At the far end of the hall was another security door leading to the lab. Doors on her left opened to a series of offices and meeting rooms. Each one separated from the hallway by floor to ceiling frosted glass. To her right the glass wall was only half-height but clear so the view to the lab was unobstructed.

It reflected the philosophy of the company she had founded that there should be no secrets. The work they did, the sheer potential of their discoveries, was too important to be locked away behind intellectual property and proprietary diagnostic tools. Besides, DNA was in everyone. It was everyone. So what right did she or anyone else have to fence off a little piece for themselves and claim ownership?

In the far corner one of her team was replacing something, embryos probably, back in to the cryogenic storage room they informally referred to as the fridge.

Even though the temperatures in there were so low they were safe only for secure medical storage, she knew there was a secret box in there, appropriately labelled with all the proper bio hazard warning symbols, that some of her team used to fast-chill beers for a Friday night before leaving work. She couldn't begrudge them their treats. An an undergrad at University College London she had tried to flash-freeze vodka in a similar way to remove the 'excess' water. None of her attempts had ended well for the bottle but it did demonstrate that her calling was biology and not chemistry, although at the level she worked it was hard to tell the difference.

One of the scientists waved at her through the window as she scanned the room. She performed the helpless apologetic gesture of someone with their hands full but who would otherwise have loved to wave back. The scientist gave her a thumbs up.

"It looks like that theory about non-verbal communication is right after all," said a voice behind her.

"Oh! Alice, hi. Iain said you were here. I got you a coffee."

"Just the one?"

"Yes Alice, just the one. No-one should drink as much coffee as you do."

"You sound like my doctor."

"I know. I went to school with him, remember?" Said Lyn, but there was no humour in her voice.

"Rough morning?" Alice asked gently as she took the cup and opened Lyn's office door for her.

Lyn set down her own cup, dropped her bag on to the desk and sat heavily in her chair. It rolled backward a short distance under the impact. "You could say that."

"So you read the article?"

"I read something. It wasn't the interview we gave, and it wasn't the story we wanted published. How are we supposed to raise our profile and deliver our goals if the rest of the community think we are going to steal their discoveries and make them all jobless? Why are they so short-sighted?"

Alice hopped up to sit on the desk. Her skirt shifted to reveal part of a tattoo of emerald and blue scales.

"People are afraid of change, Lyn. This industry is still so new you can see some of the packaging. I mean, how much was invested last year into the sector last year?"

"One point eight billion dollars in the third quarter twenty-fourteen," said Lyn. She knew the number well because Zoi Tech hadn't seen a penny of it.

"And the quarter before that?"

"Two point four billion."

"Exactly. That's a drop in just one quarter. Funding cycles for some of these companies are so short-term that it's no wonder a drop like that scares them. If you do publish everything you want to it's going to have an effect around the world."

"But it will only be a short-term drop. Long term the potential is incredible. Just think, if we could convince people to do it our way the world could share one massive data set, free to anyone who wants to use it. Everything public record. Everyone who fears Frankenstein babies and genetically modified whatever will have access to the same data any company can use. No one will be able to hide anything."

"Not until their marketing departments get involved anyway."

"I can't control everything, Alice," Lyn snapped.

"I know that! You need to know that too. You do what you do best and I will take care of everything else."

"Everything?"

"Everything that involves public relations, I mean."

"It's a shame you couldn't get editorial control on the article."

"I know. We tried, but they didn't want to go for it. Hey, maybe next time we can get Goldacre to write something for us. He carries weight, and he gets it."

"Isn't he working on another book? Look, Alice, I'm sorry I'm snappy. It's not your fault. And it's not just the article."

Realisation crept over Alice's face. "You had another rejection?"

Lyn nodded and sipped her coffee to avoid eye contact.

"Oh, Lyn, I'm so sorry," said Alice. "Did they give a reason?"

"I don't know, I didn't read that far."

"You want to talk about it."

Lyn shook her head. "Not right now. Thank you, though."

"Do you want to get on with your day instead?"

"I do," said Lyn, standing up and once again taking on the role of company owner. "What's happening today?"

"Well, you have a nice restful hour ahead of you. I've told Iain to take all your calls so you can concentrate on the funding applications and grants."

"Wonderful," said Lyn flatly.

"And then..."

"And then what?"

"Lyn, it's Friday! That means two hunky soldiers will be walking through that door to brighten all of our days."

"Hunky? I hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, right. You're so professional all you see when you look at them is four letters."

"Alice, I think you only think four letters too."

"At least mine spells a word."

Lyn couldn't resist a smirk at that. "And this afternoon is the update on the problems we are having with the new fertilisation process. Is the whole team available? I want to get to the bottom of it this time."

"Everyone is in except Gordon, he's at the dentist. He'll be here soon. You know everyone still thinks it's the technology?"

"We have the best tools we can get. Are they still complaining about the speed of the editors?"

"They know there is better stuff available."

"It might be better but either we can't afford it, or the licencing restrictions mean we can't use that tech for the work we want to publish. It's no good if we can't share the results. Remember how I told you that the first human genome took thirteen years and a billion dollars to sequence. Now we can do it in a couple of days for a few thousand dollars. Things will speed up when the tech progresses. The first ten years were about seeing what the genome actually looked like. Now we now. Remember that it takes longer to write a book than to read one."

"And DNA is a very tiny book."

"My point is that work that pushes the envelope is always waiting for the technology to catch up, and sometimes the demands of the task give it the push it needs. If they keep working on it we'll get our breakthrough."

"And then we'll all be rich, right?"

"If you wanted to get rich you're in the wrong job, Alice."

"Never mind. Someday my prince will come, I'm sure!" said Alice. She swivelled off the corner of the desk and dropped lightly to the floor. "Fine, you inspire them with that little speech later. Until then, you have grant applications to complete."

"Wait, did we receive the papers from the Gates Foundation?"

Alice pointed at the pile of paper underneath her bag. "Right under there. Hey, did you appreciate the irony of a paper application from Gates?"

"The man has almost wiped out Polio. If he wants my application on a slice of dead tree he can have it. Can you imagine the advances we could make into genetic causes of disease if we only had a fraction of his money? We could stop these things in the womb, or at conception. We could test and eradicate them pre-conception! Reverse cellular degradation, program immunity to disease at the genetic level. Anything!"

"I do. I know all of that. Now write it down so he knows too."

Lyn moved her bag to the floor and spread out the papers on her desk.

"You sure you don't want to help?"

"Oh no. This special kind of fun is all for you. And I have important PR work to do, probably."

"Or Solitaire?"

Alice feigned her best hurt expression. "Lyn, please. I'm a professional. And professionals don't play solitaire during office hours." She drained the last of her coffee, twisted off the plastic lid and dropped the cup and lid into their respective recycling bins by the door. "They play minesweeper."

Lyn couldn't help but smile as Alice swept out, closing the door behind her. She reached for her desk phone to mute the calls but saw that her calls had already been diverted to Alice's own phone so Lyn wouldn't be disturbed.

Lyn switched on her computer and began readingthe application.