The First Patient

CHAPTER 18

Midnight.

It had been years-decades, actually-since Gabe had studied uninterrupted with such intensity. Perhaps back then it was a test in med school, maybe his internal-medicine boards. Whatever the exam, given where his life had taken him after Fairhaven, he always welcomed the chance to study where some sort of goal was involved. Tonight that goal was learning as much as he could about nanoscience and nanotechnology.

He had gotten himself up and running with the perusal of a few articles on the Internet and then chosen the most basic of Ferendelli's texts-an overview of the field in a small volume put together by the editors of Scientific American.

Next came Nanotechnology for Dummies.

Now he was approaching the other books by topic, rather than trying to scan each from cover to cover. Nanotechnology in your world… Pathways to molecular manufacturing… Building big by building small… Making molecules into motors… The fantastic voyage into the human body. It was possible, even likely, that Jim Ferendelli's study of nanoscience and technology had nothing to do with his disappearance, but it was fact that at the moment Gabe had precious little in the way of ideas, and it was also fact that less than twenty-four hours ago a man-a legitimate assassin or part of an ingenious charade-had tried to kill him.

Alison had offered to take a cab or the Metro home from Ferendelli's brownstone, and Gabe, anxious to start reading and not wanting to screen every word she said for underlying intent, had come close to agreeing. In the end, though, he acknowledged his ambivalence toward her and his reluctance to end their evening together and made the drive to her place, although in near silence.

She lived in a prim brick garden apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia, just across the river from D.C., although she shared with Gabe that she now suspected the residence would not be hers for long. It seemed quite possible that by exposing her identity as she had, she might have outstayed her usefulness and be facing imminent deportation back to the desk job in San Antonio. The Secret Service was as uptight as any branch of the military, she told him-maybe more so. A blown assignment was a blown assignment regardless of the reasons.

Once during the drive, he had risked a glance over at her. She was gazing impassively ahead, approaching headlights glinting off the dampness in her dark eyes. She really did have an unusual, expressive beauty, he acknowledged, as well as an energy he couldn't get out of his mind. Still, something else he couldn't get out of his mind was that she had been placed in the White House Medical Unit to get information from him, possibly about the president's medical situation, and she was willing-no, required-to lie and possibly to steal as well to get the job done.

At that moment, no amount of beauty or energy could make up for the lack of trust he was feeling toward her.

Too bad.

"Well," she said as she opened the car door and stepped out in front of her apartment complex, "see you around."

"See you around," he replied, barely looking at her.

She took a step away and then looked back over her shoulder.

"Gabe?"

"Yes."

"It's not like you think."

Before he could ask what she meant, she had turned and was gone. Hours later, thoughts of her continued to intrude on his studies.

Despite a load of caffeine from a splendidly rich Colombian blend, Gabe could feel the hour and lack of sleep beginning to overtake him. Still, he was fascinated by the material and reluctant to call it quits for the night. Carefully avoiding the bed, and keeping the lights on full, he rotated from the desk, to a not-too-comfortable easy chair, to the kitchen table, and then back to the desk again. As he read, taking notes on a yellow legal pad, he felt an increasing connection to Dr. Jim Ferendelli.

What had drawn the man to be interested in this still-arcane field? What was his connection to Lily Sexton? Gabe remembered the spark of interest he himself had felt at first meeting her. But the images and the scent and gentle touch of Alison Cromartie were fresh and powerful enough to keep any fantasies involving Lily at bay.

Ferendelli and Sexton.

Possible, he mused. Very possible.

He had heard the term nanotechnology before and knew that it had something to do with constructing various materials beginning with very small particles. But until tonight that was about as far as his knowledge went. Well, he realized as he continued to read, not totally. He had come across someplace-an article or novel or possibly something on public radio-the phantasmagorical possibility of nanotechnology eventually creating a new life-form: submicroscopic nanorobots, capable of reproducing themselves again and again until the resultant "gray goo" began to smother all living matter on Earth.

Gray goo and nanobots.

Gabe washed the grit from his eyes, returned to the Internet, and did a more detailed reading on the subject. The terms gray goo and nanobots, possibly first coined by K. Eric Drexler, often referred to as the father of nanotechnology, were pure science fiction-speculation depicting the ultimate end of the evolution of the science, of all science for that matter, decades or even centuries in the future. Interesting to think about and to debate over coffee, but hardly an impending threat.

According to Drexler's theory, a self-replicating nanobot, one of hundreds of billions created to help society in any of hundreds or even thousands of ways, could undergo a change similar to a biological mutation. That one mutant particle then would create another; then the two of them would each reproduce again. Two would become four, then four eight, then eight sixteen-two to the eventual power of infinity, so long as the raw materials, the substrate, necessary to feed and sustain the process remained available. Because of the mutation, like microbes suddenly impervious to antibiotics, the technology to stop the unbridled growth of the new nanobots would no longer be effective.

Gray goo.

"The president feels that the federal government needs to take a more proactive position regarding control of scientific research and development-stem cells, cloning, nanotechnology…"

They were Lily Sexton's words.

Nanotechnology last night in the Red Room. Nanotechnology tonight in Jim Ferendelli's library. In Wyoming, Gabe had encountered the word maybe once every few years, Now, in Washington, twice in a day or so.

Gabe returned to the books.

At Carol Stoddard's urging, the president was on the verge of appointing Lily Sexton to a new cabinet post that would, in part at least, oversee the evolution of nanotechnology-protecting the world, in theory at least, from Drexler's Armageddon.

Two A.M.

The bellwether muscles at the base of Gabe's neck were screaming for the relief that only sleep could bring. He had sacrificed two codeines to the ache with little or no effect and pledged to use no more-at least not tonight. The caffeine was still punching away at his nervous system, but connecting less and less. It was time to stop. Still, what remained of his willpower refused to quit. The scope of the new science was mesmerizing, and although the future of nanotechnology was in many respects as vague and ill defined as gray goo, the present was already intensely fascinating-and, in some regards, quite profitable as well.

Gabe studied the photo of an early computer, nearly filling the room it was in. Thanks to microprocessors, his ultra-thin laptop probably had more power. Now nano-size computer transistors were making even the sleekest PCs seem clunky. Disinfectants for killing specific germs without generating any human toxicity, lightweight bulletproof armor, and nonallergic cosmetics were just a few of the products of nanotechnology already on the marketplace.

Gabe's eyelids drifted closed and refused to reopen until he promised them a trip to bed-no passing GO, no collecting $200. Once under the covers, he eased into sleep through swirling images of Drew Stoddard and Magnus Lattimore, of Ellis Wright and Alison, of Tom Cooper and LeMar Stoddard and Jim Ferendelli, and, finally, of the charcoal portrait of the woman he hoped to spend at least part of the day ahead with-the elegant, eccentric mistress of Lily Pad Stables, Lily Sexton, Ph.D.