Chapter 2

“You wished to see me?” Doctor Jameson asks as he steps into the lab.

Malcolm looks up from the computer and smiles. “Yes I did, Dr. Jameson.”

“Please, Malcolm,” the other man says, pulling out a chair from the opposite side of the desk. “Call me Rick.” He adds a smile as he sits down. “Just because I’m your boss and head of Star Genetics doesn’t mean we aren’t colleagues.”

“Alright,” Malcolm says. “I wanted to...”

“Let me hear you say it,” Rick interrupts.

“I’m sorry?” Malcolm asks, puzzled.

“My name,” the other says.

“Alright, Rick,” Malcolm says in a placating tone. “I...”

“Now was that so hard?” Rick asks, interrupting again.

“No...” Malcolm answers, not sure what the other doctor’s game is.

Rick busts out laughing. “I’m just fucking with you Malcolm. You’re too serious.”

Malcolm sighs audibly. “I kind of have to be.”

“How so?” Rick asks, sitting forward, intently waiting.

“It’s my girlfriend, Mio,” the man begins. “She’s getting tired of me working so damn much. Hell, I’m tired of working so much.”

“Then don’t,” Rick says. “Hell, take some time off if you need to.”

“Really?” Malcolm asks, his face lighting up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rick answers with a smile and wave of his hand as he sits back into the chair. “Take all the time in the world that you need.”

“How soon can I take off?” Malcolm asks, sounding as hopeful as he did earlier this morning.

“As soon as you’d like to,” Rick says casually. “However, if you can’t dedicate the time then I’m going to have to pass the program to Dr. Winters.”

“Dr. Winters?” Malcolm exclaims. “Are you serious?”

“Very,” Rick says, relaxing more into the chair. “You’re my best, but I also need this program finished and successful.”

“We’ve got time,” Malcolm counters, sliding the chair back and standing up. “You can’t take me off this. I need this.” He runs his hand through his hair. “C’mon Dr. Jame ... Rick. We’ve got the market cornered here. Nobody is close to our work. I mean the closest has to be at least four years off.”

“Try six months,” Rick calmly says. “Six months.”

“I can’t take off,” Malcolm shakes his head. “And yet I can’t keep up this work load.”

“Look, Malcolm,” Rick says, standing up himself. The sound of the chair sliding back echoes through the lab and catches Malcolm’s attention. “I like you. I like the work you do. And I understand your personal relationships at home are important, but I am also here to make money. If some other company beats us to this then yes, we’ll still make money when we finish, but it won’t be as much. You will not be able to move upward either.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do, Rick?” Malcolm asks, borderline angry. “I’m never home to fuck my girlfriend. She has an incredible sex drive and she sure as hell isn’t getting it from me.”

“Then get it solved,” Rick offers. “Unlock it. Discover it. Fuck, find it.”

“What about clinical trials?” Malcolm asks, not backing down. “Are you going to hand that off to Dr. Winters if I want some time off?”

“That’s a bridge to cross later,” Rick says, His face is neutral betraying any emotion.

“At least cut me a break,” Malcolm says. “I’ve been busting my ass for over a year on this for you. Maybe if I had Dr. Conners’ notes I could have been finished.”

“And I told you her notes were lost or stolen,” Rick reminds him. “For all I know they were destroyed in the fire.”

“You’re not answering my question,” Malcolm redirects.

“I’ll tell you what, Malcolm,” Rick says, still neutral. “You get me a formula that works and I’ll worry about trials.”

“How are you planning that,” Malcolm asks, genuinely curious.

“I’ll simply have the progress at Tomorrow’s Genetics slowed down long enough for a standard level trial to take place,” Rick explains. “I should be able to get it slowed enough to the point that we will have our product on the market for at least a year before them.”

“C’mon, Rick,” Malcolm says unbelieving. “Unless you have an inside person you can’t manage that.”

“Oh, I definitely have an inside person,” Rick says, cracking a smile. “Believe me, I can ensure she will do as I ask.”

Malcolm throws up his hands. “I don’t want to even know.”

The smile on Rick’s face grows larger. “It’s probably best you don’t,” he says. “Plausible deniability and all.”

Malcolm drops his head and slowly shakes it. “You’re the boss.”

Rick laughs. “That I am. Now you follow through and I’ll take care of you. You have my word you can have all the time off in the world and you’ll be rich in the process.”

“Shake on it?” Malcolm asks, holding out his hand.

“You have my word,” Rick says, shaking Malcolm’s hand. “As soon as you have something, you make sure to come and see me.”

“You got it,” Malcolm says beaming with excitement.

Rick quickly takes his leave, umping onto his cell phone as he leaves. “Yeah, Bridget?” he says into the phone. “I’m going to need to see you at my office.” There is a pause both on the phone and at the door. “How soon? How about now?”

Rick steps through the door and his voice quickly fades, leaving Malcolm straining to hear anything else. When he realizes he is being overly noisy he says, “Fuck, Malcolm, mind your own business.” He grins. Fuck, I’m sitting here talking to myself now.”

Malcolm is sitting back in the chair, waiting for another round of results to complete when out of the corner of his eye he sees paper lying beneath the workstation on the far wall. “What the hell is that?” he asks aloud, but there isn’t anyone there to answer.

He shakes his head at the thought of talking to himself again and slips from behind the desk. Moving slowly, as if worried something strange is going to jump out from beneath the station, he drifts closer. Slowly, he reaches down and gathers up the set of papers and begins reading them. His eyes go wide as he takes in the words from the yellow, frayed papers.

“I’ll be damned,” he mutters.

About then the computer bings its results. Malcolm slips back over, his eyes never leaving the papers. When he looks up he isn’t surprised to see the test has resulted in a negative.

“No surprise there,” he says under his breath.

Then an idea hits him. He drops the papers to the desk and bends over it. His fingers set to work inputting data into the computer. When finished, he is about to hit ENTER when a thought occurs. He goes back into the data and makes a couple adjustments.

With the computer running the results Malcolm sits back into the chair to wait. These notes obviously belong to someone and from their age it has to be Doctor Conners. But the lab burned, so how would her notes still be here? “Obviously something is amiss, because she was close.”