Lessons in Chemistry(37)

The only real issue with these people, besides the occasional hygiene challenge, was that they always seemed to embrace failure as a positive outcome. “I have not failed,” they’d endlessly quote Edison, “I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” Which may be an acceptable thing to say in science but is absolutely the wrong thing to say to a roomful of investors looking for an immediate, high-ticket, chronic treatment for cancer. God save them from actual cures. Much harder to make money off someone who doesn’t have a problem anymore. For that reason, Hastings did whatever it could to keep these people away from the press, unless it was the scientific press, which was fine because no one read that. But now? Dead Evans was on page eleven of the LA Times, and there next to his coffin? Zott and the damn dog.

That was management’s third problem. Zott.

She was one of their innovators. Unrecognized, of course, but she acted as if she knew. Not a week went by when they didn’t get some complaint about her—the way she voiced her opinion, insisted her name appear on her own papers, refused to make coffee; the list was endless. And yet her progress—or was it Calvin’s?—was undeniable.

Her project, abiogenesis, had only been approved because a fat-cat investor had dropped from the heavens and insisted on funding, of all things, abiogenesis. What were the odds? Although this was exactly the sort of weird thing multimillionaires did: fund useless pie-in-the-sky projects. The rich man had said he’d read a paper by an E. Zott—something old out of UCLA—and had been fascinated by its expansion possibilities. He’d been trying to track down Zott ever since.

“Zott? But Mr. Zott works here!” they’d told him before they could stop themselves.

The rich man had seemed genuinely surprised. “I’m only in town for a day, but I’d very much like to meet with Mr. Zott,” he’d said.

And they hemmed and hawed. Meet with Zott, they thought. And find out he was a she? His check was as good as gone.

“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible,” they’d said. “Mr. Zott is in Europe. At a conference.”

“What a pity,” the rich man said. “Perhaps next time.” And then he went on to say that he’d only be checking in on the project’s progress about once every few years. Because he understood science was slow. Because he knew it required time and distance and patience.

Time. Distance. Patience. Was this man for real? “Very wise,” they’d told him as they fought the urge to do backflips across the office. “Thanks for your trust.” And before he was settled into his limo, they’d already carved up the bulk of his largesse to fund more promising research areas. They’d even given a bit of it to Evans.

But then—Evans. After they’d so graciously reinvested in his no-real-idea-what-the-guy-was-actually-doing research, he’d stormed into their offices saying if they didn’t find a way to fund his pretty girlfriend, he’d leave and take all his toys and ideas and Nobel Prize nominations with him. They’d begged him to be reasonable; make them actually fund abiogenesis? Come on. But he refused to budge, went as far as to assert that her ideas might even be better than his own. At the time, they wrote it off to the ramblings of a man who’d hit the jackpot, sexwise. But now?

Her theories, unlike the theories of all the Edison “I’m not really a failure” quoters, appeared—at least according to Evans—to be dead-on. Darwin had long ago proposed that life sprang from a single-celled bacterium, which then went on to diversify into a complex planet of people, plants, and animals. Zott? She was like a bloodhound on the trail of where that first cell had come from. In other words, she was out to solve one of the greatest chemical mysteries of all time, and if her findings continued apace, there was no question that she would do just that. According to Evans, at least. The only issue was, it would probably take ninety years. Ninety completely unaffordable years. The fat-cat investor would surely be dead in far less. More to the point, so would they.

And there was one other minor detail. Management had just learned Zott was pregnant. As in unwed and pregnant.

Could their day get any worse?

Obviously, she had to go; no question about it. Hastings Research Institute had standards.

But if she were to go, where did that leave them on the innovation front? With a handful of people making poky-pony progress, that’s where. And poky ponies didn’t inspire much in the way of big-ticket grants.

Fortunately, Zott did work with three others. Hastings management had sent for them straightaway; they needed assurance that Zott’s so-called critical research could limp along without Zott—whatever it would take to make it seem as if the money it never actually got was being put to good use. But as soon as the three PhDs were in the room, Hastings management knew they were in trouble. Two reluctantly conceded that Zott was the main driver, essential to any forward progress. The third— a man named Boryweitz—went the other route. Claimed he’d actually done it all. But when he couldn’t back up any of his assertions with meaningful scientific explanation, they realized they were in the presence of a scientific idiot. Hastings was rife with them. No surprise. Idiots make it into every company. They tend to interview well.

The chemist sitting in front of them now? He couldn’t even spell abiogenesis.

And then Miss Frask from Personnel—the one who’d first sounded the alarm regarding Zott’s condition? She’d used her limited talents to spread the Zott’s-knocked-up rumor, ensuring that all of Hastings knew of Zott’s plight by noon. Which scared the hell out of them. The rumor’s wildfire effect meant it was only a matter of time before the institute’s big investors knew, and investors—as anyone knew—hated scandals. Plus, there was the problem of Zott’s rich man-fan. The multimillionaire who’d written them a virtual blank check on behalf of abiogenesis—who’d claimed to have read Mr. Zott’s old paper. How would he feel when he learned that Zott was not only a woman, but a knocked-up, unwed woman at that? God. They could picture that big limo swinging back round the drive, the chauffeur keeping the motor running as the man strode in and demanded his check back. “I was funding a professional slut?” he’d probably shout. Trouble. They had to do something about Zott immediately.