Watermind (8 page)

Curious, she bent closer. When she took one of the vials in her hand, like magic, the frost reverted to liquid. Had she dreamed the frost? No. Two other vials still glimmered with a white coating. She rested her cheek on the countertop to view the tubes close up. Fanciful arabesques of ice painted the glass with fractal fans and pinwheels, reminding her of winter mornings in Vermont, waking up in her drafty boarding school dorm to find Jack Frost ornamenting her windowpanes. Her breath fogged the glass tubes and turned white.

“Come see this,” she called to Roman. But when she looked again, all the frost had melted.

“What?” he asked.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry, thought I saw something. My mistake.”

With a slight frown, he returned to his own experiment.

The lab had no external windows, no way to judge time, and CJ had forgotten her watch. Yet she could tell from the way her mouth watered for cheese pizza that the day was far advanced. Overhead, raindrops pelted the metal roof of Building No. 2.

She rubbed her itching nose and watched Roman scribble.
It was strange, she thought, how quickly lifelines could change course. Yesterday, she was shoveling toxic muck into barrels. Today, she was rubbing elbows with a sexy CEO in a state-of-the-art chemical lab. But she had no intention of helping him profit from her compound. Whatever this substance was, it emerged spontaneously. It didn't belong to anyone.

She picked up a test tube and shook it till it foamed. Something in this colloidal fluid could freeze-clean water. She marveled at a process no human mind had conceived. A miracle of nature—if you counted the public waste stream as part of nature. By rights, the compound's formula should be treated as open-source shareware, freely available for the common good. That's why she'd accepted this job—to make sure that happened.

Well, among other reasons. CJ's reasons were always a little mixed. Of course, she wanted Max to keep his job. Plus she needed access to Quimicron's lab. Maybe also, at some unacknowledged level, she wanted to spend a little more time with Roman Sacony.

But her main reason, her top number one objective, was to decipher the pond fluid. Simple curiosity—she wanted to know what it was. As she studied the foaming tube, she could almost hear the tiny bubbles hiss and chatter in a secret language. Once she deciphered the formula, she would publish her findings on the Web, and then Harry wouldn't be the only famous chemist in the family.

The problem was, she and Roman had already run the obvious tests, and the results bewildered them. The sample did not generate an EM field or flicker with light. It didn't form a ball that rolled around in her hand. Except for the frost, which she may have imagined, and the foam, which quickly melted, the liquid just sat there at room temperature, clouded and obscure, giving off a faint methane stink as it slowly mixed and stirred with random molecular motion.

Physically, it could be defined as an emulsified “colloid,” a fluid in which billions of microscopic particles
were dispersed in continuous phase, like star systems in space. Every cubic centimeter held a living zoo—phytoplanktons, diatoms, bacteria, nematodes, amoebas, mold, various types of microinvertebrates. The colloid's largest component by far was ordinary water. And not surprisingly, its second largest component was a clear organic gel called proplastid—a kind of botanical ur-matter found in most plant and algae cells. In other words, swamp ooze.

She remembered studying proplastid in graduate biology. It was an all-purpose gel that could morph into whatever internal “organelles” a plant cell needed to conduct photosynthesis, store sugar, even synthesize chemicals to grow and breed. This particular Devil's Swamp brand of proplastid came from algae. CJ spotted hundreds of free-floating algae organelles in her sample.

Of course, she found the usual laundry list of Devil's Swamp pollutants, too: mercury, lead, cadmium, dioxin, perchlorate, petroleum derivatives—plus an ample load of toluene from the recent spill. Then there were standard river-borne contaminants: detergents, pesticides, dry-cleaning fluids, textile dyes, synthetic sweeteners, birth control hormones, ibuprofen, used motor oil. And the multiplicity of dissolved and particulate solids almost defied count. Among the clays, metals, asphalt, concrete, loam, and glass, CJ found copper ore from the Rockies and metamorphosed rock leached from the Adirondacks.

But more interesting were the infinitesimal crystals that seemed to give the watery gel its shimmer. Each one was sealed in a film of proplastid—like watertight plastic shrink-wrap—and the chips were too fine and lightweight ever to settle out. Plus, there were so many different kinds. At first, she mistook them for extremely fine sand. But when one of the larger crystals passed through her analyzer, she detected a complex alloy.

Fortunately, Quimicron owned a scanning electron microscope, so she isolated a few of the crystal specks for
close study. The first one she examined under the SE scope held a layer cake of materials: a sheer metal base, two diaphanous tiers of silicon doped with phosphorous and boron, another metallic film, a coat of plastic, and as a grace note, a whisper-thin sheet of glass.

“It's a microchip,” said Roman.

CJ jerked in surprise. “I don't like people peeking over my shoulder.”

“Forgive me, but this is fascinating. Those particles on your screen, they're semiconductor chips. That one”—he tapped the layer-cake speck—“if I'm not mistaken, that's a photovoltaic cell.”

He moved closer to enlarge the screen image, and when their arms touched, CJ scooted over to give him room.

“Lots of devices use photovoltaic chips like that. Solar-powered radios. Road signs. Outdoor lighting. This probably washed into the river from a landfill.” He adjusted the microscope to capture more views of different crystals.

CJ found the variety of microchip designs astonishing. Sealed inside their clear proplastid beads, they were as different from each other as seashells.

“Microchips are used in everything,” he went on. “Cell phones, cars, coffeemakers. Landfills are full of them.” He pointed to another shape at the edge of the screen that curled like a snippet of transparent tape. “Let's have a look at that.”

She centered the glossy shred in the microscope. It, too, carried a shellac of proplastid, and along one edge lay a row of what looked like black piano keys.

Roman smiled. “Three guesses what those are.”

CJ wrinkled her nose. “Spider eggs?”

“Bar magnets.” He tapped the screen with his pen. “Small deposits of iron, magnetized to store information. I'm guessing that's a bit of magnetic strip off someone's credit card. What else is in your magic jar?”

The SE microscope found plenty more gel-encased
particles, and CJ's experience with Internet searches helped identify them. Before another hour had passed, they tagged an alphabet soup of minuscule computer elements: adders, buffers, comparators, decoders, flip-flops, inverters, level translators, monostable multivibrators, parity generators, programmable timers, relays, transceivers.

“Unbelievable.” CJ laughed. “We've hit the mother lode of smashed-up computer entrails.”

Roman kept count of their inventory. Along with the relatively massive light-emitting diodes and radio frequency identification tags, there were nanochips measuring billionths of a meter, tiny fractions of the width of spider silk. They also found splinters of a shattered Centrino microprocessor, a reset chip from an inkjet printer cartridge, and a quartz crystal from an old wristwatch, not to mention clusters of carbon nanotubes and a scrap of surgical fabric used to reinforce the human abdominal wall.

Their most exciting find, though, was a microarray—a chip dotted with living DNA designed for “biofab”—biological fabrication of living cells for use in organic computer circuits.

“This is too wild.” CJ shook her head and laughed.

“Actually, it's the opposite of wild.” Roman scrolled through the material safety data sheet they'd found online. “This array was manufactured in 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio.”

“Our colloid is severely miscellaneous,” she said.

“What we have here”—Roman tilted the half-empty sample jar—“is an encyclopedia of techno-litter.”

His laugh sounded natural for once. She liked the sound of it. She liked his resourcefulness in the lab. The way his black hair waved loose and long around his head, with its glints of silver at the temples, reminded her of Beethoven.

“I suppose we shouldn't be surprised,” he went on. “Most landfills leak when it rains, and everything eventually finds its way to the river.”

“Yeah, shit runs downhill.” She opened her mouth in a wide yawn and leaned back on the lab stool to stretch.

Roman glanced at his watch. “Look at the time. I owe you dinner.”

“Pizza,” she said without hesitation.

Earlier that day, Meir gave her a ride to the Roach, but she was too keyed up to rest. After a quick shower and change, she gobbled a PowerBar and hitchhiked back to the lab. Since then, she'd had nothing but Coca-Cola. Now she was running on very little sleep. The image of melted cheese on a warm yeasty crust made her rip off the latex gloves and reach for her cell phone. She'd set the Domino's number for speed dial.

“How about a large pepperoni with double cheese?” she said.

“We can do better than that.” Roman removed his own gloves and laid them on the counter. “I know an oyster bar with a view of the river. They're open late.”

He stood facing her, leaning back on one hip, not quite smiling. Did she imagine a seductive sparkle in his eye? Quickly she glanced away, but the afterimage of his dark Argentinean features lingered. His sexual pheromones had seeped osmotically through her blood and stirred a reaction. She felt tingly. The thought of a one-night fling with her boss made her long to be reckless, and the same impulse that drove her to quit MIT whispered to her now:
Do it.

But something held her back. Some scruple of loyalty or guilt. In a word, Max.

“I'm not dressed for a restaurant.”

“Dressed?” He laughed one short syllable. It sounded less natural than before. “This is Baton Rouge. You look fine.”

“We still have work to do,” she hedged.

A savage look warped his features as he browsed the instrument displays. Some of the tests were still running, and she sensed his impatience. She felt it, too. So many
unanswered questions. After all these hours, they were no closer to learning the colloid's secret.

Roman took a step toward the nephelometer, then came to a halt and stuck his hands in his pockets. “We've made a good start. The team will be here tomorrow.”

He meant the science team. Two experts were flying in from Miami. CJ felt ambivalent about meeting them. “I'm tired, Roman.”

It was the first time she'd called him by name. Did most people call him Mr. Sacony? She couldn't remember. Anyway, to hell with it. “I spent last night with your guards in the locker room.” After saying this, she giggled at how it sounded. Then she slid off the lab stool and swayed. “Whoa. I think I'm dehydrated.”

Roman filled a clean test beaker with water from the lab sink, and she drank it. He wiped the dribble from her chin with his handkerchief. “You're exhausted. I forgot about your night of incarceration. Come, I'll drive you home.”

She wavered, imagining his car, the contained smell of leather, the intimate privacy. In his car, she might be tempted beyond her scruples. But her Rover was still parked at the end of a dirt road somewhere near the levee. “I have—”

“One condition, right.” He arched an eyebrow. “We'll stop for pizza.”

 

Thursday, March 10

11:45
PM

 

Later that night, long after CJ had eaten her fill of oily Sicilian crust and gone to bed alone, Max continued to shuffle groggily on a creaking wooden platform, rasping his calloused fingers over his
frottior
. The waterfront bar smelled of urine and smoke, and a cloudburst drummed
on the roof. The raindrops kept better time than the
nomm
standing next to him, smacking the congas out of rhythm. Max was playing with a pickup band for fifty dollars, and he needed the money. His five-year-old daughter had to see the doctor again.

Marie kept having earaches. Sonia, his ex-wife, said it was nothing, but Max worried anyway. He agonized over Marie's baby teeth, like satiny seed pearls. He imagined they were growing crooked, or too far apart, or too crowded. He fretted about her lungs. Her chest seemed so thin and delicate.

Yet Marie was a lovely girl. Small for her age but full of sparkling mischief, as quick and lithe as a water sprite. He felt unprepared for such a beautiful daughter. Her fragility made him ache. She'd inherited Sonia's green eyes and brown hair, but she had her father's complexion. And she loved to dance the zydeco.

As Max shambled his heavy limbs in time with the music, Marie's laughter echoed through his head, winsome, merry, like water flowing over round stones. He wanted to write a song like that. Lately, he'd been working out a melody just for her. He pictured her kicking up her little feet to his tune in shiny white patent-leather shoes. He wanted to give her new clothes and a pretty silver necklace. He wanted to send her to a fine school. He wanted so much for Marie, so much more than he'd ever had. Sometimes the volume of what he wished for her crushed him like a wave.

He felt that wave now as his weary fingers scratched the rubboard. He hadn't had a full night's sleep for two days. Almost mechanically, he moved his feet to the rhythm and mouthed the lyrics. Cold spring fog drafted through an open window and soothed him. The rain beat time overhead. Only a little while longer. The bar closed at midnight. Then he could go home.