IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO. OCTOBER 26.
10 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.
The senator was pacing behind the desk in the front office of the lab. He’d released his aides and staff for the recess, citing a need for personal time. Meirong sat still, turning her head only to watch him.
He was thinking hard.
“And she survived, the Mexican? Or we don’t know?”
Meirong nodded first, unsure whether talking would enrage him further. She chanced it. “Don’t know.”
Instead, he reset himself. “Okay. Where do we go from here?”
“I think the fibrillator is good, I . . .”
“No. What’s our exposure?”
“What?”
Canart raised his voice again. “Can they find this place?”
Meirong spoke confidently now. “No. Materials are sourced from all over. Some handcrafted. They won’t be able to find the origin of the tracker or the fibrillator.”
“Can they somehow reverse-trace the signal?”
Meirong let out a little laugh, which drew a glare from Canart. Her face became serious again. “No. Our software is better than that.”
Canart moved on. “Any luck on microsizing?”
“Just a matter of getting the battery smaller, but still strong enough.”
“And?”
“We have some ideas.”
“Fine. Keep me up-to-date. I have to get home for dinner.”
The senator checked his phone, muttered something in frustration, and put on his suit jacket.
“You’re leaving?”
“I have a family and a career, Meirong. What we did was a mistake. The result of too much time working together, that’s all.” He hustled out of the building.
The Lincoln peeled out of the lot. Meirong slammed the door to the office that was serving as her makeshift sleeping quarters and headed back into the lab.
It was a skeleton staff: herself and three other researchers. They all had engineering or software degrees, even PhDs, which made communication between her and the group challenging. Communicating had never been easy for Meirong growing up. She understood things—computers, machines, and numbers—but not people. They were too capricious and volatile.
“Smaller!” she yelled at the men. The goal was to make the device so small as to be nearly undetectable. Her accent exposed itself when she was angry. “Is that so complicated?”
The energy density of the lithium-limited battery was slowing them down. They had to find a way to pack enough punch into the fibrillator to cause a fatal arrhythmia while downsizing the whole package size and maintaining a steady power source for the GPS unit. How? As it stood, the prototype measured eleven millimeters long and had to be implanted with a large syringe. Ideally, the device would be small enough to be hidden in smaller needles, implanted with vaccines, without detection.
But the senator’s demand that the entire package measure 20 percent of its current size was outrageous. Impossible.
“What time is it?” She walked by a man inspecting something under a jewelry scope.
He pulled up his sleeve. Then tapped the face of his watch. “Dunno. Battery’s dead, I guess.”
Meirong took one more step and stopped. “How many hours have you been working?”
He continued working. “Eighteen a day, like the senator said.”
“All in this seat? Let me see your watch.”
The man huffed and then obliged, peeling it off his arm and handing it to her.
“Get up,” she said, and took his seat. “Your battery isn’t dead, idiot.”
Meirong searched a tool tray for a small file, then grabbed a ball-peen hammer. She laid the timepiece on its bezel and inserted the tip of the file between two layers of steel.
“Hey, that was a gift! It’s a TAG Heuer!”
Pnnnk! She hit the file hard with the hammer, and the watch broke apart. With nervous hands, she quickly sorted through the innards.
“Where are you? Where are you?” She was mumbling. The PhD was wringing his hands—overworked and now witnessing the gory demise of his fine possession.
“Here!” She held up a damaged string of tiny metal parts, and rushed over to another lab table, where her laptop rested.
“I’m stupid.” She pounded her fist against her forehead a few times.
“Wha . . .” The man wasn’t keeping up with her.
“It’s perpetual motion.” She was typing fast, researching the technology. “The power comes from the movement of your hand as you walk, clap, shake hands, whatever.”
“So?”
“It’s the solution to our battery problem.”
The PhD was on track now. “The torso doesn’t move enough. Our signal would be inconsistent at best. The hand, it swings like a pendulum . . .”
“I’m not talking about the torso generally moving. The chest—I’m talking about the heart beating and lungs expanding. It’s the most consistent power source in the body. I can’t believe I overlooked it . . .”
“Will it generate enough power?”
“Plenty for the GPS, considering its efficiency.” She cracked her knuckles and typed some more, flying through science-journal articles online.
In the meantime, the other two men left their stations and gathered behind Meirong, transfixed by her breakthrough. They were amazed at the speed with which she scrolled through complicated microcircuit schematics, all the while talking to herself, noting God-knows-what in her head.
“If we have the right capacitor,” she finally said. Then closed the laptop.
The little ducklings followed her to the front office but she shooed them out, wanting to talk to the senator alone.
“It’s me.” She took a deep breath. “I think we can get the packet down to size.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Ten days, max.”