remarked.
“It’s the old Hawai‘i. What’s left of it.”
Watanabe changed the subject. “Do you know a gentleman named Marcos Rodriguez?”
Makele looked blank. “No.”
“How about Willy Fong. A lawyer up north of the freeway.” Watanabe did not mention they were dead.
Makele picked it up anyway. “Sure-” He squinted, looked puzzled. “The guys who got stabbed, right?”
“Yes, in Fong’s office. Fong, Rodriguez, and another man, still unidentified.”
Makele seemed confused. He spread his hands out and said, “What am I missing, lieutenant?”
“I don’t know.” Watanabe watched Makele to see his reaction to that.
Makele seemed surprised and irritated, but he stayed calm. Watanabe was pleased to see that the security chief fidgeted in his chair. He’s nervous, Watanabe thought.
“What I know about those murders,” Don Makele went on, “is what I saw on the news.”
“What makes you think they were murders?”
“It’s what they said on the news.” Makele paused.
“Actually they said it was suicide,” Watanabe said. “Did you think it was murder?”
Makele didn’t take it casually. “Lieutenant, is there some reason why you want to talk to me about this-?”
“Fong or Rodriguez weren’t doing any work for Nanigen, were they?”
“Are you kidding? Nanigen would never hire losers like that,” Makele answered.
Don Makele knew very well what had happened to Fong and Rodriguez. Nineteen security bots had disappeared on the night of the break-in. They had swarmed onto an intruder, cut into his body, and circulated in the man’s bloodstream, slicing open arteries from the inside. But the bots weren’t supposed to do this. They weren’t programmed to kill anybody. They were supposed to photograph the intruder and cut the skin lightly, making the intruder bleed and thus leave a blood trace behind-and they were supposed to trigger a silent alarm. That was all. Nothing dangerous, certainly not lethal. But somebody had programmed the bots to kill. Vin Drake did it, Makele thought. The bots had sliced he intruder to ribbons, then had cut their way out of the man’s body, and jumped from that man to the next man like fleas. Bloodthirsty, lethal fleas. A burglar and his friends had gotten themselves killed. Accidents happen more often to assholes. But what did this detective know? Makele wasn’t sure, and it made him nervous.
He decided to get tough. He leaned forward and put his voice into Official Mode and said, “Is this company or any of its employees the subject of a criminal investigation?”
Watanabe let a signficant silence elapse. “No,” he finally answered. Not at this time.
“I’m glad to hear that, lieutenant. Because this company is highly ethical. The founder, Vincent Drake, is known for putting his own money into cures for orphan diseases, diseases that nobody else bothers to cure because they aren’t profitable. Mr. Drake is a good man who puts his heart where his money is.”
Lieutenant Dan Watanabe listened to this with a neutral face. “You mean, he puts his money where his heart is.”
“That’s what I said,” Makele answered, gazing back at Watanabe.
Watanabe placed his card on the security man’s desk, and wrote a phone number on it with his pen. “That’s my cell. Call it any time if anything comes up. I think Mr. Drake is expecting me.”
Vin Drake sat behind his desk, leaning back in an executive chair. An Oriental rug covered the floor, an antique. The air held a pleasant aroma of cigar. Given the pleasance of the aroma, Watanabe concluded that the cigar had cost more than ten dollars. The office had no windows. Soft panel lighting. He noticed, through a side door, a private bathroom with marble fixtures. Interesting to see that inside a warehouse. The guy took care of himself.
“We’re very distressed by the recent events,” Drake said. “We’ve been hoping you could help us.”
“We’re doing our best,” Watanabe said. “I just wanted to get more background on the disappearances.”
“Sure.”
Watanabe had been enjoying the portrait of Drake on the wall behind him. It wasn’t bad. Maybe a little pretentious, but lively. “Can you tell me what your company does?”
“Basically we make small robots and use them to explore nature, as a way of discovering new drugs to save human lives.”
“How small?”
Drake shrugged and put his thumb and forefinger half an inch apart.
Watanabe squinted. “You mean half an inch? Like the size of a peanut?”
“Maybe a little smaller,” Drake answered.
“How much smaller?”
“Somewhat.”
“One millimeter, say?”
Drake gave a crisp smile. “That’s barely feasible.”
“But have you done it?”
“Done what?”
“Made robots one millimeter in size.”
“We’re getting into proprietary areas.” Drake leaned back.
“Have you had any industrial accidents with your robots?”
“Accidents?” Drake frowned, and then broke into a chuckle. “Yes-frequently.”
“Anybody get hurt?”
“It’s the other way around.” Drake laughed. “People step on the robots by accident. The robots always lose.” He sighed and looked at his watch. “I have a meeting.”
“Sure. Just one thing.” Watanabe would describe what he’d seen in the microscope, but he would not show Drake a photograph of the device, because a photo was evidence, and you don’t flash evidence. So he kept things vague. “We’ve become aware of a device, pretty small, that appears to have what might be a propeller and cutting blades. It might be able to fly, or swim in somebody’s bloodstream. Is this a Nanigen product?”
Drake took a moment to reply; Watanabe thought the moment lasted a beat too long. “No,” Drake answered. “We don’t make robots like that.”
“Does anybody make them?”
Drake gave Watanabe a careful look. Where was this cop going? “I think you’re describing a theoretical device.”
“What kind?”
“Well, it would be a surgical micro-robot.”
“A what?”
“A surgical micro-bot. Also called a surgibot. It’s a very small robot used for medical procedures. In theory, a surgibot could be made small enough to circulate in a patient’s bloodstream. Equipped with scalpels, a swarm of surgibots could perform microsurgery. They could be injected into a patient, and the surgibots would swim through the bloodstream to the target tissue. Surgibots could cut arterial plaques from the inside of an artery, for example. Or a swarm of surgibots could hunt down metastasized cancer cells. The surgibots would kill the cancer cells one at a time, thus defeating the cancer. But as of now, surgibots are a dream, not a reality.”
“So you’re not actually building these…what you call…surgibots?”
“Not like that, no.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Watanabe said.
Drake sighed. “We’re getting into an area that’s very sensitive.”
“Why?”
“Nanigen is doing research…for you.”
“For me?” Watanabe said, looking mystified.
“You pay taxes?”
“Sure.”
“Nanigen is working for you.”
“Oh, so you’re doing government-?”
