Then blackness.
Slowly, consciousness returned. The holographic displays had extinguished themselves. She opened her mouth to subvocalize, to bring the displays back. She had work to do. As soon as she moved her lips, she heard a terrible cacophony, a roar from the Table of Clamorous Voices that demanded her attention. The loud voices, the soft voices—they were now unregulated by any agency, any construct. Thoughts and memories, images and stored sensations, rushing up from the deepest trenches of her unconscious. She was overwhelmed.
When Eva was an infant, Gergana’s presence helped her to manage the growing din of sensory impression. The din became a roar after Gergana’s murder and organized into the Table of Clamorous Voices. Eva invested Jim with the role of mediator, regulator of the Table, and the fantasy role of mate. The illusion helped her weather her inner turmoil in order to meet the demands of the saner world around her. But flesh-and-blood Jim Ecco had just destroyed fantasy Jim Ecco, the construct. The mediator was gone.
Eva lost consciousness again. Her body took to repairing the damage inflicted upon it over the last many days. Her swollen and overworked adrenal and pituitary glands relented. Hypopituitarism replaced her chemically-induced hyperpituitarism, fatigue replaced zeal, indifference replaced libido.
Time passed and Eva awoke to disoriented incomprehension. Was it day or night? Had seconds passed, or hours? She had a pounding headache and her vision had diminished to a dark tunnel, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
She tried to move, to organize her thoughts. These tasks seemed herculean. She rolled to her desk and pulled herself up. She saw her coffee mug, still half full. With a grimace she swallowed the cold liquid with the bitter ingredient that had permitted her to work as quickly as she had. It wasn’t enough.
Her overtaxed endocrine system was in a state of rebellion. It ignored the chemicals she ingested. There had been too many demands and not enough rest. She’d pushed her body past Mother Nature’s limits for this wondrous design, this human form. Now she was weak, unable to focus. Her body demanded rest to repair the damage.
I just need forty eight hours. I can sleep when I’m dead, she thought, and mixed another cup of the adulterated beverage. The effort was almost beyond her. Soon she would break a trail into new territory—all propulsion, no rudder, and with an impaired captain at the helm.
Ah, that’s better. I don’t care what it takes. Rockford is mine.
20
DEBATE
ROCKFORD, VA.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2044
A panel winnowed the field of prospective vendors to two finalists: established remediation leader, CleanAct, and upstart NMech. A year before the plant was intended to open, the competitors met to address the bid committee, a debate to help decide a winner.
CleanAct’s president, Fritz Reinhart spoke first. The Chinese-educated Texan of German descent was at ease. He knew several of the bid committee members from industry meetings. Two had worked for him in the past. Reinhart was tall and well-groomed, comfortable speaking to an audience. He wore his thin blond hair in a military-style crew cut and kept a well-trimmed moustache that drew attention to a full mouth with generous lips. His mannerisms were prim, almost prissy, but when he spoke, he transformed himself into a folksy cowboy. He wore a bolo tie, cowboy boots, and a western hat and spoke in an exaggerated drawl. He doffed his hat and bowed slightly—Fort Worth meets Frankfurt—when he took the podium.
“The single reason y’all want to accept our bid is that we’ve done exactly this kind of work for years. No one has anywhere near the experience we have in remediation.” Reinhart paused, making eye contact with each member of the bid committee. He was charismatic and easygoing. The committee leaned forward as one.
“We completed 45 major cleanups in the last five years. Clean-Act’s performance exceeded the contract specifications. We were right on time and right on budget. We have six more projects and all of ’em are even a mite ahead of schedule. And we aim to finish ahead of schedule on this one, too. That’s our corporate style. It’s also a guarantee to you. I promise to this bid committee, right now, that your remediation plant will be fully operational three weeks before the end of the performance clause in the contract. That’s part of our culture: better and faster.”
One member of the bid committee broke in with a choreographed question, a softball objection intended to appear challenging. “But the bid requires that you use nanoscale ZVI. You have no experience with nano production. And now you’re promising to finish early? How are you going to make that work?”
“Now that’s a good question. Heart of the matter, yes sir.”
“Yes, Dr. Reinhart, it is the central issue. How can you ensure that you’ll have enough of the ZVI in nano form? And how will you keep it safe? After all, you have no experience with it. Mismanagement of nanoscale materials can be hazardous.”
Dr. Reinhart drew a handkerchief from his inside breast pocket and mopped his forehead. He rubbed his chin. He might have appeared flummoxed by the question but his confidence never wavered. “If y’all are worried about hazards, I’d look to that river there. That’s what’s hazardous and we aim to clean it. As far as safety, well, we have an effective approach. We’ll flood the ZVI storage building with pressurized helium—good, safe, inert helium—before one particle of ZVI goes down the hatch. If even a single atom of helium escapes, we’ll know. We don’t expect any leaks, no sir, none at all, but if there are, we’ll find ’em and fix ’em and still be on time and budget. From transport to operations, the ZVI stays in helium so it doesn’t combine with anything at all until we inject it into the river.”
“But you have no experience with ZVI.” The friendly inquisitor pressed for more.
“True. But we have ourselves a real simple solution. We bought the experience.”
The Committee, dutiful and attentive, chuckled.
“I’m pleased to announce that CleanAct has acquired FeFree, the very best producer of ZVI. ‘Fe’ is the chemical symbol for iron, and we think FeFree has the best ZVI fabrication process in the world. We don’t have the experience to create the stores of ZVI that y’all need, but FeFree does. So, we bought ‘em, lock, stock, and containment chamber. Problem solved.
“So, ladies and gentlemen, CleanAct’s approach might not be sexy, but it works. Now, let’s take a peek at what NMech proposes. Those Boston folks claim that they can convert carbon atoms into iron atoms to solve the logistics problem.” He stared for a moment at Eva Rozen and then started to clap. “I have to give you a hand, Dr. Rozen. Rewritin’ the laws of physics. Now that’s one darned good trick.”
He failed to see the tightening around Eva’s eyes, the bunching of the muscles in her shoulders. Nor did he notice a trembling in her hands and feet.
Reinhart turned back to the bid committee and pressed on. “Now, I’m not the brains of our outfit. I just give our people a little nudge here and there to help keep things runnin’ smoothly. But we’ve got some darned smart folks in Texas. One or two of ’em even went to college in Boston, at Harvard, same as Dr. Rozen. They tell me that you can change one element into another, but only with highly radioactive elements. Give ’em a shake and they shed a few electrons. That turns ’em into some other mighty radioactive elements.”