Chapter 9
Tim let Bill put him through decon, all the while wondering if this strange man was going to go ape and do something else with this little shower. Still, he said nothing about it, and Bill said nothing as well. After he'd finished, he deconstructed the little shower he'd set up and gestured for Tim to precede him into the main room.
It was a nice condo, a large open concept with floor-to-ceiling windows (all closed tightly).
"Nice place you have here," Tim said. "Do all the condos come with decon?"
Bill actually chuckled which made Tim feel a little better.
"Nope. Mine was made to order. Cost about three thousand dollars but I consider it worth the peace of mind it gives me."
"Peace of mind?"
Bill's eyes narrowed.
"Carew told me that you would be able to bring me up to speed on the smartdust," Tim said quickly. "I'm pretty new to all this."
"Oh. Well, when you know as much as I do about the potential and the breakthroughs, you might start feeling a bit paranoid, too."
"Okay. So tell me."
Bill plomped down on a chair and gestured.
"Have a seat. What do you want to know?"
Tim sat down and leaned forward, trying not to notice that there was not a speck of dust anywhere in this condo. "I know that the person who started it disappeared, that he probably took what he knew with him and has probably sold it to someone else or else has had it stolen from him, whether he's alive or dead. I know that the CIA got you working on it, with the extra boost of the progress that had been made already."
"And how much do you know about smartdust?" Bill asked. It was a definite challenge.
"I know enough to know that there's a lot I don't know."
"Good answer. I guess you have a name?"
Tim smiled. "Last I checked. Tim McGee."
"Okay. So, Tim, you're a pretty smart guy, I take it?"
"I've had my share of experience," Tim said neutrally.
Bill raised a skeptical eyebrow but then shrugged.
"Okay. Smartdust. When it works like it's supposed to, any speck of dust you see could be recording light, sound, pressure, anything. Obviously, you need a lot of dust to get a full spectrum of data, but it's easy to get dust. Dust is everywhere."
Except here, Tim thought to himself.
"Smartdust, of course, is harder. What I did was focus on miniaturization because that's the obstacle anyone who wants to make smartdust faces. How small can you really make a recording device?"
"I'm guessing that it's smaller than I think."
"How small do you think?" Bill challenged.
"I read something about a cell, but they couldn't really control it and to be useful, you need to control what you're doing with the dust."
Tim got the feeling he was being tested, even though he'd already claimed ignorance. Bill waved his hand at Tim's mention of cells.
"No, no. We're not talking about living things being injected into a body. No matter what the doctors say, that's not what's important. No. That's not smartdust. Smartdust is not alive. It's a device. A really, really, really small device. Manmade, but tiny. Nanotechnology. We're getting there. A little mote of dust floating in the air that is actually taking measurements. It's recording what you say, what you do, what you're expelling with every breath. It's a network of literally millions of other motes all networked together, reporting back to the home base."
"Why couldn't it be biomolecular?" Tim asked. "Design a cell that would do what you want it to do. It would be self-replicating if you could manage it."
Bill tsk-ed again.
"No. You have to anticipate what you want the thing to sense if you do that. You have to design the cell to be attracted to a particular invader or something like that. Let the doctors do that. We don't know what we'll be wanting to get. We want passive motes that will float around until activated by sound, light or whatever else." Bill suddenly jumped to his feet and began to gesture wildly. "Picture this. You know that there's going to be a meeting of say...the OPEC board...or whatever they have. You know where it's going to be. You want to know what these people are going to be saying, but you can't get anyone in there. If you're caught eavesdropping, that would be problematic. Instead, you get close to the building and you release millions of motes into the air, into the air conditioning. They get circulated throughout the building. You'll get some stuff that's not useful, but then...suddenly, you get a sound file, a recording saying that they're going to be trying to raise the price and decrease the product available. Which is what always happens. Maybe that's not a good example."
Tim smiled.
"Regardless, you need a lot of motes because they have a limited capacity for recording what they can pick up...but if it's dust motes, who cares? We can make millions, billions...and no one would know. They'd be wirelessly networked to each other and all you'd have to do is wait for the data dump."
"And right now? What's our capability?"
"Ours?"
Bill ran out of the room and was back in a second with a ruler in his hand. He sat down by Tim and gestured.
"This is a millimeter."
"Yes, I'm familiar with it," Tim said.
"Ten years ago, that was the best we could do...but we could do it. That's still not dust. Dust is smaller than a millimeter. We're talking about half a micrometer...at least."
"And?"
"And...last I knew, we haven't managed to do that yet." He started waving the ruler around. "We've got microelectromechanical systems that we use pretty regularly, but so far nanoelectromechnical systems aren't practical. We don't have the equipment, the tools, the technology, not for anything practical and useable."
Tim looked around the condo again.
"It's awfully clean in here," he said. "How long have you been in this place?"
"Since I stopped taking the CIA's money and let them know I was done."
"Do you leave?"
"Yes, but I always go through decon when I come back in."
"Bill...what do you know about what others have done?" Tim asked. "You said that we haven't managed it yet, but if you thought we were on top, you wouldn't be so worried. This isn't paranoia, not completely. ...unless it's the kind of paranoia that also allows for the reality of what you're worried about. What do you know?"
"I don't know anything, but I keep my eyes and ears open."
"And the dust is in the wind?" Tim asked.
"It could be. It must be if Carew's sending you to talk to me about it."
Tim shook his head. "No. This is more than Carew. Come on, Bill. There's not a speck of dust in this place. You're not out of it by any means, are you."
Tim got to his feet and looked toward one of the closed doors. He saw Bill start to shift anxiously and he knew he was right. He walked over to it.
"What will I see in here?" he asked. "What's behind this door?"
Bill said nothing. Tim turned away from the door and back to Bill.
"That was more than decon you put me through, wasn't it. This is a clean condo, isn't it."
"Not completely. I have good filtration in here, but not good enough for that. Not for the entire place."
"Just in this room. In there. What's your energy bill like every month?"
Bill suddenly smiled toothily. "I said that I stopped taking the CIA's money."
"But you didn't say that you'd stopped using their resources," Tim finished. "Carew said you got out."
"I did. I'm out."
Tim raised an eyebrow.
"As far as most of the world is concerned. I only pass on what I think is necessary. I can tinker to my heart's delight for the rest of my life."
"In there."
"In there."
"That's a clean room," Tim said. He didn't ask. "If I open the door..."
"It won't be a clean room anymore."
Tim walked away from the door and back to the couch. He sat down again.
"Okay, Bill. What do you know? What do you surmise? What's the next step coming down the pike? Or is the next step already here and we haven't seen it yet?"
Bill got up and walked into another room. He came back out with a laptop.
"Okay, Tim. Here it is."
He loaded up a program and Tim was suddenly looking at a schematic. He looked...and then, he looked again. He noticed the scale.
"No way."
Bill smiled.
"Where did you get this?"
"Here and there. I really can't tell you more than that because I don't know. It's kind of a listserv...only a little more exclusive than most."
"A little," Tim said. He leaned forward, taking in the complexity, the detail. "When?"
"Two days ago."
"So they didn't anticipate by much, did they."
"Who?"
"Never mind. This is a bottom-up design?"
"Yeah, seems to be. Whether or not it actually works is another matter, you know."
"I know. Replication from the nanoscale...that's crazy."
"Dangerous, too, if you believe the science fiction stuff."
Tim nodded. "I need this."
"Why?"
"Because I can't absorb it all in the time I have here. I need to be able to look through it in more detail and understand just what I'm getting into."
"If you're getting into this, Tim, you're not getting into a safe little cubicle. There's a risk to me in letting you take this with you."
Tim laughed hollowly. "I know the danger more than you could possibly imagine."
"Oh, really?" Bill sounded skeptical.
Tim leaned over and pulled off his shoes and socks. Then, he lifted up his feet.
"You can't see the marks as well as you could last year, but they're there. I have a plate in my face from where my orbital was cracked. I still can't run without feeling some pain. I have literally gone crazy from the kinds of things that I've done and been forced to do. I know how dangerous the game gets, and I'm not in it voluntarily...but I have things to do and I'm not going in with one hand tied behind my back because some little man hiding in a luxury condo doesn't want to risk losing his little toys. This seems to be more of a game to you, a dangerous game, but a game. It's not a game to me. This is my life on the line."
Bill looked at his foot and then, without asking for permission, he reached out and felt around Tim's eye. The scars were there on his face, too, although they had also faded with time. Then, he picked up his laptop and walked back into his room. Tim was left alone for a few minutes. He didn't get back up. He just put on his socks and shoes and waited.
Finally, Bill came back in with a pile of paper. Copies of schematics, data, and what looked like listserv discussions.
"Carew picked the right guy to come here."
Tim took the pile and stood up.
"Why?"
"Because I never would have given this stuff to anyone else. He's tried to get me to share before."
"Why say no?"
"Who wants to be dragged into that crap again?" Bill asked. "You're right. It's a game to me...because I could get out of it and I did. I can approach it as if it's just a game. I don't share results with people who matter; so I can't be affected...and I can take steps if they try to force me."
"Well, I've got to get back."
"Good luck. You want to see what's in the clean room?"
Tim smiled. "Maybe later. Work before play."
"Not for me. Not anymore."
Bill walked Tim to the door, set up his decon so that Tim wouldn't let in a lot of particles when he opened the door. He left, called for a taxi and rode back to the airport. When he got back on the plane, Carew was waiting expectantly.
"And?"
Tim held up the sheaf of paper. He could have sworn that Carew looked a bit surprised.
"Is that everything?"
"I doubt it," Tim said. "But it's enough."
"I knew I chose the right person."
"If you wanted me to get all this, why didn't you just tell me?"
"Because it's more natural if it falls out of what I told you to do, which is get information. You got information and now we can get on our way."
"Where are we headed to?" Tim asked.
"We'll be doing a bit of hopping around to start, but all indications point to your old stomping grounds."
"My old stomping grounds?" Tim echoed in confusion.
"The Arabian Peninsula."
"Oh. Great."
Carew grinned and walked to the cockpit. Tim looked at Ray who just shrugged.
"Anywhere in particular?" Tim asked.
"We'll probably start out in Sana'a...in Yemen."
"Why there?"
"That's where I was."
"Oh."
"You got what you needed?"
"I guess I got what Levi thought I needed."
Ray nodded and fell silent again. Carew came back and sat down.
"We'll be leaving as soon as we get clearance. We have a long trip. Feel free to nap."
Tim nodded, but instead of napping, he sat down and began looking through the material Bill had given. There was a lot to learn.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Cynthia stared at the boxes that had mysteriously arrived at her apartment. She knew what they were. She didn't even need to open them, but she did. As soon as she'd seen them, she had begun the process of converting her spare bedroom into a home base. She was unsurprised to see that she had been given instructions for networking the home base to her computer at NCIS. How considerate of Carew to make sure she could do both jobs at once.
By the time she had to head to work, everything was set up.
She heard the announcement on the radio...and was unsurprised.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"...what the current status of CIA Director Levi Carew is...we don't know. All officials are remaining remarkably quiet on that information. Acting Director Roy Morgan made a statement that he would be stepping in until Director Carew could resume his duties, but how severe the injuries are and whether or not the enigmatic director will even be able to return to his position, we don't know at this time."
"Matthias, that's some accident. Is there a chance that he could have walked away from it?"
"Well, Lindsay, the driver did, but it's clear enough from the damage that Carew himself did not walk away."
"All right. Well, you heard it here on ZNN. CIA Director Levi Carew was seriously injured in a car accident. Where he's being treated, the extent of his injuries and how long he will be out of commission are all unknown with the CIA refusing to give any information at all. That's the news for..."
Tony shook his head as he stared. They had all crowded around the TV and were speaking in low tones.
"We know that he wasn't in that car," Tony said.
"I must admit that I find it rather fascinating how the CIA has managed to manipulate without lying," Ducky said. "They have the car. They have an absent director and they make the obvious assumption."
"I hate that we have to say nothing," Ziva said. "We know that Tim is with him, that all this has been a lie."
"But, for Tim's sake, we can keep quiet," Abby said firmly. She spun away from the TV and fled to her lab.
"Boss?" Tony asked.
"Abby's right. That's all we can do."
"And we can keep in contact with Tim as much as we can," Ziva added.
"I wish we knew what he was doing right now," Jimmy said.
"I would guess that he is traveling," Ziva said. "It takes time to get these things started."
"And then, you wish you could stop them," Tony said softly. "And you never can."
