NanoCorp

-i-


Chad was an able athlete for as long as Erskine had known him from their school days, going back to junior high, high school, and college.

It was only in college that Erskine began to notice a slight change—in the occasional hand tremor.

And it was also in college that Chad discovered Spencer, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. He’d always had a ruthless streak, but without the moral satisfaction that came from sanctified vice. Now he could do bad and feel good about it. Almost enough to make one believe in providence.

They use to talk about it over a beer. Erskine was sympathetic to his philosophy, but as he ruefully pointed out on one occasion: “Unfortunately, there’s a law against that sort of thing.”

And it was around that same time that Erskine began to see less and less of Chad. It’s not that Erskine avoided him. Just the opposite. Chad constantly had a scheduling conflict. Something always came up at the very last minute. Something else he had to do. Somewhere else he had to be.

Gradually, phone calls went unanswered. A knock on the door brought no response.

Erskine no longer saw him on campus, or the local bar, or the gym.

And now, nearly ten years later, Erskine was having dinner with Chad.

By then, Chad was a celebrity of sorts.

A few years after Chad dropped out of college, Erskine began reading cryptic references to a biotech company by the name of NanoCorp.

Footnotes in obscure trade journals or Internet chatter about some bioengineering breakthrough or another. The name of NanoCorp kept popping up with increasing frequency in that context.

But it was difficult to pull up any hard information. Apparently, NanoCorp was a defense contractor. Or maybe it wasn’t. In any event, the R&D was classified—or might has well have been.

Erskine tried asking around. Colleagues. Old alumni.

Rumor had it that NanoCorp was founded by no other than Chad.

But as time went on, NanoCorp became a Fortune 500 company.

Chad began to appear on the covers of Barrons, Time, Newsweek, and GQ. Even the National Inquirer.

The WSJ ran columns on NanoCorp and its rather reclusive CEO.

Paparazzi managed to snap the occasional shot of Chad emerging from a classic Jag with a bodacious blond under one arm.

But, aside from the infrequent, Rose Garden photo-op, he kept low profile. Rarely left his secluded estate—except for a daily ride to NanoCorp and back—via his private chopper.

Where did he get the money to start the firm?—Erskine wondered to himself.

Chad was from a one-horse town in cow country, USA. Indeed, they grew up together.

Sure, he was voted “most likely to succeed” in the high school yearbook. But in a town with a net population somewhere under 300, not counting the cemetery, the competition was something less than fierce.

Erskine had as much raw talent as Chad. And Erskine was a much better student.

Chad was very bright—in his fleet, facile way. But he never applied himself. He much preferred to wing it. Preferred the challenge of scamming every obstacle through one part charm to two parts momentary inspiration.

Chad was poker to Erskine’s bridge. Star power over brainpower—as Erskine told himself.

Okay, that wasn’t quite fair. It’s just that Chad had perfected the fine art of using his brain to use his brain as little as possible. He had a knack for getting others to do his bidding.

As you can see, Erskine admired him as much as he resented him. They were intensely competitive—in very different ways. Erskine was a plodder. By the book.

Chad was a risk-taker. Made up the rules as he went along. And broke them whenever they got in the way.

Still, where did he get the money? And how did he rise so fast?

Charisma can only take you so far in bioengineering. You just can’t schmooze your way through proteochemometrics. At some point you have to crack the books.

Did he make a pact with the devil or something?

And now, nearly ten years later, Erskine was having dinner with Chad.

Did I say that already?

Yes, it was the same old Chad. Well, almost the same. A little tense, perhaps.

Erskine sat back and watched as every waitress fought for the chance to serve his old beer buddy. Refilling the ice water every five minutes. A wink and a nod. The boudoir eyes. The come hither look.

Just like the service that Chad always treated to at the greasy-spoon in their one-horse hometown.

Not that Erskine ever came in for the same TLC. Not when he was dining alone.

Only when he was with Chad.

Yes, same old Chad.

No wonder Erskine admired him, and resented him—all at the same time.

Only this was no greasy-spoon.

That much had changed.

No, it was only of those restaurants where you had a different knife, fork, spoon for every bite.

One of those restaurants where the valet spoke with a French accent even if he came from the Bronx.

One of those restaurants with an interior like something out of Versailles. Where every stick of furniture looked like a museum piece, and you couldn’t find a comfortable chair in the whole joint.

One of those restaurants where it felt like a faux pas to use the men’s room as a...men’s room.

Unlike Chad, Erskine stayed in college. Got a doctorate from Caltech. Landed a tenure track job at MIT.

For all the difference that made.

He was still invisible to the waitress.

Sitting with Chad brought it all back. All the way back to their teens. Back to the one-horse town.

Chad dominated the conversation—as usual. Erskine nodded on cue—as usual.

At this point in the conversation, resentment had the upper hand. It was one thing to admire him when you could imagine yourself in his shoes.

Back in high school, when everyone and everything flew into his outstretched palm like a bird-catcher with a handful of breadcrumbs.

When the future was ripe with the prospect of your own earthshaking success. With enough patience and due diligence, even a tortoise could overtake a hare.

But now, a dozen years later, to hit your target—only to find your marksmanship made no difference; to see a dozen years of drudgery and hard-earned achievement contract into nothingness, like turning back an odometer; to see yourself moving in place, like a gerbil on a wheel; to feel, or be made to feel, that you were right back in high school, playing safety to his quarterback—this was deeply and risibly infuriating.

Even in college it was still endurable, but not at this stage of the game. Not after all that shoe leather.

And now, nearly ten years later, Erskine was having dinner with Chad.

Did I say that already?

Why did Chad invite him to dinner, anyway? To rub his nose in the trailing dust cloud? Why this phone call out of the blue, after so many years of dead silence?

Lost in thought, Brad didn’t hear Chad ask him the first time.

“What did you say? Sorry, my mind was drifting.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” Chad said. “So what about coming to work for me?”

Work for Chad. What a conundrum.

On the one hand, nothing could be more demeaning at this point. To make it this far, only to come back to full circle. To end up as Chad’s water boy. All that toil to place a distant second?

On the other hand, it would also be a promotion of sorts. A short-cut to the finish-line.

How long would it take him to trudge up the ladder from assistant prof. to associate prof. to full prof. to chairman of the dept.?

In one stroke, by working for Chad, he could quintuple his salary and have access to the finest biotech lab in the country. Even the world. An instant fantasy come true.

Not to mention the fringe benefits. With an income like that, he could even buy a classic Jag of his own. Let the car do the talking whenever he went out on a date.

He might lack Chad’s lady-killer looks, but one thing he’d observed over the years was the way the right car, the right watch, the right suit, or the right address could turn a nerdy, geeky guy into Errol Flynn redux.

A smashing portfolio was every bit as good as a dashing profile where the fairer sex was concerned.

Or so he thought. Not that he’d heard the terms of the offer as of yet. Would the actual offer compete with his imagination?

-ii-

Sitting in his classic Jag, in the parking lot of NanoCorp, Erskine tried to reflect on his good fortune.

Gazing at the glossy of his supermodel girlfriend, as he was sitting at his desk, in his very own lab at NanoCorp, Erskine tried to reflect on his good fortune.

Positioning his shot on the ninth green of the country club, Erskine tried to reflect on his good fortune.

Once again, he hit the target, and once again, his marksmanship left him discontented.

No, not about the golf game—but the game of life.

He used to think his aim came up short. But, no, his aim was fine. It’s the target that came up short. Why wasn’t he a happy man?

Because his own success was always overshadowed by his boss. Sneaking admiration turning to bitter resentment, turning to self-loathing. Loathing and self-loathing in equal parts.

Erskine did brilliant work, but the work was classified. And, technically, it wasn’t even his work. The work-product belonged to the company.

He labored in glorious obscurity while Chad’s name and face was the public face of every outstanding breakthrough and astounding discovery.

The chance of a lifetime, and yet he might as well run his work through a shredder and erase his files for all the distinction it brought him.

Not that his efforts went entirely unnoticed. He distinguished himself within the claustrophobic community at NanoCorp. And some of the board members were appreciative. He even got to know a few of the board members on a first-name basis.

But such were hardly the makings of a Nobel Prize. He yearned for international recognition.

And there was another nagging irritant. After having worked there for four years, he knew almost as little about NanoCorp as when he drove in for the first day of work.

Oh, sure, he knew all about his own experiments in his own laboratory. But everything else was so covert and compartmentalized.

He understood, up to a point, the need for secrecy.

But it all seemed a little too clandestine. What was he working towards? His every result was whisked away to another lab. To what end?

How could he do his best work unless he was able to collaborate with the other laboratories at NanoCorp?

And was it really necessary for the complex to be patrolled by armed guards and attack dogs, along with the electrified fence—not to mention hidden cameras and retinal scanners, as well as vaults within vaults within vaults?

It made NORAD look like airport security.

Then there was that one time he came back after hours to check on something. As he exited the building, did he really see some men in hazmat suits wheel a body bag over to a van? Better not to ask.

-iii-

He had lunch with Chad every now and then—though only on the premises. And dinner at his estate every now and then.

Beyond shoptalk and Chad’s habit of extravagant name-dropping, they used to chatter about old times. Simpler times. Back to the one-horse town.

It’s not that Erskine was ever wistful for small town life. He was more than eager to leave and never look back.

But it was different with Chad. For one thing, he enjoyed having at least one person around he knew from youth. The shared memories. Coming of age. Football and horseback riding. Tinkering with his old motorcycle.

Just the look of recognition when he talked about a cheerleader or the homecoming queen. Or that canyon with a waterfall. Or the color of the wheat fields.

If Erskine’s target fell short, it seemed as if Chad’s target overshot his dreams. For all his fame and fortune, he’d rather be at the rodeo or have a second serving of the drive-in chili.

This gave Erskine yet another reason to secretly despise him. Here was a man who had it all, but couldn’t appreciate the finer things of life.

Erskine once asked him why, if that’s how he felt, he didn’t retire, with all his stocks and bonds, and go back home.

Chad was speechless for a few moments as a look of inexpressible sadness came over him. Then he muttered something about how it was too late to turn back.

-iv-

Whatever he was suffering from in college, Chad certainly seemed to make a full recovery.

That was until one dinner when, in mid-sentence, he underwent a seizure. Instead of taking him to the ER, he was spirited back to NanoCorp. Erskine accompanied him in the chopper.

Erskine had never been inside that part of the complex before. And now he knew why.

Chad hadn’t gotten better. No, he’d gotten worse.

NanoCorp existed to keep him alive and functioning. The cutting-edge technology was masking the inexorable progression of his degenerative condition.

They could slow it for a time. Halt it for a time. Even reverse it for a time. But he would relapse.

In some way he was more machine than man. A regular infusion of nanodroids took the place of his necrotic tissue.

Where did the man leave off and the machine take over?

Only his brain was untouched by the nanodroids. But by now the illness had spread to his brain.

The illness was very adaptable. For every breakthrough, there was a setback.

And it was there, in the lab, that Erskine first saw the test-subjects. Heavily sedated test-subjects, in arm and leg restraints, strapped to hospital beds, with wires and tubes feeding into them and leading out of them.

Finally, to his instinctive shock and horror, Erskine could see how his own work fit into the big picture. Nanodroids were injected into the test-subject. Then the effects were monitored.

The nanodroids were adaptive. They modified the biochemistry of the test-subject and vice versa. Blood was then extracted—blood containing the modified nanodroids.

After that, the test-subject, dead or alive, was discreetly disposed of.

Refrigerated glass cabinets were lined with blood samples, carefully labeled for blood type, test-subject, and so on.

The attending physician removed a sample to administer to Chad. After starting an I.V. drip, he briefly left the room.

At that moment, Erskine removed another blood sample and switched them. Erskine knew Chad’s blood type and he chose an incompatible blood type.

Chad flat lined. Efforts to resuscitate him proved futile. His body was discreetly disposed of.

A week later, the board elected Erskine to be the new chief of research.

Erskine viewed himself as an instrument of natural selection. For he, too, believed in survival of the fittest, and Chad was simply unfit. A superman philosophy wedded to a suboptimal body. In this case, natural selection needed a little assist, and as a dutiful servant of scientific progress, he was humbly prepared to give Mother Nature a gentle nudge.