Micro

“Really, nothing. The company is underway, we’re making great progress, the technology is amazing. Nothing’s wrong.”

Peter said nothing. They walked in silence for a moment. Eric stuck his hands in his pockets. “Everything’s fine. Really.”

“Okay.”

“It is.”

“I believe you.” They came to the end of the street, turned, headed back toward the group clustered around the cars.

“So,” Eric said, “tell me: which one of those girls in your lab are you seeing?”

“Me? None.”

“Then who?”

“Nobody at the moment,” Peter said, his voice sinking. Eric had always had lots of girls, but Peter’s love life was erratic and unsatisfactory. There had been a girl in anthropology; she worked down the street at the Peabody Museum, but that ended when she started going out with a visiting professor from London.

“That Asian woman is cute,” Eric said.

“Jenny? Yes, very cute. She plays on the other team.”

“Ah, too bad.” Eric nodded “And the blonde?”

“Erika Moll,” Peter said. “From Munich. Not interested in an exclusive relationship.”

“Still-”

“Forget it, Eric.”

“But if you-”

“I already did.”

“Okay. Who’s the tall, dark-haired woman?”

“That’s Karen King,” Peter said. “Arachnologist. Studying spider web formation. But she worked on the textbook Living Systems. Kind of won’t let anybody forget it.”

“A little stuck-up?”

“Just a little.”

“She looks very buff,” Eric remarked, still staring at Karen King.

“She’s a fitness nut. Martial arts, gym.”

They were coming back to the group. Alyson waved to Eric. “You about ready, honey?”

Eric said he was. He embraced Peter, shook his hand.

“Where now, bro?” Peter said.

“Down the road. We have an appointment at MIT. Then we’ll do BU later in the afternoon, and start driving.” He punched Peter on the shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger. Come and see me.”

“I will,” Peter said.

“And bring your group with you. I promise you-all of you-you won’t be disappointed.”

Chapter 2

Biosciences Building 18 October, 3:00 p.m.

Returning to the lab, they experienced that familiar environment as suddenly mundane, old-fashioned. It felt crowded, too. The tensions in the lab had been simmering for a long time: Rick Hutter and Karen King had despised each other from the day they had arrived; Erika Moll had brought trouble to the group with her choice of lovers; and, like so many grad students everywhere, they were rivals. And they were tired of the work. It seemed they all felt that way, and there was a long silence as they each returned to their lab benches and resumed work in a desultory way. Peter took his milking beaker off the ice block, labeled it, and put it on his shelf of the refrigerator. He noticed something rattling around with the change in his pocket, and, idly, he took the object out. It was the little thing he’d found in his brother’s rented Ferrari. He flicked it across the bench surface. It spun.

Amar Singh, the plant biologist, was watching. “What’s that?”

“Oh. It broke off my brother’s car. Some part. I thought it would scratch the leather.”

“Could I see-?”

“Sure.” It was a little larger than his thumbnail. “Here,” Peter said, without looking at it closely.

Amar put it in the flat palm of his hand, and squinted at it. “This doesn’t look like a car part to me.”

“No?”

“No. I’d say it’s an airplane.”

Peter stared. It was so small he couldn’t really make out details, but now that he looked closely, it did indeed appear to be a tiny airplane. Like something from a model kit, the kind of kits he’d made as a boy. Maybe a fighter jet to glue onto an aircraft carrier. But if so, it was like no fighter jet he had ever seen. This one had a blunted nose, an open seat, no canopy, and a boxy rear with tiny stubby flanges: no real wings to speak of.

“Do you mind…”

Amar was already heading for the big magnifying glass by his workbench. He put the object under the glass, and turned it carefully. “This is quite fantastic,” he said.

Peter pushed his head in to look. Under magnification, the airplane-or whatever it was-appeared exquisitely beautiful, rich with detail. The cockpit had amazingly intricate controls, so minute it was hard to imagine how they had been carved. Amar was thinking the same thing.

“Perhaps laser lithography,” he said, “the same way they do computer chips.”

“But is it an airplane?”

“I doubt it. No method of propulsion. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just some kind of model.”

“A model?” Peter said.

“Perhaps you should ask your brother,” Amar said, drifting back to his workbench.

Peter reached Eric on his cell phone. He heard loud voices in the background. “Where are you?” Peter said.

“Memorial Drive. They love us at MIT. They understand what we’re talking about.”

Peter described the small object he had found.

“You really shouldn’t have that,” Eric said. “It’s proprietary.”

“But what is it?”

“Actually, it’s a test,” his brother said. “One of the first tests of our robotic technology. It’s a robot.”

“It looks like it has a cockpit, with a little chair and instruments, like someone would sit there…”