywhere from production at FeFree, to transport, to loading into the containment module, you get a cloud of nanoparticles. If you suspend small particles in air, then you risk an explosion. Ask any farmer about the dangers of a grain dust explosion. Ask a baker about flour explosions. There were over a hundred of these disasters in the last century. Talk to the survivors of the Washburn explosion. A grain elevator there blew and the blast leveled two mills and most of the town. Never mind that CleanAct’s approach is unproven: it’s dangerous.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will use simple, proven nanotechnology to fabricate and to safely handle more than enough ZVI. Creating new atoms is not fantasy. Reinhart ignores a half century of atomic manipulation. Go back fifty years. Scientists at one corporation took 35 xenon atoms and picked them up and set them down to spell the name of their company. Wrangling atoms is easier for a real scientist than wrangling cattle is for a real cowboy. By the way, Dr. Reinhart, those are some nice boots you’re wearing. You’ve driven a lot of steer in your time, have you?”
Eva had the committee’s attention. “Cowboy Fritz here says that there’s nothing published? Perhaps Dr. Reinhart’s team should forget about chasing cows and catch up on their professional reading. Scientists started fabricating what are called superatoms in the early 2000s—and they published their work. Superatoms are made of several atoms linked together to act as another atom. If you vaporize carbon and condense the vapor, you can build an iron superatom. It isn’t easy, but if Dr. Reinhart were capable of understanding the science he wouldn’t stand here and make a folksy fool of himself.”
Eva was lit by her own passion—and something more. Her face was pepper red and her upper lip was beaded with sweat. Her movements were jerky and her voice was too loud. The bid committee looked on in growing discomfort. No one nodded agreement. Perfunctory applause accompanied her to her seat.
The committee chairperson rose and thanked the speakers and promised a careful deliberation and a decision once both proposals were reviewed. In truth, the outcome had been decided months ago when a cabal of CleanAct’s executives, all ex-military or Department of Defense veterans, sat down with the military command at the munitions plant and hammered out a deal. Yes, there would be competition. The law required it. And after the bid committee’s careful consideration of both bids, CleanAct would win the contract, fair and square. It had been decided.
Dr. Reinhart stood and approached Eva with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Dr. Rozen, that was one interesting presentation. I must say, you’re a formidable competitor.”
And you’re a dead man walking, Eva thought as she ignored the proffered hand and walked past him to join her ashen-faced colleagues. They saw what Eva could not see as she walked back to her seat: the smug grins on the faces of the CleanAct executives.
NMech had lost the bid. In truth, they never had a chance. They had failed to consider the political factors that would guide the selection of a vendor, and moved as fatted calves into a den of hungry bureaucratic wolves.
BOSTON, MA AND ROCKFORD, VA
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2045
One year later, Eva Rozen, Marta Cruz, Jim Ecco and Dana Ecco gathered in an NMech conference room and watched scores of Rockford’s residents join the munitions plant officials and the CleanAct’s executives gather for the remediation plant opening. The launch of a dump site seldom generated much public excitement, but CleanAct’s public relations department had had a year to feed the public’s imagination. A video stream broadcast the event and fed the dreams of delegates of other toxic sites who watched in anticipation. Schoolteachers used the occasion to illustrate the principles of environmental responsibility and scientific achievement. Financiers calculated whether remediation would be the Next Big Thing. Even the viewers at NMech were mesmerized by the scope of the celebration.
Jim commented on the morbid curiosity that drove him to watch the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Marta spoke of her interest in seeing the river cleaned. Eva offered no motive for watching her competitor’s success.
Dana’s schooling brought him to the conference room. The remediation project provided lessons in chemistry, political science, history, biology, and social science. His gaze alternated between the vid projections, his own heads-up display and sidelong glances at Eva. At one point, he subvocalized a command to his datasleeve and sent a databurst to Eva’s sleeve. She looked over at the boy with a wistful gaze and mouthed, “Later.” Dana frowned and turned back to the news coverage of the plant’s opening.
The winter morning was unusually warm in Rockford, and the sun shone as bright as the town’s hopes for a clean river and economic prosperity. Rings of chairs perched on a temporary stage. The front row was reserved for plant and town officials. Dr. Reinhart mingled with them. He shook hands, slapped backs, and doled out humble thanks and earnest congratulations in equal measure. The Rockford High School marching band entertained the assembled guests from just beyond the stage. Their costumes shimmered, first in blue, then gold—Rockford’s colors—and sunlight glinted off their instruments and the decorations on their costumes like the tips of a crackling fire.
The officials and honored guests, the townspeople of Rockford, and viewers around the world all focused on the ZVI containment building, with its inverted funnel-shaped dome that came to be an icon for the project. CleanAct’s building had passed inspection after inspection. Experts considered earthquakes, lightning strikes, fires, terrorist attacks, and tsunamis, never mind that the munitions plant was nearly two hundred miles inland.
Their conclusion? The building was safe. This pronouncement was all the more laudable because CleanAct was ready three weeks ahead of schedule, as Dr. Reinhart had boasted it would be. In an age of complex projects with near-zero tolerance for error, most manufacturers were hard-pressed to meet a deadline, let alone beat one. But Dr. Reinhart had made this a point of pride. He’d show those eggheads in Boston a thing or two. “Here in Texas,” he’d said repeatedly, “we don’t always have fifty-dollar words for workin’ hard. It may not be the easy way, but it’s the Texas way.”
The final safety check had been three weeks earlier. Quality engineers flooded the containment chamber with pressurized helium. Had any of the helium escaped, it would have been detected and the project halted until the integrity of the chamber could be guaranteed. Once CleanAct demonstrated the safety of the chamber, all of the helium used for the test was evacuated through a vent high up on the building and rose safely into the atmosphere. Only enough to surround the ZVI remained.
The moment came to bring the plant online. Wielding an oversized pair of ceremonial scissors, the plant manager cut a foot-wide blue-and-gold ribbon, and then Rockford’s mayor threw a ceremonial switch. The plant had actually been brought online hours earlier, again thanks to CleanAct’s deadline-beating push to complete the project. All that remained was for the containment building to release ZVI into a production vault where thousands of microscopic jets would spray fine mists of ZVI into a collection tank through which the Rockford Munitions Plant’s effluvia now passed.
The process was completely automated. CleanAct’s proprietary process assembled the analysis of incoming waste, the moment-by-moment configuration of the ZVI spray heads, the analysis of the output, and the scooping up of the heavy, ZVI-bonded pollutants.
There were backups to the process, and backups to the backups. A redundant operating system ensured that none of the operating instructions became corrupted. If quality control sensors noted any irregularity in the operating commands, the plant would switch to the backup operating system and the cleanup would carry on without a hiccup. It was foolproof, CleanAct said, and the plant officials dutifully agreed.
Inside the containment chamber and unseen to the crowd, the backup operating system was monitoring the containment chamber, as expected. But it was not synchronized to the three-weeks-ahead-of-schedule timeline that CleanAct had as the centerpiece of its winning bid. The backup operating system believed that the containment chamber hull integrity test was to be conducted today. This set of instructions should have been deleted after the successful test three weeks earlier. Was it carelessness that allowed the code to remain? In its rush to beat the clock, did CleanAct miss a crucial step? Or was it an act of sabotage?
Whatever the reason, the backup software overrode the primary instructions for the operations protocols. The redundant instructions ordered external sensors to test for escaped helium as it had been programmed to do. Noting no leaks, the backup operating system concluded that the pressure test was successful.
The next step in the testing process was to purge inert helium. But the chamber now contained ZVI, not helium, and tons of the volatile particles poured out of the purge vent. The heavy iron cascaded down the rear of the round containment dome and into the oxygen-rich air that sustained the lives of the observers. The ZVI was little different from grain dust or flour in its explosive potential. In fact, given the size of the nanoclusters, it was more hazardous by several orders of magnitude.
One spark, source unknown, triggered the blast that incinerated the officials and the guests on stage, rattled windows for eleven miles, and prompted seismologists to report an earthquake at the small Virginia town.
The blast was magnificent, as explosions go. Had the guests been able to describe the last moment of their lives, they would first have noted a powerful shockwave and compared it to being tackled by a steroid-soaked team of football players. Their hands would have tried to clap at the sides of their heads when, a few milliseconds into the event, their eardrums flexed and ruptured. An overpowering flood of nausea would have swept them as their internal organs began to liquefy. Given the ability to continue their observations, they would have noted a strange fog appear and disappear as the air’s moisture precipitated and then vaporized in the emerging fireball.
The observers’ reports would have terminated as the air flashed to over four thousand degrees. Then the firestorm incinerated the plant and any evidence of the cause of the conflagration.
The blast was loud. A mid-twentieth century battleship’s 16-inch guns generated 215 decibels and the sound wave flattened nearby seas. The Saturn V rocket that carried its human payload to the moon generated a decibel reading of 220—five times louder than the battleship on the logarithmic decibel scale. The rocket’s sound was loud enough to melt concrete. The Rockford blast was estimated at 230 decibels—ten times louder than Saturn V.
The fireball consumed most of the iron nanodots. There were no structures within the blast radius and once the shockwave passed, the event appeared over. Military personnel from the munitions plant were deployed and they fanned out, tending to the wounded and dazed survivors, pulling bodies from the containment building’s rubble.
Those who had been watching the video feed were stunned. Schoolchildren wailed. Financiers winced, seeing an investment opportunity literally go up in smoke. Representatives of other toxic sites cradled their heads in their hands and wondered what they would do next.
A different scene unfolded in the boardroom at NMech. The Cruz-Ecco family stared in horror. Eva Rozen was building models of iron atoms with children’s construction toys. She’d create one, and then take it apart and build it again. Eva glanced at the video feed, blank since the explosion, and grunted, “I told them it was dangerous. Maybe they’ll listen to me now.”
Marta stared at her, a puzzled look on her face. “You don’t seem very surprised by the explosion,” she said in a casual tone, almost nonchalant.
“Nope. Bad science leads to bad results. I warned the bid committee, but they were already in Reinhart’s back pocket. Serves them right.” Now she was building carbon atoms. Her hands moved faster than a blackjack dealer at a high-stakes table.
“Do you really mean that?” asked Marta. “The explosion serves them right? Being incinerated is justice?” Her tone stayed gentle, casual and interested.
Eva grinned and ignored the question. She looked at the empty video feed and said, “Well, I guess we’re back in business. I don’t see any obstacles left. We’re a year or so behind where I thought we’d be, but that business is going to be ours.”
Marta said, “Eva, I’m a little concerned. You’re not surprised. You talk like this tragedy serves some kind of higher purpose. Ever since you decided we should go into remediation, you’ve acted like winning this bid was a life-or-death matter for NMech. I have to ask, did you have anything to do with this disaster?” Her voice was restrained but her gaze was direct.
“Don’t be an idiot. I told them it was a stupid idea. Are you suggesting that this explosion was anything but Reinhart’s folly?”
Jim interrupted. “Wait. Something’s happening at Rockford. Look.”
The video feed resumed as new vidbots came online. People staggered drunkenly, their skin turning cyanotic. Those who had been untouched by the fireball had counted their blessings too quickly. They had breathed a sigh of relief—and inhaled ZVI. Most of the particles had oxidized on contact with air and posed no health risk. Just enough ZVI, however, stayed reactive and entered the onlookers’ respiratory systems. The nanodots bonded with the oxygen in the bloodstreams of those rushing to the site of the blast. The iron rusted; the townspeople asphyxiated.
Eva looked at the video feed and shook her head. “Bad science,” was all she said.
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO
Nothing is more compelling than a disaster that’s viewed from a comfortable armchair or a barstool, or from miles away in a sixth-floor boardroom. The explosion held the public’s attention as securely as an inchworm on hot tar. It was news, entertainment, and a cautionary tale. A cloud of dragonflies—video cameras the size of an insect—caught the explosion’s aftermath. Datastream providers quickly packaged a four-minute story arc that began with Dr. Reinhart’s polished remarks, highlighted the fireball, and concluded with the grisly asphyxiation of the thirty or so observers who rushed forward after the explosion and inhaled active ZVI particles.
While emergency crews mobilized and rushed to Rockford, my mother slumped in a smartchair, her head in her arms, resting on the polished cherry wood conference table. Dust motes caught my eye as they twinkled in the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The pattern in the drapes was still, as if in respect for the tragedy 700 miles south.
My mother pushed herself up from her chair and embraced me.
My father stared at Eva’s retreating form.
She stopped in the doorway, turned and gave a shrug. She ignored my mother and grinned at my father. “Time to dust off our proposal,” she said.
“What did you do, Eva?” my mother asked. Her voice was sad.
“What did I do? I warned them that this could happen. That’s what I did. I built a better plan than CleanAct, that’s what I did.”
“I mean the explosion. Did NMech have anything to do with that?”
Eva’s voice took on a flat, affectless quality, the studied neutrality of anger. “Marta, you asked me that three times and I’ll answer you just once more: I had nothing to do with it. I warned them this could happen. You’re upset. Okay—it’s upsetting. But you accuse me? Better take a mood block before you say anything you’ll regret.”
“Eva, there’s going to be inquiries, people will look at NMech—”
“Disregard that. NMech is clean. And Marta? We’ve been friends for a long time. We might still be friends—I don’t know, since you contrive to keep Dana away from me. My only advise to you is this: don’t push me.” She stalked out of the boardroom.
My mother looked at me involuntarily. Her face told me all I needed to know about Eva’s accusation. But now wasn’t the time to discuss my mother’s interference with my relationship with Eva. Besides, I’d figured it out months ago.
I decided to investigate. Maybe I could show that Eva was innocent. Maybe we could act like friends again. I scanned Eva’s datapillars. There was no trace of a databurst transmission that might have triggered the explosion. But NMech was one of the largest companies in the world, and I couldn’t scan every pillar Eva might have used. Besides, I just didn’t want to believe that she’d have murdered dozens of innocent people just to get Reinhart or the bid committee. On the other hand, she’d been acting strangely in the days leading up to the bid submission, and her behavior had never returned to what is normal for her. I wondered, would she have sabotaged CleanAct’s plant?
“Eva’s a good scientist and she’s been a friend to us,” my mother said to no one in particular. She was starting to sob, gulping in big draughts of air, shoulders shaking. “But she’s been under such a strain. I shouldn’t have questioned her. I have no proof, no evidence other than her reaction, and that’s not evidence at all.”
My father spoke sharply. “Are you saying she gets a break because she’s been under a strain? If she did this, that is?” I think he had already made up his mind. He’d been cool to Eva since NMech submitted its bid and he seemed disinclined to give her the benefit of any doubt.
“I’m not saying that,” my mother replied, struggling for composure. “But I’m a doctor, not a judge. Doctors heal sinners and saints. If there’s a chance for Eva, we have to help her.”
“She gets a pass if she’s nuts?” I watched his anger grow. His body stiffened as his muscles tensed. I wondered if this was how it was before he learned to control his temper.
“Jim, would you please listen to me? All I mean is that I’m a bohique. I heal, not punish. If Eva broke the law, then Eva pays the price. But that’s up to law enforcement, not me. If there’s some way to make sense of this, I’d sure like to know.”
My mother and father turned away from each other and lapsed into stony silence. Everything was upside-down. Normally, my father would be defending Eva, not my mother.
I retreated into my own thoughts. Nothing moved in the boardroom except the dust motes. I watched them, drifting lazily about the room. Something about them held my attention more than the moment-by-moment vid coverage at Rockford. The way they twinkled reminded me of tiny diamonds. The way they moved reminded me of an avian flock. They seemed to move with purpose.
They were Eva’s eyes—surveillance motes—tinier cousins of the miniature video cameras that the datastreams used. Each of the motes was a half-micron in size—about 300 times smaller than a human hair. Individually, each possessed the ability to process only a minute piece of information. Collectively, they captured our every word, gesture, and expression.
Eva was studying us from her office, deciding what she would do.