"So you coat the glass."
"Right. Have to."
Within this shining forest of branching glass, David and Rosie moved, making notes, adjusting valves, consulting handheld computers. I understood that I was looking at a massively parallel assembly line. Small fragments of molecules were introduced into the smallest pipes, and atoms were added to them. When that was finished, they moved into the next largest pipes, where more atoms were added. In this way, molecules moved progressively toward the center of the structure, until assembly was completed, and they were discharged into the central pipe. "Exactly right," Ricky said. "This is just the same as an automobile assembly line, except that it's on a molecular scale. Molecules start at the ends, and come down the line to the center. We stick on a protein sequence here, a methyl group there, just the way they stick doors and wheels on a car. At the end of the line, off rolls a new, custom-made molecular structure. Built to our specifications."
"And the different arms?"
"Make different molecules. That's why the arms look different." In several places, the octopus arm passed through a steel tunnel reinforced with heavy bolts, for vacuum ducting. In other places, a cube was covered with quilted silver insulation, and I saw liquid nitrogen tanks nearby; extremely low temperatures were generated in that section.
"Those're our cryogenic rooms," Ricky said. "We don't go very low, maybe -70 Centigrade, max. Come on, I'll show you." He led me through the complex, following glass walkways that threaded among the arms. In some places, a short staircase enabled us to step over the lowest arms.
Ricky chatted continuously about technical details: vacuum-jacketed hoses, metal phase separators, globe check valves. When we reached the insulated cube, he opened the heavy door to reveal a small room, with a second room adjacent. It looked like a pair of meat lockers. Small glass windows were set in each door. At the moment, everything was at room temperature. "You can have two different temps here," he said. "Run one from the other, if you want, but it's usually automated."
Ricky led me back outside, glancing at his watch as he did so. I said, "Are we late for an appointment?"
"What? No, no. Nothing like that." Nearby two cubes were actually solid metal rooms, with thick electrical cables running inside. I said, "Those your magnet rooms?"
"That's right," Ricky said. "We've got pulsed field magnets generating 33 Tesla in the core. That's something like a million times the magnetic field of the earth." With a grunt, he pushed open the steel door to the nearest magnet room. I saw a large doughnut-shaped object, about six feet in diameter, with a hole in the center about an inch wide. The doughnut was completely encased in tubing and plastic insulation. Heavy steel bolts running from top to bottom held the jacketing in place.
"Lot of cooling for this puppy, I can tell you. And a lot of power: fifteen kilovolts. Takes a full-minute load time for the capacitors. And of course we can only pulse it. If we turned it on continuously, it'd explode-ripped apart by the field it generates." He pointed to the base of the magnet, where there was a round push button at knee level. "That's the safety cutoff there," he said. "Just in case. Hit it with your knee if your hands are full."
I said, "So you use high magnetic fields to do part of your assemb-"
But Ricky had already turned and headed out the door, again glancing at his watch. I hurried after him.
"Ricky ..."
"I have more to show you," he said. "We're getting to the end."
"Ricky, this is all very impressive," I said, gesturing to the glowing arms. "But most of your assembly line is running at room temperature-no vacuum, no cryo, no mag field."
"Right. No special conditions."
"How is that possible?"
He shrugged. "The assemblers don't need it."
"The assemblers?" I said. "Are you telling me you've got molecular assemblers on this line?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Assemblers are doing your fabrication for you?"
"Of course. I thought you understood that."
"No, Ricky," I said, "I didn't understand that at all. And I don't like to be lied to."
He got a wounded look on his face. "I'm not lying."
But I was certain that he was.
One of the first things scientists learned about molecular manufacturing was how phenomenally difficult it was to carry out. In 1990, some IBM researchers pushed xenon atoms around on a nickel plate until they formed the letters "IBM" in the shape of the company logo. The entire logo was one ten-billionth of an inch long and could only be seen through an electron microscope. But it made a striking visual and it got a lot of publicity. IBM allowed people to think it was a proof of concept, the opening of a door to molecular manufacturing. But it was more of a stunt than anything else.
Because pushing individual atoms into a specific arrangement was slow, painstaking, and expensive work. It took the IBM researchers a whole day to move thirty-five atoms. Nobody believed you could create a whole new technology in this way. Instead, most people believed that nanoengineers would eventually find a way to build "assemblers"-miniature molecular machines that could turn out specific molecules the way a ball-bearing machine turned out ball bearings. The new technology would rely on molecular machines to make molecular products. It was a nice concept, but the practical problems were daunting. Because assemblers were vastly more complicated than the molecules they made, attempts to design and build them had been difficult from the outset. To my knowledge, no laboratory anywhere in the world had actually done it. But now Ricky was telling me, quite casually, that Xymos could build molecular assemblers that were now turning out molecules for the company. And I didn't believe him.