hovering close by. “Have our little furry friends had their shots, Mike?”
The technician nodded. “Sure thing, Dr. Brinker. I did it myself just ten minutes ago. One good jab for each of them.”
“The nanophages go in inert,” Brinker explained. “Their internal ATP power cell only lasts so long, so we surround that section with a protective sheath.”
Smith understood the reason for that. ATP, adenosine triphosphate, was a molecule that provided energy for most metabolic processes. But ATP would begin releasing its energy as soon at it came in contact with liquid. And all living creatures were mostly liquid. “So the injection is a kick start?” he asked.
“That's right,” Brinker confirmed. “We inject a unique chemical signal into each test subject. Once a passive sensor on the nanophage detects that signal, the sheath opens, and the surrounding liquid activates the ATP. Our little machines light up and off they go on the hunt.”
“Then your sheath also acts as a fail-safe,” Smith realized. “Just in case any of the Mark Twos wind up where they aren't supposed to be — say inside one of you, for example.”
“Exactly,” Brinker agreed. “No unique chemical signature… no nanophage activation.”
Parikh was less certain about that.
“There is a small risk,” the shorter molecular biologist warned. “There is always a certain error rate in the nanophage build process.”
“Which means sometimes the sheath doesn't form properly? Or the sensor is missing or set to receive the wrong signal? Or maybe you wind up with the wrong biochemical substances stored inside the phage shell?”
“Stuff like that,” Brinker said. “But the error percentage is very small. Ridiculously tiny. Heck, almost nil.” He shrugged. “Besides, these things are programmed to kill cancer cells and nasty bacteria. Who really cares if a few strays go wandering around inside the wrong target for a couple of minutes?”
Smith raised a skeptical eyebrow. Was Brinker serious? Low risk or not, the senior Harcourt scientist's attitude seemed just a bit too cavalier. Good science was the art of taking infinite pains. It did not mean writing off potential safety hazards, no matter how small.
The other man saw his expression and laughed. “Don't sweat it, Jon. I'm not crazy. Well, not completely, anyway. We keep our nanophages on a damned tight leash. They're well and truly contained. Besides, I've got Ravi here to keep me on the straight and narrow. Okay?”
Smith nodded. “Just checking, Phil. Chalk it up to my suspicious spook-like nature.”
Brinker shot him a quick, wry smile. Then he glanced at the technicians standing by at various consoles and monitors. “Everybody set?”
One by one, they each gave him a thumbs-up.
“Right,” Brinker said. His eyes were bright and excited. “Mark Two nanophage live subject trial numero uno. On my mark… three, two, one… now!”
The metal canister hissed.
“Nanophages released,” one of the technicians murmured, watching a readout from the canister.
For several minutes nothing seemed to happen. The healthy mice moved here and there, seemingly at random. The sick mice stayed put.
“ATP power cycle complete,” another technician announced at last. “Nanophage life span complete. Live subject trial complete.”
Brinker breathed out. He glanced up at Smith in triumph. “There we go, Colonel. Now we'll anesthetize our furry friends, open them up, and see what percentage of their various cancers we just nailed. Me, I'm betting we're talking close to one hundred percent.”
Ravi Parikh was still watching the mice. He frowned. “I think we may have a runaway, Phil,” he said quietly. “Take a look at test subject five.”
Smith bent down to get a closer view. Mouse Five was one of the healthy ones, a member of the control group. It was moving erratically, repeatedly stumbling headlong into its fellows, mouth opening and closing rapidly. Suddenly it fell on its side, writhed in apparent agony for a few seconds — and then lay still.
“Crap,” Brinker said, staring blankly at the dead mouse. “That's sure as hell not supposed to happen.”
Jon Smith frowned, suddenly resolving to recheck Harcourt Bio-science's containment and safety procedures. They had better be as thorough as Parikh and Brinker claimed, so that whatever had just killed a perfectly healthy mouse stayed locked away inside this lab.
It was nearly midnight.
A mile to the north, the lights of Santa Fe cast a warm yellow glow into the clear, cold night sky. Ahead, the upper-floor windows of the Teller Institute glowed behind drawn blinds. Arc lights mounted on the roof cast long black shadows across the Institute's grounds. Along the northern
edge of the perimeter fence, small stands of pine and juniper trees were wholly submerged in darkness.
Paolo Ponti slithered closer to the fence through the tall, dry grass. He hugged the dirt, careful to stay in the shadows where his black sweatshirt and dark jeans made him almost invisible. The Italian was twenty-four, slender, and athletic. Six months ago, tired of his life as a part-time university student on the dole, he had joined the Lazarus Movement.
The Movement offered his life meaning, a sense of purpose and excitement beyond anything else he had ever imagined. At first, the secret oaths he had sworn to protect Mother Earth and to destroy her enemies had seemed melodramatic and silly. Since then, however, Ponti had embraced the tenets and creeds of Lazarus with a zeal that surprised everyone who knew him, even himself.
Paolo glanced over his shoulder, seeing the faint shape wriggling along in his wake. He had met Audrey Karavites at a Lazarus rally in Stuttgart the month before. The twenh-one-year-old American woman had been traveling through Europe, a college graduation gift from her parents. Bored by museums and churches, she had gone to the rally on a whim. That whim had changed her whole life when Paolo swept her right off her feet, into his bed, and into the Movement.
The Italian turned back, still smiling smugly to himself. Audrey was not beautiful, but she had curves where a woman should. More important, her rich, naive parents gave her a generous allowance — an allowance that had bought her and Paolo's plane tickets to Santa Fe to join this protest against nanotechnology and corrupt American capitalism.
Paolo crawled cautiously right up to the fence, so close his fingertips brushed lightly against the cold metal. He looked through the mesh. The cacti, clumps of sagebrush, and native wildflowers planted there as drought- resistant landscaping should provide good cover. He checked the luminous dial of his watch. The next patrol by the Institute's security guards should not pass this point for more than an hour. Perfect.
The Italian activist touched the fence again, this time curling his fingers around its metal links to test their strength. He nodded, pleased by what he found. The bolt cutters he had brought along would do the trick quite easily.
There was a loud crack behind him — a dry, sharp sound like that of a thick twig being snapped by strong hands. Ponti frowned. Sometimes Audrey moved with all the grace of an arthritic hippo. He looked back over his shoulder, planning to reprimand her with an angry glare.
Audrey Karavites lay curled on her side in the tall weeds. Her head flopped at a sickening angle. Her eyes were wide open, forever frozen in a look of horror. Her neck had been broken. She was dead.
Stunned, Paolo Ponti sat up, unable at first to comprehend what he saw. He opened his mouth to cry out… and an enormous hand gripped his face, shoving it back, muffling his screams. The last thing the young Italian felt was the terrible pain as an ice-cold blade plunged deep into his exposed throat.
The tall auburn-haired man tugged his fighting knife out of the dead man's neck, then wiped it clean on a fold of Ponti's black sweatshirt. His green eyes shone brightly.
He looked over to where the girl he had murdered lay sprawled. Two black-clad shapes were busy rummaging through the duffel bag she had been dragging behind her. “Well?”
“What you expected, Prime,” the hoarse whisper came back. “Climbing gear. Cans of fluorescent spray paint. And a Lazarus Movement banner.”
The green-eyed man shook his head, amused. “Amateurs.”
