Free What You Make It by Michael Marshall Smith

that's how I ended up applying for, and getting, a place on Jacksonville's nanotech program. When Philip got back to the table I wondered aloud whether I should come up to college, and his reaction was big enough to seal the decision there and then. It was him who suggested I go nanotech, and him who explained their plan.
    For years people had been trying to crack the nanotech nut. Building tiny biological ‘machines’, some of them little bigger than large molecules, designed to be introduced into the human body to perform some function or other: promotingthe secretion of certain hormones; eroding calcium build-ups in arteries; destroying cells which looked like they were going cancerous. In the way that these things have, it had taken a long time before the first proper results started coming through – but in the last three years it had really been gathering pace. When Philip had met Rebecca, a couple of weeks into the first semester, they'd talked about their two subjects, and Philip had immediately realized that sooner or later there would be a second wave, and that they could be the first to ride it.
    Lots of independent little machines was one thing. How about lots of little machines which worked together? All designed for particular functions, but co-ordinated by a neural relationship with each other, possessed of a power and intelligence that was greater than the sum of its parts. Imagine what
that
could do.
    When I heard the idea I whistled. I tried to, anyway. My lips had gone all rubbery from too much beer and instead the sound came out as a sort of parping noise. But they understood what I meant.
    ‘And no one else is working on this?’
    ‘Oh, probably,’ Philip smirked, and I had to smile. We'd always both nurtured plans for world domination. ‘But with the three of us together, no one else stands a chance.’
    And so it was decided, and ratified, and discussed, over just about all the beer the bar had left. At the end of the evening we crawled back to Philip and Rebecca's room on our hands and knees, and I passed out on the sofa. The next day, trembling under the weight of a hangover which passed all understanding, I found a place to stay in town and went to talk to someone in the faculty of Medical Science. By the end of the week it was confirmed.
    On the day I was officially enrolled in the next year's intake the three of us went out to dinner. We went to a nice restaurant, and we ate and drank, and then at the end of the meal we placed our hands on top of each other's in the centre of the table. Philip's went down first, then Rebecca's, and then mine on top. With our other hands we raised our glasses.
    ‘To us,’ I said. It wasn't very original, I know, but it's what I meant. It felt like there should have been a photographer present to immortalize the moment. We drank, and then the three of us clasped each other's hands until our knuckles were white.
    Ten years later Rebecca was dead.
    The Coast Road was deserted, as I had expected. The one thing nobody is doing these days is heading off down to the beach to hang out and play volleyball. I passed a few vehicles abandoned on the verge, but took care not to drive too close. Often people will hide inside or behind and then leap out at anyone who passes, regardless of whether that person is in a moving vehicle or not.
    I kept my eyes on the sea for the most part, concentrating on what was the same, rather than what was different. The ocean looked exactly as it always had, though I suppose usually there would have been ships to see, out on the horizon. There probably still are a few, floating aimlessly wherever the tide takes them, their decks echoing and empty. But I didn't see any.
    When I reached Sarasota I slowed still further, driving out onto Lido Key until I pulled to a halt in the centre of St Armand's Circle. It's not an especially big place, but it has a certain class. Though the stores around the circle were more than full enough of the usual