Nano

CHAPTER 35

Zach Berman knew his rider wasn’t in contention to win the rather short final stage that was the finish of this year’s Giro d’Italia, let alone the race itself, but he felt extremely nervous nonetheless. A huge crowd had gathered in Milan’s main square, which was dominated by the massive yet somewhat delicate cathedral. Berman had marveled at the structure on a visit with Jimmy Yan earlier that day, not least because it had taken six hundred years to complete. The fourteenth-century stonemasons and artists would probably have loved to know that their work was going to be part of a team effort that would go on for literally hundreds of years, all for the glorification of their God. Berman felt his task of marrying nanotechnology to medicine was as monumental as the cathedral, but unlike the builders of the cathedral, he had so little time to finish his own work.

Berman looked at his watch. The riders had left the Piazza Castello fifteen minutes before, and if they rode at forty to fifty kilometers per hour, they would come into sight in ten minutes or so. From his aluminum bleacher seat next to Berman in the temporary grandstand, Jimmy Yan stood and tapped his watch. Berman nodded and stood up. Yan was prepared, as Berman knew was his habit.

“They are close,” said Jimmy, watching events through a small pair of opera glasses. The throngs of people were waving flags of all the nations represented in the race, but they were all outnumbered by Italian flags. The loud cheering of the boisterous crowd was punctuated by klaxons and car horns, and even some fireworks, which made the din deafening.

Jimmy stood on his tiptoes, looking at the lead group. This last short stage was mostly a formality. A dominant Spanish rider was going to win the Giro overall, as long as he didn’t fall down, but three Italians were vying for second, and it was these riders who were causing the crowd’s excitement. From the spectators’ point of view it was a great way to finish the nearly monthlong race. Now everyone in the grandstand was on his feet, and Berman couldn’t see through the phalanx of raised arms. Then he caught a glimpse of the peloton as they made their circuit of the piazza — did he see the blue, red, and green of his team? He couldn’t be sure.

“There!” Jimmy grabbed his arm and pointed, and Berman definitely saw the team’s colors, all the riders in a group in the middle of the pack as the massed ranks of riders crossed the line.

“I saw Bo,” Jimmy said. “I’m sure of it.”

Thank God, thought Berman. His rider had to finish the race, and this was only the first hurdle of many to come in the next few months. Not that finishing a race was a great obstacle in itself, but the officials in China had made it clear, there were to be no more problems or failures: certainly no injuries during public events; no more riders going down on the back roads of Boulder; and no more visits to emergency rooms in American ambulances. Berman wished he had the power to control each situation to such an extent.

“We should go down and see the team,” said Berman, who felt that their finishing the race without any disasters was a cause for modest celebration.

“As you wish,” said Jimmy. “I will go and see Liang once more before we leave.”

Liang was the rider selected to take the place of Han, who had been flown back to the United States to have his Achilles operated on out of sight of potentially curious European surgeons. Han’s injury had baffled Nano’s scientific team. They knew of such injuries to juiced-up baseball players who had added too much muscle and overtaxed their tendons, sometimes shearing them clean off the bone. But Han hadn’t been putting on bulk to hit home runs, he was leaner and built for speed and endurance. If anything, his muscles had become smaller in girth, just much more efficient and able to avoid lactic acid buildup entirely.

Doctors in both Shanghai and Boulder had spent days poring over MRIs of Han’s legs taken well before his injury when he was being considered to be a subject, but found no minute tear that might have caused the rupture, or any other structural weakness. Eventually the Chinese and American scientists agreed that his injury was an unhappy fluke. “Shit happens” was how the phlegmatic, down-home Victor Klaastens had put it, and Berman finally had to agree that it applied in this case, just as it did in the rest of life.

Jimmy had gotten Liang holed up in an apartment somewhere in Milan. Berman didn’t know where it was, he only knew that Liang had flown back to Milan in the same Chinese plane that had taken Han to Colorado, and that he was being attended to by a Chinese doctor who had spent the past two years at Nano. The Chinese were leaving nothing to chance, or leaving nothing to the Americans, which might be the same thing as far as they were concerned.

“How is Liang?” asked Berman as Jimmy got his things together.

“Liang is well. He feels strong and wants to start racing. Despite his situation, it turns out he enjoys this.”

Berman preferred not to think too much about the “situation” of the people brought in from China to be trained at Nano.

“He knows if he succeeds, he can win freedom for himself and for his family.”

Berman smiled at Jimmy.

“Of course. That is a great incentive for him.”

“Fear of failing is a better incentive, don’t you think,” said Jimmy, making a statement rather than asking a question, and Berman didn’t have an answer for him before the two split up. Berman watched Jimmy head off before he himself hustled toward the crowd grouped around the riders. He wanted to have a few words with Victor Klaastens.