“Sorry about the little guy,” George offered to break the silence.
“Thank you,” Pia said. She took a fortifying breath. “It’s the second time it’s happened. The last time I had trouble sleeping for days.”
Wanting to change the subject, George said, “Back at your apartment, when you were explaining that Will’s infection influenced your coming here to investigate nanotechnology as a possible cure, it reminded me of Rothman, and his death. I know you didn’t want to talk about it back then, but I’d love to know what really happened. I know those finance guys in Connecticut were involved, but who actually did the killing? Do you know?”
Pia put down her burger and stared hard at George with dark pupils so huge that George thought he could drown in them. Her full lips narrowed. She looked as if she were about to combust. George put down his burger, afraid of what was coming. He leaned back in his chair to create a little distance.
“I’ve said this once and I’m not going to say it again,” Pia hissed, leaning forward with narrowed eyes. “Time is not going to change the way I feel. I’m not going to talk with you or anyone else about Rothman’s death. Not now, not ever! Just understand that the people who ordered it are gone. That’s enough. Although I know it was done with polonium-210, I don’t know exactly how it was carried out, nor exactly who did it, but I do know that if I talk about it, I will be killed. And if I were to tell you what I do know, you’d be killed.”
“Okay, okay!” George managed. He could see fire in Pia’s eyes. “I won’t ask again.”
Pia’s face relaxed. She did know that Rothman’s and his colleague’s murders were carried out by an Albanian gang that was a rival to one in which her long-estranged father was a high-ranking member. What she had been told was that if she talked about what little she knew, it would not only lead to her and George’s deaths, but would excite a blood feud between the two rival gangs, with scores of people probably ending up in the ground. It was a lose-lose situation and a responsibility that Pia could not bear.
Pia and George finished their lunch in silence. It wasn’t until they drove within sight of Nano, LLC, that they talked.
“This place is impressive,” George said, gazing at the institution as they pulled up to a vehicular gate. The landscaped complex was far larger than he would have imagined, comprising multiple modern buildings, some as high as five stories tall, that stretched off into dense clumps of huge evergreen trees. The whole area was surrounded by a towering chain-link fence topped with razor-encrusted concertina wire. It appeared more like a military base than a commercial establishment. “Looks like they take security very seriously here.” The people inside the booth were all dressed in smart, military-style uniforms.
“You got that right. As fast as nanotechnology is expanding, the competition is fierce and contentious. Nano has its own legal department with a number of very busy patent attorneys.” Pia waited as one of the security men slid open a door and stepped out of the booth.
Pia handed over her identification, which the guard examined carefully. He then looked over at George expectantly.
“He’s with me,” Pia said. “He’s a guest of mine.”
“You’ll have to head over to the central security office and talk to a supervisor,” the guard said. His tone wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t unfriendly, either; just professional.
As the gate lifted and Pia drove forward, she said, “I’ve never brought a visitor here. It’s not really encouraged.”
“Is it going to be a problem?”
“Let’s see what they say at the central office. I can’t imagine they’re not going to let you come in, at least to the building where I work. I see FedEx people and the like there every day, so it is not as if it is off-limits to outsiders.”
“Maybe you should go in alone and do your thing. I could always just hang out in the car beyond the fence until you’re finished.”
“Oh, come on, George. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
George fought back the timidity that overtook him whenever Pia was taking him somewhere he thought he wouldn’t be welcome. In medical school she’d come close to getting them both kicked out when she became hell-bent on investigating the deaths in the laboratory where she was doing an elective, despite the administration’s very specific warnings against it. But this was a scientific lab. What would they have to hide from him? He was a radiology resident, for chrissake.
In the ultramodern, spacious lobby, Pia went directly to the security office and asked for a supervisor. As they waited, they looked at the banks of closed-circuit monitors watched by attentive staff. Scenes of labs, corridors, and common areas throughout the complex changed rapidly on the screens.
When the supervisor appeared, she examined George’s driver’s license and hospital ID, interviewed him briefly, had him sit in front of an iris-recognition recorder, then wordlessly disappeared back into the bowels of the department. After more than twenty minutes, she emerged, handed George’s IDs back to him, and then gave Pia his pass.
“He’s your responsibility while he visits here,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Let’s go, we’re all set,” Pia said.
“What do you think took so long?” George asked as he followed Pia back out into the lobby.
“I’m sure they ran a background check on you. They must be relieved you’re a radiology resident at UCLA, since there’s little chance of your being some kind of industrial spy. My sense is that’s what they’re paranoid about.”
Before accessing the elevators, Pia and George had to swipe their passes and then peer through the iris scanner. Green lights showed all was in order. George had seen security like this before, but only in movies.
“So what’s in this building besides your lab?” George asked as the elevator rose to the fourth floor.
“This building houses all the general biology laboratories. There’s a lot of biology research going on because the powers that be at Nano are convinced that the real future of nanotechnology is going to be in medicine.”
“The complex is huge. What goes on in all the other buildings?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Pia said.
“You’re not curious?”
“Somewhat, I suppose. But not really. Most current nanotechnology applications are concerned with paints, lightweight materials, energy generation and storage, fabrics, and informational technology — nonmedical uses like that, which doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I do know that Nano has some medical diagnostic products on the market, like sensors and DNA arrays for in vitro testing and sequencing. That I would find more interesting, but not the other commercial stuff. All I’m really interested in is their nanorobot microbivores, the ones I’m working with.”
The elevator stopped and the doors silently opened into a blindingly white, fluorescent-lit corridor. Pia strode off with George tagging along behind, squinting. He moved his sunglasses down from their perch on top of his head to shield his eyes.
“As I mentioned back at the apartment,” Pia continued, “Nano has made major strides in molecular manufacturing so they can build complex devices here atom by atom, such as the microbivores.”
All of a sudden Pia stopped, and George stopped, too. “Does it sound like I’m giving you a lecture? Maybe you don’t want to hear all this. You can just tell me to shut up. I’m really excited about what I’m doing here. I might have come to Colorado mainly to get away from New York and my father, to deal with my guilt about Will, and to clear my mind career-wise, but work here has taken me over. I find it as engaging as what I had been doing back with Rothman before he died.”
“I want to hear about it,” George said, eager to keep Pia talking. “Really, I do.”