by Michael Todd
And they’d blinked first. Or would that be clucked first? She wasn’t entirely sure which was the right metaphor.
Finally, she capitulated and picked her phone up as it buzzed again, although she did allow herself a growl of annoyance as she pressed the accept call button on her screen.
“That fucking bitch had better pi—oh, good morning, Dr. Monroe,” the man on the other end said quickly, clearly flustered by the fact that she had actually decided to answer the phone. “We were trying to contact you. There have been a couple of issues arising from your new position in the company. The board would like us to schedule a meeting with you. At your convenience, of course. Oh, and the scientists in charge of your father’s lab would also like a word whenever you’d like to come on down.”
Courtney tried to remember the last time someone had ordered her around that politely. She’d really only gotten herself involved to protect her father’s legacy from being torn apart by various agencies whose greed would strip it to the bare bones. As of right now, however, she honestly didn’t enjoy the consequences of her actions.
“I think I can clear my schedule today to get all that figured out,” she said with a smile in her voice, even if she didn’t mean it. “Would you please ask them to send a car around to pick me up…shall we say in half an hour?”
“Of course, Doctor,” the man replied and sounded relieved that she hadn’t reacted to him calling her a bitch. “Expect a car there in half an hour.”
“I appreciate it,” she said. “I’ll see you shortly.”
She could almost hear the man gulp as she cut the call short before he could answer. Always have the last word in these conversations. That was one of the things her father had taught her a while back in dealing with these people. It took some willpower not to lash out, but you also had to show backbone. One of the simplest ways to make sure that they didn’t try to push you around was to make sure that you had the last word in every conversation.
Courtney glanced at her watch. She had half an hour and would make the most of it.
A quick, cold shower helped to wake her up enough to don an austere-looking pantsuit and indulge in some much-needed coffee. It was oddly satisfying that she was finished with time to spare. At what point in her life had she stopped caring so much about what people thought of her appearance? In the past, her morning routine had taken forever. Now, though, she had become comfortable with how she looked—with the makeup, clothes, and everything that she wanted, rather than what she thought others expected. It was empowering.
The car arrived exactly on time and drove her from the house that she’d started to call home, even after it had been invaded by four armed men who wanted to kill her. An old haunt. A place to call home.
The LA traffic was a little less horrible today, which allowed them to arrive at the building where her father’s company was situated before ten in the morning. The timing made sure that everyone would still be at work when she arrived.
“Dr. Monroe.” A man in a drab gray suit greeted her with a smile. “So nice of you to come on this short notice. We’ve called the people from the IRS who wanted to talk to you about the corporate changes in the company, but they won’t be here until this afternoon.”
“That’s quite all right…” Courtney said and deliberately trailed her words off to let the man—whom she had talked to on the phone earlier if his voice and flushed face were anything to go by—tell her his name as she extended her hand.
“Robinson,” he said, took her hand, and shook it firmly. “Allen Robinson. MBA out of Cornell.”
She wondered what his masters had to do with anything, but then remembered that he was actually the one who ran the company on a practical level while she was off doing her own thing. With that in mind, she supposed that it would be important to know that someone as young as him actually had the credentials to be where he was today. She could only assume that his silver-spoon upbringing had provided him the experience to go along with the qualification.
“That’s actually perfect, Robinson,” she continued with a smile. “I look forward to meeting the scientists my father worked with before he died—more than meeting with the IRS anyway.”
He smiled, nodded, and gestured for her to follow him to the elevators. Once again. the security staff was waved aside.
“So tell me, Robinson,” Courtney said as they entered the elevator that immediately started to move down into the sublevels, “you look like you’ve managed this place for quite some time now.”
“Three years, actually,” he replied with a nod.
“That doesn’t explain why they have someone with your credentials running around to babysit the eccentric woman who’s never at work,” she pointed out as the elevator came to a stop.
“Well, I was officially named as your assistant,” Robinson explained. “The board wanted someone they’d worked with before to speak with your authority in the running of this place. Considering that you haven’t been around here much—or at all, really, since you took the place over three weeks ago—I’d say that it was a damn good call on their part, wouldn’t you?”
Courtney smiled and turned to face him. “That is a good call. And there aren’t that many people out there who would be willing to talk like that to my face. I like your style, Robinson.” She exited the elevator before he had a chance to respond. Not that she had made any rapid movement when the doors slid open. He simply stood there for a few seconds to process what she’d said until he was snapped out of it by the ding of the elevator to inform him that the doors would close. He slipped out again barely in time.
They moved into the lab where, as she could see, most of the studies conducted had to do with what her father had discovered from the Zoo. She’d read in some of the financial files that he had been provided with government funding with the stipulation that time and energy were devoted to studying the various elements that were pulled out of the damned place. They hadn’t seen fit to give him any specimens of the actual goop, and it seemed that, for the most part, they were simply given technical aspects of the various items and asked to replicate them under regular circumstances.
She could only imagine the degree of success that they’d had. Of course, she didn’t doubt the abilities of her father and all those he trusted enough to be a part of this project, or their will to get something done despite the odds. She was simply completely aware of the impossible task they’d been given. She, more than most, she mused and ran her fingers through her hair. It had been a while since she’d been in a properly funded lab like this but all the protocols rushed back like she’d never been away. It’s like riding a bike.
All business now, she moved quickly through the cleaning procedures, although her assistant had a little more trouble. She had to wait a while and took her time to pull the gloves on as the man finally exited the cleaning room.
One of the scientists, an older gentleman who sported a clearly visible bow tie under his lab suit, approached them with a curious expression.
“I’m sorry, can I help you?” he asked, obviously confused by their sudden appearance there.
“Hi,” Courtney said with a smile. “You must be Dr. Belford. I’m Dr. Courtney Monroe. I thought you had been informed that I would drop by here today?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said with a nod, dragged his fingers through his beard, and cleared his throat. “Naturally. The phone call said that Dr. Monroe would pay us a visit. For some reason, my mind went blank for a moment and I somehow expected your…father. That’s crazy, I know. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Courtney said with a smile. “I appreciate it.”
“Of course, of course,” Belford said with a quick nod and a smile and shook his head enough to show that he wore a toupee. “If you’ll follow me?”
He led them down the hallways that showed more than two dozen people in lab coats and all other kinds of safety equipment at work. She recognized many of the details that they worked on
too. Some of them had come from her own whitepapers from her time in the Zoo, before and during her time with Heavy Metal.
Belford noticed and smiled. “You father always insisted on being the first to acquire your whitepapers when they were released to the public. He trusted your powers of intuition in that hellish place more than almost anyone’s. He actually insisted that it be a part of his contract with the Pentagon that he be given the first crack at anything you published.”
Courtney didn’t bother to respond to that. While it was comforting to know that her father had trusted her work, she knew that it would sound suspiciously like an academic form of nepotism. She didn’t want those to be the rumors that followed her there.
“I was actually curious about what you were working on, Dr. Belford,” she said with a thin smile. “I’d like to have a grasp of what my father had you doing—it would go a long way to justify my position in the company, even if I am not quite the CEO that one might have hoped I was.”
The man chuckled, while Robinson looked away quickly. It seemed that the two of them had shared words on the topic before.
“Well, personally, I’ve assigned myself to the team that is studying the results of the animals from the Zoo,” Belford said and guided her into his own personal lab. “In particular, that of the larger creatures. Whitepapers have been written on the topic. Quite a few of yours, as well as those of your colleague, Salinger Jacobs. I remember the boy—annoyingly sharp, that one, and he knew it too. I interviewed him for a position here with us as an intern not two years ago. I’m glad to see him working there, putting his intellect to work far, far away from me.”
Courtney smirked and shook her head. “I like him. He is difficult until you get a feel for how his inner process works. Once you get past that, it’s rather fun to work with someone that eager to push the borders of science.”
“Of course,” the man said with a quick nod, although she doubted that his opinion about Sal had changed at all. “Anyway, your speculations on the creatures that would normally be too large to survive out of water was rather inspired, I have to say. From the papers that we were given on the goop, there were some interactions that seemed like they would be able to alter the response of anyone or anything exposed to it—to, for example, the effects of gravity among other phenomena.”
“Actually,” Courtney interjected, “I’m reasonably certain that the papers you have on those animals are out of date. While yes, the speculation was correct, we weren’t quite sure how deeply that goop ran in the creatures’ blood until we actually captured a live specimen for testing. Oh, and the larger creatures have sacs of the goop itself attached to their spines. The number and mass of the sacs are different from animal to animal, but it seems to be collected in the spinal column.
“From there, it is distributed into the bone and muscular structure of the creatures and allows them to grow larger without seeing the effects of weight and fatigue that you would normally see in creatures that size. They seem to still be growing, although they are rare and that makes it difficult to actually obtain data on how large we can expect them to grow over time. So far, no real limits appear to have been imposed on these creatures by the laws of physics, but I’m sure that our people out there in the Zoo are keeping a close eye on that for us.”
“Ah,” Belford grunted, dropping down in his seat. “That is quite a lot of information to process all at once.”
“I’m actually working on a book of my experiences—in condensed form, of course—while in the Zoo,” Courtney said and he immediately looked interested. “I’ll dedicate it to my father, and I would really like to have your input on it. I hoped we could meet sometime later this week. A lunch or dinner, perhaps?”
“Of course, of course.” The scientist had a confused and curious look on his face as he stood once more. “Anything for Jack’s daughter. I can see now that he was very right to trust in your work above that of all other scientists out there.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” she asked, her head tilted in a slight challenge.
“Of course not,” he responded smoothly, “but it’s always nice to see one’s faith rewarded. How does Friday work for you? Lunch, around two?”
“I’ll call you later for the details,” she said and shook the man’s hand while she made sure to look him firmly in the eye. “I’m afraid that my time spent away has left me with no knowledge of good places to eat around here.”
“I’d be more than happy to provide you with some suggestions,” Robinson interjected quickly, happy that the conversation had tilted more toward a topic that he had some knowledge of.
“Perfect.” Courtney smiled. “Until then, Dr. Belford, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Likewise, Dr. Monroe,” he said, but she had already turned and headed back to the elevators.
“Now, Robinson,” she said as the man struggled to keep up the pace, “before lunch, I’d really like to look over the data that we’ll present our friends from the Internal Revenue Service.”
“Of course, Dr. Monroe,” he said with a firm nod.
Chapter Four
Courtney looked around the conference table and acknowledged that she’d never had much of a mind for business. While she knew her way around a business transaction, over the past couple of months, she’d had quite an education as she’d gone over the various terminologies and the sheer amount of red tape that went into running a business in the States.
That said, her experience was practically nil compared to some of the heavy hitters whom she shared a room with. They talked like they’d done this sort of thing all their lives. She saw graduation rings from most of the ivy league business schools in the country, as well as a couple of European universities. There was a veritable alphabet soup on each of the names, describing how well versed they were in running a business exactly like this.
They all addressed her courteously, as one would a peer, but she could tell that they looked at her askance as they had their hushed conversations with their assistants. She knew what they were thinking. What was a biologist doing running a company? Shouldn’t she be digging around in some random section of the earth in the mud for a new kind of beetle that nobody cared about?
Robinson stood behind her. He was tall with a boyish charm about him that told her of a rich heritage of trust fund fathers and supermodel mothers. His broad shoulders, neatly trimmed blond hair, and clean-shaven face were evidence that good looks came with a lot of work too.
Her eyes were drawn to the conference table—or, rather, the sixty-inch screen that displayed the profit margins that could be expected with the coming quarter’s fluctuations in the market. There wasn’t much about the technical aspects that she was familiar with, but she did know a thing or two about the contract whose details were over all the graphs.
“I simply don’t see any benefit for us to continue this relationship with the Pentagon,” one of the men said. He leaned back in his seat as he peered down through his glasses at the papers laid out in front of him. “We see a massive amount of our annual budget go into funding what was essentially Dr. Monroe’s pet project. And yes, while he was around to run the thing personally, the budget was kept clean and we had nothing to complain about. Right now, there is nobody heading the project up and therefore nobody to ensure that it stays within budget. I say let the contract run its course for another two months and shut it down.”
“If I may?” Courtney asked and raised her hand. A surprised moment of silence ensued as they all turned to face her.
“Thank you for your attention,” she said, opened a file on the table in front of her, and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “I would like to point out that what you called my father’s pet project is funded by the federal government. This happens through an entirely theoretical research grant provided by the government—for which they pay us millions—of which only a percentage is needed to actually run the project. You know, to pay the salaries of the technicians and scientists who were brought on
by my father, as well as upgrading staff computers and cell phones every five years as required in the contract.
“The rest of the money is handed back to the Pentagon in exchange for tax benefits and, in general, staying on the good side of the people from whom we might acquire some very lucrative contracts in the future. The kind that aren’t simply pet projects but will line all your pockets in the form of tax-incentive-based year-end bonuses every step of the way. That’s what we get for keeping this project alive.”
There was a minute of silence.
“On the other hand,” she continued, “if there is any alteration or termination of the project, not only will it annoy the people in the Pentagon who have relied on the study results from the people who work down there, it will also enact Clause—” She took a moment to check the contract in front of her. “Clause seventy-two of all contracts of this kind, which requires the government to evaluate all the parties involved. At best, we can expect the audit to end all audits on the project. At worst, we’ll have assets seized, people brought in for interviews, the whole shebang.”
She leaned forward and actually enjoyed the uncomfortable silence that resulted from what she had said. “Please note that I have absolute faith in the integrity of all members of the board present—if not for your loyalty to the company, then for your own ambition and desire to stay out of jail. But I don’t need to remind you about the kind of whiplash that kind of investigation would have, especially on the stock prices should IRS agents be seen carrying boxes and files out of this very building. Now, I’ll grant you all that I don’t have as much of a mind for business as—hell, as everyone present—but I do know that we should probably renew that contract for at least another year to give ourselves time to get all our affairs in order. In the meantime, I’d be more than willing to step into my father’s shoes and keep the budget on the research project at a bare minimum while still achieving the results we are paid for.”