“That’s what a philosopher does. A scientist should be looking to push the boundaries of science, which is what we are doing at Nano, and what you have been helping with. Pia, you know what nanotechnology is going to mean to the world, you probably know it nearly as well as I. It is a revolution, a coming avalanche of techniques and products, and we need to be in the vanguard, leading the world, and not back in the pack with the Europeans and all the other myopic nations who can’t see the big picture.”

“And that’s where you come in, I imagine. Keeping the big picture in focus.”

“Yes, that’s what I do. I shoot for the moon, taking theory to reality.”

“So tell me more about the big picture, Zachary. Please fill me in.”

Berman paused and looked at Pia. She was as defiant and sarcastic as ever—really pissed, hissing like a cornered alley cat with no back-down in her whatsoever. He’d come this far with her, literally and metaphorically. He saw no reason to conceal anything from her at this point. This game was going to end either with her compliance or with something far more unpleasant, so he really had nothing to lose. Most important, she was at least talking.

“Big picture, it’s about money. Of course it is, isn’t everything? We can operate in the United States with relatively little supervision from the authorities, but any significant amount of funding always comes with strings attached. The government talks about compliance. We have to make sure we are in line with this regulation and that statute to keep every wild-ass constituency fat and happy. The red tape is unbelievable. And since the financial meltdown in ’08, private funding from within the U.S. is always complicated, if not impossible. You sit down with financiers and talk to them for weeks, and they get over their qualms and accept all your guarantees and promises and warranties, and then the money they come up with is chicken feed compared to what we need. You know, in the order of ten million or twenty million. And they think they’re big shots.

“But China is different. They know how to get things done, and the bigger, the better. They are looking into the future, not bogged down in the present, let alone the past. I may not know exactly what branch of the government I am dealing with, but their representatives sit down and they say, ‘We want this technology. What do you need to make it happen and share it with us?’ And I say, ‘Oh, about a half billion to really get it started.’ And they say, ‘Okay.’”

“Half a billion dollars?”