He turned as he heard voices. A little group was walking along the corridor that led to the research area, talking quietly. He scowled in annoyance. He wasn’t meant to be in this part of the facility; he was meant to stay in the administrative block, and certainly he was not meant to hear anything that others might say.
Then there was an explosion of wrath from around the corner. Jack stopped in his tracks and positioned himself to observe without attracting attention. The group of scientists formed a sort of defensive gaggle, huddling together to meet the approaching threat.
The source of the noise was a mathematician by the name of Angela Meerson. She strode into sight, the look of thunder on her face contrasting strongly with the flat, compliant appearance of the others. Everything else was different as well; she was taller, dressed in vivid purple, while they wore the almost uniform grey-brown look of their type. Her hair was long, and untidy, as though she had just got out of bed. Their gestures were measured and controlled, hers free-flowing and as ill-disciplined as her hair, which had been valiantly organised into a complicated bun at some stage and then allowed to grow wild.
The researchers collectively decided to pretend she wasn’t there. This was a mistake on their part. She did not take kindly to it.
‘Where is he?’ she bellowed at the top of her voice. Some looked shocked at her lack of respect, control and decorum. Others were merely frightened. They weren’t used to such behaviour, although some had worked with her in the past and had witnessed her explosions before. They generally meant that she was working hard.
‘Well? Can’t you talk? Where is the devious little weasel?’
‘You really should calm yourself,’ said one anxiously. ‘The protocols for registering dissatisfaction are clearly laid down. I can forward the documentation, if you like, I’m sure...’
‘Oh, shut up, you moron.’ She brandished a piece of paper in his face. ‘Look at this.’
He read it with what looked like genuine surprise. ‘You are being suspended,’ he observed.
‘Is that a smirk on your face?’
‘Of course not,’ he replied hastily. ‘I didn’t know anything about it. Really.’
She snorted. ‘Liar,’ she said.
‘There’s a hearing tomorrow. I’m sure everything will be explained.’
‘Ha!’ she cried out. ‘Tomorrow? Why not today? Shall I tell you? Because he’s a weasel.’
‘I’m sure Dr Hanslip has the best interests of everyone in mind, and it is our duty to obey his wishes. We all have complete faith in his leadership and I don’t see what you hope to achieve through such a display.’
She gave him a look of withering disgust. ‘Do you not? Do you really not? Then watch me. You might learn something.’
She hurled the crumpled piece of paper at him, making him flinch, then wheeled around and marched off down the corridor, going ‘Ha!’ twice before she disappeared.
The group broke out into giggles of nervous relief. ‘Must be tanked up again,’ one said. ‘She needs it to get up to full power. She’ll come down again in a day or two.’
‘She really is quite mad, though,’ added another. ‘I don’t know how she’s lasted this long. I wouldn’t stand for it.’ Then he noticed Jack watching from the sidelines. He glared and dropped his voice.
I very much hoped my dramatic exit impressed them all; I was certainly not feeling so very confident at that moment. My relations with Hanslip had always been fragile, to say the least, but for a long time that fragility had been firmly in the domain of what you might term creative tension. He disliked me, I couldn’t stand him, but we sort of needed each other. Like an old-time musical duo: Robert Hanslip on money, Angela Meerson on intelligence. We talked, as well, and his stupidity often enough made me think and consider things anew. This time, however, it was different. He had gone too far. I had just discovered a plot to steal my work and sell it to that creature Oldmanter, perhaps the foulest, most poisonous man on the planet. That was my opinion and I admit that others thought differently. But they were idiots.
What’s more, I had found out that he had been working on this scheme for some time, all the while lying to my face. I’d known, of course, that he was up to something, but it was only by chance that I put the pieces together, because of a surprise visit by the sort of person I would normally have ignored.
‘Lucien Grange, sales representative’, it said on the daily manifest. What do I care for such people? They come and go all the time, hawking their wares. Only by chance did I notice this particular one, and then only because of a leaky pipe in a corridor, which meant that I had to take a diversion through some of the lesser passageways. Only because Lucien Grange chose that precise moment to come out of the room he had been assigned to. I remembered him; I knew I did. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew he was important to me, and not because of any facility he might have with toilet brushes. Eventually, in a small disused corner of my memory, I found it. Eighteen years previously, we had spent some time together at an out-of-the-way institute in the South of France, on the very fringes of the great desert that stretched from the Pyrenees right down to South Africa. I’d wanted to see more but fell ill, and spent my time in a coma instead; as soon as I began to recover they shipped me back north, and by then I was too drugged even to look out of the window of the helicopter.
I couldn’t for the life of me remember why, but the memory made me feel uncomfortable. Not that it mattered; the important detail was the fact that I knew him, and I was not in the habit of knowing sales representatives. I wasn’t even allowed, technically, to talk to them. It destroyed the mystique of scientific aloofness so important to us in the elite. Familiarity breeds contempt; they might see through us.
When I got to my office, I poured myself a glass of wine — medicinal purposes only, licensed and perfectly legal — then set to work. It didn’t take long to track him down. Sales representative, forsooth! In fact, he was senior vice-president of Zoffany Oldmanter’s prime research outfit, and a rapid look through his activities showed that he specialised in gobbling up lesser operations and binding them firmly into Oldmanter’s ever-increasing empire. He was a corporate hit man, in other words; a trained scientific assassin.
Now he was here, pretending to be flogging hygienic sundries. Suddenly everything made sense. I had been on the verge of finally telling Hanslip about the little experiment that proved I was correct; I had even sent a message asking for an urgent appointment, but I realised it was too late. I now understood everything, and a powerful surge of emotions ran through me. This project was mine; he wasn’t going to rip it from my arms.
I bottled it up for as long as I could, which was about ten minutes, then went to confront Grange in his room. The look of shock on his face when I walked through the door was very revealing.
‘I hope you remember me. You’re not taking my machine,’ I announced as I slammed the door shut so he couldn’t escape.