Micro - Michael Crichton [32]
It showed an egg.
The egg sat on a flat black surface. Behind the egg there was a folded yellow backdrop, like a curtain.
The egg moved. It was hatching. A small beak poked through the eggshell; a crack lengthened; the top of the egg broke off. A baby chicken struggled out, cheeping, and stood up, wobbly, and flapped its little stubby wings.
The camera began to pull back.
As the scene widened, the chick’s surroundings came into view. The yellow backdrop, it turned out, was actually the huge, clawed foot of a bird. The foot of a chicken. The baby chick now tottered by a monstrously large chicken foot. As the camera drew back farther, the entire adult chicken became visible—it seemed gigantic. As the camera pulled fully back, however, the chick and the pieces of eggshell became nothing but specks of dirt under the grown bird.
“Get out…” Rick began, then stopped. He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“This,” Drake said, “is Nanigen’s technology.”
“The transformation—” Amar began.
“Can be done to living organisms. Yes, we shrank that egg in a tensor field. The chicken fetus inside the egg wasn’t affected by the dimensional change. It hatched normally, as you can see. This proves that even highly complex biological systems can be compressed in a tensor field and still carry on the normal functions of life.”
“What are those other things in the picture?” Karen asked.
In the video, the floor under the giant chicken appeared to be splattered with tiny dots. Some of the dots were moving, some not.
“Those are the other chicks. We dimensionally shifted the whole brood,” Drake said. “Unfortunately they’re so small the mother has stepped on some of her babies without knowing it.”
There was a brief silence. Amar was the first to speak. “You’ve done this to other organisms?”
“Of course,” Drake answered.
“That means…people?” Amar said.
“Yes.”
“Those little robot diggers we saw in the arboretum,” Amar went on. “You’re telling us you don’t actually program intelligence into them.”
“We don’t need to.”
“Because you have human beings run them.”
“Yes.”
“Human beings who have undergone a dimensional change.”
“Holy shit,” Danny Minot burst out. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No,” Drake said.
Somebody burst out laughing. It was Rick Hutter. “Scam,” Rick muttered. “Guy’s selling worthless stock to fools.”
Karen King didn’t believe it, either. She said, “This is bullshit hype. No way. You can do anything with video.”
“It’s existing technology,” Drake said calmly.
Amar Singh said, “So you’re saying you can cause a dimensional change in a human being as great as ten to the minus three.”
“Yes.”
“Which means that someone six feet tall would be, uh, seventy-two inches…seven-hundredths of an inch tall.”
“That’s correct,” Drake said. “Slightly less than two-tenths of a millimeter.”
“Jesus,” Rick Hutter said.
“And at ten to the minus two,” Drake said, “the person is approximately half an inch tall. Twelve millimeters.”
“I would actually like to see this for real,” Danny Minot said.
“Of course,” Drake said. “And you will.”
Chapter 9
Nanigen Headquarters
28 October, 7:30 p.m.
While Drake was talking with the students, Peter Jansen had taken Alyson Bender aside. “Some of us brought samples and compounds to show Mr. Drake.”
“That’s good,” Alyson said to him.
“I’ve got a CD with some of my, uh, research on it,” Peter said. She nodded in response. “It’s a recording. It involves my brother,” Peter added. He hoped to start winding her up, making her nervous. She nodded again and left the conference room; did he see a flicker of alarm in her eyes?
After she’d left, while Drake was still talking, Peter slipped behind the service door and went to the audio panel. He needed some equipment; something to magnify his voice; he did not want Drake or anyone to be able to shut him up or shout him down. Behind the service door there were some drawers; he began opening them, and he found what he wanted. It was a lavalier, a wireless microphone device that would transmit his voice to a loudspeaker. The