When we awoke in the late morning, Jim was gone. Louise asked me again about what I had planned, and though I tried to say nothing was set, she knew what I was going to do, and so did I. I had always wanted to be somebody special, to do something special, something that would matter, and this seemed to be the best shot I’d get. I thought of Jim’s mother and desperately did not want to be someone who had never made the choice to make the changes his life needed. I had no idea what I was really getting into, but at that age, who does?
By the time we graduated, Louise had slowly taken all of her stuff out of my apartment, and though we were still dating only each other, you could almost see the space between us. Jim and I talked a couple of times a week for the first couple of weeks after the funeral, but then the calls faded away. A week after graduation, Louise and I said good-bye, I called Jim to let him know I was moving, and I headed for Langley.
* * *
Greg and I rode without talking until we were almost through South Carolina, and then I decided to try again. “What was Jim doing for you guys?” I asked.
“That is not relevant,” Greg said.
“Yes, it is. You’ve told me it involved nanotech, so I know what sort of gear we’re looking for, but I don’t know how we’ll spot these materials you want back.”
“I am to locate them.”
“Are you sure you’ll be able to do that?” I said. “Do you know what form they’ll be in? Whether Jim might have copied them? How he might have stored them? Whether he’ll be in a public place when we find him?”
Greg was silent for several minutes before answering. “I find myself in an awkward situation. You are right that I may not succeed in that part of my mission without sharing the information you have requested, but I am also not to discuss it. Some of my more . . . aggressive colleagues have gone beyond the rules others of us advised them to follow, and now we must remove all traces of those transgressions. James Peterson’s work is such evidence.”
“What form will the evidence be in?”
“I do not know. Small, sealed containers are likely, of course; that is the form in which we gave him the original nano-machines.”
Greg paused again for long enough that I assumed he was done and switched on some music.
Halfway through a song, he turned off the music and resumed talking. “It is also possible that the machines will be in one or more human subjects,” he said.
I was glad traffic was light and I had the cruise control on, because I swerved slightly as I whipped my head to the side to look at him. “He’s putting your nano-machines in people?”
“Not exactly. His job involved the adaptation of our machines to humans in this environment. So, what he would put in humans would more precisely be his own machines, built from our initial prototypes.”
I forced my voice to be calm. Nothing about this sounded good, but I wasn’t going to get anything from Greg by appearing too anxious. “What do these nano-machines do?”
“That is not relevant.”
“Maybe not. What certainly is relevant is why you needed Jim, because if I know that I may be able to guide our search better.” I didn’t need that info, because merely knowing the type of equipment and where Jim was headed was a good enough start, but I was hoping Greg wouldn’t realize that. “Was it because you couldn’t make the machines work in humans without his help?”
“No. We have our own supply of humans in other locations. The machines definitely work in humans.”
“Your own supply?” This time my voice rose slightly before I got it under control. “What does that mean?”
“That is not relevant.”
I took a slow, deep breath before continuing. For the first time in my life, I seriously wondered if the alien abduction stories were true. “Okay. But what did you need Jim to do if you knew the machines would work in people? I mean, once you knew they worked, you were done, right?”