“Don’t count on lovey-dovey. I know about her because it’s hard not to notice what she’s doing. It seems like every scientific journal has a paper she wrote. Then there’s the financial press. She spent four years at Harvard telling me that she was going to be the richest woman in the world and she appears to be well on the way. As far as her knowing about me, well, she spies on people.”
“Is it any good?” asked Jim.
“Is what any good?”
“NMech’s afterschool program.”
“It’s supposed to be. Apparently, Eva put some decent money into it,” Marta replied. “You can look into it.”
“What do I know about kids’ programs?” asked Jim.
Marta smiled. “Guess you’re going to find out.”
“You mean you’ll do it? Work with Eva?” he asked.
“Yes, but only if you join me, Querido.”
Jim and Marta paced for a few minutes, mulling over the opportunity. They were excited. But the apartment was small, and they had to pick their paths carefully.
Finally, Jim said, “Will Eva want me as a partner?”
Marta looked at him for a moment, shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Men are so blind,” was all she said.
After dinner, Marta took a deep breath and held up her hand to receive a file. “Okay, let me see what Eva has in mind.” Jim reciprocated the gesture and subvocalized a command. Marta’s datasleeve pinged receipt of Eva’s proposal.
Marta invoked a heads-up holographic display and began to read through Eva’s plan in stony silence. When she finished, she looked up at Jim, careful to keep her expression neutral.
She took another deep breath, muttered, “I know I’m going to regret this,” and touched her commpatch and subvocalized a link to Eva. At first, her voice was controlled. Soon it became more animated and rose from an inaudible subvocalization to a clenched-teeth whisper, the commpatch equivalent of shouting.
She touched her commpatch and suddenly Eva’s voice was projected into the room so that Jim could hear both sides of the conversation.
Marta was angry. Her voice dripped with scorn. “I want to attack morbidity, and you want to cure lactose intolerance? So that people can eat ice cream? This is public health? You want to cure farting?”
“Don’t preach to me.” Eva’s disembodied voice shot out of the holograph that displayed her avatar. She sounded calm, as if she’d anticipated Marta’s response. She said, “Just listen. I know that lactose intolerance isn’t schistosomiasis, but who’s going to pay for that kind of medicine? Who cares about any of that besides you?”
Eva continued evenly before Marta could interrupt. “You’re right. Lactose intolerance? So what? But people love milk even though it’s indigestible for most adults. Ice cream consumption alone is nine billion gallons a year. You’re looking at a third of a trillion-dollar-market.”
Marta broke in. She bit off each word and joined them into a staccato indictment. “I don’t care about the money. Why did I link with you in the first place? I wanted nothing to do with you once we finished the Harvard project and now I remember why that was. You remind me of Humpty Dumpty—you make words mean what you want them to mean. You say, ‘public health’ and you mean ‘get-rich scheme.’”
Eva’s voice turned flat, matching Marta’s passion with an affectless recitation. “Just listen. Have you ever known me to act without thinking? Ever? Just keep your mind open for two damn minutes.”
“Of course, it’s not a medical issue,” Eva spoke with uncharacteristic vigor. “That’s why it’s our starting point. It’s not going to be regulated. You’ve got to see that. We can get it to market fast and make money—a lot of money. Then we can afford to do public health. I explained all this to Jim.”
Marta shot daggers at her husband. “What else did you two talk about?”
“Give it a rest, Marta. That’s ancient history.”
Marta drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly through pursed lips. “Okay, sorry. Go on. Say your piece.”
Eva pushed on. “First of all, just to be accurate, there is no cure for lactose intolerance. Nobody ever thought it was important enough. Sure, you can spray an enzyme onto your food. Add lactase to the production. But those remedies are afterthoughts. Billions in ice cream sales alone and nobody thought to cash in? Wake up, Plant Lady. NMech rolls out a nice little consumer nanoapp that builds the enzyme. An effective remedy. And it’s over-the-counter so that we don’t get stuck in trials for years. Dammit, everybody likes ice cream and nobody wants gas. So we fix it. We go to market. We make money. Then you take part of the profit and go cure something. Anything. Whatever you like. That’ll be your baby. But public health is a big investment and I’m not going hat in hand to some waste-of-skin bureaucrat for funding.”
There was a long silence. Eva started to speak but Marta held up her hand to stop the woman’s comments. The gesture was invisible, but Eva stopped in mid-sentence as if she were standing next to her.
Marta considered Eva’s explanation. At last, she spoke again. “Eva, where did you get the idea for this?”
“From you.”
“From me? I never spoke about lactose intolerance,” Marta said. “Didn’t say you did.”
“Then why do say you got it from me?”
Eva was silent. Marta waited. At last, she understood Eva’s cryptic comments and flushed. “Oh my god. Why didn’t you say something to me then?” When Eva didn’t answer, Marta blurted out, “Was it bad?”
“Uh-huh,” Eva said, stretching out the two syllables into simultaneous rebuke and exoneration. “Between you and Dana, when he needed to be changed, well, let’s just be ladies about it and say that Mother Nature has an odd sense of humor.”
“But that lab was tiny. It must have been… “Marta trailed off, embarrassed.
“Marta? You had enough on your mind back then. You had Dana. You weren’t getting much sleep. And you were pissed about your dataslate and barely civil to me. And besides, I’m not big on girltalk. You think I can find a diplomatic way to bring it up? Uh, no. Not my style. You liked your afternoon scoop from Toscanini’s. Plain vanilla ice cream, as I recall. But an hour later? Ewww. Gas. Every day. I never got used to it.”
“Oh, my god,” Marta repeated.
“But I can tell you one thing,” Eva said.
“What’s that?”
“If you still like your afternoon scoop? Then you’re going to be our first customer.”
Six months later, NMech released its first consumer product, Easy-Milk, every bit the success Eva predicted. They followed up with FreeSkin, a nanoagent complexion cream that targeted acne in teens and young adults. It was an even greater success. Nine months after the release of EasyMilk, before NMech went public and started Eva on the path to becoming the world’s wealthiest women, Eva delivered on her promise to fund medicine in the public interest. The uneasy alliance had worked.
Eva, Marta, and Jim met in the NMech boardroom. In keeping with Eva’s decorating sensibilities, the room was stark to the point of barrenness. A large oval cherry wood table dominated the room. The floor-to-ceiling drapes were set to a blood-red velvet, one that gave the room the look of an abattoir.
Marta subvocalized a command to the room’s pillar and the nanofiber drapes reorganized into calm green linen. Eva turned at the change and stared at Marta. Marta smiled.
“I just set the drapes. I like red,” said Eva.