Nano

CHAPTER 51

“Hello, Pia.”

Berman stood in the doorway of Pia’s underground cell and looked at her lying on a dirty, bare mattress staring at the ceiling. He could see that she was chained to a ring secured to the brick wall. She looked very small and defenseless, and with her broken arm he knew how vulnerable she was. But this was the woman who had taunted and humiliated him and put what was to be his crowning life’s achievement in jeopardy, and he felt that by rights he should be very angry with her. He certainly had been angry in Boulder the other night. He wasn’t used to being toyed with and dominated, in any sense of the word. It wouldn’t be unjustified for him to exact some revenge on this woman, perhaps even the ultimate revenge.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Berman asked.

As his anger burned, Berman realized he wanted a reaction from Pia, any reaction. Again he was flustered by the mixture of frustration and desire that he was experiencing. He had never felt anything like it, or so he told himself. Despite all the evidence that he could see before him of a defenseless woman, he was as nervous as if he were the prisoner. In a strange, irrational way he almost believed that Pia could have the upper hand over him if she so chose. He knew such an idea was ridiculous, but that was how he felt. Berman moved into the room, and the Chinese guard pulled the door shut behind him and locked it. It was better now that the guard wasn’t watching him, but still Berman was uncomfortable.

“Pia, I’m sorry it has come to this, but you must understand you left us with no choice. You came to my house and tricked me. And it wasn’t the first time. I started to think I was more than just drunk that first time you came, and eventually I figured out what you had done, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. I was hoping that on Sunday your motivation was more sincere, but I now realize it was all a charade so you could photograph my eyes for you to trespass onto Nano property.”

Berman paused, but there was no visible reaction from Pia.

“You used the photographs to gain access to a restricted area and you stole a sample of blood from a sensitive physiological preparation. You had also obtained a blood sample from a previous occasion that Nano had taken the time and effort to obtain a court order to confiscate. We also know you used Nano equipment unauthorized to examine these samples. These are very serious matters.”

“Mengele,” said Pia, very quietly.

“I’m sorry, Pia, I didn’t catch that.”

“Do you know who Josef Mengele was?”

“Of course, he was a Nazi doctor in the concentration camps—”

“That’s who you are. A modern-day Mengele.”

“Pia, that is ridiculous, but I can understand that what you saw requires some explaining on my part. It is not what it seems.”

“Some explaining! You bastard.” Pia sat up and gave Berman a look of pure hatred and anger. Berman stepped back, even though he knew Pia was restrained. For him she had an intense power that was deeply unsettling.

“Where the hell am I? You have me chained to a wall in this medieval dungeon like something out of Robin Hood. You really are a pathetic, impotent little man.”

Berman’s face reddened. “I don’t think you are in a position to make that kind of judgment. You’ve never given me a chance to show you who I am, personally or professionally. I am on the verge of leading the greatest scientific medical breakthrough of the last fifty years. Maybe a hundred. And here is the issue in a nutshell. I want you to join me as I suggested back in my home. I want you to join us. I’m making you an offer of a lifetime.”

Pia laughed a mirthless laugh. She shook her head. “Sure you want me to join you? That’s why you have me chained to the wall in a dungeon.”

“You wouldn’t listen to me the other night at my house. You never listen. It’s always about your agenda. If restraining you is what it takes to get you to hear me out, then so be it. And I needed to make sure you wouldn’t spoil everything at the last minute. Right now I just want to talk to you.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Unfortunately, no. But I ask you to think about what I am saying as a scientist, a researcher, a doctor who is interested in helping save millions upon millions of people, not someone who is immature and controlled by sentimentality and knee-jerk delusions of ethics.”

“I suppose my ethics are ‘reflex,’ as you suggest, especially if I think there’s something wrong with carving people up and keeping them half-alive in tanks.”

“You are a good scientist, potentially a great one. Mariel Spallek said as much, and I trust her judgment, especially in light of your polyethylene glycol suggestion for the microbivores. But she also said that you can’t help interfering in areas that shouldn’t be of your concern.”

“Isn’t that what a good scientist should do? Be concerned? Isn’t that what Robert Oppenheimer implied when he looked back on his career as the father of the atomic bomb?”

“That’s what a philosopher does. A scientist should be looking to push the boundaries of science, which is what we are doing at Nano, and what you have been helping with. Pia, you know what nanotechnology is going to mean to the world, you probably know it nearly as well as I. It is a revolution, a coming avalanche of techniques and products, and we need to be in the vanguard, leading the world, and not back in the pack with the Europeans and all the other myopic nations who can’t see the big picture.”

“And that’s where you come in, I imagine. Keeping the big picture in focus.”

“Yes, that’s what I do. I shoot for the moon, taking theory to reality.”

“So tell me more about the big picture, Zachary. Please fill me in.”

Berman paused and looked at Pia. She was as defiant and sarcastic as ever — really pissed, hissing like a cornered alley cat with no back-down in her whatsoever. He’d come this far with her, literally and metaphorically. He saw no reason to conceal anything from her at this point. This game was going to end either with her compliance or with something far more unpleasant, so he really had nothing to lose. Most important, she was at least talking.

“Big picture, it’s about money. Of course it is, isn’t everything? We can operate in the United States with relatively little supervision from the authorities, but any significant amount of funding always comes with strings attached. The government talks about compliance. We have to make sure we are in line with this regulation and that statute to keep every wild-ass constituency fat and happy. The red tape is unbelievable. And since the financial meltdown in ’08, private funding from within the U.S. is always complicated, if not impossible. You sit down with financiers and talk to them for weeks, and they get over their qualms and accept all your guarantees and promises and warranties, and then the money they come up with is chicken feed compared to what we need. You know, in the order of ten million or twenty million. And they think they’re big shots.

“But China is different. They know how to get things done, and the bigger, the better. They are looking into the future, not bogged down in the present, let alone the past. I may not know exactly what branch of the government I am dealing with, but their representatives sit down and they say, ‘We want this technology. What do you need to make it happen and share it with us?’ And I say, ‘Oh, about a half billion to really get it started.’ And they say, ‘Okay.’”

“Half a billion dollars?”

“They are not intimidated by such an R-and-D budget, knowing that nanotechnology is already a seventy-billion-dollar-a-year phenomenon. They’re smart enough to know they’re getting a bargain, considering Nano’s leap forward with molecular manufacturing. It is incredible how quickly they can make up their minds, knowing they are investing in the future. From the very first meeting I had with them, they wanted to be part of Nano’s future. The only problem was that they wanted some proof that nanorobots would work as well as I said they would, so they made their investment in microbivores and future molecular manufacturing dependent on my showing them definitive proof. Someone high up the food chain apparently not satisfied in China’s performance in the Beijing Olympics says, ‘This guy has to prove this stuff works. If he takes a good athlete and makes him a world-class athlete, that will prove to us that he knows what he’s doing.’”

“What stuff?” said Pia. “You said, ‘prove this stuff works.’ What ‘stuff’ are you talking about?”

“It’s what I presume you saw in those two blood samples.”

“The blue nanorobots.”

“Yes. Do you know what they are?”

“My guess is that they’re respirocytes.”

“I’m impressed.”

“It had to be something that contributed to the athletes’ endurance. Superefficient oxygen carriers. I read about them when I first arrived at Nano at the same time I read up on microbivores. I suppose it would explain some of the medical anomalies seen with the runner.”

“The respirocytes supply oxygen to the athlete’s bloodstream far more effectively than regular red blood cells. A thousand times better, to be exact. They are so effective that the subject’s heart doesn’t even have to be beating for adequate oxygen to be available for several hours in a patient’s brain. Which is why the subjects who had cardiac arrest showed no neurological side effects after being heart-dead for up to an hour or two. As we later learned, the initial cardiac arrest problem was caused by the respirocytes simply because they worked too well. They triggered what we found to be a hyperoxic, hypermetabolic state resulting in a kind of heatstroke with cardiac arrest. The first test subjects simply got too large of a dose, even though it was only five cubic centimeters of the nanorobot suspension. We had no idea at how efficient the respirocytes would prove to be. It is a great harbinger for the success of the microbivores.”

“And the Chinese wanted proof that these nanorobot respirocytes, designed and manufactured by Nano, could make an athlete super-effective?”

“Essentially yes. We trained a cyclist, and he won a stage at the Tour de France. But the higher-ups were more specific. The goal was for a Chinese national to win an international race at a major championship. As chance would have it, the jogger you came across will be running in the marathon at the World Athletics Championships, which start on Friday.”

“In London.”

“In London.”

“So is that where we are?” asked Pia. “In London?”

Berman’s facial expression gave nothing away.

“But you’re cheating and your runner will be found out.”

“I don’t think so. None of the doping tests will detect something as inert as a diamondoid surfaced nanorobot. Even if the authorities decided to do blood counts, with the low concentrations we use, it would be rare indeed for one to be seen. My feeling is that the Chinese runner will win, hopefully not by too large a margin, and I know he has been advised as such. And once this guy wins his race, Nano is out of sports. No doubt someone will figure out eventually what respirocytes do for athletes, and eventually there will be tests, but the Chinese and I will have moved on. I don’t care, and the faction in the government that decided upon these tests will have their proof. And what’s more, they’ll have the glory that comes with athletic achievement on the world stage.

“The Chinese government doesn’t just want to dominate economically, they want sporting success as well as proof their system of government is superior to the rest of the world’s. In that regard they’re as bad as the Soviets and the East Germans in the Cold War era, when they would do anything to beat the U.S.A. to a gold medal. I’m sure it also has something to do with the Chinese government wanting to erase the three hundred or so years of humiliation the country suffered under colonialism.”

Sports meant nothing to Pia, but she could understand the significance of what Berman was talking about. It sounded so trite. She clearly understood the flaw. It was a classic attempt on Berman’s part to justify means by supposedly honorable ends. All the time he talked, she couldn’t get the image of the bodies in the tanks out of her head. Berman was willing to sacrifice people, to experiment on humans to reach his goals.

“So you’re doing all this for the Chinese in order to get their money.”

“Investment. To get their investment, so that it can be applied to the microbivores project, yes.”

“And to what end? I mean, is this to speed up the process, investigating microbivores? How much time do you estimate this kind of investment will save? Two years? Five years?”

“How about ten years,” said Berman. “Without the Chinese money, I think we are looking at ten years before microbivores are commercially available, and that’s only if there are no unexpected problems. And think of what it will mean when they’re available. It’s going to revolutionize the treatment of infectious disease, and think of cancer. It will be a nontoxic, targeted cure. No more need for chemotherapy or harmful radiation, which will be seen to be the equivalent of medieval medicine. And microbivores will most likely prevent and cure Alzheimer’s disease. We’re talking about a medical revolution.”

“But at what cost?”

“At the cost you saw. As I said, I’m sure there’s nothing going on at Nano that isn’t going on at other research facilities around the world.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I know it to be a fact.”

“You said that everyone who was at Nano was there voluntarily: all these subjects. Are you telling me these people volunteered to be vivisected?”

“Yes, I did say they were all volunteers, and I mean it. They were convicted of capital crimes in China. Every one of the subjects brought over to Nano was a condemned prisoner in China. The country executes, I don’t know, three thousand people a year, which I’m not saying I personally agree with, since some of them are for things like fraud or embezzlement. A few were selected and asked if they wanted to take part in a medical trial.”

“They were vivisected!”

“Those subjects you saw in the Nano aquariums had been subjects who had suffered irreversible, life-threatening consequences from the oxygen-caused hypermetabolic cardiac failure. They were brain dead before they were prepared to serve as physiological preparations. It was through their sacrifice that we were able to learn the proper concentrations needed for safety. They were not vivisected, as you suggest, at least not in a strict definition of the word. I know their deaths were regrettable but we never killed a healthy subject.”

“Oh, good! Is that supposed to make me feel better? Where’s that contract you had for me, I’ll sign it right away.”

Berman stared at Pia. He could feel his anger and frustration returning as her sarcasm was obvious, suggesting that he was not making the headway he had hoped and thought he was making only minutes earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Listen, these people in the tanks had to all intents and purposes died prior to their being placed there, and they were going to die anyway if they had not been allowed to come to Nano and participate in our work. Much sooner, in fact. Science has to find its way, and there have to be sacrifices. For centuries, people have died researching drugs. If we reach our goal with the microbivores even five years ahead of time, we could save a million lives, who knows?”

“That’s not how it works and you know it. When the Nazis were brought to trial at the end of World War Two, it was specifically decreed that countries cannot experiment on prisoners. There is no way they can be considered legitimate volunteers.”

“The U.S. government gave subjects syphilis after the end of the war…”

“Okay, but they’re not doing it now. And the experiments you are alluding to have been totally discredited.”

Berman was silent. This wasn’t going how he had hoped, but he wasn’t really surprised. Pia was unlikely to roll over at the first opportunity. If she was going to relent, it would take time, and Berman had thought she might be more receptive to the argument about sacrificing a few to save many than she seemed to be. He wasn’t going to give up.

“We lost maybe ten subjects in the whole project for which we can save millions.”

“How long has this respirocyte project been going on?”

“It’s been going on four years,” Berman said, encouraged that she was asking legitimate questions.

Pia let out a sigh and glanced up at Berman. He was looking down at her with an expression she couldn’t read. Did he really think he could talk her around? That he could persuade her into believing that his sick way of looking at the world was justified? It was the darkening realization that Berman did believe he could convert her that was making Pia feel so downcast. She wondered what she could do to give herself a chance at getting away. Was she really somewhere in the United Kingdom? Was she capable of a charade, knowing that he knew she’d already had pulled it off not once but twice? What was going to happen to her if she didn’t give in to the role he wanted her to play? Was he going to try to force her to have sex with him? Too many questions and no answers.

“I’ll never sleep with you,” said Pia.

“I’m not a monster, you might think that of me right now, but you should give some serious thought to what I have been saying. Think of the scientific opportunities there are for a woman like you when you have access to the best equipment and unlimited funds. Believe me, I would not have Mariel Spallek breathing down your neck if you came back for research. I know that’s what you want to do, and I’m offering you a chance that most scientists would jump at.”

“Not if they had to touch you, they wouldn’t. Is this how you get all your girlfriends to sleep with you, by blackmailing them?”

“On the contrary. I told you about Whitney. She and I had some very spirited conversations before she converted to my point of view, and now she is my most loyal employee. You are fortunate that I did not leave you in her hands in Boulder. We certainly wouldn’t be having this talk if I had.”

“Paul Caldwell will find me.”

“I very much doubt it. Your friend George is with him now. They went to my house. Then they went to Nano, where they were kind enough to hand over their IDs. They’ve been to your apartment a few times. Now, they’re just sitting around Paul’s apartment wringing their hands. Perhaps they’re holding hands, I know Paul would enjoy that.”

“He’s ten times the man you are.”

“Well, chances are we’ll never know.”

“They’ll go to the police.”

“Yes, I’m sure they will. But I can’t imagine they are going to get much satisfaction telling the police their concerns about your well-being. You remember how helpful the cops were the last time you saw them.”

Pia did. Clearly, at least some members of the Boulder PD were on Berman’s payroll. Perhaps Berman was bluffing about Paul and George, but Pia wouldn’t be surprised if Berman didn’t have Paul’s apartment under surveillance. She had to stay strong and resist.

“My arm is hurting,” said Pia. “Is there a doctor here?” She wanted to see another face; anyone but Berman.

Berman nodded. “I’m glad you asked me that.” He thought the fact that Pia was requesting a doctor was a positive sign, reflecting that she was able to think beyond her offended morality. And for Berman, it was important that Pia get better. He wanted desperately to have her physically, as she expected, but not when she was injured like this. He did have standards to maintain.

Berman turned and rapped twice on the door. It opened and admitted a Chinese man, about sixty, in a white lab coat. Berman tapped his own arm where Pia had her break, and the man nodded. He stepped over to Pia and bid her to stand up before he started examining her upper left arm and the cast on her wrist.

“There’s something I forgot to tell you,” said Berman. “It might influence your thinking. If somehow your two men friends talk some judge into issuing a search warrant for Nano, perhaps looking for you or whatever, I want to tell you that the human preparations you happened to see have all been replaced with dogs. The humans served their purpose and have all been removed and their ashes will be appropriately sent back to China to be given to their families.”

With that, Berman turned around and rapped on the door to be let out.