Dan stared at him.
“There is only one agency that I can think of that could selectively remove copper atoms from the wire.”
“Nanomachines?” Dan squeaked.
Fuchs nodded solemnly. “This length of wire was seeded with nanomachines that remove copper atoms and release them into the liquid nitrogen coolant. Even now they are removing copper atoms and letting them flow into the air of this compartment.”
“Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle,” Dan said, his insides suddenly hollow. “That’s why Humphries grabbed Cardenas. She’s the nanotech expert.”
“We are infected,” Fuchs said.
“But you caught it in time,” Dan countered. “It’s only this one length of wire that’s infected.”
“I hope so,” Fuchs said. “Otherwise, we’re all dead.”
HUMPHRIES TRUST RESEARCH CENTER
George stood to one side of the walkway leading into Humphries’s house. It had been eerie, riding down the escalators wearing the enlarged stealth suit that Ike Walton had cobbled together for him. George couldn’t see his own feet. At one point, he nearly tripped and tumbled down a flight of escalator stairs. Walton had looked like a naughty little kid caught peeking at dirty pictures when Stavenger had confronted him in his office and ordered him to enlarge the stealth suit to fit George.
Red-faced, Walton had stammered that he’d need help from the nanolab technicians, and that would ruin the secrecy that had shrouded the stealth suit since he’d first invented it.
“That can’t be helped,” Stavenger had replied tightly. “Secrecy’s already been breached.”
In the end, Stavenger himself went with Walton and George to the nanolab and asked the chief technician to clear out the lab and work with Walton by herself. In total secrecy. Once she understood that Dr. Cardenas’s life might be at stake, she quickly agreed.
“I’d heard rumors about a stealth suit, off and on,” she marveled, once Walton explained what was needed. “Don’t add to them,” Stavenger pleaded.
Walton had the programs for the nanomachines buried in his personal files. Within hours, he and the chief technician were watching a spread of darkly-glittering stealth cloth growing on a lab table. George stood slightly behind them, eyes goggling as the invisible virus-sized machines busily turned bins of metal shavings into his new suit.
Now he stood at the entrance to Humphries’s house at high noon, trying to figure out a way to get through the front door without being detected. The huge cavern was in its daylight mode, long strips of full-spectrum lamps shining brightly. Wondering if the people inside the house came out for lunch, George edged closer to the door.
It swung open, surprising him, and a pair of Humphries’s research scientists came out, deep in earnest conversation. George knew they were scientists from their costumes: the guy wore a shapeless open-necked shirt and faded jeans; he had a long ponytail down his back as well. The woman was in a light sweater and loose, comfortable slacks. They were talking about the life cycle of some Latin-named species.
George slipped behind them as the door started to close and held it halfway open with one extended arm. The two scientists went on their way, chattering intently. George pushed the door open a little more and peered inside. Two hefty men in blue security uniforms stood inside, looking bored. George slipped through the door and then let it swing shut. The two guards never noticed. They were talking about last night’s football tournament, videoed live from Barcelona.
An older man in a dark suit came out of a doorway halfway down the hall. He had the frozen-faced expression of a trained butler. George tiptoed past the guards, peeking into each open doorway as he went. He could hear voices from his left, and found a doorway that opened onto a long corridor, with plenty of people shuttling from one office to another along its length. That must be where the research staff works, he thought. Don’t they break for lunch?
It was difficult to pick up odors from inside the suit’s face mask, but George caught the unmistakable scent of steaks on the griddle, something he hadn’t smelled since he’d been on Earth. Steaks! he thought. Humphries doesn’t mind spendin’ his fookin’ money on hauling steaks up here.