09:15 British Summer Time, on the 14th September 2026

Synergy Nanotechnology Solutions headquarters,

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

It wasn't every day you arrive at a strange office out in a technology park... Well, if you could call it that. This was Milton Keynes after all.

The office was nondescript but well-appointed, based outside of the city itself. It was the place that Ray Camberwell, Synergy's CEO, had asked to meet me.

After being invited into the CEO's office, meeting and greeting the man, and then being escorted to a waiting Audi TT-RS (it seemed Ray liked his faster cars), we were on the road to another office.

"So, Ricardo-" he began, butchering the pronunciation of my name in typical British fashion. Not that I'm one to talk. My English was always much better than my Español.

I interrupted him almost immediately. "Just call me Rick. Everyone else does around here."

"Alright," Ray didn't miss a beat. "Rick it is then."

The CEO resembled pretty much any senior manager of any company in any city in England. He was immaculately dressed in a reasonably expensive suit, wore a Cartier watch and a pair of Ray Bans, and wore a Van Dyke beard which had far too much Just For Men soaked into it. His hair was balding significantly, and it seemed obvious that this man was conscious about his image a bit too much.

He also drove rather fast. It didn't bother me all that much, I liked to drive fast at times myself, but doing over a hundred miles an hour on the M5 heading west was a bit much.

"What's the thing that attracts you to our nanotechnology project in the first place?"

I shrugged, not really knowing what to tell the man. "I think it's the possibilities more than anything. With those machines in someone's blood stream, they could excise cancer and make sure arteries are clear."

Ray raised an eyebrow for a moment, but kept his attention focused on the road. "Yeah, definitely all positives," he said in a casual manner, before following up in a far more passionate speech. "But there's so much more to it.

"Just imagine. Nanomachines that take care of your physical health from the moment you are born. They could correct defects in your genome. They could, like you said, excise cancer, but they can also prevent them from developing in the first place. And what about conditions like spina bifida? They're incurable once you get to a certain stage of development, or rather they would be. Our plans are to have nanotechnology be able to adjust the cellular structure of every living cell in any given person's body so that eventually, all health ailments, even deformities, can be corrected. The possibilities are endless. A cure for ALS, MS, Parkinson's, and so many other conditions where only the symptoms can currently be treated. Age-related conditions can be halted completely. The possibilities are endless."

Clearly, the CEO was passionate about this project. "So far, the biggest problem that anyone has had has been making the machines small enough to be able to do anything useful at the cellular level, while also being able for more than simple tasks. That's been the biggest challenge."

"What," I queried as we continued haring it along the M5 toward the city of Bristol. "Making sure that the machines could properly work with cellular objects?"

Ray nodded. "Better than that. We've been working on it from an incremental level. The first machines we deployed were microscopic. Invisible to the naked eye, but barely able to do more than distribute themselves along a human hair and cut it into strands. We took an incremental approach. We used machines to build more machines. The first ones we built using very simple grippers and what was at the time, the world's smallest cutting laser. We refined the design as we went, incorporating a short-range wireless transmitter and opposable digits to properly manipulate components. We added technology that allowed cutting and splicing of DNA strands, and then we made our biggest breakthrough... Miniaturising all of this by using our bigger machines to build smaller ones at the nanometre scale. If you think 6nm silicon wafers were impressive, you'll be blown away by the use of carbon-graphene nanotubing to create picometre scale machines."

I simply nodded. All of this sounded rather fantastic, to say the least, and at that point in my life, I was somewhat incredulous about the whole thing. Still, I was determined to reserve judgment until I could get a good look at the facility.

"So how far along are you in this?" I asked.

The CEO smiled winningly. "You'll see when we get to our lab."

After a few hours on the road, the Audi pulled into the parking space that had RESERVED plastered all over it. This looked like a rather boring industrial park, a bit like the offices we had just left in Milton Keynes. There was a steel fabricator and distribution place across the way from Synergy's offices, and next door was a packaging firm. The warehouse, for that's what it looked like, looked rather bland, with nothing more than a side door, a closed shutter access way, and a relatively small sign with the company's logo on it. The parking spaces for this area were full, of course, and so it seemed that the place was busy at least.

Ray walked us through the side door, and we entered an area that was almost immaculate, save for a zone where vehicles parked to offload any goods they were carrying. Off near the rear of the building was a lift that seemed to have no purpose above ground, but this was where Ray took us.

As the doors opened, Ray invited me to step inside. Like the rest of this place, the lift was spotless, bright white, and sleek. Ray pushed the up button. He then turned to me as the lift began to ascend slowly.

"What you see beyond this point is confidential and considered trade secrets. There will be a reception area that we'll come to shortly, and we're going to stop there for some refreshments and to discuss what will happen next. Take your time to read over everything, but you'll need to sign before we can go any further."

I gave the man a nod just as the doors opened. There was a reception area that seemed like it was attached to a small pre-fab inside the warehouse. A visitor's book was present, which I quickly signed. Ray nodded to the receptionist, a woman who appeared to be in her early sixties, and she dragged a binder out from a nearby filing cabinet, presenting it to the CEO. He in turn passed it to me. "Take your time, and I'll be back with some refreshments. Tea or coffee?"

"Coffee, please," I told him, feeling the need for something strong to wake me up a bit.

Time to read this bloody contract.

It took about 30 minutes to get through the whole thing, but I felt like I had a handle on it. Just like any other contract, this one had all kinds of clauses stating the consequences of revealing the information he was to receive to anyone. This wouldn't be a problem for me; none of my very small circle of friends were interested in this technology, my family were mainly estranged, and I was sure I'd never tell Daniella anything about this. I did frown at a special conditions section, which would forbid me from contacting anyone in my former life if the experiment was life-changing.

I didn't like the sound of that.

I asked the CEO about it, but the man was cagey, merely stating that the chances of such a thing were unlikely.

A part of me told me that I would be better off avoiding this whole thing altogether. Any sensible man would, I told myself.

But it was not meant to be, and whatever possessed me to go ahead and sign that day, it was done, and there was now a written commitment, legally binding.

Ray stood, beaming, and took me back to the lift. Inserting a key, he then pushed it in, turned it slightly, and then pulled it out. The lift then descended, much more quickly than I was expecting for a return to the ground floor.

Only, we weren't going to the ground floor.

Eventually, when the door opened, it opened onto the interior of a fairly large complex, with clean rooms off of the main corridor they now faced, with offices in some places, and at the end, a large glass-windowed room with various instruments that I could barely make out from this distance.

They were definitely not in the warehouse zone that they both entered.

Ray smiled at my no-doubt pole-axed look. "We're almost 60 feet underground now," he told me. "This is where we do all of our work. Ready to get started?"

I slowly nodded, still trying to process the fact that the company was fielding a hidden underground facility. Out of instinct, I looked toward the left side of the elevator shaft that had led us down here, and was relieved to see a doorway leading to a stairwell, albeit the door appeared locked, and the stairwell appeared relatively dark.

We both stepped along the corridor, stepping past numerous personnel, all of whom were clearly busy with their own tasks, before arriving at a room off to the left of the large windowed room at the end. I never really had time to glimpse the room before being ushered into the side room, which I soon realised was an examination room.

"Rick, this is Doctor Rochelle Foster. She's going to conduct your exam and tell you what comes next," the CEO told me, before nodding to the female doctor and stepping back out. "See you soon."

"Sir," Doctor Foster nodded to the CEO as the door closed. "Rick?"

I looked toward her at her inquisitive tone. She was fairly non-descript, like any other general practitioner in England, middle-aged, with average features. She wore a lab coat and a hair net, but otherwise she fit the stereotype perfectly. I gave her a nod.

"You can call me Rochelle. Feeling nervous?"

Oddly enough, I didn't. I frowned, and told her as much. Rochelle gave what was probably meant to be a reassuring smile, revealing pearly-white and perfectly straight teeth that looked unnaturally well maintained. Did she pick up the habit of excessive orthodontistry from the USA? I'm not sure what possessed me to think of such a thing at this moment in time, except for the fact that the United States of America still remained the one single country on the entire planet where dental health wasn't just about the condition of your mouth and teeth, but also about the outward appearance and aesthetics, and to such a degree, that people would waste tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes in an effort to correct a few millimetres of misalignment in some not often visible teeth.

Then again, I guess that also applied to some folk getting excessive cosmetic procedures on other areas of their bodies as well.

Rochelle brought my attention back to the room soon enough. "Well, we're going to start with a routine examination before we get to the nanomachine infusion. We'll get your baseline health, and then run a series of exercise tests."

It was at this point I began to feel nervous, and I could feel the sweat blossom on my forehead. Rochelle seemed to notice.

"Don't worry," she told me. "We have a full medical staff here, and there's an ambulance station nearby if we had to get you to a hospital, but I doubt it'll be needed."

"Not too reassuring," I commented, swallowing.

Rochelle tipped her head to one side, still smiling. "Nothing we do here will put you in any danger, Rick."

I took a deep breath, and contented myself with a nod. "So what's first?"

I was immediately subjected to a series of blood tests. I could have sworn that by the time Rochelle had finished drawing blood from my arm, I had lost about a half a pint.

I damn well nearly passed out from it as well.

After that, I was escorted into the windowed zone, which turned out to be a gym, complete with an array of treadmills, a weights section, and an empty space for multipurpose use. I was then taken to a side room so I could change into training gear. It took them a while to find anything in my size, you know, given how fucking fat arsed I'd gotten in the last ten or so years, but eventually, they had me ready to undergo testing out on that treadmill.

Of course, given my poor health and advancing age, my very brief stint on the treadmill was embarrassing, to say the least. At a "casual" pace of 8km/h, I was already struggling for breath after 5 minutes, and my heart rate had shot up to 155bpm. The examiner was not impressed, to say the least.

"BP 160/100, HR 156bpm, Blood Oxygen level at 82%," she frowned as she tapped a control on her tablet computer. "Light headedness?"

Light headed? Yeah, I was feeling light headed. Jeez, man! I knew that I would have to sit down pretty bloody quick, and not risking too much speech, I nodded wearily. "Never thought... That walking... Would be... So... Tough!"

"Who was your doctor in Milton Keynes?" Rochelle asked sharply.

"Doctor Gareth Woodley," I told her, not knowing why the question was important.

"Well, he's got a lot to answer for. The very least he should have been pushing for was to get you on to a healthy eating plan and then onto a graduated exercise programme." Rochelle was angry, and I wasn't really sure why. "How often did you go in for check-ups?"

"Once a year," I answered, still struggling to regain breath. While my lifestyle and job kept me too busy for more regular appointments, I did have a private health supplement that gave me round-the-clock service, so an annual check-up was always on the cards for me.

"Well, even at that, the signs would have been there for some years before today. Did he even suggest to you to go on to a healthy eating plan? Did he sign you up for a remedial course of exercise?"

"No," I told her with a shrug, still labouring. "He did suggest... I look into... eating better."

"He suggested?!" Rochelle looked incensed. "He should have strongly encouraged you, and I don't get the impression he did anything of the sort."

I really couldn't answer that, even if I wanted to.

"That's enough for today," Rochelle added with more compassion than I expected given how annoyed she seemed to be with me. "Let's move on to the next round of medical tests."

I endured the next couple of hours as best I could. First, there was an all-body MRI, a CT scan of my head, and a variety of X-rays from my chest to my feet. After all that, they took me to the lift and escorted me to a lower level, where I was assigned quarters for me to have some private time, as well as an entertainment facility and access to a rather powerful gaming PC.

I really didn't expect that.

There was no internet access, however. "We need to ensure information security," Ray told me after we reached my new quarters. "Now, I'm heading back to Milton Keynes to continue running the company and getting everything into place for a big reveal. That, of course, depends on testing over the next few months."

I was speechless. Eventually, after my brain had stopped short-circuiting, I managed to sputter out "Months?!"

Ray smiled. "Yes, months. You signed the contract," he reminded me.

That fucking contract.

Yeah, I remember seeing a clause that covered this eventuality, and I just had to grin and bear it.

I just let out a sigh instead.

"And don't worry," Ray told me. "I've had my liaison team contact your IT company to let them know. They'll smooth things over for you, and if your employer proves difficult, we can always compensate you for the trouble. This is going to make us a lot of money and put us squarely on the map, after all!"

Shortly after that, Ray left me in the room, and I tried to relax for the rest of the day. Whatever else was going on in the office, I needed to chill. I'm sure tomorrow was going to be more of the same.