A flash of fondness passed over Peter’s face then faded. “Well, I had one co-worker who seemed bound for great things. Ezra Katzenberg. He entered the program at the same time as I did, and I guess we became something like friends. We used to talk about our projects, use each other as sounding boards, commiserate and celebrate, that sort of thing. He was intensely passionate. And I really thought he’d be one of the ones who got their name into the history books. His area of focus was molecular science. Specifically, molecular cures. You’ve heard of nanobots, right?”
Dorran was silent. Clare did her best to fill him in without making it obvious. “Tiny machines that can enter the body, right?”
“Pretty much. They were supposed to be the future of medicine. Microscopic robots that travel through our blood and tissue and repair a whole host of issues. Ezra got his grant for a thesis on nanobots. When he entered the program, he was working on a model that was supposed to be one of the first viable prototypes. Its whole purpose was to clear blood clots out of arteries. Basically, you injected tens of thousands of the nanobots, and they would travel through the vessels, searching for blockages. When they found one, they broke up the clot without the need for surgery. It would have been a huge leap forward for how hospitals responded to strokes and could replace the need for stents.”
Clare glanced at Dorran. He still clasped the apple as he listened attentively. This world had to be painfully foreign to him, but he was absorbing everything Peter said.
Peter tilted his head back to rest it against his seat. “Ezra’s biggest issue was that he couldn’t duplicate the nanobots with any kind of cost effectiveness. He needed thousands of them for each trial, and the costs were blowing out of control. A hospital’s not going to pay forty grand for one dose of the nanobots, no matter how effective they are. He was working on a few methods to bring the cost down. He just needed time. But, well, Saul got there first.”
“Saul?”
“He was the black sheep. No one knew what he was working on, only that it had to do with advancements in surgery. For the eleven months Ezra had been developing his clot nanobots, Saul had been watching in secret and developing his own strain. He borrowed many of Ezra’s discoveries to leapfrog his own research forward. And he found a way to make them cost-effective first.” Peter shook his head. “He took them to the commissioners and graduated from the grant program.”
Clare leaned forward. “But that’s got to be illegal, right? Couldn’t Ezra contest it?”
“Oh, he tried. I watched Ezra beat his fists against that metaphorical wall for weeks. Saul had been careful about how he adopted the stolen ideas. There was no direct proof of theft, so he could argue they developed their ideas independently. And Aspect… well, if we’re being honest, they didn’t so much care about what was sacrificed during the developmental stage as long as finished products made it to the market.”
Clare glanced across the long room. So many people working so close together, sharing ideas, brainstorming… she could imagine intellectual theft would be not just easy, but common.
“Ezra didn’t take it well.” Peter scratched his scalp, knocking the carefully combed hair askew. “Not only was another man getting the glory for his hard work, he was facing the end of his grant period with nothing to show. And people who flunk out of Aspect’s program tend not to have good careers afterwards, you know? By that point, he only had five months left. The rest of us all thought it was the end for him.”
Peter finally pulled the cap off the bottle properly, took a drink, rescrewed it, and threw it back onto the table. In the distance, thunder crackled. Clare was suddenly grateful that the blinds on the windows were closed. She didn’t want to watch the storm as it grew.
“Ezra spent a week away from the tower. To be honest, I was a little shocked when he returned. I’d thought he was gone for good. But when he walked through the door, he exuded a manic kind of energy. ‘I know what to do,’ he said as he started up his computer. I don’t think he left it for nearly three days straight, survived off energy drinks and coffee. There were plenty of workaholics among our group, but he outperformed the lot of them. It was like…” Peter waved a hand. “Like a religious experience for him. It wasn’t about revenge. It wasn’t about getting a position at Aspect. It was… more. As though he’d been given a purpose in life.”
Clare frowned. “What was he making?”
“I was the only one who knew.” Peter leaned a little closer and lowered his voice, as though the secret were still too sacred to share. “He didn’t trust anyone else in the office. He’d been burnt once by being too open, and it had made him paranoid. But he told me.”
Thunder rumbled again. It was growing closer. The radiation heater seemed to have lost some of its warmth. Clare shivered and felt for Dorran’s hand. He took it and threaded his fingers between hers.
“It was a step beyond his original nanobot creation.” Peter’s eyes were bright. “It was biological. He managed to make a machine that could replicate itself. It harvested carbon and metabolites from
