Nano

PROLOGUE

The cyclist decided to go for a relaxing ride — the real training would resume on Tuesday, after he underwent more medical tests. The trainers had said it was okay for him to take his bike out to work off some of the stiffness he had built up the previous day, but insisted he shouldn’t push himself too hard. They had also made sure he was wearing the usual sensors for heart rate, breathing rate, and oxygen partial pressure, as well as the GPS device so that he could be appropriately monitored.

The route he was provided went north of Boulder to Carter Lake and back. The total trip was more than seventy-five miles, but there wasn’t much change in elevation along the way. If he and the others expected to compete at the level intended, they would have to be able to cycle seventy-five miles of predominantly flat terrain without breaking a sweat.

After a few miles, the cyclist felt bored and restless. He knew he was supposed to take it easy, but his body felt so good, it was as if he were flying over the pavement. His legs were stronger than they’d ever been, and not only was he not out of breath, his breathing was shallow and easy like he was strolling in a park. It was a lovely spring day, and he welcomed the warmth of the sun on his back. Despite warnings to the contrary, he was ready to push himself. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of feeling this good? Perhaps they’d punish him in some form or fashion, but the cyclist was confident they wouldn’t follow through on any of the threats they made to hurt his family back home. Those sanctions were reserved for trying to escape, not for pushing oneself too hard during a workout. In fact, he thought he might even be rewarded for making such obvious progress in his conditioning.

What the hell? the man thought, and he started to race hard, pumping his legs, picking up speed, crouching flat against the handlebars to reduce the wind resistance. He’d been cycling for only about a year, but he doubted there was anyone in the world who could do this better. Wasn’t his country about to demonstrate to the world that they could compete on a world-class level and in all endurance-based sporting endeavors?

The route had one climb of any significance, and the cyclist attacked it hard, initially holding his breath. He didn’t slow down at all, taking the paved road as if it were flat, rather than a 6 percent incline. He was really racing now, flying, exhilarated, when, suddenly, halfway up the hill, he couldn’t breathe and there was a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest and another in his left upper abdomen. The cyclist’s hand went to his throat as he felt his airway contract. He tried to brake, but lost control and the bike veered right, hit the slight curb, and threw the cyclist hard into a downward-sloping shoulder that was half grass, half gravel. He landed awkwardly and bumped and rolled before coming to a stop. His arms and legs were scraped and cut, but that didn’t matter because, try as he might, he couldn’t catch his breath. It was as if he had breathed out but couldn’t breathe in. On top of that, he was perspiring crazily, his heart was beating at an impossible rate, and the pain was unrelenting. The man hovered on the brink of unconsciousness, unable to get up or even move.

He had no idea how long he had been lying there, his body motionless on the outside but spiraling out of control within, like a runaway nuclear reactor. After a time — ten, thirty minutes? — he was aware of figures standing around him. Three or four people were talking at once and a hand grabbed his wrist. The man was aware that these were countrymen — he was in the United States but these people were Chinese, like him. They were part of the team. He felt his body being lifted roughly from the road and laid on a hard surface, and then a different kind of motion. The last sensation he had before finally falling unconscious was of being driven, presumably back to home base.

The technician in the van switched off the GPS device. It had worked — the combined tracker and vital-signs register had sounded the alarm, and the team knew at once that number five was in distress and where he was located. He had been easy to find off the public road, and luckily no one had seen him fall or stopped to help him. The crash had taken him clear of the road and down a small embankment where he wasn’t visible to passersby. The doctor in charge had been grateful for that.

Now the subject was displaying a highly unusual assortment of signs, but nothing they hadn’t seen before. The GPS showed what speed he had been going — much too fast for that phase of the training cycle. It looked as if they were losing him, but the doctor knew a fresh batch of subjects were conveniently scheduled to arrive that very day. On the other hand, it was a shame; this one showed some promise, as he had been an athlete before getting in trouble with the law.

Within twenty minutes they had reached their destination. The van backed into a loading dock where another medical team was waiting, and they transferred the cyclist into a windowless room full of emergency medical equipment. As he lay unconscious on a gurney, one orderly cut away the man’s cycling gear while another wheeled over what resembled a dialysis machine. By the time it was hooked up, the EEG monitor showed that there was no brain function, but that was of secondary importance — they had to make sure that the heart kept working so that they could recycle the blood and figure out exactly what had gone wrong, even though they had a pretty good idea.

A half hour later, the cyclist was technically dead, but his breathing and heart and vital functions were being maintained mechanically. His body would most likely be worked up and kept with the others in this state for as long as it was useful. The man’s blood was running through a system that centrifuged it in 100 cc samples, separating out the usual components and the additives before reintroducing the cells and the plasma back into his artificially maintained circulation.

A surgical team entered the room, gloved and gowned as if for a regular operative procedure. The only difference was that none of the team was terribly concerned with sterility, and the scrub had been perfunctory at best. Without ceremony, a splenectomy was performed on the dead man and a lung sample was taken. Both the spleen and the lung sample were immediately sectioned and examined in the same room by one of the senior scientists on the staff. Under the high-powered microscope, he could see what he knew would be there, a profusion of microscopic, sapphire-blue spheres blocking the capillaries. The scientist checked his watch. He knew the boss was out of the country, but he’d need to hear about this right away.