by L. A. Larkin
Gloria was working in a temporary office diagonally across from Serena’s. Gloria’s PA, Caroline, was standing to attention in front of Gloria’s desk as her boss shook her head. Caroline looked distressed. Serena couldn’t hear what was being said, but Caroline’s face was glum as she returned to her own desk.
‘You all right?’ asked Serena.
‘Yeah,’ Caroline replied, eyes down.
‘And I need it in an hour,’ ordered Gloria from her doorway.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Caroline under her breath, too annoyed to worry about what Serena thought.
‘Can I just ask if you know where Jodi is?’ asked Serena.
‘No idea, sorry.’ She then covered her face with her hands, as if she were about to cry.
Serena gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
‘I know Gloria can be a bit abrupt but don’t let it get to you. It’s not worth it. Why don’t you grab yourself a cup of coffee and take a breather for five minutes? You’ll feel a whole lot better.’
‘Good idea,’ she replied, her eyes watery, ‘I might just take a quick break.’
The PA raced off. Something on her monitor caught Serena’s eye. In her haste to leave, Caroline had forgotten to minimise the document she’d been working on for Gloria. It was the running sheet for the Gene-Asis product launch in New York. What had grabbed Serena’s attention were the words ‘Project New Dawn’. She leaned on Caroline’s desk to take a closer look. So how did Dr McPherson know about such a top secret launch? And why did he think it would make things worse? Now her interest was piqued.
‘Serena, what are you looking at?’
Gloria was striding towards her.
‘I’m looking for the latest Mitsubishi TVCs. Have you seen Jodi?
‘No I haven’t and where’s Caroline?’
‘Don’t know, sorry,’ she replied, strolling back to her office. She flicked a look behind her and caught Gloria minimising the document.
She stared at her keyboard for a while but her fingers didn’t move across the keys. Apart from Project New Dawn, something bothered her about Gloria’s presence in Sydney. Why was she here at all? The launch was in New York, so why waste her time in a country where the market for Gene-Asis products was so small? Gloria might be a bitch but she was a PR guru, so there had to be something critical to manage. And it had to be linked to Bukowski’s unexpected arrival. Serena would have to wait for an opportune moment to collar Caroline. If there was one thing she had learned during her career, it was that PAs were a font of all company knowledge and if you could get them on side, you’d be one step ahead of the rest.
Absent-mindedly, she rubbed her middle finger over the diagonal scratch on her watch face. A week ago, when she’d been sorting through her father’s clothes, she’d found his watch. Battered from years of use, she noticed a tiny piece of dirt behind the face. God knows how it had got inside. It said everything about her dad: hard-working farmer and father who sacrificed a lot for his children. She’d asked a jeweller to make the strap smaller so she could wear it.
‘Well, Dad, what do you make of that? Something’s not right, is it?’ she said to herself. She gazed out of her window at the view. She believed that T-Speed caused her dad’s lung cancer. It was one of Gene-Asis’ Supercrops. New Dawn was the code name for their next Supercrop range and McPherson clearly thought there was something wrong with it. Could it be the same thing that had killed her dad? Her eyes wandered to her monitor, where myriad files lay open, begging for attention.
‘I’ve signed a contract,’ she said aloud. But it made no difference. She had to know more. With one slow, deliberate motion, she minimised the files. Mitsubishi could wait. She grabbed her bag and took the elevator to the ground floor. She’d guessed correctly: there was Caroline sipping a cappuccino in one of the leather armchairs, toying with her mobile phone.
‘Ah, back so soon,’ cried the café owner, a little too loudly for Serena’s liking. ‘A long black?’
She was impressed he remembered.
‘I’ll take the juice, thanks,’ she replied and went to join Caroline. The armchair next to her was empty, so Serena took it.
‘Feeling any better?’ asked Serena, opening her juice.
Caroline looked up. Her eyes were still a little pink along the lids.
‘Yes, thanks.’
Serena leaned forward conspiratorially.
‘Look, I know I’m new here but I’ve worked with Gloria before and she’s like that with everyone. Try not to let it get to you. And she’s only here for a few more days, isn’t she?’ Serena asked.
Caroline sat forward and looked around to see who might be within earshot.
‘She’s so, well, bossy. I mean, she talks to me like I’m an idiot.’
‘Yeah, but she’ll be gone soon.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t know how long she’s here for. That’s the worst of it. And she’s giving me loads of work and I have to do all Nathan’s as well. I can’t do it all.’
Serena took a sip of her juice, not wanting to appear too eager.
‘So, why is she here?’
Caroline looked around again.
‘Something to do with a suicide they want kept under wraps. The top guy.’
‘Oooh, that’ll be a tough one,’ cooed Serena. ‘How on earth can they keep the CEO’s suicide quiet?’
Serena’s punt it was the CEO paid off. Caroline nodded. ‘Yeah, I know, it’s all a bit freaky. That Mr Bukowski wants it kept out of the press, and Gloria’s moving heaven and earth to keep it that way.’
‘Ah, because they don’t want it to eclipse New Dawn.’
Caroline’s dark eyes blinked in surprise. ‘How do you know about that? It’s all meant to be hush-hush.’
‘Like I said, I’ve worked with Gloria before; I hear these things. But don’t worry, I won’t say a word.’
Caroline looked worried as she wriggled from her slippery leather seat.
‘I’d better get back. Um, you won’t say anything to anyone, will you?’
‘My lips are sealed.’
‘I’ll see you up there.’
Serena pulled her phone from her bag and checked the internet for information about the Gene-Asis Asia-Pacific CEO. According to the latest reports, Tony Mancini was hugely successful and, more significantly, alive and well. The news hadn’t leaked yet. So why would Bukowski and Gloria fly to the other side of the world to deal with this? Yes, it wouldn’t be good publicity but she was still surprised by Bukowski’s intervention.
She took another sip of the sharply acidic orange juice and then glanced at one of the elevators, indicating it had deposited Caroline onto the nineteenth floor. Surely the professor would know what was going on. It was risky but she hoped nobody would miss her if she disappeared for an hour.
Chapter 9
Serena drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited impatiently for the traffic lights to change. As she into the campus, she couldn’t help but notice the eclectic mix of elegant sandstone buildings, seventies monstrosities and ultra-modern facilities, projecting at odd angles over the site, as if keeping a watchful eye on the students.
She searched for signs to the genetics department but found none and approached a student lying under a tree, typing on his laptop. He gave her directions to the Reilly building. She was shocked at how young he looked. She was only in her early thirties but felt old enough to be his mother.
After several wrong turns, Serena found the dull two-storey building that housed the Genetics and Plant Research Faculty. A brass plate on the wall informed her it was, indeed, ‘The Reilly Institute’. From the outside it looked like an abandoned hospital; the red bricks were grimy and the windowsills needed a new coat of paint.
Serena put a hand out to push open the double swing doors, then stopped. Her boss’s warning replayed in her head. She took several deep breaths. ‘Come on,’ she said to herself. She opened the door and found herself in a long corridor with a light grey linole
um floor and many dark wooden doors stretching off into the garishly lit distance. She saw and heard no one. There was no reception desk. She walked toward the first door; her heels clomped loudly and she felt conspicuous in her suit. A door opened and a man and woman stepped out, deep in conversation. They wore knee-length lab coats and each had a pair of goggles balanced on their heads.
‘Excuse me,’ called Serena.
Their conversation stopped and they drew apart slightly.
‘I was looking for someone and wondered if you could help me.’
‘I’ve got to go. See you later,’ said the woman to her colleague as she disappeared through another door.
The man took a few steps towards Serena, his rubber-soled training shoes squeaking. Though he looked to be in his twenties, he still had acne.
‘Who you after?’
‘Dr McPherson.’
He blinked.
‘Aw, he left years ago. Sorry.’
The man began to walk off and Serena followed.
‘Do you know where he is now?’
He stopped.
‘Who wants to know?’
A bead of sweat glistened in the cleft of his top lip.
‘I was one of his students at Edinburgh Uni. I’ve moved to Sydney, so I thought I’d look him up.’ Her cheeks burned at the lie.
‘Look, he left some years back. I didn’t know him, so I can’t help you.’
He sped off, his trainers squeaking in rapid bursts.
‘Can you tell me where he lives now?’ Serena called after him. ‘Please, he’s an old friend.’
He stopped and chewed his lip nervously.
‘Try Shelleyman Bay. I heard he moved there and became a recluse.’
‘A recluse? What do you mean?’
The female colleague reappeared and bore down on them.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
‘Is there a problem here?’ asked the woman.
‘I’m trying to find Dr McPherson, and I believe he left here a few years ago?’
‘Dr McPherson brought disgrace on this faculty and we have no interest in his whereabouts. We can’t help you.’
‘How did he bring … ?’
‘I must ask you to leave now.’
The woman was ushering Serena through the entrance doors. Meanwhile, the young man had vanished. The double doors swung shut and Serena walked away from the Reilly Institute, unsettled by their unwillingness to help, and curious about what the professor had done to bring ‘disgrace’ upon them. She turned her head just enough to see the female researcher using her mobile. Their eyes met and Serena knew she was talking about her.
Chapter 10
Serena raised her arms above her head and stretched, then she walked over to her office window and surveyed the view. The sun was setting and the city was bathed in a blood-orange wash; the sky above, a darkening blue. Outside, the lights in the offices and apartments glittered. It had been a long day—made even longer by her desire for it to end.
Her visit to the Reilly Institute had done nothing to abate her nagging feeling that the professor knew something incriminating about Project New Dawn. And, most tantalising of all, in an office across from hers, Gloria was preparing its media launch.
Serena fiddled with her earring, as she paced in front of the window. Torn between action and inaction, she dropped heavily into her leather chair, and swung it from side to side as she stared at the ceiling. She knew that if she did this and was caught, her career was over. The risk was huge. But next door lay the answer. This was her chance to make amends for her failure to act previously.
Serena remembered the very first time she’d heard her father’s rasping cough. He’d phoned her, as he always did on Sundays. He’d sounded out of breath as he spoke. His cough was deep and went on for a long time, and he had to hand the phone to Keith while he recovered. She remembered asking Keith if Dad had the flu. ‘Probably, but he won’t see a doctor,’ he’d replied. Her father continued working in the fields, which were pungent with canola pollen. The canola was a new variety called T-Speed.
She frowned and forced her mind back to her dilemma. It was 8.10 pm. Eighteen people had desks in the department and only three of them were still working. Gloria was one. Questions and doubts pingponged through her mind, but she stayed put. Every five minutes or so, she looked to check if the desks outside were empty, but there was still movement. Just after 8.30 pm she heard Gloria’s door click open and shut and, turning in her seat, saw Gloria walk out of the department. Grabbing her mobile, Serena popped her head out of her office and into a fug of Channel No. 5. At the water fountain, she filled a plastic cup and sipped from it. She looked around the room. She was alone at last. A solitary radio played in the empty department.
She chewed the rim of her plastic cup. Should she do this?
Throwing her cup in the bin, she wandered along the corridor, looking in other department offices. Marco and Gav were throwing a football to each other. They didn’t notice her, as they were brainstorming the new strapline for the Mitsubishi campaign, which she’d asked for by tomorrow. Nathan, an account director, was shut away in the boardroom with his team of seven, working on the Woolworths pitch. They’ll be in there all night, she thought. Right down the other end of the corridor, she heard the whirr of a vacuum cleaner.
When she returned to her department, she found the lights had been turned off, probably by the cleaners. She left them off. Serena had made up her mind. Her hand shook so much, she dropped her handheld. She picked it up, her heart about to burst through her chest.
‘Coward,’ she said to herself. She glanced at the empty corridor. She then strolled to Gloria’s office and checked the door, fully expecting it to be locked but hoping it wouldn’t be. It slid open, sensing her presence. Too easy, she thought as the door shut quietly behind her. She stood in semi-darkness, with only the muted glow from the office building opposite to guide her. She surveyed the desk’s surface. There was nothing of interest in the in-tray, except a confirmation letter and schedule from Channel One, detailing New Dawn’s advertising spots. She flicked through it. Channel One serviced Australasia and was, without doubt, the biggest TV channel servicing the region. New Dawn’s launch was so hush-hush that the project name, rather than the actual product names, was being used till the very last moment.
Serena went through Gloria’s desk drawers and then turned her attention to the filing cabinets. She found drop files and the occasional plastic folder, inside which were USB drives. The light from the office block opposite was too dim to enable her to read the file names, so she moved Gloria’s cordless desk lamp across to the top of one of the filing cabinets. She almost dropped that too. Her hands were clammy with perspiration.
She switched it on and her face lit up like the moon. Startled by its brightness, she instantly hit the switch and was plunged into semidarkness again.
Pull yourself together, for God’s sake. Just get on with it.
She turned the desk lamp on again, and her eyes quickly adjusted to the brightness. Her hot hand flicked through one file after another. She was down to the third drawer when she discovered ‘New Dawn’.
No paper, just a USB key, which she placed in her Tbyte’s drive, then turned the lamp off and crouched on the floor behind the desk. She pressed ‘play’. Her screen came alive and she scrolled through the contents page of the ‘Supercrop Ultra’ product range.
Every year, Gene-Asis Biotech brought out a bigger, better product range. They marketed it heavily, encouraging farmers to buy the latest genetically engineered seeds and livestock. Serena knew this because her dad, anticipating bigger yields, had insisted on buying the new Supercrop wheat and canola each year.
For a fleeting second, she wondered why, with all their money, Gene-Asis couldn’t come up with a more inventive brand name than ‘Supercrop’. The contents page listed 124 new additions to the product range, all with the same launch date—in five weeks’ time.
Serena skimm
ed the pages. The first product range was ‘Frost Resistant’: twelve fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes and grapes, which carried an ‘anti-freeze’ gene from an Antarctic fish.
‘Bruise Free’ fruit had been developed using animal-derived copper peptides, the same substance found in skin creams used to reduce the appearance of wrinkles. Gene-Asis claimed that the ‘Bruise Free’ range ‘can survive unscathed the rigours of harvesting and transporting both to the food outlets/supermarkets and then on to the consumer’s home’.
Next, ‘Long Life Meat’. Seventeen standard breeds of cattle, chicken, pig and sheep had been genetically engineered with an inbuilt preservative so that their ‘meat will have twice the normal shelf life’.
Then, ‘First To Market’ crops, which had a human growth hormone implanted into their DNA. They grew ‘14% faster than the previous range of Speed products’.
Their next two ranges were completely new. The first was ‘Extra Fruity Fruit’. Because people were complaining that genetically engineered fruit tasted of nothing much at all, Gene-Asis had created a new range in which the flavour component of the plants’ DNA had been ramped up. They acknowledged that the fruits’ sugar content had now increased, and warned that diabetics should exercise caution.
The second was ‘Vitrboost’, which was neither plant nor animal. It was a completely new genetically engineered virus, which killed the dangerous giardia parasite in the water supply. Vitrboost also contained an immune system booster, which they had sourced from the DNA of chimpanzees. Gene-Asis claimed it boosted the efficiency of human T-cells, ‘which act like foot soldiers in the body’s fight against infection’.