Alchemist by Peter James Read Free Book Online Page B

Bannerman leaned back in his chair and looked at the two men in turn. ‘So, what is the proposal?’
    â€˜We’d like to give you a short tour first, show you some of the work we’re doing here and the facilities we have – if you can spare the time?’
    Rorke went to the door and opened it. As Monty walked through she sought Rorke’s eye and he winked.
    They went back into the lift they’d come up in. Rorke looked at the lens above the door and enunciated clearly: ‘Sixth floor.’
    The door closed and the lift sank swiftly downwards.
    â€˜How does that work?’ Monty asked.
    â€˜A combination of visual and voice recognition,’ Crowe said, with a smile of satisfaction. ‘Computer identification security. It matches the face of the person giving the command to the image in its data base, combines it with the voice print, then accepts the command. Or denies it.’
    The lift stopped and they stepped into a wide corridor with emerald carpeting and pale green walls. One side was much brighter than the other, as if bathed in rays of sunshine streaming through invisible skylights. The doors boasted elegant brass handles, and with the exception of the small observation windows cut into a few of them, and the faintly acrid smell, it felt more like the corridor of a modern five-star hotel than a laboratory.
    Rorke inserted a card into a slot, punched a sequence of numbers on the key pad, then courteously ushered Monty and her father into another, equally plush corridor, which stretched into the distance. There was a row of notice boards on either side, with graphs, Department of Health and Safety regulations, and various posters, giving it a slightly more familiar air to Monty, and the acrid smell she always associated with molecular biology labs was stronger here.
    â€˜On this floor and the next two above we do pure genetics research,’ Crowe said, ‘and we also co-ordinate the results from our research campuses in Reading, Plymouth, Carlisle, Bern, Frankfurt and Charlottesville.’
    â€˜You’re in the process of building new labs at Slough, aren’t you?’ Dick Bannerman said.
    â€˜Yes,’ Vincent Crowe confirmed. ‘We’re building a completely new research campus from scratch. When it’s completed in three years’ time it will house the largest transgenics laboratory facility in the world.’
    â€˜And it’s all underground, isn’t it?’ Dick Bannerman pursued.
    Crowe stiffened fleetingly, then smiled. ‘The transgenics, yes. I wasn’t aware that was public knowledge.’
    â€˜Twenty-seven acres of underground labs, I believe?’ Bannerman said, then stopped, momentarily distracted by acomputer screen on the wall that was an electronic notice board. The screen was headed: BENDIX SCHERE NEWSNET, and a flashing announcement beneath it read: MATERNOX-11 RECEIVES FDA APPROVAL .
    â€˜Twenty-
eight
acres,’ Crowe said.
    â€˜Why underground? Security?’
    â€˜Precisely.’
    â€˜And you think that kind of environment will be conducive to work? To getting the best out of people?’
    â€˜How do you find the atmosphere in here, Dr Bannerman?’ Crowe asked.
    â€˜It’s very impressive,’ he said. ‘I have to admit that. I find it hard to believe there aren’t any windows.’
    â€˜It won’t be any different at Slough. There’s no magic formula about daylight – in fact much of daylight, as you know, is highly corrosive. We’ve simply applied science, sifted the good qualities and filtered out the bad. Productivity here in the Bendix Building is thirty per cent higher than in conventional working environments.’
    â€˜I’d like to see how you arrived at those figures,’ Bannerman said sceptically.
    Monty gave him a cautioning glance. It was all going so well, she want him blowing it now with a sudden display of