Sweet Talking Money. Harry Bingham

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ think I’m nuts,’ said Bryn. ‘You find me any reference to that ethics committee, anywhere, ever.’

      ‘Kovacs had the run of this office and my lab,’ said Cameron. ‘If they wanted stuff, they could have just taken it,’

      ‘For God’s sake, woman,’ said Bryn, more impatiently than he’d intended. ‘Have you ever actually opened your eyes in here? Look at this place.’

      Even after twenty-four crates of paper had been cleared and stacked, the room was still overflowing with paper. Cardboard trays of collection bottles sat on top of computer keyboards which rested on paper foothills that led up to the mountains all around. The four anglepoise lamps sat like herons pecking nourishment from the sea of clutter. Cameron looked around.

      ‘It’s kind of … crowded, I guess.’

      They worked on for a while in silence. It was back-breaking labour, and one by one the two women, short of sleep and short of food, dropped out, leaving Bryn to finish. His own back complained angrily now, and his dodgy knee had twisted badly on the icy pavement outside. At length, with the office empty but for the computer hardware, the anglepoise lamps, the bare workbenches, and the sheets of chipboard idle on their concrete blocks, Bryn stopped. Cameron had collapsed with exhaustion and delayed-onset shock and was snoring away on one of the chipboard sheets, covered up with Bryn’s greatcoat.

      ‘OK, then. One at a time,’ said Bryn, beginning to load the PCs into crates.

      Kati hesitated, instead of helping him. ‘Technically –’ she began.

      ‘I know. Technically, these PCs belong to the biotech crowd, not you. But then technically, as an employee of Berger Scholes, I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. And technically, Brent Huizinga didn’t do anything criminal by destroying your reputation and sabotaging your work.’

      He yanked out the power cords and Kati, silently and solemnly, helped him to steal them.

      5

      The final stage was the laboratory. Kati took a quick inventory of the place where she’d spent so many hours.

      ‘This PC,’ she said. ‘And this.’

      She placed her hand on a domed chamber about four feet in diameter. It was built of white metal, had a control panel at the side, and a number of leads connecting it to the computer.

      ‘And this would be … ?’

      ‘The correct term for this would be the White Blood Cell Immune Modulation and Reprogramming Facility.’ Kati stroked the domed surface with affectionate familiarity. ‘But since it’s where blood cells come to learn how to be better blood cells, we usually just call it the Schoolroom.’

      Watched anxiously by Kati every step of the way, Bryn hefted the Schoolroom to the truck.

      ‘No, not on the crates. It needs cushioning. Don’t just drop it. Gently. There.’

      Kati settled some old blankets under the Schoolroom and all around it, till it was swaddled like a baby on New Year’s Eve, peering up at them like a giant white eye.

      ‘D’you want to feed it?’ he asked. ‘Get it some treats for the journey?’

      Kati looked at him, her face still clear and pretty after an exhausting night. ‘Don’t joke,’ she said. ‘The Schoolroom is your future now. You’d better take care of it.’

      The comment shot home like a crossbow bolt. The Schoolroom is your future now … Was he really going to throw in one of the most lucrative careers open to a human being, in favour of … what? Some twenty-something scientist who did good things for rats, whom he’d met properly little more than twelve hours before, who’d had her paper rejected by a top American medical journal, who’d been accused of cheating and was unable to clear her name?

      ‘I must be mad,’ he said, settling the blankets more closely round the big white dome. ‘Mad as they come.’

      6

      There remained one last ritual of departure.

      Bryn woke the sleeping Cameron, and let her blink and stretch her way into wakefulness.

      ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘If I’m not still dreaming, I’m in trouble.’

      ‘Good morning,’ said Kati, stroking her hair clear of her eyes.

      ‘What’s good about it?’ said Cameron, shaking it back again. ‘I am still dreaming, right?’

      Kati ruefully shook her head.

      ‘Delirious? Suffering from a rare idiopathic brain disorder?’

      Kati shook her head.

      ‘Maybe to all of those,’ said Bryn, ‘but we still need to get out of here.’

      Cameron stared at him: the ultimate proof of the weird turn her life was taking. She stretched some more, allowing the kinks and pressure points down her spine to give a full report on their night’s entertainment. ‘God, could you guys really find nothing more comfortable than chipboard?’

      Bryn gave her a sheet of paper and a pen. ‘You need to write a message,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s going to wonder why you’ve just upped and gone. You need to give them a reason.’

      ‘Reason? Well, hell, that’s easy. Dear Everyone, I cheated and now I’ve gone to hide. Or how about, Dear Everyone, this English guy I hardly know thinks that everyone’s out to get me and it turns out that paranoia is infectious.’

      ‘Welsh,’ said Bryn. ‘I’m Welsh. Say anything except the truth.’

      Cameron ignored him and wrote fast, holding the paper so only she could see it. Once done, she folded it, addressed it, and left it in plain view for anyone to find. Despite her self-control, her hand trembled slightly and her ears burned at the shame of finding herself in this situation. Bryn didn’t ask to read the note, Kati gave her boss a supportive squeeze, and the three of them marched to the loaded truck.

      Bryn put the key into the ignition, but before switching on, he made a speech.

      ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘secrecy. Our first and only rule. Other companies have assets. They have mines, or power plants, or aeroplanes, or shops, or miles of phone cable, or factories, or warehouses. We have none of that, just knowledge, the information that’s in this truck, and the genius that’s in your heads. We need to take care of it.’

      ‘Better get another driver, then,’ said Cameron.

      ‘Buckle up,’ said Bryn, doing as he advised and checking the empty road in his wing mirror. ‘Corinth went to considerable trouble to ruin you – trouble and expense. They’ll be watching carefully now, to see which way you jump.’

      ‘And?’ said Cameron. ‘Which way are we jumping?’

      Bryn grinned at her, turning the key in the ignition until the big truck vibrated with the desire to leave. СКАЧАТЬ