Little Deadly Things

by Harry Steinman

  “So, what can you tell us about this project?” Marta asked.

  “Not a lot. The military classified much of what was dumped into the Nuovo, but we’re pretty sure that there’s dioxin, mercury, lead, ammonia, and copper. Not to mention DBP—di-n-butyl phthalate—which causes fetal mutations.”

  “Lovely,” said Marta, wrinkling her nose. “The stuff we know about includes heavy metals, carcinogens, and mutagens. Am I getting this?”

  “Yup. There’s lots of it.”

  “And then there are pollutants that the military refuses to identify?”

  Eva nodded.

  “And we don’t know anything about remediation?”

  Eva nodded again. “No more than an undergraduate science major would.”

  “Sounds perfect. Let me guess. You have a plan?” Marta asked.

  Eva nodded. “The cleanup shouldn’t be too hard. The technology is mature. Use ZVI and scoop.”

  “Huh?”

  “ZVI. Zero valent iron. That’s iron in its pure state.”

  “Iron?” A note of incredulity crept into Marta’s voice.

  “Not just iron. Pure iron—zero valent iron. Doesn’t matter too much what’s in the water. ZVI takes it out.”

  “Can you expand on that a little? Dioxin, I understand. It’s gotta be among my favorite industrial wastes. Who wouldn’t love a carcinogen? But I wanna hear about this, this...iron stuff.”

  Eva ignored Marta’s sarcasm. “Okay. Start with iron’s instability,” Eva said.

  “Give me a break. Iron isn’t unstable. What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I don’t tell you how flowers grow. Don’t lecture me about chemistry.”

  “Well, excuse me. Why don’t you explain how iron is,” Marta made quote marks with her fingers, “unstable.”

  “Actually, in its pure form, it is very unstable. Iron has two, or sometimes three, electrons in its outer shell. It wants eight to be complete. So it wants atoms with electrons to spare, or to donate the electrons in its incomplete outer shell. It yearns to combine with other atoms. That’s how it binds with the contaminants. The pollutants become chemically locked to the iron. The iron-heavy sludge settles out of the river. Scoop it up, haul it away and, bingo. Your cesspool becomes a swimming pool.”

  “Electrons yearn?” asked Marta. “Do they write poetry, too?”

  “In a sense they do yearn,” said Eva. “They’re driven, compelled, motivated—you pick the word that makes you happy. But atoms want their outer orbits to be complete. So they either shed a few electrons or grab a few.”

  “Interesting,” said Jim. “So, how come nobody’s done this before? After all, iron isn’t exactly a rare metal.”

  “You’re right. It’s maybe the tenth most common element in the universe. The problem is one of logistics. How do you keep the ZVI pure before it comes in contact with a pollutant? I have some ideas, the beginnings of a plan. We need to be ready to submit a bid the beginning of next year. That’s six months. Figure another six months till the military makes up its mind. So, a year from now, we’re in the remediation business.”

  Marta and Jim looked at each other and shrugged. Eva had said the magic word: plan.

  “Wait a minute,” said Marta. “You may be superwoman, but developing a new technology, creating a manufacturing plan, a logistics plan, a cost accounting system for the project, and pulling together a comprehensive proposal in six months? That’s impossible! You could work around the clock for six months and you still won’t be on schedule.”

  “That may be true for other people,” said Eva, “but I can do it.”

  Jim said, “Do we have to do this one? I mean, there’s no harm in bidding on the next project. Lord knows there’s enough pollution to go around.”

  “No.” Eva’s voice was emphatic. “This is the one I want to start with. I didn’t say it would be easy, but I can do it. Nailing this contract would put NMech at the forefront of ecological reconstruction. Granted, there are some problems, but everyone faces the same problems.”

  “Problems? What sort of problems?” asked Jim.

  “Pure iron or ZVI combines with anything it comes into contact with. Mostly it rusts since there’s plenty of oxygen in the air. So the biggest hurdle is keeping an inventory of ZVI. Most people fabricate it and haul it to where it’s needed. That’s expensive. I have a better approach.”

  “Which is...?”

  “I’ll get to that. Solutions are simple. It’s framing the question that’s hard. I can explain once I give you some chemistry background. Let me list the challenges first, then we can talk about the details.”

  “What’s the second problem?”

  “Here’s where it gets interesting. ZVI is way more effective when it’s nano-sized. I’m talking many times more effective.”

  “How come?” asked Jim.

  “Because as the size of the ZVI particles decrease, the proportion of surface atoms increases. Then there are more available atoms craving more interactions with the polluting substances. But that creates a drawback. The nanoparticles are so effective that they consume themselves rapidly. So it’s tough to maintain a supply of ZVI. These two problems are matters of logistics, not chemistry. So far, nobody’s been able to keep enough ZVI on hand to be effective in a project this size. Remember, we’re talking about cleaning an entire century of gunk.”

  Marta was nodding. She had subvocalized and was peering into a heads-up display. Eva guessed she was accessing data on ZVI.

  “Bottom line? None of the remediation companies knows much about nanoscale production. So what if we’ve never cleaned up an ammunition dump? Nobody else has either. But we know more about nanotechnology than anybody. And I’m telling you, this is going to be big. We get this contract and a relationship with the military and we have a chance to become the biggest company in the world. The military does not write small checks.”

  “Uh, Eva. Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves? We still have to win the contract,” Marta said.

  Eva grinned. “Don’t worry.”

  “I know, you’ve got a plan,” intoned Marta.

  Jim smiled. “Of course she does.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a plan.” Eva’s grin faded. “And nothing is going to stop us.”

  “Of course not, Eva,” teased Jim. His smile was cut short.

  Eva turned to face him. “Let’s get something clear,” she said. “This is the next step for NMech’s evolution. We are going to win this contract. Period. Nobody, nothing, is going to stop us. This is the future. Got that?”

  “Sure, Eva,” Jim shrugged and backed up a step and offered a mock salute. “No half measures. Aye-aye, Commander. Full steam ahead.”

  “Can the jokes, Jim. I’m serious.”

  Jim and Marta sat back in their smart chairs. The temperature in the boardroom seemed to drop. They looked at each other and back to Eva. Marta said, “Eva, lighten up. No one is trying to trivialize your project. You enjoy making money? Fine. You want NMech to be the world’s largest corporation? Fine. Let us enjoy our work, too. Let us enjoy your friendship. Look, you and I have come a long way since Harvard. I know I rub you the wrong way sometimes, and God knows that you can push my buttons. But take it easy. Joking can be a good thing, so let’s go with the flow, okay?”

  “What does that mean, ‘go with the flow’?”

  “Look at the pictures of the jellyfish on the drapes. They can use the ocean’s currents to go where they need to go. Let’s not fight the currents. That’s what I mean. You can be yourself—determined, intense, and impatient, and that’s okay. We’re friends. But let us be ourselves, too, and part of that is Jim’s sense of humor. Or what he thinks is a sense of humor.”

  Eva looked at Marta and nodded. “Friends,” she said. “Okay, I get it. Fine. Just don’t expect a group hug any time soon.” Her partners looked at Eva, trying to gauge her. Did she just attempt to lighten the mood?

  Eva turned back to the jellyfish display.
Keeping to herself, she saw the transparent hoods swaying in the currents. The Medusalike tentacles held her attention. Some hung for tens of feet, and each was packed with millions of nematocysts—specialized cells that bulged with venom.

  17

  ___________________________________________

  HALCYON DAYS

  FROM THE MEMORIES

  OF DANA ECCO

  Zeus created Aeolus to control the wind. Aeolus calmed the wind and seas for seven days during the winter solstice to allow a certain kingfisher bird to lay her eggs in safety.

  The bird that merited the Aeolus’s care was his daughter, Alcyone. The unfortunate lass had thrown herself into the ocean when she learned that her husband had drowned at sea. The gods then turned the storm-crossed lovers into kingfishers. I would think that a simple rescue would have done nicely—why not have another ship come along? But the gods have their own sensibilities, and human-to-avian transmogrification it was.

  Those seven days of calmed seas came to be known as halcyon days. Take the letter, “H” from ‘hals’, Greek for seas, plop it in front of Alcyone, ditch the “e,” and you have the word halcyon, a nostalgic reference to the sunny days of youth.

  Rockford ended my halcyon days. The winter that followed was severe, even by New England standards. There were no calm days for kingfishers—nor, as it turned out, for petrals, nor thunderbirds.

  If Alcyone was a kingfisher, then Eva was another seabird, the storm petral, the smallest of the seabirds, with a short, squarish body, and dark plumage. It hovers just above the ocean’s surface and appears to walk on water. The metaphor was apt. When my parents considered Eva’s remediation project, she seemed to be capable of miracles.

  She nearly was. Eva attacked the task of preparing NMech’s bid with a scorched-earth vigor that would rival General Sherman’s march to the sea. She commanded every resource at NMech’s disposal and quite a few that were not, in a frantic attempt to meet the submission deadline for Rockford.

  If Eva were a storm petrel, then I was a thunderbird, a truculent and quarrelsome fifteen-year-old, creating storms as I flew. My parents mostly ignored the outbursts and tantrums. They could see me struggle to mature and they remembered their own painful rites of passage through adolescence. Eva, however, was beginning to fear that the bid would not be ready on time, and she lacked the time or the emotional resources to be empathetic with me, or to be patient.

  She also lacked a model by which to put my behavior into perspective. A part of her was eternally juvenile, stunted, unable to follow me into adolescence. At another time in her life, she would have accommodated a new dimension in our friendship. But she was possessed of a single focus which brooked no competition for her attention.

  She was not the only one of us with tunnel vision. My parents and I were blind to the demands she placed on herself, and the consequences of those demands.

  It was a small thing, our spat. How many great events turn on a small detail? That day, I was fueled with bravado that went beyond the scope of our usually playful competition. Someone who understood that teen moods ‘blow in, blow up, and blow out’, to quote Winston Churchill, would have taken a deep breath, counted to ten, and ignored my bratty manners.

  I wish Eva had ignored me. I truly wish my mother had.

  There’s a saying that if a butterfly alters its path, then the course of history is changed. The Butterfly Effect, some call it. That’s a bit too philosophical for me, but my run-in with Eva about butterflies did indeed change history.

  Just before I stormed out of Eva’s work area, my mother and I had pondered how a butterfly emerges from a cocoon. Her objective that day was to place science within the context of mystery, to find the sublime in nature. Butterflies lack teeth, my mother said, so they couldn’t chew their way out of a cocoon. If they were to secrete a caustic substance to dissolve the cocoon, would that not burn their delicate wings? My assignment was to look for the answer in the world of science but to preserve the sense of wonder. Awe and humility are essential research tools, my mother said. Science might have an explanation, but attunement with nature’s mysteries hones the researcher’s scientific intuition. Seek awe, my mother said, and you’ll find science.

  I did the opposite. I turned clever. I tried to stump Eva rather than sharing my excitement.

  The timing of my display of pride was bad, very bad. Eva was racing to complete NMech’s bid. Her usual short supply of patience was long since exhausted. When I nagged and teased her, she snapped. What she said to me wasn’t important, but how I reacted had a lifelong impact on Eva and my family and ultimately, the world: I burst into tears.

  My outburst would have blown over as quickly as a summer squall but as I hurried from Eva’s lab, embarrassed by my artless attempt to play the bully and stunned by the strength of my reaction, I ran into my mother—literally. We nearly tumbled to the floor. Then chagrin escalated to humiliation. The last person on earth I wanted to see was my mother. She held me and kissed me and wiped my tears with her thumbs, as she had when I was a child. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small group of lab techs watching us.

  Now my mortification was complete. I screamed at her. Eva heard me and came out of her lab with a look of confusion and concern. I ran out from the work area, out of the building onto Boylston Street, through the Public Gardens and the Commons, running until the tempest passed. The outburst was short-lived but the damage was permanent.

  In my meditation, I return to that day to comfort my mother, Eva, and the child Dana. I return not as an older version of myself, not a wiser manifestation of the child, but as something ageless. I wrap my arms around the three figures to hold them intact. Fractures race along fault lines deep within the foundation of each one’s character. My strength flows from the present. It is tangible and luminous, like fire from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. My love for these ones fuses and anneals the flaws. The fire gathers into plumes and becomes an archangel’s wings, softly drawing gall and malignancy from Eva, and she knows peace. The alar radiance has a quilled sharpness, too, and it lances my mother’s greatest fear, that I would inherit her pain. Hot infection spills out of her in pustulant colors and she sighs deeply in relief. Then the child—always blameless—turns transparent and the angers and debts of these two women pass through, unretained.

  This fine meditation brings me a moment’s relief. But the mighty seraph who returns to that moment to give succor is utterly impotent. My mother had previously sworn an oath. If she crosses a line that involves Dana, we will not have Eva in any of our lives.

  When I ran from Eva’s lab into my startled mother’s arms, misunderstanding animated her vow. In that moment, her oath, sworn years earlier, was fulfilled.

  I never learned what transpired between my mother and Eva after I stormed out but when I returned, a changeling had replaced Eva. The substitute was cool, polite, and distant to me. She would sport no teeth, exude no caustic dissolvant. What emerged from her cocoon was not a monarch or a swallowtail, but something dark, blood red, and fearsome.

  18

  ___________________________________________

  WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  2043

  Eva worked with the consuming passion of a New World missionary. The technical challenge was simple to describe—keep ZVI immersed in an inert gas like helium until it was injected into the polluted river. Expose ZVI to pollutants and you get remediation. Expose it to oxygen and you get rust.

  The business challenge was to prove that NMech could provide adequate supplies of ZVI to keep the operation running smoothly. All of the other bidders relied on off-site ZVI manufacture. Transporting the pure iron to the remediation plant increased their costs and risks. NMech’s solution was elegant and unexpected. In theory, it looked simple: combine known elements in a new way. In practice, it looked impossible. How could NMech produce a working model in time?

  Eva feared missing the deadline. At this rate, I wo
n’t make it, she thought. I have to speed the process. She reviewed her notes and considered her progress, and the tasks that remained. The science wasn’t an issue. The solution she was developing was based on nanotechnological developments dating back to the early 2000s. She needed neither new technology nor methods in engineering. The scale of the project was the issue. She needed more time.

  Eva ran her simulations, as she had a dozen times. She changed variables at each step, and then ran the simulations again. And again. The results were maddening and consistent: she would not meet the deadline.

  If I could work all twenty-four hours of the day, I could do it. If Marta or even Dana understood the chemistry we could make it. If I had an extra couple months, I could do it. If Jim could write the proposal, even just be here for moral support. She couldn’t add hours to the days, or days to the month, and she was working as hard as she could. If only she could think faster and move faster.

  Then an idea struck. Eva subvocalized and called up a series of neurobiology texts. It looked feasible. This is Marta’s area, she thought, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let her in on this. She’d have some objection or another. But if I can make this work, I can do it. In fact, this may be even bigger than remediation.

  Eva read more. There. I can do it. I can achieve things that humans only dream of. Then we’ll see about Marta Holier-than-Thou. Jim will have to see me for what I am. She checked the texts one last time and headed to an NMech pharmaceutical laboratory.

  A quarter century earlier, Eva’s older sister, Gergana, and the antiquarian, Coombs, and an English teacher named Erickson had all urged Eva not to ignore stories and literature. Understand yourself, they had argued, and you will better understand your science. But Eva ignored all three warnings, like Peter’s three denials before the cock crowed.