Glass Sky (5 page)

EXCEPT FOR THE dust-free air and the skiff of snow on the ground Jie could have been anywhere in China. Urumchi shared the manic blandness common to all large Chinese cities: gleaming highrises, flashing billboards, the same chain stores selling the same goods to people in the same clothes. The mirrored windows at street level revealed nothing of the gray stone building above, but printed on the double doors in a neat Chinese font were the words ‹Molari Industries. Authorized visitors only.› The words were repeated in English.

Jie sipped his tea and suppressed a yawn. He'd been up most of the night, studying in his bunk as 2000 kilometers of countryside flashed by. Then, just when he’d been ready to doze, the baby in the next cabin had started crying, an undulating wail that her parents had been powerless to silence. Jie had imagined gamescapes where he lobbed the infant to a dragon, but he’d suffered similar moments with Cheng. So he’d brought the parents green tea from the dining car.

He drained his cup. Feeling optimistic after what he’d learned, he navigated the doorway weapons scan and identity verification, and strode into a gleaming marble lobby. An animatronic head and shoulders mounted on a pedestal between the elevator banks directed him to the fifteenth floor in a sultry female voice. When he exited the elevator, a wall-display pointed him down the hall towards a doorway marked “Conference Room.” An automated snack cart hummed in behind him.

The frosted glass doors stood ajar. Staccato sounds of a heated discussion brought back uncomfortable memories of investor meetings. So many names and faces to remember.
How is it that I can master a nanolab, yet not remember people’s names?
He forced himself to knock before his confidence drained, waited a polite moment, then stepped inside. The snack cart followed, clacking across the tiles.

The gleaming wooden table could have seated 20, but to Jie’s great relief he saw only two people: the black man who’d called him last night, and a weathered Indian man in jeans and a rumpled T-shirt. Two walls of floor-to-ceiling glass overlooked a steep, wooded hill encircled by shining modern highrises. Masks and works of tribal art decorated the third wall, superimposed over a sepia mural of a palmtreed island.

The black man stopped in midsentence and rose to greet Jie, his suit jacket hanging open to free his ample torso. “Tetabo Molari,” he said in a deep voice. He loomed over Jie, crushing Jie’s hand in a meaty grip. “This is Nishad Singh, Chief Scientist for the L1 sunlight control project.”

Singh raised an arm in acknowledgement, but stayed in his leather chair. His face was wrinkled like a dried apple; his unsmiling expression fell between skepticism and hostility. “Sit, please.” Sharp, penetrating eyes watched as Jie tried to figure out which of the available seats would be least socially awkward.

Molari waved the snack cart over and took two biscuits. “I assume you’ve seen the disk array news?”

Jie nodded. “The UN is considering launching thousands of disks into space to control sunlight. I think your company may be looking for a material.” Jie allowed a hint of pride into his voice. “You are interested in Nanoglass.”

“We already have a material,” bristled Singh. “Spidex. It took ten years of research. Tetabo didn’t just waltz into the UN last week and propose this out of the blue.”

Molari leaned back, chair squealing in protest. “However, we are looking for alternatives to Spidex,” he said, dispatching a biscuit. “We planned a five-year construction time, but it seems the environmental crisis is on a more aggressive schedule. So we’re re-examining all sorts of options we discarded as too risky. Some of my researchers read your paper in the Journal of Optical Nanomaterials.”

Singh unrolled his scroll and pulled out a stylus. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Hopefully this is more productive than this morning’s interviews. Tell us about,” he glanced down at the scroll, “Nanoglass.”

Jie looked around for a presentation screen, but the masks left no space for displays. Singh was already drumming a finger on the table.
Improvise.

“It was a bit of an accident,” said Jie, speaking carefully to allow the English he’d mastered in university to filter back. “My company make optical switches. Thin materials that can direct light are useful in microchips and displays. The base building block is a Nanoglass tile. It is like glass, but much thinner, only 5 atoms thick and 3000 atoms wide.”

Jie smiled, warming to the memory. Happier times, crafting proof-of-concepts inside the nanolab. Sewing atoms into combinations nature had not yet imagined. It felt like a childhood memory now, an idyllic world before venture capital funds had entered the picture. “I thought that if we put P1 connectors in a Patterson configuration along…”

Molari’s blank stare stopped him.
Great. I’ve lost him already.

“How much do you know about nanotech?” asked Jie.

“Nothing,” said Molari.

“Lots,” said Singh.

“Fine,” said Jie. “Simple version is this. To attach nanoscale components together, industry has created standardized connectors. Positive connectors hook to negative ones, like chemical Velcro. I got beautiful idea. If we put positive connectors on one side of the tiles, and negative connectors on the other side, the tiles might self-assemble into flat sheets. Self-assembly is very important if you want to build big objects from very small pieces.” He waved his hands in an attempt to illustrate. “This would be easier if I could show picture.”

“Dim.” Molari waved a hand and the windows slowly faded, becoming opaque.
Of course.

Jie pulled out his omni. ‹Image Search. Nanoglass tile assembly.› He flicked the picture to the point on the wall where the window had been.

“This shows how Nanoglass tiles fit together,” he said. “Not as easy as it looks. Tiles like to, what’s the English word… corrugate… making folds and loops. I had to redesign the edges to give more rigidity.”

“And have you sold a lot of this?” asked Molari.

“No,” Jie admitted. “So far nobody is interested in buying Nanoglass except a few universities.”

“You research types are all the same,” Molari laughed, shaking his head in wonder. “Technology in search of purpose. But you, Jie, may have gotten lucky.”

Singh scribbled on his scroll, then leaned forward, eyes drilling into Jie. “How do you make the sheets?” he asked. “Your journal article said you created a continuous strip of Nanoglass a meter across. I can’t imagine you did that with molecular tweezers.”

Jie laughed out loud. “Molecular tweezers. Very funny! No, we modified a 3D printer to spray tiles in overlapping pattern. The magnetic edges cause self-assembly. Here, I will show how.” He flicked another image onto the screen.

“Image this times a billion,” he said.

Singh stood up and started pacing along the wall. “This has potential,” he admitted. “Normally when I think glass, I think fragile which is why our material was based on spider silk. But with this, we could ship the raw tiles and only assemble the completed sheets in space. Do you think your sprayers could work in a vacuum?”

“My sprayers
require
a vacuum,” said Jie. “Air currents are like hurricanes at nanoscale.”

“Hmmm.” Singh nodded. “What’s the largest piece of Nanoglass you’ve produced?”

Jie would rather have avoided that question.
They’ll find out. No sense trying to disguise it.
“We only did one big piece,” Jie admitted. “For the article. A square meter. The Nanoglass tiles are difficult to make in volume. You wouldn’t believe the manufacturing problems.”

Singh and Molari looked at each other for a moment. A frown formed in Singh’s wrinkles. He sank back into his chair.

Bái chī, Jie! The biggest deal in my life. Don’t tell them about manufacturing problems!
“That’s to say… It’s not like the problems…” Jie stammered.

“We need to cover ten million square kilometers,” Singh interrupted. “Can you scale to that volume?”

“Ten mill… You said ten
million
square kilometers?” A gaping pit opened below Jie. In the game world, there would be poisonous spikes on the bottom. “I should be able… Yes… I could do it.” He tried to sound convincing. Nanotechnology always had issues moving to mass production. The business types never seemed to understand that.

“A minute ago you said manufacturing was difficult,” Molari pointed out.

“Yes, but… Nanoglass is a new material,” said Jie. “We only made small quantities, which is expensive. Bulk manufacturing is mature process. Ten years old. Cheap once we get it started. I can create any amount of Nanoglass you need…”

“If?”

“… if you give us a few months to work out the steps.”

Singh seemed unconvinced. “And your raw materials are just silicon and iron? No trace elements?”

“Yes. It’s glass with wires in it,” said Jie. “The molecular structure is complex. Like an organic molecule. But ingredients are simple.”

Singh exhaled, groaning audibly. “Our whole design is built around Spidex, Tetabo. We know the risks.” He turned to Jie. “I’m not doubting your engineering skills, Jie. But it took us four
years
to scale Spidex in bulk production.”

“Yes, but… I could…”
Could what?
Jie couldn’t think of how to continue. More than one company had bankrupted itself trying to scale a promising nanomaterial. His voice trailed off.
So this is it.
Shut down the company. Lose the apartment. Go work for a cosmetics company.

At least he’d have more time with Cheng.

He waited, expecting to be dismissed. Molari turned to study the masks on the wall, eyes distant, as if he were communing with the twisted wooden faces. Singh put a finger on his lips. A full minute passed, and then Molari swiveled to face Jie.

“Do you know what’s at stake here, Jie?” he asked solemnly. “You have a son, right?”

“Cheng,” said Jie.

“If we don’t come up with a faster alternative to the disk array, Cheng will grow up in a much-diminished world. We are gambling with Cheng’s future. Right now. In this room. So, do you believe Nanoglass could potentially work?”

Yes! Yes!
But Molari’s expression squashed any trite reassurances. “I… I agree with Mr. Singh that it is very risky,” said Jie. “I cannot promise.”
This is why I went into Nanotechnology. To create
! Images spun and grew in his head. Soap bubble sheets of Nanoglass. Hundreds, thousands, millions of square kilometers. A glass sky. ‹The most beautiful approach is the right one,› an engineering professor had once told him.
This has to be right.

“I think I could make it work,” said Jie. “I really do.”

Molari nodded. “I don’t feel we have much choice here,” he said to Singh. “Tania Black estimates we’ve got only two years before we need sulfur again. It’s Nanoglass, or nothing.”

Singh shrugged. “I won’t argue with you. I wasn’t at the UN Climate Summit. I didn’t talk to her. If you think it’s a good idea, then we should send Jie to the loonies and see what they think.”

Jie was still trying to figure out what “loonies” meant when Molari closed his fist and bumped knuckles with him, North-American style. “Congratulations Jie. My business manager will arrange financing. I need you at the Xinjiang Space Center right away, working with the design team. The disk array plan has a lot of momentum. We have very little time to come up with our plan B.”