by Alex Ryan
“There’s nowhere to run, Dr. Chen,” echoed Li’s voice overhead.
Footsteps thundered in the stairwell as Li and his men converged on her. After the fifth flight, she leapt over the railing, bypassing the final switchback in favor of a six-foot vertical drop. She landed square on both feet and glanced up, expecting to see gun barrels trained on her. But there were no guns, just three black leather gloves sliding impossibly fast toward her along the metal railing.
She whirled one hundred eighty degrees to face salvation. Bold, white kanji stenciled across the red emergency door warned against foul play: “Warning. Alarm will sound. Use only in Emergency.”
I’ve always wanted to do this, she thought with a smirk and drove both her palms into the door’s rocker bar. To her dismay, even with the rocker bar depressed, the door wouldn’t budge. She cycled the rocker bar and tried again, but the door held shut.
“No!” she screamed, pounding her fists against the cold, unyielding steel. “Emergency exits are not supposed to be lockable!”
The footsteps stopped behind her and the stairwell fell silent.
“Dr. Chen,” a voice said. “Will you please end this foolishness and come with me?”
“Am I under arrest?” she panted, her back still to him.
“Dr. Chen, please don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be,” said Li, sounding as clinical and superior as she remembered.
She turned around, again expecting gun barrels and again surprised to find none. She met Major Li’s hard, cold eyes and knew it was over. He’d won.
Again.
“All right,” she said, simply. “I’ll go.”
He nodded at her, with more exasperation than triumph, and gestured for her to walk beside him. She crossed her arms on her chest and fell in step with the army man. Then, to her surprise, instead of escorting her out the stairwell to an idling police cruiser for handcuffing, he led her back up the stairs to the second level. They walked shoulder to shoulder down the main transverse corridor until they reached the CDC’s executive conference room. Through the glass sidelights flanking the double mahogany doors, she caught a glimpse of two men talking. The one facing her she knew instantly—Dr. Wong, the CDC director. The other man had his back to her, but there was something familiar about his stance.
Li stopped in front of the mahogany double doors and signaled the two escorting soldiers to open them. As she stepped into the room, the man talking to Dr. Wong turned to face her.
“Zhang?” she breathed, unsure whether she should be relieved or terrified. For the Snow Leopard Commander to come here, with Major Li no less, could only mean one thing:
They must think I’m working with bioweapon terrorists.
Zhang met her gaze, and for an instant, she thought she saw a hint of a smile before his expression darkened.
“I apologize for keeping you waiting,” Major Li said, shooting her a stern sideways glance. “It took me longer than I thought to chase down Dr. Chen.”
“No need to apologize,” said Director Wong. “It gave me a chance to talk with Commander Zhang. Now please, everyone, take a seat.”
Li glanced back over his shoulder and the two army guards immediately shut the conference room doors and posted themselves outside. Li headed for a seat on the left side of the conference table next to Zhang, so Dazhong went right and sat down beside Wong.
“Dr. Chen,” Major Li said, not wasting a second, “we have some important matters to discuss with you, matters concerning highly sensitive and compartmentalized information. But before we do, we have some questions for you.”
She nodded and glanced at each of them in turn.
“Dr. Chen,” Li continued, “tell us everything you know about biomedical microelectromechanical systems, a.k.a. Bio-MEMS technology.”
Her left eyelid twitched.
“I . . . I would not claim to be an expert in that field, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a rudimentary understanding of certain Bio-MEMS products and applications.”
She paused.
“Very well. By all means, enlighten us with your rudimentary knowledge,” Li said, crossing his arms on his chest.
“Well, most of my experience with Bio-MEMS has to do with diagnostic applications. Here at the CDC we’ve begun using proteomic microarrays for genome analysis. Despite their miniature architecture, microarrays have high throughput, making gene analysis and sequencing faster, easier, and cheaper. I’ve also used microarrays for PCR amplification, peptide and protein analysis, and oligonucleotide mapping of genetic mutations.”
“Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is a microarray?” Zhang asked.
“A microarray is essentially a laboratory on a microchip. Most people call them LOCs—labs on a chip. LOCs take advantage of microfluidic conditions to perform complex analyses while only using picoliters of sample material.”
“So you put one of these chips inside a person and it analyzes his blood for you?” Zhang asked.
“No, not presently. The chips are installed in instrumentation. But implantable LOCs, in my opinion, are where the future of diagnostic medicine is heading.”
“What else do you know about Bio-MEMS?” Li interjected.
She shifted her gaze from Zhang to Li.
He knows, she thought. He’s like an attorney using leading questions to drive me into a confession of guilt.
“That’s about it,” she said, resisting the urge to jam a knuckle into her twitching eye. “Like I said, my knowledge of Bio-MEMS only encompasses those devices that intersect with conducting epidemiological research, which is my field of expertise.”
“Curious,” Li sniffed. “I would have thought you’d be intimately versed with Bio-MEMS technology given who your husband is and the fact that his company is a successful Bio-MEMS start-up in China.”
The weight of their collective gaze made her shrink in her chair, and she suddenly felt nine years old again.
“You think Qing had something to do with this?” she said at last.
Li sat up in his chair and leaned forward, like a panther ready to pounce. “Something to do with what, Dr. Chen?”
“With what happened in Kizilsu. With the outbreak that claimed dozens of human lives that you called an industrial accident.”
Li glanced at Zhang.
“Who said anything about Kizilsu?” Zhang said, his tone almost too casual. “We were talking about Bio-MEMS.”
Her left eyelid was fluttering so bad she couldn’t stand it anymore; she bowed her head and jammed the pad of left thumb between her upper lid and eye socket. She could feel the tiny little muscle fluttering beneath her touch.
I could never be a professional poker player, she thought and began to chuckle.
“What’s so funny, Dr. Chen?” Director Wong asked, speaking up for the first time.
“It just occurred to me, sir, that we’re all sitting around this conference table pretending to have a meeting, but this is not a meeting.”
“If this is not a meeting, then what is it?”
“It’s a poker game,” she said releasing her thumb, setting the twitch free. “And we’re all terrible bluffers.”
Zhang laughed out loud, a big, genuine grin spreading across his face. The laugh was so infectious, she began to laugh, and then so did Director Wong. Even Major Li cracked a smile. When she finally stopped laughing, the twitch was gone.
“Because I am a terrible poker player, I am going to take a chance and lay down all my cards and see what happens,” she said, looking at them each in turn. “There’s been another attack.”
“What?” Li said. “Where?”
“Here in Beijing,” she said. “I know the woman who was targeted. She is—was—my friend.”
“When?” asked Zhang.
“This morning. She called me as she was dying. I went to her apartment, but there was nothing I could do. It was just like Kizilsu. After she died, I performed an autopsy and snuck tissue samples into the lab. I
was conducting an analysis with the microsphere nanoscope when Major Li showed up.”
“What were you thinking?” Director Wong shouted, jumping to his feet.
“There is something terrible going on, and somehow I seem to have landed in the middle of it. People are dying, Director Wong, and I needed to understand why. This was the only way.”
“You should have talked to me, Dazhong,” Wong growled. “There are strict protocols for the handling and transport of these sorts of pathogens. After your time in Liberia, you, more than anyone, should know this. We could have taken precautions. Major Li could have helped you.”
“Like he helped me in Kizilsu?” she fired back. “When he took unilateral control of the task force, confiscated all the data, cremated the victims’ bodies, and made me write my signature on a falsified report? No thank you,” she said, shaking her head. “You and Major Li are the reason I had to do what I did.”
Wong’s cheeks flashed crimson. “By bringing it here, you’ve jeopardized the lives of everyone in the CDC, including the four of us sitting around this table.”
“No,” she said, firmly. “The macrophage nanobots are not contagious. They don’t vector like viruses and bacteria do.”
“Wait,” Li interjected. “What are you talking about? What do you mean when you say ‘macrophage nanobots’?”
From the look in his eyes, she suddenly realized she knew more about the bioweapon than he did. “Have you not actually seen them?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know we’re dealing with nanotech?”
“It’s been my working hypothesis since Kizilsu. When we didn’t find antibodies in the victims’ blood, I was forced to rule out viral or bacterial infection. I had tissue samples taken from every victim and ordered detailed autopsies on ten cadavers: five men, five women. What we found was like nothing we’d ever seen before—all the connective tissue was simply gone. The victims’ organs were liquefied—as were their tendons, as you might imagine. I pushed my technicians to find the root cause. I sent tissue samples out for SEM evaluation, and all the reports came back the same. Nonbiological debris was found in every sample. That was the germination of my Bio-MEMS weapon hypothesis.”
She nodded. “Impressive detective work.”
“Not as impressive as yours, it seems,” Li said. “Tell me, Dr. Chen. What have you discovered? What do you think we’re dealing with?”
She talked for twenty minutes without interruption, explaining everything she’d observed in Jamie Lin’s tissue samples. Then she fielded their questions—answering those she could and formulating hypotheses for those she couldn’t. When the talking finished, she slumped in her chair, mentally and emotionally drained.
Zhang turned to Li and with an ironic smile said, “I suppose we can consider Dr. Chen officially ‘read in’ to this operation now.”
“Not quite,” Li said, rubbing his temples. “There’s still the matter of the other Dr. Chen to discuss.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, her eyes darting back and forth between her two inquisitors.
Li sighed and fixed his now bloodshot gaze on her. “I knew your husband in postgraduate school, many years ago. Even then, he was obsessed with nanotechnology. He was fascinated by the concept of von Neumann machines. He loved quoting Eric Drexler and talking about gray goo. He was especially enamored of Stanislaw Lem and loved to brag about how he bought an English-translation copy of The Invincible at a science fiction conference in San Diego. Four years ago, when I learned that a Bio-MEMS startup called Invincible Nanotech Industries—INI—had received one hundred million dollars in venture funding from ALP Capital, I knew instantly the founder was Qing. How much do you know about your husband’s work? Does he discuss INI’s research and development with you? Does he share bioengineering details or ask for your scientific opinion on technical problems?”
She suppressed the urge to chuckle. “What you need to understand about my husband, Major Li, is that he loves to grandstand. With Qing it’s always, ‘INI is going to revolutionize health care,’ or ‘Ten years from now, when I’m on the cover of Time magazine, they’ll call me the man who changed the field of medicine.’ Qing only talks to me about his grandiose plans, never about minutiae of INI projects and operations. He never asks for my counsel or opinion on anything of substance . . . not anymore, that is.”
Li fixed her with a stern gaze and said, “What I’m about to tell you is highly classified. Possessing this information puts your career and personal liberty at risk. Divulging this information to any unauthorized person is a treasonous offense punishable by death. Do you understand, Dr. Chen?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Li took a deep breath and exhaled from his nose. “ALP Capital, the venture firm that invested in Qing’s company, is not your typical venture capital firm. It is a state-funded defense technology incubator. ALP Capital seeks out promising nascent technologies in the private sector that could have military applications. If the technology passes all the necessary hurdles, the intellectual property is sold off to a state-owned defense contractor for late-stage testing and production. If the technology does not pass muster, then ALP will seek a buyer in the commercial market to recoup the initial capital investment, usually at a considerable profit. So far, this covert incubator model has proven to be extremely successful. When ALP Capital invested in INI, it put the company and Qing on the fast track.”
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
“Because I regularly serve as a technical consultant to the ALP board, evaluating technologies that might apply to the weaponization of, or defense against, nuclear, biological, and chemical agents.”
“Did ALP Capital ask you to consult on early stage funding for INI?”
“No. The board is very careful to spread the work around. Compartmentalization is very important to them. To use an American expression, they don’t like to ‘put all their eggs in one basket.’ They’re careful to prevent any one person from knowing too much. As such, I’m only invited to consult on three or four technologies a year. I know of others in Regiment 54423 who also consult for ALP, but we don’t discuss it. Sharing information between consultants is strictly forbidden.”
“I understand.”
“No, I’m not sure that you do,” he snapped. “A one-hundred-million-dollar investment by ALP Capital in INI can only be interpreted one way. Despite your husband’s grandiose claims, despite the marketing materials INI disseminates to the press, the company’s real charter is to develop Bio-MEMS technology for military applications.”
“Is that why you cut me out of the loop in Kizilsu? Because of my husband?”
Li nodded. “As soon as I suspected the outbreak might have been caused by the uncontrolled release of nanotechnology, I started making calls up the chain of command. Little did I realize I’d just kicked the hornet’s nest. Within four hours of my first call, the Central National Security Commission held an emergency meeting. The result of that meeting was to give me unilateral authority over the joint task force and charter me with finding out the truth about what really happened in Kizilsu.”
“All right, but what about Commander Zhang? Why did you kick him out of your inner circle too?”
“In hindsight, that was a mistake. I’m a subject-matter expert on terrible weapons, not on the terrible people who mean to use them. That’s Commander Zhang’s specialty. When I realized my error, I contacted him directly, apologized, and read him in.”
She turned to Zhang. “When did this happen?”
“The day before yesterday,” Zhang said.
“What did you say?”
“I accepted and then told Major Li that I thought we should read you in immediately. But he convinced me to wait until after we finished our investigation of INI.”
“I’m confused. You’re talking to me now, so does that mean your investigation of Qing is complete?”
“We haven’t found anything linking Qing to Kizils
u yet,” Zhang said, “but we’re still looking. I’ve had an undercover audit team at INI doing record reviews for the past two days.”
Her stomach felt heavy, almost nauseous. “The investigators showed up at INI the day before yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“The day we flew back from Kashi?”
“Precisely,” Zhang said. “Why? What’s on your mind?”
“It’s probably nothing, but Qing was acting very strange the night I got back from Kashi.”
“Strange in what way?” Zhang asked.
“Like a guilty child suddenly on his best behavior. I assumed he must have done something bad while I was gone.”
“Bad like what?”
“Like sleeping with another woman,” she said, managing to keep her tone unaffected. “It would not be the first time.”
The three men stared at her in awkward silence.
After a beat, Zhang said, “But now you think it might be related to the surprise audit?”
“Yes.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Qing seemed particularly interested in what happened in Kashgar. He asked me more questions about my time in Kizilsu than he did when I returned from months in Africa. We actually had a conversation during dinner; I can’t remember the last time that happened. Now that I think about it, Qing specifically mentioned knowing you, Major Li.”
“You told him about me?” Li asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
She shrugged. “Your behavior really upset me, so I vented.”
“What else did he say?” Li said, pressing.
“He was particularly keen to learn what the official cause of the outbreak was. He didn’t seem to care whether it was an Ebola outbreak or a chemical release—just that the cause was found and would be reported to media.”
“What do your instincts tell you, Dr. Chen?” Zhang asked, stepping in. “Do you think your husband is a man capable of murder?”
She thought of Jamie Lin, writhing on the bathroom floor as the macrophage nanobots liquefied her organs. Was Qing responsible for her death? Had he discovered Jamie Lin’s link to the CIA and murdered her because of it? Had her husband sent the three thugs to rough her up in the alley outside the club?
