The Enoch Effect by Rick Acker

Author:Rick Acker [Acker, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503942929
Publisher: Waterfall Press
Published: 2017-05-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 46

Daniel took a deep breath and walked over to Rich’s cubicle.

Rich saw him coming and stood to greet him. “Hey, Daniel. What can I do for you?”

“We’ve been asked to go up to a meeting on the fifteenth floor.”

Rich tensed slightly. The fifteenth floor was where the C-level executives had their offices. “When?”

“Now. Come on.”

Daniel started to walk toward the elevator, and Rich fell in step beside him. “What’s the meeting about?”

“Confidential. I can’t talk about it until we’re in the meeting. Sandy’s instructions. Don’t worry—you’re not in trouble.”

Rich relaxed slightly. “I’ve never been up there.”

“We’ll be meeting with the chief science officer, Prakash Gupta,” Daniel said as they stepped into the elevator. “Sandy will be there too.”

Rich’s eyes widened. “Dr. Gupta? The guy is a genius.”

Daniel had only met Dr. Gupta once. He remembered the CSO mostly as a small man with an exceptionally large nose and intense eyes. Other than that, Daniel knew of him mostly from Dr. Rhodes’s personnel file, where he featured as one of Dr. Rhodes’s many corporate antagonists—primarily because Dr. Gupta wanted to know what Dr. Rhodes was working on and Dr. Rhodes refused to tell him.

The elevator doors opened, and they walked out onto the fifteenth floor. It was an intimidating place. Instead of the utilitarian tile and carpet of the lower floors, the halls up here were floored with polished maple, and matching paneling covered the walls. Ansel Adams photographs hung on those walls, each an original—Daniel knew because he had handled the insurance policies on them.

The fifteenth floor had its own receptionist. She gave them a brightly inquisitive look. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, we’re here to see Dr. Gupta,” Daniel said.

She called someone, and thirty seconds later a secretary materialized and whisked them into Dr. Gupta’s office. Actually, “office” didn’t really do the room justice. It was more of an open executive suite, with its own conference table and waiting area.

Sandy and Dr. Gupta were sitting at the conference table when Daniel and Rich arrived. Dr. Gupta was at the head of the table and Sandy was to his right. “Please have a seat,” Dr. Gupta said, gesturing to the chairs at his left.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said, as if they’d had a choice. “Mr. Johnson, we’d like to talk to you about some of Dr. Rhodes’s research.”

“Of course,” Rich said as they sat. “What can I tell you?”

“To begin with, what role did you play in his research?” Dr. Gupta asked.

“I was a lab tech. I checked the equipment to make sure it was calibrated and functioning correctly. I helped prepare and monitor experiments. That sort of thing.”

Dr. Gupta nodded. “Did you ever create spreadsheets to track lab animals during experiments?”

“Yes, I did that several times.”

“Did you create this one?” Sandy asked as she slid a document over to Rich, her voice and face neutral.

She had just handed Rich a copy of the animal tracker Bruno had decrypted last night, except that the life-span column had been deleted.

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