Pia had to smile at the timing. She knew George would immediately do everything he could to persuade Pia not to investigate the Chinese runner, but George was gone. There was no one who would try to dissuade her from getting to the bottom of this weird episode. Besides, she felt a moral and ethical obligation to know what kind of an organization she was involved with and hence supporting.

Pia passed through the elaborate security system, paying more attention than usual to the process, and headed up to her lab. She looked for evidence that Mariel Spallek had been in the room recently and found nothing. That morning, before she set off for her run, Pia had started to set up yet another batch of roundworm experiments, utilizing the new design with polyethylene glycol molecules incorporated into the microbivore shell. Everyone, including Berman, had been very keen for Pia to keep pressing forward with this work in hopes of preventing any immune response, especially before moving on to animal subjects and eventually human volunteers. Pia had filled out all the required requisition forms as dictated by the overzealous bean counters in accounting.

As was her custom whenever she returned to the lab, Pia checked the status of all her ongoing experiments, but she found herself unable to concentrate. Her mind kept reverting back to the Chinese runner. She figured that he had been brought to the Nano infirmary that Mariel had mentioned, which Pia had been hitherto totally unaware of. That thought begged the question of where such an infirmary might be located, and if she could find out. If she could, then perhaps she could go to the infirmary and talk to the medical staff, to at least satisfy her medical curiosity and quiet her mind, which was racing with all manner of outlandish scenarios.

But where to start?

Pia took the elevator down to the first floor and walked back to the main security area, through which she had entered the building just minutes before. She approached one of the guards who was marginally more personable than any of the other four or five usually manning the day shift. He was standing alone in front of a pane of floor-to-ceiling glass, watching as a UPS driver unloaded a number of parcels.

“Excuse me, Mr. Milloy,” she said, reading the man’s name tag, which was pinned to his uniform. “Could you direct me to the infirmary?”

“I’m sorry, miss,” said Milloy, “I’m not sure what you mean. What’s an infirmary?”

“An infirmary, a small hospital facility. I was told that Nano has one.”

“Not as far as I’m aware, miss. But let me ask. Excuse me a second.”