The Fair & Foul (Project Gene Assist Book 1) (19 page)

“Oh, they are aware of most the work produced within their fields but are not always as tied into the history of specific individuals. As a group, we tend to be too busy to pay attention to gossip. Alan has only discussed you in detail with me. But I haven’t felt the need to pass your information along to the rest of the group. Besides”—Damien directed a pointed glance at Alan—“I wasn’t sure if Alan was ever going to arrange a meeting.”

“If I do agree to join your team, I would like to have a fresh start. Would you be able to offer that?”

“I can understand the desire to rebuild your reputation in private considering your present, err . . . celebrity,” Damien said the word as if it was a delicate piece of china. “As I mentioned, we pride ourselves on our discretion here. If you would like me to introduce you under a different name or gloss over your most recent background, I would be happy to do so, although I can’t promise that they won’t eventually make the connection. Would that suffice?”

Juliane considered his offer. Shaking her head, she said, "No, I don't think that will fool anyone. They might not recognize me right away, but someone would be bound to connect me with the woman on the news."

"What if they didn't see you in the flesh regularly? Would that satisfy you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Several of our group prefer to maintain their primary offices elsewhere. I would be more than happy to grant you the same privilege. Thanks to that upgrade of yours, you might not even have to physically step through these doors again after today. Would that offer you enough of a fresh start?"

Juliane chewed her lip. Damien's suggestion would give her more freedom than she previously had with the ACI. She could make her avatar look however she wanted. She could blur its features or change its look, and none would be the wiser provided she limited her face-to-face visits. Then, even if someone did make the connection to her name, they might think it was just some unlucky coincidence. His idea could work.

Damien glanced down at his watch. "I don't want you to feel as if I am rushing you into a decision, but I do need to make a call. Why don't you think on my offer over the next hour?"

Juliane nodded. “One hour.”

As if by magic, the office doors opened. Either Damien had a secret call button or his assistant had been listening to the entire conversation. Juliane's stomach tightened. Perhaps she had, as Alan suggested, made a tactical mistake by being rude to her.

“Until then.”

As the elevator doors opened, Alan took a sharp left, directing her to a coffee shop located just outside the lobby. Gesturing for Juliane to take a seat, he ordered for the both of them, not bothering to ask how she liked hers. As the steaming mug was thrust under her face, Juliane thought of Chad. The swirling dark liquid smelled and looked perfect. Juliane tipped the cup back in ready anticipation of the first sip. As she did so, it occurred to her that Damien's offer meant it was unlikely she would have to suffer Chad's coffee-turned-sludge ever again. She sputtered, setting the cup down on a table.
Wow, that's bitter
, she thought. They must have over-roasted the beans.

Alan settled into chair covered in plush purple fabric in prime view of other shop patrons. As he drank his own mug, he looked very much like a medieval lord surveying his court.
He doesn't have a care in the world,
Juliane thought.
And why should he? Everything always works out for him.
Her eyes tightened, and she turned away.

She tried to imagine what life would be like, being equally respected and appreciated through Damien’s firm. She realized then that her subconscious had already decided to take him up on his offer.

Lost her in thoughts, she was startled when Alan placed his hand on her shoulder, a finger coming into contact with her skin along her neckline. “Are you ready to meet the others?”

As she stood, the anxiety and remorse of the last hours was replaced with a feeling of confidence and calm. Starting over. She had a lifetime's experience starting over. She would not be weak. She would not be pitied. She had a sudden vision of herself as a newly-crowned queen being escorted to the balcony to greet her subjects for the first time. “Lead the way.”

Alan must have sensed some of her state of mind, because he bowed slightly at her words.

When they arrived on the designated floor, she followed Alan into a large conference room shaped like a piece of honeycomb. He hadn’t needed to stop for any directions, so he must have attended a few meetings in the room. She wondered how long Alan had been working for both sides.

Ten members of the board were in the room already, seated at a large U-shaped mahogany table. Juliane didn't look at any of them. Her gaze was instead caught by the room's interior. The walls were decorated with large canvases of paint splatter. At first glance, each piece looked as if the artist had thrown colors against the surface at random. She was startled then to realize that if you scanned your eyes over all the pieces together, the chaos they individually represented was transformed into a beautiful landscape. It was breathtaking work.

“Your timing is excellent." Damien's voice brought her attention back to the table and the meeting in progress. "Everyone, we have a special guest visiting us today." He nodded to an empty seat. "But perhaps you would prefer to make your own introduction?"

"I'm Juliane Faris. My experience to date has been in augmented reality and bioprocessing, and I look forward to joining the team."

Damien grinned. "Short and to the point. Maybe you will rub off on some of the rest of us." He directed a glance at Alan. "Well, then I would like to introduce you to Camille Nadal, who has thus far lead all our efforts within the general health and wellness space as well as applications that touch on behavioral science. There are so many advances being made in biotechnology. I expect she is eager to get some of that work off her plate.

“Next to her is Eithan Yuan, our resident expert on genetics and gene therapy. Lillian O’Rail heads up finance. Rhett Mossel leads our political advocacy. Alan, of course, helps us with market intelligence, research, and the occasional talent acquisition.” Damien smiled at his own joke. Each team member had inclined their head as they were introduced.

The door to the office opened again, and the woman from Damien’s front office entered, carrying a stack of papers, which she distributed. “Ah, yes, this is Sarah, my assistant, whom you've already met. Don’t let her friendly manner fool you. In addition to keeping me on schedule, she handles most of the day-to-day management of the support staff. I hear she can be quite the taskmaster.”

Sarah’s lips turned up as if she was well used to her boss’ accolades, but the smile never reached her eyes. Juliane suspected Sarah was the type who could hold a grudge. When all the papers had been distributed, Sarah took a seat to his right at the base of the U.

“Finally, last but not least is one of our newest team members, only joining us a couple of months ago. I will admit that I was overjoyed when he reached out to us, as he is quite the steal. Heading our legal department is Durham Ladensham.”

He turned in his chair. While there was a shine in his eyes, there was no warmth radiating from him in response to Damien’s words. Juliane was startled to realize there was no sign of recognition at all.
How was that even possible? Did Louis really ask Durham to entertain so many women that we all blended together?

Perhaps she should feel grateful for Durham's lack of recognition rather than irritated. The entire idea of hiding behind an avatar rested on not being recognized in the flesh today. But how could Durham not recognize her?

But what if he did? What if some memory triggered and he let something slip?
He had the power to ruin everything before she had a chance to begin. Juliane fought the sweat from showing on her face. She forced her hands to unclench. She had already announced she was joining the team. Was there time to go back and change her mind? She felt the same paralysis of indecision that she imagined Chad suffered from.

The thought of Chad snapped her out of her internal wimbling. She didn’t have to live like he did, day in and day out, unable to do anything without someone stronger providing instructions. She would never be that way. A future within the ACI might be denied her, but she was far from powerless. She focused her thoughts, accessing the data sphere and her own simulation software. Several scenarios played out in her mind’s eye at a fraction of a second.

There was nothing he could do now that she wasn't prepared for. Decision made, she stepped toward the empty chair as Alan took a seat near Sarah with a cocky and amused expression on his face. Shoulders straight, Juliane looked Durham squarely in the eye. She was Juliane Faris, and this time, he would remember her, but for the reasons she wanted. She would make sure they all did.

Less than five years had passed since that first day in the conference room, but already her contributions since joining Damien's group could be seen attached to the ears and around the necks of individuals in every major city and many small towns as well. It was a slim device made to look like jewelry but also encapsulated nano-processors and sensor packets in various form factors. Louis and the ACI might have the headset market locked, but overall, she thought her solution was far more elegant.

True to his word, Juliane had been free to launch a company around her technology provided she occasionally reported into the main office. The ear clip her company produced sent a signal into the brain, allowing a wearer to interface with the virtual world simply by closing their eyes and opening their mind. It wasn't as fast or powerful as genetic imprinting offered exclusively through the ACI but had significantly less risk and was far more affordable. The pendant version was an entry-level model for those even less risk-averse. Framed images of models wearing her products as they walked down the runway hung along one of her office walls.

Even though Betty still worked for the ACI, and certainly didn't need the access point, she had worn one of Juliane's earliest product releases at her wedding to Alan. The device caught the light at just the right moment in one of the photographer's shots and the product had gone viral. Early product reviews and press releases covered the other wall. Her company's more recent news was much less frame worthy.

"There was another suicide reported last night." Juliane glanced up from her desk as her assistant, Stuart, added another stack of documentation to the top of the increasingly unstable pile.

"You are positive it was a suicide?"

Juliane sighed. It was the fourth reported death at her manufacturing partner's plant. Her only chance to get her product into the hands of enough of the population to revolutionize society was through a low-cost production facility. That meant long hours in locations not known for high wages. There was always a risk that the demands might eventually take their toll on individual technicians employed at these sites. Eyes wide open to the risks, she had toured numerous locations all boasting programs for their workers designed to maintain, if not increase, worker morale, and she had ultimately selected what she believed, at the time, was a quality partner.

"An investigation is underway, but it appears that way."

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about a murderer being on the loose.” Juliane knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth that she was being insensitive, but another investigation would only further delay their next launch. First, all work would stop while the root cause was investigated. The worker's friends and family would be interviewed. New processes, procedures, and safety nets would be installed. All things that she should be happy about, but each of those things took time to implement, and it cost money she might have spent elsewhere.

An alert scrolled by her vision. A research center in Southern California speculated that there could be a link to cancer from overuse of her ear clips. She ran a quick cross reference. The center's close proximity to Elena's hometown should have thrown the validity of the research into question, but the media always seemed to latch on to potential issues with her products, or her partners, with far more glee than they did with Louis’s . . . especially after the ACI announced that it had found a way to embed nano-generators into roadways, building materials, and even some fabrics. Suddenly, everything was self-powered. Energy was cheap. All you had to do was pay a royalty to the ACI, and the world was grateful for the privilege.

If they only knew what technology the ACI held back.

Juliane grimaced. People in developing nations were still dying of dehydration and illnesses spread through contaminated water. The ACI could have been giving them instant clean water if only they hadn't shelved the matter generator project after the accident. It was all Elena's fault. If that wasn't irresponsible enough, tens of thousands of people were put out of work as power plants were taken offline, replaced by the ACI's nanos.
Did anyone care
?
N
o. Everyone loved the ACI, especially Louis, and why? Because their little electronic toys were powered indefinitely just by standing near the street.