Nano (18 page)

“Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to hack into anything. But I need to get past the iris scanners at Nano. When I tried to cross the bridge from my building to the neighboring building, an iris scanner wouldn’t allow me access. Is there some way I can dupe such a scanner without smashing it with a hammer? It has to be something that might look like the scanner made an honest mistake if I got caught.”

“Are these scanners manned?”

“What you mean?”

“I mean is there a security person standing there watching you when you stand in front of it?”

“Some but not all,” Pia said. “On the first floor of my building there are certainly security people, but they have never paid any attention when I go through the scanner. And when I tried but failed to get past a scanner blocking the door to the bridge from my building to the next, there was no security person.”

“I think I can help you, in that case,” said Paul. It sounded as if it might be illegal, but only if he was the one to break in somewhere he didn’t have a right to have access to. It also sounded like a fun challenge, the type he used to love when he was in high school. “My understanding is that an iris scanner uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques that take advantage of the fact that people’s irises are as different from one another as fingerprints. I’ll tell you what, I’ll look into it for you.”

“Thanks, Paul, that’s great.”

“Listen, I don’t want to pour cold water on this, but it sounds dangerous. Do you think it’s a good idea?”

Pia rolled her eyes. Paul was channeling George.

“I’m going to try whether you’ll help me or not.”

“I figured you’d say something like that. I’ll see what I can find out.”

25.

NANO, LLC, BOULDER, COLORADO

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013, 2:15
P.M.

Mariel Spallek made a point of checking her watch when Pia walked into the lab at 2:15. “You’re late,” she said. “I thought you said you’d be here by two
P
.
M
.” She turned her attention back to the ledger book spread out on her desk.

“You said two
P
.
M
., not me. You’re lucky I’m here at all, the way I feel. I’m certainly allowed a sick day.” Pia had reached the end of her rope with Mariel. She wasn’t used to taking the kind of aggressive manhandling and nitpicking that Mariel was subjecting her to without pushing back.

“I never take a sick day, and I don’t expect my staff to take any, either,” said Mariel without looking up. “Some days I feel better than others, but I come to work anyway, short of hospitalization. I expect the same from others.”

Pia conjured up a number of pithy retorts but thought better of saying any. She hoped she’d have an opportunity to tell Mariel what she thought of her at some juncture in the future.

For the next two-plus hours, Pia kept her head down and worked hard. Mariel had commandeered some more staff to help in the new space she’d gotten previously on the floor below. Pia got them up to speed, and they began to set up more biocompatibility experiments. The more experiments that could be run, the better the conclusions would be statistically.

What now began to bother Pia was that Mariel would not give up her tendency to micromanage, meaning everything had to be run by her, even the most mundane details. For Pia, part of the excitement of doing research was challenging herself first to get to a solution, and second to get corroborating data. She felt constrained by Mariel’s overbearing supervision of everything she did and every step she took. When she had a break, she again sought out Mariel, who was still engrossed in the same ledger book, no doubt compulsively going over details.

“Listen, Mariel, I know the work is going well, and you’ve got staff running tests that I don’t even know about in other Nano buildings. Are any of these other tests related to what I am doing, and if they are, wouldn’t it make sense to have some of the techs report directly to me? That way I can analyze what they are doing myself.”

“That’s my job, Pia. Your job is to be creative about the specific problems that we assign to you. What other people are doing is not your business.”

“Yes, okay, but who are they? Why can’t I at least talk to them? I’m slaving away here, and I have no idea what anyone else is doing. To me that is frustrating and seems like a recipe for redundancy.”

“Nano is a large, high-security company that is very compartmentalized because of security needs. There is a need-to-know policy with all our staff and all our research. You don’t need to know what other people are doing, nor do they need to know what you are up to. Ultimately it’s more efficient that way and certainly more secure. You’ll be informed if there is any redundancy. You concentrate on what you’re paid to do. If you knew Mr. Berman better, you would understand the way his mind works. He’s the father and supporter of Nano’s organization. I am his eyes and ears.”

And a jealous bitch,
Pia thought but didn’t say. Instead she said: “You suggested on the phone he was not feeling up to par. Did he come in today?”

“He came in, yes. Of course. He’s a dedicated man, in contrast to yourself. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just interested, Mariel. Why are you giving me such a hard time about everything?”

Mariel stopped reading her ledger and looked up at Pia. She affected a flinty smile.

“I’m sorry if you think I’m giving you a hard time, but I’m really not. We’re all under a lot of pressure. That pressure comes from the top, and I have to act accordingly. My pressure is coming directly from Zachary Berman, and I assure you he’s giving me a much harder time than you think I’m giving you.” Mariel kept her smile fixed on her face, then looked back at her ledger. Pia marveled at how someone could smile with such great insincerity.

Pia had to do something, get her mind grounded—Mariel Spallek was becoming unbearable and making it difficult to concentrate. Pia had checked on all the experiments that she had running and saw everything was in order. There still were no signs of any immunological response in the lot. The polyethylene glycol in the microbivores’ skin was doing wonders at all concentrations, even what she would have thought were minuscule amounts.

“I’m going to take a breath of air,” said Pia. Before Mariel could respond Pia added, “Don’t worry, I’ll be right back. One way or the other, you’ll get your full day’s work out of me.”

Needing a few moments away from Mariel, who’d made a point of shadowing Pia for the whole time that she had been there, Pia descended in the elevator and marched outside. Needing to talk to someone, she called Paul Caldwell. Before the call went through, she remembered he said he was going to sleep when he got home. She disconnected.

Impulsively, she called George despite the can of worms such a call might unleash. Luckily she got his voice mail, which wasn’t surprising, given that no doubt he’d be hard at work somewhere in his L.A. hospital. Mostly out of desperation, she called the internist who was responsible for Will McKinley’s treatment in New York to see if she had any new information for her, but she didn’t pick up her phone, either. For Pia it was a complete strikeout. Still, the break had been therapeutic. Fortified, she headed back into the building and anticipated another couple of frosty hours with Mariel Spallek.

When she got back to the lab, Pia stopped in her tracks. She saw that Zachary Berman was there, talking with Mariel. Unfortunately he looked up and saw her, which meant that Pia couldn’t act on her first instinct, which was to turn tail and disappear. The idea of having to put up with Berman and Mariel at the same time was more than she wished to bear.

“Ah, Pia, there you are. How are you feeling? Mariel tells me you’re under the weather.”

“I’m fighting something off, maybe a cold or flu, but I’m here. And you? She told me you were feeling ill yourself.” Pia girded herself. She had no idea what to expect, although Berman’s voice seemed calm and not accusatory. She couldn’t help but worry that he might somehow suspect she’d slipped him a Mickey Finn.

Berman smiled. He’d progressively recovered from that morning, when Mariel Spallek caught him with his head down on his desk in the office taking a catnap after a string of calls to China.

“I’m doing quite well, but thank you for asking.” Berman turned and with raised eyebrows looked at Mariel. Mariel took the hint, although she was clearly displeased, and she walked away. She busied herself at the far end of the room, well out of earshot.

“You got home safely?” Berman asked, keeping his voice low.

“I did. I made it a point to drive below the speed limit the whole way.”

“Good choice. At the time I’m not sure I would have had the good sense to do likewise. Luckily I didn’t have to go anyplace for several hours, and then I was driven.”

“I hope your call, or calls, went well.”

Berman looked at Pia questioningly.

Pia averted her gaze. “Miss Jones told me you had a call to make.”

“Right!” Berman said. His eyes roamed about the lab. “So how’s it going here?”

“It is going well. We’ve increased the number of biocompatibility experiments by a factor of ten, which will surely give us highly significant results, especially if they all continue to show no immunological reaction at all. Mariel has gotten me more lab space and some tech help. We’re getting it done.”

“That’s music to my ears. From my perspective, the microbivores project is the most important one under way here at Nano.”

“What other projects is Nano currently involved with?” Pia asked. She suddenly decided to throw caution to the wind and go for broke.

Berman smiled at her the way a father might smile at a young girl asking too many questions. “I’m sorry, but for security reasons, I can’t tell you that. I hope you understand.”

“Mariel said essentially the same thing. But isn’t there a chance that there could be overlap of my work with others? We could all mutually benefit if each of us knew what the other was doing.”

“Mariel and Allan Stevens make sure that any appropriate cross-pollination, if you will, is taken advantage of. Believe me, your work has definitely influenced some other work that is going on concurrently. I can assure you of that.”

“What aspect of my work? The biocompatibility issue?”

“I’m not going to be specific,” Berman said. His voice hardened. His smile disappeared. His patience was nearing its limit, but he checked himself. “Let’s go back to more pleasant subject matters.”

“You asked me how it was going, and I’m being frank. I’m sorry if I overstepped any line.”

“No, I’m glad you feel comfortable talking to me directly. I know how Mariel can be. It’s a virtue of hers to be so diligent. Except when it isn’t. But enough of that. What I really wanted to come over here for is to apologize for my adolescent behavior last night. The last time I passed out was freshman year at Yale. It is not my usual modus operandi. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need for an apology. I drank more than I usually do, too. I fell asleep as well.”

“Is it out of line to ask if you had fun last night?”

Berman was still smiling, so Pia thought she could relax. “Yes, I did have fun. Thank you for having me over.” She glanced around for Mariel to make sure she had not approached. Pia wouldn’t have put it past her, but she had left the room. “The only part I regretted was when Miss Jones found us crashed out in your den. That was a little embarrassing.”

“Oh, I don’t think you have anything to be embarrassed about. I’ve woken up in much more compromising situations than that one, believe me. I have to say that I enjoyed myself immensely before the scotch got the better of me. You are quite the dancer.”

Pia felt her face flush. Of all the things he should remember. Thinking about it embarrassed her far more than Miss Jones’s showing up. “It’s amazing what alcohol can do to one’s inhibitions,” she said.

“You were delightful. The next time you come, I’ll make sure I stay awake and be a more attentive host. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” said Pia, thinking the opposite. “I’m up to my neck in here for the next few days, though.”

“Alas, I’m traveling myself, so I won’t be around for a while. It would be good if you could come with me, but you’re much too important here.”

“Oh, going anywhere fun?” Pia was horrified at the idea that Berman even considered the idea of taking her with him, and she had to make an effort to sound as casual as possible.

“Yes, actually, I’m going to Italy. But it will all be work, unfortunately, so don’t be jealous. I must run. I’m very glad I saw you. Keep up the good work. Don’t worry about Mariel, she does what I say. And we’ll be sure to have dinner again when I return.”

“I’ll be here,” said Pia as Berman walked away. “I’m not going anywhere.”

26.

PAUL CALDWELL’S APARTMENT, BOULDER, COLORADO

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013, 9:45
P.M.
(ONE WEEK LATER)

In the week since she had last seen Zach Berman, Pia worked harder than ever, pushing her new lab technicians and coming ever closer, she thought, to being able to declare that biocompatibility issues, at least with roundworms, had been solved by incorporating the polyethylene glycol into the microbivores’ skin. Prior to using the compound, the roundworms had shown a 30 to 40 percent immunologic response. Although weak, it had been significant. Afterward there had been none, even with a low level of the oligosaccharide polymer. The results had been so good that Pia began thinking about what animal subjects she should try next. She also continued to develop the spiraling technology for the anti-salmonella robots. That concept continued to be promising, although she was still not able to arrange time with the programmers.

Much of her downtime was spent with Paul Caldwell. They’d been on a few more hikes, including an all-afternoon, challenging affair on Sunday that left Pia tired and sore the following day, but still exhilarated by the views from the high Rockies route Paul had taken her on.

Her friendship with Paul was growing by leaps and bounds. It was such a relief to Pia to be around a man who liked her for herself. She was still reserved and knew she was aloof in other people’s eyes—maybe even his, to a degree—but it was easier to try to be involved in a relationship that wasn’t at all sexual. Paul insisted they drive into Denver on Tuesday night to go to a bar he knew. He claimed he wanted to show Pia off, so once more she got into her black dress.

Although reluctant to go at first, she ended up having a better time with Paul’s friends than she’d imagined. They were a mixed group in terms of their professions but shared a creative side that Pia appreciated. She didn’t feel creativity was her strongest suit, but she enjoyed it in others. Yet what she liked the best was that there had been no sexual pressure in the slightest, and hence no awakening of any atavistic fear in Pia’s psyche, a problem that Pia recognized in herself from her recurrent nightmares.

Paul had done some research on iris scanners on the Internet and talked in general terms to a couple of his techie friends. On Wednesday evening, he told Pia he believed it was definitely possible to fool a scanner, particularly a first-generation scanner, which was the kind generally in use, with a high-resolution photograph of an eye, or even of a whole face, including both eyes. If the picture was good enough, he didn’t think it mattered if the image was in two dimensions and not three, because the iris itself is flat. After a light supper of vegetarian lasagna that Paul had made, he and Pia tested a single-lens, high-resolution camera that could take close-ups as well as normal photos.

“Where did you get this camera from again?” asked Pia.

“It’s from a friend from medical school. Okay, an ex-boyfriend.” Paul looked over at Pia. It was the first time he had implicitly mentioned his sexual orientation. He felt Pia knew, and was as comfortable as he was in not considering it an issue. He noted that Pia hadn’t batted an eyelid.

“We still see each other occasionally. They use these cameras in the lab at his clinic. I don’t even know what for, but it is definitely high resolution and can even take pictures through a microscope. He told me once he got hold of this thing for some art project he was working on. And I’m borrowing it for a few days.”

“It looks normal enough to me,” said Pia.

And it did. It was a little boxier than a regular commercial camera, but Paul told Pia the operation was the same.

Paul wanted to do a test on Pia, so she sat on Paul’s couch and he stood in front of her with a light behind him.

“Keep still, miss, this won’t hurt a bit.” Paul made a leering face and Pia opened her eyes wide.

“Does it matter which eye?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s why we’re trying it out, to find out if it works. Okay, hold still.”

Paul took a number of pictures of both of Pia’s eyes in close-up and also of her face from as close as a foot and as far away as three feet. He told her that he was done.

“So where will you get these printed?” said Pia.

“On my printer here in my apartment. But it may not be necessary to print them, but rather just to leave them in digital form. What I’m thinking of doing is transferring the best image to your phone, and you can try that. Actually, we might even try using the camera in your iPhone. The resolution on the screen of a phone is really very good, particularly the iPhone.”

“Will it be good enough to fool the scanner?”

“We’ll see about that. Has a scanner at Nano ever not let you in?”

“Yes. As I told you, it was the scanner at the door to the bridge connecting the building I work in to the immediately neighboring building. It refused me passage.”

“And no security person was standing there?”

“No. No one.”

“Good.”

“You understand the science behind this, don’t you?”

“In general, I suppose from what you told me.”

“To review, it is based on the fact that irises are unique, like fingerprints. Even identical twins have distinct irises. What the scanner does is use mathematical and statistical algorithms on certain visible characteristics, and digitalizes them, and then compares them with its library of stored scans. In a place like Nano, the results of a scan are then compared with its list of people who have access at the particular scanner. It is then yes, you have access, or no, you don’t.”

“I appreciate your taking the time to do this,” Pia said.

“Hey, I’m enjoying myself. This is exactly the kind of computer stuff that I find interesting. I’m also kind of a movie buff, and it reminds me of that movie with Tom Cruise. What was it?”

Pia shrugged. She’d only seen a handful of movies in her life. Her life had enough drama. She never felt that she needed more.

“
Minority Report!”
said Paul, happy that he’d remembered. “Tom Cruise got his eyes switched out, which of course is going a bit overboard, which is what Hollywood’s all about. . . . Anyway, we’re not doing anything so drastic, thank goodness. But I think the system has a flaw that we can exploit, at least the system that is currently in use.”

“This is fun for you, I can see,” said Pia. “What did you do in high school, hack into ATMs?”

“What I did in high school is none of your business,” said Paul, but with a smile on his face. “Seriously, what are you going to do if this works? Whose eye are you intending to photograph? The only actual people you told me about at Nano are Berman and that Spallek woman I met. He’s the big boss and she’s a horror show. How are you going to get those pictures?”

“Now you’re asking too many questions,” said Pia. She hadn’t told Paul much about the development of her relationship with Berman, or what Berman had perceived as such. But she thought that Berman would be the most likely target, especially because of the nascent social connection she had with him. She knew she was playing with fire, but so be it. There seemed to be no other way if she was serious about finding out what Nano was up to. The other benefit of using Berman was that he undoubtedly had access to everything.

“This is all great fun for me, but to be truthful, I’m worried about you. My guess is that you will try to take a photo of Berman, which I also imagine you’re clever enough to pull off. But if you use this to get access to secure areas, you’ll be trespassing, and no one knows what the consequences of that might be.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Pia said. “And I recognize the risk. If I use this to get into areas where I’m not authorized to be and something happens, it’s not your fault. It is mine and mine alone. But let me say this: I would have learned about these iris scanners and how to get by them if you hadn’t helped. It just would have taken longer. I’m determined to get a look around Nano, particularly in the building next to where I work: the one connected to mine by the bridge.”

For a minute Pia and Paul stared at each other. Pia held the contact as long as she could before turning away.

“Can you at least appreciate what I’m saying?” Paul questioned.

“Absolutely,” Pia snapped. She looked back at Paul, her eyes blazing. “But don’t carry it too far if you want to stay my friend. I’ve had too many people making decisions for me in my life. I don’t need that anymore, and I don’t want it.”

“Fair enough,” Paul said. “I just wanted to get it off my chest.”

“Okay, it’s off your chest. Shall we move on?”

“Right!” Paul said. He stood up and walked over to his desk. Using a connector, he attached the high-definition camera to his computer. “Let me have your iPhone. Let’s see what we can do.”

There was no conversation while Paul played around with the images of Pia’s eyes and face. A sense of unease hung in the air until Pia broke the silence.

“There is something else I would like,” Pia said. When Paul didn’t respond immediately she continued: “What do you say about giving me a couple more of those Temazepam capsules.”

Paul eyes left the computer screen and moved over to Pia. “You’re getting as bossy as Mariel, if I may say so.”

“Sorry,” Pia said without sincerity. She didn’t think of herself that way, just that she was her own person and hated to be bossed herself.

“I have to say no,” Paul said. “You’ll have to get someone else to fill your drug needs if you want to remain
my
friend. That’s where I draw my line in the sand as well. I told you I wasn’t going to do anything illegal, so I’m not going to abet the misuse of controlled substances, especially when I think it puts you at risk. Once, maybe, without giving the idea the thought that I should have, but not twice.”

“Okay, okay,” Pia said, holding up her hands as if Paul needed to be calmed down. “Your point’s well taken. And I think you’re right. I don’t need any drugs. All I need is the camera and a bit of creativity.”

“The camera you can borrow.”

“And I might not even borrow that if I can’t fool the scanner with my own image.”