Miller had no family, no friends, no one to miss or to mourn him, none to question his death—a perfect test case. She peered into a heads-up display and then grunted in approval at her short list. Like Miller, the other three on the list lacked family or close friends. The soldier’s entire world was his army. The scientist’s was her career, and the tea expert’s, his employer.
An electronic back door gave her control—not to the actual medical, recreational, military, and environmental nanoagents; any tinkering there would immediately be flagged to the systems that monitor product safety. No, Eva would control the accounting for these applications. It was simple: a bookkeeping entry thwarted all of the safeguards built into the company’s products. It simply cancelled his life-support subscription for nonpayment. One stroke of a pseudo-accountant’s pen had transformed Emery Miller from preferred customer to deadbeat, and then from deadbeat to…dead.
All NMech’s products were rigorously tested to ensure the safety and satisfaction of its subscribers. But bookkeeping entries? Insignificant. They were of no more interest to the ardent sentinels of product safety than an ant would be to Cerberus, the three-headed beast that guards the gates to the underworld.
Eva Rozen’s face twitched again, this time into a smile. Control was in her grasp. Cerberus was her pet, and programmed to do her bidding.
13
AN UNEASY ALLIANCE
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
MAY 19, 2038, 7:00PM
When Jim Ecco told Marta about Eva’s unexpected visit to the shelter earlier that day, he recounted her dramatic entrance, the receptionist’s flight, and Eva’s willingness to wait for Jim to finish his rounds with the dogs. Marta was skeptical, and at first refused even to listen to Eva’s proposal. When Jim outlined Eva’s plan to fund public health projects that Marta would administer, Marta immediately grasped the relationship between commercial nanomeds and paying for the costs of developing public health applications. But she was unmoved.
“I don’t even want to hear the details,” she said. “I don’t trust her.”
“Marta, if we can hold Eva to her word, you can save remedies that might be lost. You’ve said yourself that the cost to find the plants that have medicinal value, to isolate the active compounds, and then to synthesize the drugs means the pharmaceutical corporations are not interested in developing. Many of the remedies you’ve catalogued will be extinct before the drug companies think to fabricate them.”
“I can’t argue with that. But I haven’t spoken with Eva in years. Why should I suddenly trust her now?”
“This is not the same Eva Rozen. And if she and you can manufacture with nanoassembly, you’ll save some of the cures that will be lost if the rainforests die out. Maybe they’ll recover, maybe not. But we’ll have the medicines.”
“And make Eva rich,” said Marta brusquely.
“That’s the deal. She gets what she wants, and you get what you want.”
“What I want is for her to stay away from me. From us.”
“Marta—”
Marta held up a hand to stop Jim. “Sorry. My answer is no.”
“No? How can you say no?”
“I’ve been collecting plants since my first summer in Puerto Rico. There are still millions of hectares of rainforest to explore. I want to find and catalog what I can before the forests are destroyed.”
“You sound more like a librarian than a scientist. At least people use the information that a librarian files away so neatly.”
“That’s not fair,” Marta protested, but she knew that it was beyond fair: it was accurate. Worse, it was not what she wanted. She remembered Abuela’s words, “What becomes of adults? Do they follow their hearts or are they filled with discontent? Why not do what’s in your heart?”
Marta paced, considering the opportunity. Then she spoke. “Eva always says, ‘I have a plan.’ I can’t see doing this unless we have a plan to make sure that Eva keeps her word.”
Jim said, “You could insist on being equal partners.”
“That’s an idea,” Marta allowed, “but I don’t know if I can do it myself. I do like her idea of using commercial applications to fund public health, but I don’t think I can do this unless you have a role at NMech, too. And not just some sinecure. I want all three of us to be involved. I can’t square off with her by myself when we disagree. I don’t do well with confrontation.”
“But what about my work at Haven Memorial?” Jim protested.
“Querido, I know it’s important to you, more than important. And so is my research into rainforest-based medicines. But you’re right. This is a chance to do something that could change the world.”
“I don’t want to leave my training work behind. Leave me out of this,” said Jim.
“And I don’t want to abandon my exploration.” Suddenly, both were breathing hard. Marta pressed on. “You’ve built a terrific staff. That’s the mark of a good leader—your team could carry on without you. But I can’t face Eva alone. If you become part of NMech, then we’re two to one. Or she can have forty-nine percent of the stock and you and I split fifty-one percent so we have a voting majority.”
“Why would she give me that kind of a role at her company?” he asked.
“Jim, think about it. You’re great at organizing and leading people. I don’t have much in the way of people skills—”
“Yes, you do,” Jim interrupted.
“That’s sweet of you to say. But I’m not a leader. I like to be gracious, but you have a knack for getting people to want to do the hard tasks. I’ll consider working with Eva but I won’t do it without you.”
Jim sat and subvocalized and invoked a heads-up display. He saw his son tinker with an old dataslate. Dragonfly monitors—insect-sized sensors that combined specks of processing power—produced visual images and sound readings in Dana’s room. “What about Dana? Look at him. Eight years old and he’s taking apart and reassembling his slate like it was a construction toy. Haven Memorial lets me set my hours so I can be with Dana. I want to stay connected with him. He’s special, and I’m not just being a proud papa. He has a gift. What about that?”
Now Marta was silent. She paced their small apartment. The walls were drab, without the benefit of brightwalls—paint embedded with light emitting nanoparticles that allowed the walls, ceiling, and floors to provide variable lighting and heat at a command from a datapillar. There was no pillar, for that matter. Even something inefficient and underpowered was beyond the means of a family whose income was based on two soul-satisfying but low-paying jobs that kept a roof over their heads but little more.
She paused at a window. At least it had nanoglass, thanks to building codes rather than to any generosity on the part of their landlord. She touched the pane and it darkened. Looking out at an alley and a convenience store was dispiriting.
“There are afterschool programs at NMech,” Marta said.
“How do you know that?” asked Jim.
“I follow things,” she allowed.
Jim took a moment to digest that information. “So, let me get this straight. Eva knows about your exploration of rainforests in places like Brazil and Borneo. You know about kids’ programs at NMech. You two haven’t spoken in years, and yet you each know all about each other’s careers?” Marta nodded and Jim shook his head. “You’re like the boy and the girl in an old movie—fighting like cats and dogs throughout the film and lovey-dovey at the end.”