in the world. The third, much taller and broad-shouldered, had a very different set of skills. This man, the third of the Horatii, called himself Nones.
"Preliminary reports from Santa Fe indicate our Stage Two devices activated inside roughly twenty to thirty percent of those exposed," the first scientist commented. His gloved fingers fluttered over a keypad, pulling up a graph on the plasma screen display before them. "As you can see, that exceeds our initial projections. I think we can safely assume that our control-phage design modification is fundamentally sound."
"True," his colleague agreed. "It's also clear that the Stage Two biochemical loads were far better balanced than those used at Kasusa - achieving a significantly higher rate of tissue and bone dissolution."
"But can you increase the kill ratio?" the tall man named Nones asked harshly. "You know our employer's requirements. They are absolute. A weapon which devours fewer than a third of its intended victims will not meet them."
Behind their masks, the two scientists frowned in distaste at his inelegant choice of words. They preferred to think of themselves as surgeons engaged in an essential, though admittedly unpleasant, operation. Crude reminders that their work ultimately involved murder on a massive scale were neither necessary nor welcome.
"Well?" Nones demanded. His vivid green eyes glinted behind his
acrylic safety glasses. He knew how much these men disliked focusing on the deadly results of their scientific efforts. It amused him from time to time to rub their ivory tower noses in the muck and the mud of their mission.
"We expect our design for the Stage Three phages and their controls to produce much higher efficiencies," the senior molecular scientist assured him. "The Stage Two sensor arrays were limited in number and type. By adding additional sensors configured for different biochemical signatures, we can greatly expand the number of potential targets." The green-eyed man nodded his understanding. "We have also been able to boost the yield of each nanophage's internal power source," the second scientist reported. "We expect a matching increase in their effective life span and operational range."
"What about the field contamination problem?" Nones asked. "You've seen the safety precautions being taken outside the Teller Institute."
"The Americans are being overcautious," the first scientist said dismis-sively. "By now, most of the Stage Two nanophages should have deteriorated beyond usefulness."
"Their fears are not relevant," the green-eyed man told him coldly. "Our employer's demands are. You were asked to produce a reliable self-destruct mechanism for the Stage Three phages, were you not?"
The second scientist nodded hastily, hearing the implied threat in the bigger man's voice. "Yes, of course. And we've succeeded." He began clicking keys, flipping rapidly through different design sketches on the screen. "Finding the necessary space inside the shell was a difficult problem, but in the end, we were able to - "
"Spare me the technical details," the third member of the Horatii said drily. "But you may transmit them to our employer if you wish. I concern myself solely with practical matters. If the weapons you are creating for us kill quickly, efficiently, and reliably, I don't feel any need to know exactly how they work."
Chapter Eighteen
Chicago, Illinois
Bright arc lights turned night into imitation day along much of the western edge of the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus. They were set to illuminate the tan-and-gray stone facade of the newly built Interdivi-sional Research Building (IRB), a mammoth five-story structure containing 425,000 square feet of lab and research space. Construction trailers still blocked most of the sidewalks and green spaces along the south side of 57th Street and the east side of Drexel Boulevard. Lights were also on throughout the huge building, as electricians, carpenters, ironworkers, and others worked around-the-clock to finish the enormous project.
Scientists from the University of Chicago had played crucial roles in the major scientific and technological advances of the twentieth century - in everything from the development of carbon-14 dating to the advent of controlled nuclear power. Now the university was determined to maintain its competitive edge in the new sciences of the twenty-first century. The IRB was the cornerstone of that effort. When it was fully up and
running, biological and physical scientists would share the building's state-of-the-art facilities. The hope was that working side by side would help them transcend the narrow and increasingly artificial boundaries between the two traditional disciplines.
Nearly $1 billion in corporate and individual donations had been raised to pay for construction, purchase the necessary high-tech materials, and guarantee funding for the