George heard the door to the bedroom open quietly. A moment later it closed just as quietly. For a few minutes there was an uneasy silence as George, in his mind’s eye, could see her approaching the couch. At any moment, he was expecting to feel her touch and he reflexively tensed. But the touch never happened. The next thing he heard was the apartment door opening and then closing.

With a certain amount of pained disbelief, George sat up and looked over at the closed apartment door. She was gone. Leaping up, George flew to the window, glancing out just in time to see Pia climb into the VW. Unfortunately George was naked, so the idea of waving her down had little appeal. A second later his options evaporated, as Pia motored out of the parking lot and sped off into the early morning.

Letting the venetian blinds fall back into place, George turned and scanned the room. He was stranded. “Jesus Christ!” he murmured dejectedly. The day stretched out in front of him, completely empty.

9.

NANO, LLC, BOULDER, COLORADO

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013, 6:30 A.M.

As a hyperactive, extraordinarily competitive man, Zachary Berman needed little sleep. Sometimes after four hours, but usually after five or six, he woke up and was out of bed. For him there was no lying around, not ever. After some fruit, he was on the exercise bike, watching Bloomberg financial news. Then it was into the office at Nano usually well before anyone else, except for Mariel. She was the institution’s primary workaholic. Sitting at his desk on this particular morning, he wasn’t in the best of moods. Besides his mother’s condition, there were several other bothersome items on his mind.

After leaving his mother’s assisted-living facility, Berman had driven directly back to Nano to meet with his senior scientist, Allan Stevens, and had been briefed on the fate of the second cyclist, subject number 5. Berman had been furious that the team had allowed the first subject to overexert himself on his ride outside the facility in such a way as to cause his death, but Stevens had defended his people, saying that his instructions had been very specific and it was the cyclist who had chosen to ignore them. When they repeated the run and proved they had an issue with the program, and not the riders, Berman asked that a detailed report on the incidents be on his desk within twenty-four hours. He wanted to know how these deaths differed from, or was similar to, any of the others the program had experienced.

“What are your thoughts on what happened on a cellular level?” Berman had asked Stevens before they split up.

“We’re not certain,” Stevens had admitted. “Light microscopic evidence shows congestive blockage in the spleen and the lungs in both men.”

“And the cause?”

“We’re assuming it’s immunologic again.”

“Are we taking advantage of what we have learned recently with the microbivores?”

“We have a new crop being delivered today, so the answer is most definitely. The new subjects will be infused with the new agents.”