Micro

Chapter 15

Nanigen Headquarters 29 October, 10:00 a.m.

It was a sunny day in central Oahu, and the view from Nanigen’s meeting room swept across half the island. The windows looked over sugar-cane fields to the Farrington Highway, then to Pearl Harbor, where Navy ships floated like gray ghosts, and to the white towers of Honolulu. Beyond the city, a ragged line of peaks extended along the horizon, painted in misty greens and blues. These were the Ko‘olau Mountains, the Pali of Oahu. Clouds had begun to build over the range.

“It will rain on the Pali today. It usually does,” Vincent Drake murmured to nobody in particular, while he thought, The rain will solve the problem. If the ants haven’t solved it already. Of course, if there were any survivors, they might find refuge in a supply station. He reminded himself not to overlook this detail.

Drake turned away from the window and sat down at a long table of polished wood, where a number of people were waiting for him. Seated across from him was Don Makele, the vice president for security. There was the Nanigen media officer, Linda Wellgroen, and her assistant, as well as various other people from different departments.

At the far end of the table, by himself, sat a slender man wearing rimless spectacles. Edward Catel, MD, PhD, was the chief liaison for the Davros Consortium, the group of pharmaceutical companies that had supplied capital to Nanigen. The Davros Consortium had invested a billion dollars in Nanigen; Edward Catel monitored events at Nanigen for the Davros investors.

Drake was saying, “…seven graduate students. We were recruiting them to do field work in the micro-world. They’ve disappeared. Our CFO Alyson Bender has also gone missing.”

Don Makele, the security chief, said, “Maybe they went to watch the surf on the North Shore.”

Drake looked at his watch. “They should have checked in with us by now.”

Don Makele said, “I should file a missing-persons report.”

“Good idea,” Drake said.

Drake wondered just when the police would discover the corporate car with Alyson’s body and the students’ clothing in it. The car had fallen into a tidal inlet. He did not think the police would be able to make much sense of the crash. The cops are locals, he thought. Hawaiian locals take life easy, they go for the simple explanation, since that makes the least amount of work for them. Even so, he didn’t want the police to get too interested, so he gave Don Makele and the media staff his orders: “Nanigen cannot afford any media attention right now. We are at a critical stage of our explosive growth. We need to work quietly while we smooth out the wrinkles in the tensor generator, especially the problem of the micro-bends.” He turned to Linda Wellgroen, the media officer. “Your job is to stop publicity over this incident.”

Wellgroen nodded. “Understood.”

“If you get media inquiries, be warm and helpful but don’t give out any information,” Drake went on. “Your job is to be boring.”

“It’s in my resume,” Wellgroen said with a smile. “‘Experienced at media-diffusive ambiguation in real-time crisis contexts.’ It means that when the crap is flying I can be as exciting to the media as an Episcopalian vicar discussing how to toast a crumpet.”

“Those kids didn’t get into the tensor generator, did they?” said Don Makele, the security chief.

Drake said firmly, “Of course not.”

Linda Wellgroen jotted something on a legal pad. “Any idea what happened to Ms. Bender?”

Drake looked concerned. “Frankly, we’ve been worried about Alyson in recent days. She was known to be deeply depressed, possibly distraught. She had been having an affair with Eric Jansen, and when Eric tragically drowned…well…let’s just say Alyson struggled with private demons.”

“You think Ms. Bender took her own life?” Linda Wellgroen said.

Drake shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned to Don Makele. “Tell the police about Alyson’s state of mind.”

The meeting broke up. Linda Wellgroen tucked her legal pad under her arm and walked out of the room, accompanied by the others—but at the last minute, Vin Drake touched Don Makele’s elbow and said, “Wait.”

The security chief stayed while Drake closed the door. Now only Makele and Drake were left in the room, along with the Davros advisor, Dr. Edward Catel, who had remained seated at the end of the table. He hadn’t spoken a word during the meeting.

Drake and Catel had known each other for many years. They had made significant amounts of money working together on deals. Vin Drake thought that Ed Catel’s greatest strength was the fact that he displayed no emotions. The man had no discernible feelings of any kind. Catel was a medical doctor, but he had not treated a patient in many years. He was all about money, deals, and growth. Dr. Catel was as warm as slate in January.

Drake waited a moment. Then he said, “The situation is different from what I just told our media people. Those kids did go into the micro-world.”

“What happened, sir?” Makele asked.

“They are industrial spies,” Drake said.

Catel broke in, speaking for the first time. “Why do you think that, Vin?” He had a mild, even voice.

“I caught Peter Jansen in the Project Omicron area. That zone is forbidden. He had a memory stick in his hand. When I walked in on him, he looked guilty as hell. I had to grab him and rush him out of the zone. The bots could have killed him.”

Catel raised an eyebrow; he was one of those people who seem to have yogic control over their facial muscles. “The Omicron zone doesn’t sound secure if a grad student can walk in there.”

Drake got annoyed. “The zone is very tight. But we can’t have the security bots active all the time—nobody could enter the zone. I should be asking you about security, Ed. You paid Professor Ray Hough a great deal of money to let us recruit his grad students.”

“I didn’t pay him a cent, Vin. He got stock in Nanigen. Under the table.”

“So what? You are responsible for the behavior of those students, Ed! You manipulated the situation in Cambridge to get those students out here.”

“You have not solved the problem of bends,” Dr. Catel answered in a bland voice. “You planned to send them into the micro-world at considerable risk to their lives. Or am I conjecturing?”

Drake ignored him and paced the room. “The ringleader is Peter Jansen,” he went on, speaking rapidly. “He’s the brother of our deceased vice president, Eric Jansen. Peter seems to irrationally blame Nanigen for his brother’s death. He’s looking for payback. He’s trying to steal our corporate secrets. He may be planning to sell our technology—”

“To whom?” Catel asked sharply.

“Does it matter?”

Catel’s eyes narrowed. “Everything matters.”

Drake didn’t seem to hear him. “A Nanigen employee is involved in the spying,” Drake went on. “A control-room operator named Jarel Kinsky.”

“Why do you think so?” Catel asked.

Drake shrugged. “Kinsky has disappeared, too. I think he’s in the micro-world, in the Waipaka Arboretum. Where he’s serving the students as a paid guide. What they’re doing, I think, is trying to find out how we operate in the field and what we’re discovering.”

Dr. Catel pinched his lips together but said nothing more.

“You want me to start a rescue—?” Don Makele began.

Drake cut him off. “Too late. They’re dead by now.” Drake gave his security chief a sharp look. “Nanigen has been attacked on your watch, Don. You didn’t seem to notice. Is there anything you want to explain about that?”

Don Makele’s jawline tightened. He was wearing an Aloha shirt. He had an ample belly, but his bare arms, sinewy and massive, were fatless, and Drake saw how his security man’s arms went rock-tense. Don Makele was an ex-Marine intelligence officer. A security failure like this—a spy ring operating under his nose—was unforgivable. “I offer my resignation, sir,” he said to Drake. “Effective immediately.”

Drake smiled and stood up, and put his hand on Don Makele’s shoulder, feeling the moisture soaking the man’s rayon shirt. It pleased him to see how a few well-chosen words could make an ex-Marine break into a sweat. “Not accepted.” Drake’s eyes narrowed, and he got a careful look. He had humiliated his security chief, and now the man would be eager to please. “Go to Waipaka Arboretum and collect the supply stations, Don. All of them. Bring them back here. They need to be cleaned and refurbished.”

That would prevent any survivors from taking refuge in a station.

Dr. Catel had picked up his attache case and was moving toward the door. He glanced at Drake and gave him a nod, and left without saying another word.

Vin Drake understood exactly what Dr. Catel’s nod meant. Clean up this mess quickly and the Davros Consortium won’t hear about it.

He went over to the window and looked out. As always, the trade winds were blowing across the mountains, endlessly lofting into mist and showers. There was nothing to worry about. For humans without weapons and protective gear, survival time in the micro-world was measured in minutes to hours, not in days. Speaking to himself in a murmur, he said, “Nature will take its course.”