by Tracy Serpa
“Good. I’m in the Theme Building outside the terminal. Upstairs; the restaurant is called the Encounter. Just tell the hostess you’re meeting a client, and she’ll point you to me.”
Before Gary could answer, the phone went dead.
“Okay, sounds good!” he said cheerfully. It felt awkward, but he was extremely conscious of trying to appear relaxed and in good spirits. His hopes sank somewhat when he jumped again at the sound of an alarm, signaling the arrival of the bags. No one around him seemed to notice his tension, but in the back of his mind, he was convinced that something about the look of him would give him away. His one comfort was that he himself wasn’t sure what it was he would be exposing.
The regular jostling for position began as the bags dropped heavily onto the belt and started their circular trip. Twenty feet down the line, he caught a glimpse of Tanya looking unhappy, her overstuffed lips positioned in a grotesque pout. She slipped on her sunglasses when she caught his eye. Relieved, he turned his focus back to the belt and the approaching bags.
Finally his luggage emerged and slipped down the chute. With it in sight, he felt his stomach start churning and his pulse quicken. It was the same nondescript, blue K-Mart luggage he had toted around for years; normally it took him two or three rotations of the belt to finally pick it out. Today, his eyes were glued to it the second it appeared. His suitcase was less than ten feet away when a hand reached out and yanked it off the belt into the crowd.
“Hey!” he shouted, then shrank back from the surprised stares around him. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, he started forward, parting the crowd and working his way toward the spot where his bag had disappeared. Finally he saw it, sitting on the floor with a slightly younger man crouched over it, fumbling with the zippers.
“Hey! Hey, that’s my bag,” he said forcefully as he stumbled past the last couple in his way. The younger man looked up, frowning.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that, man,” he replied, standing. “Looks just like mine. I was looking for the name tag . . . I always hook it to the zipper.” He smiled at Gary.
There was nothing suspicious in his appearance. He looked to be in his late thirties, with dark brown hair and eyes, dressed comfortably but well. But something in the pallor of his skin made Gary feel uneasy as he stepped forward to claim his bag. He checked the back for the red piece of duct tape he used to identify his luggage and glanced back up at the other man, who had stepped away and resumed searching the belt for his own bag.
“Sorry,” Gary called out weakly. The man didn’t even hear him. Turning and heading for the door, Gary rolled his bag behind him, gripping the plastic handle tightly. When he stepped out into the cool Southern California air, he was overwhelmed with sudden fatigue. It had been balmy and breezy when he had boarded his plane in Hawaii. There, he would be sitting up watching television or working at his desk with the windows open, the outside air still soft and warm. The time difference meant that it was close to 1:30 a.m. in Los Angeles, and the streetlights did little to fend off the blanketing darkness. He was surrounded by the clashing energies of people arriving for red-eyes or hailing taxis after a long flight home. He felt his nerves fray just a little more.
After a few brief moments of searching, Gary asked a bus attendant to direct him to the Theme Building, which she pointed out in the distance. It was like a scene out of The Jetsons: a disklike building suspended on a thin, circular base with two arches curved gracefully over the top. Now, at night, it was lit from below with blue and purple lights. As he approached, he could see figures seated in the restaurant near the windows, and he wondered if he were being watched.
Suddenly, a thought made him stop in his tracks. Shouldn’t he check his bag and be sure it hadn’t been tampered with? He was sure the fear was irrational; he had packed everything according to the instructions, in the small icebox that had arrived via FedEx. Still, he had a vision of luggage inspectors hauling it out and opening it . . . he moved quickly to a planter and set his bag down near the low wall. Unzipping it quickly, he lifted his folded shirts and pants to reveal the little icebox, still in place, the lock unopened. Relieved, he repacked everything and made for the restaurant.
Jogging down the sidewalk to the crossing lane, he felt a nervous energy take hold in his chest. Really, he had no idea what he was walking into. A five-hour flight had given him time to think about that fact. Standing and waiting for the light to change, surrounded by other travelers, he suddenly felt scared and foolish. Next to him, a man he vaguely recognized from his flight coughed and raised his flat palms to his eyes, letting out a groan.
“Tell me about it,” said another person in the small crowd. “Ready to get home.”
“No kidding. I feel like shit,” replied Gary’s neighbor, still rubbing his eyes.
The light changed, and they all stepped out into the road, crossing in front of the hum of stopped traffic and heading for the parking lot beyond. Gary was the only one who peeled off at the elevator that would take him upstairs to the Encounter.
Inside, everything was shades of red and blue, spherical and shiny. It was as though he had landed on the moon, or in a movie from the fifties about the future. The hostess greeted him with a small smile.
“How many?” she asked.
He cleared his throat and answered, “I’m meeting a client, actually. I think she’s already here.”
He had expected some sort of look, an acknowledgment that he would understand when it came, but there was none. She simply nodded and said, “Oh yeah, she’s back that way,” pointing. Gary tried not to panic; the waitress wasn’t going to show him to the table. Instead, he smiled wanly and walked in the direction she had pointed. Each table he passed had a couple seated at it until he reached a large, blue, kidney bean couch with a high back, nestled into a wall, with a small oval table in front of it.
There sat a woman with a steaming mug of coffee on the table in front of her. She looked up and said, “You must be Gary.” Her voice had the same quiet urgency here as it had on the phone.
He nodded lamely, plopping onto the couch across from her. She took one of her hands off the mug and reached across the table for his. They shook hands briefly, and he noticed her grip was strong.
“I’m so glad you made it,” she started. “I know that this must all be . . . difficult for you.”
He wasn’t quite sure what to say. He wanted to remind her that she had called him, that he was basically in the dark, that he had done as she had directed, and now he expected some answers. Instead, he sat quietly and hoped she would begin again.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you. They’ve put me on a no-fly list.”
She looked down into her coffee and tucked a section of her hair behind her ear. It seemed to him in that moment that she was much younger than he, although the tiny lines around her eyes indicated otherwise. Her hair was the color of molasses, and just as thick. He hadn’t yet noticed the color of her eyes. She pressed her lips together and adjusted her coffee cup before she spoke again.
“I guess I owe you a more thorough explanation now.”
He nodded, and after a deep breath, she spoke.
“For five years I’ve been a lead research technician at the California branch of Argo. They’re one of the Big Pharma companies, although you don’t hear the name too often. As I said on the phone, Brandon volunteered for one of our clinical trials, which we were conducting on Oahu. I’m sure it had to do with the pay; this particular trial was paying very, very well. It involved a new antidepressant called Serophim that we originally patented to treat chronic pain, with mixed results. The company discovered indicators for a depression treatment, and moved forward quickly.”
“Wait, wait,” Gary cut in. “Brandon doesn’t need antidepressants.”
She shrugged. “He was away at school for a while, right? And who knows . . . a lot of college kids need the money, and they just figure out what symptoms to report. I don’t think it’s too difficult to do with
things like depression, but they run the risk of sticking out like sore thumbs. It’s hard to figure out what advantages to report from the drug, and they usually overcompensate. I’d say they get caught about half the time. We always require a note from a doctor, but those aren’t difficult to get.”
She shrugged, still looking into her coffee. Gary found himself hunching forward over the table in order to hear her. Although she wasn’t glancing furtively over her shoulder, as he felt the urge to do, it was clear that she felt somewhat exposed in their environment.
“Here’s an article about what we were working on,” she said, and passed him a folded paper.
He opened it and read the headline: “Nanotechnology to Treat Depression More Effectively.”
“We had problems with the drug as a pain reliever early on,” she continued. “Severe mood swings, irritability, aggression . . . in some cases it heightened addictive tendencies. It had a pretty low tolerance rate.”
“I’m sorry,” said Gary. “What are nanoparticles?”
She passed her hand across her forehead and took a deep breath.
“Okay, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay . . . nanoparticles and nanotechnology work with matter on a molecular, sometimes atomic, scale. You’ve heard of self-cleaning glass?”
Gary shook his head.
“It’s difficult to explain accurately. Just think tiny, tiny machines, too small to see, that can be programmed like computers. Okay?”
He frowned, but nodded.
“All right. So we had this pain med that caused personality issues, but the company wanted to keep it on the market. We still had the patent for a few more years, and it had been shown to be pretty effective when it could be tolerated. So one of our researchers suggested using nanoparticles to deliver and mediate the medication. We’d been working on a nano-based morphine treatment for soldiers wounded on the battlefield, and it had been working pretty well.”
“Wait, you’ve jumped again.”
She rolled her shoulders, obviously trying to relax. “Morphine relieves pain, but it also depresses respiration. And it’s hard to give accurate amounts in uncontrolled situations, like combat. We found a solution for it in nanoparticles. They carry the morphine, but they also carry a drug that counters morphine. We program the particles to monitor blood oxygen levels, and if they drop too low, the counterdrug is administered. When oxygen levels increase, morphine is delivered again. It makes for an extremely accurate dosage.”
Gary looked at her for a long moment. “Okay. Tiny computers give soldiers medicine. But Brandon—”
She held up a hand. “We were still testing the technology. It’s probably still a year or two away from being up to the DOD’s standards of safety. We haven’t even moved out of animal testing yet; nanotech is still really unpredictable.”
She stopped to take a sip of her coffee. Suddenly Gary was aware of the restaurant again. The hushed murmur of other patrons closed in around him, and the nerves reared up in his chest again.
“Are we okay to talk about this here?” he whispered.
She lifted her eyes to look around, and gave him a small nod.
“Yeah, I feel better in public places.” She chuckled. “This is my first time doing anything like this.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Well . . . whistle-blowing maybe? Hopefully, if I can get everything I need.” She glanced at his suitcase.
At that moment Gary realized how nervous she looked. Her thin frame was pressed against the curved back of the sofa, her hands wrapped tightly around her coffee mug. She kept her face angled to keep the light off it and made sure to swing her hair down whenever anyone walked by.
“Okay, so . . . Argo can’t sell the nanoparticle stuff to the government yet?” he prompted, feeling awkward.
“Right,” she answered, “but we decided to move forward with other applications, for the private market, and the pain drug was a perfect place to start. We could use it to treat depression or fibromyalgia, tons of stuff, and counteract the side effects with opposing drugs, all controlled by the nanotech. So they started clinical trials.”
“And Brandon signed up.”
She nodded.
“Did he have any idea what this was all about?” Gary asked.
“I doubt it. I saw some memo instructing the researchers to explain that a ‘new delivery method’ was being tested along with the med. I’m sure Brandon, and everyone else, assumed it was the nasal spray methodology, since that’s atypical for antidepressants or pain meds. Any talk of nanotech was so convoluted, I’m sure they had no idea. But college kids think they’re invincible,” she said, shrugging.
“So when you said Brandon is sick—”
“I meant it. You saw what happened during the animal trials for this stuff. The only reason I stayed on the project as long as I did was to try and get enough information to report them. But someone caught wind of what I was doing. I was a skeptic to begin with, and I probably opened my mouth one too many times. I got the royal treatment: threatened with prosecution for corporate spying, character assassination, the works. Totally discredited.” She looked down again into her coffee. “No one involved in this is going to listen to me. So I lifted a couple of patient files and made a few calls. You were the first person who would listen.”
Gary found himself feeling sorry for this woman he had never met. Looking for some way to console her, he said, “Well, everything happened like you said. Lethargy, memory loss, antisocial behavior.”
She nodded gloomily. “He’s going to start getting aggressive now. It only happened with a few of the animals, and they thought they had the kinks worked out. Idiots. I mean, we can’t even be sure if we know how to control these things.”
“You mean the particles?” Gary asked. His head was spinning as she spoke, but he was doing his best to keep up.
“Uh-huh. It’s such a new field, and everyone’s desperate to make the first big leaps. But it’s dangerous.”
Gary unconsciously hunkered down in the booth as her tone darkened. He wondered if this was really the best place to be having this meeting after all. The high back of the couch offered little in the way of protection, either from eyes or ears, and he envisioned himself perched precariously above the ground in a ridiculous flying saucer. It was hard to believe he was actually here, on a fool’s errand, listening to a strange woman talk about technology that couldn’t be controlled. Across from him, she took a deep breath.
“So, I’m not really clear here,” he said finally. “If you’re fired and they’re coming after you, how can you help Brandon?”
She shifted in her seat uncomfortably for a second. “Well, you brought the sample, right? Packed like I told you?”
“Yes, as best I could,” he replied.
“The nanotech carries enough meds to last thirty days. Then it’s programmed to ‘die,’ for lack of a better word. But we found that in the animal trials, the subjects who exhibited aggressive behavior also had functioning nanoparticles in their bloodstream after the expiration date. In the worst cases, the nanites were present in hair samples, saliva, and stools. So I’m hoping if I can get my hands on a sample from a human subject, I can find a way to kill off the nanotech. I’ve got a small team together, and we’ve been working on it nonstop. We’ve actually created a polymer that deactivates the nanites in animals, but it works too slowly to be effective.”
Gary shook his head. “Meaning . . .”
“They reproduce too quickly. By the time the first generation has been killed, it’s successfully bred a second generation that is less susceptible to the polymer.”
He gaped at her, unsure of which emotion to feel first. Anger won out, and he growled, “You people made these things capable of reproducing?” She winced at the sound of his voice, which had been just a little too loud.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gary saw a figure slide into a booth within earshot of where they were sitting. He looked up, and fought down the shock
of nerves when he saw the young man from baggage claim facing him, his eyes on a menu. At his feet sat a burgundy duffel bag. Gary’s frustration melted into anxiety.
“Hey. Hey, I think we might be in trouble,” he whispered.
She shifted in her seat again, moving farther into the curve. “Why?” she asked quietly.
“Back in baggage claim, some guy grabbed my luggage. He said he thought it was his. He just sat down in a booth over there, and he’s got a red duffel bag.”
Running a hand through her hair, she hissed, “Shit.”
He wasn’t sure what to do, so he sat frozen in his seat, waiting for her to make a move.
“Okay, listen. I’m going to put some cash on the table, and then I want you to get up, grab your bag, and head for the door. I’ll be right behind you. I parked a car in the lot outside,” she murmured, fishing in her purse.
Gary nodded. He felt an overwhelming disbelief at his situation, but could not deny that a threatening aura emanated from the sallow-faced man.
“If we get separated, I’ll call you, okay?” she said quietly, counting out a few bills.
“Yep,” he answered. Then he frowned. “Hey, you never introduced yourself.”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she laid the bills on the table and gathered up her purse.
“I’m Josie. Now head for the door. Casually.”
He stood up stiffly, bumping against the table and rattling her coffee cup. The sallow-faced man looked up from his menu at the sound, and his eyes met Gary’s. He smiled and gave a small wave; embarrassed and frightened, Gary tried to keep his smile from turning into a grimace as he scooped up his bag and headed for the door, with Josie right behind him.
Eleven
The umber glow of streetlights lit the low clouds as Mike drove toward Pearl City. Sarah was wedged in the middle seat of Mike’s truck, pressing herself against Heather’s side and listening to the air whistling through the gap in the window. The scent of soil and compost, heavy at first, lifted as they approached the more urban landscape of Mililani. Streetlights appeared, and other headlights lit the road. To her right, Sarah could see the grid pattern of urban sprawl, the developed tracts of homes spread out in a great cluster. To her left, the less developed land stretched out into the dark toward the ocean.