Adventures in Biotech

[Natalya]

Stewart: We're going to handle this, and the whole gun fight, I'm sure you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone was trying to off the empress or the PM or something, these things happen from time to time. In a nation as big as Assyria it is a wonder it doesn't happen more often.




Dr. Comeau: Yes, I understand. But it was scary. Thank you for your help Misses Stewart, I am sure everyone else here is as grateful for your assistance as I am.




Stewart: Like I said, it's nothing. De rien as you would say! I'll stop by again soon when I've got more info.
Dr. Comeau: Au revoir!

[cleanupcrew]

Location: Acelera Pharmaceuticals headquarters, Corpora, planet Trattoria
Time: 07/04/G.R. 2015, 8:00 am


"CEO Dr. Venter, the eight o'clock visitors are here."
Dr. Venter: See them in, please.


Dr. Maxwell: It is an honor to meet you, CEO.
Dr. Sato: A sentiment that I echo. May I ask you what you're doing at the moment, honorable CEO?


Dr. Venter: Doing an honest day's work. How about you?


Dr. Sato: Shouldn't you be leading and performing your duties as CEO? Working in a lab like this seems beneath you, your honor.


Dr. Venter: I'm leading by example, you see. I've got COO Dr. Nagato to handle the business side of things.


Dr. Venter: Maybe you've forgotten that economies are built upon people actually doing things. I built this company, the one that you Stanford business children have been running all roughshod over, because I had an amazing innovation that I wanted to share with the galaxy. This company set out to manufacture ideas, not money.


Dr. Sato: Honorable CEO, with all due respect, we're a corporation, not a charity. In order to maintain our competitive edge over the rest of the galaxy, it is necessary that -


Dr. Venter: Hold your tongue, lawyer. I'm not the one whose employment is under review here.


Dr. Venter: Now I get it, we have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to turn out a profit. I get it, and that's what Nagato is for. But we're the number one pharmaceuticals company in the BrikVerse - I don't think we have to worry about staying profitable for the foreseeable future.


Dr. Venter: I've recently gotten a call from the Trattorian Ambassador to Assyria regarding a...very concerning incident involving their Empress. Given that Trattoria's only trade route passes through Assyria, I hope you understand the importance of our relationship with them. Now thankfully, neither government has been able to pin down responsibility - but I'm fairly certain that a two certain people standing before me right now did it.


Dr. Maxwell: I'm innocent, it was all Dr. Sato! I only signed off on forms!
Dr. Venter: So either you agreed to this incident, or you don't read the forms you sign.
Dr. Maxwell: ...
Dr. Venter: You disappoint me as a fellow researcher.


Dr. Sato: You know what, so what if we did it? We needed to get rid of those two foreign researchers, and the Empress happened to be there.


Dr. Venter: So what? Firstly, you're supposed to employ all non-lethal tactics available to you - GIPO, courts, hostile takeovers, smear campaigns - before resorting to wetwork. Violence is such an undignified and uncivilized course of action. Secondly, Trattoria hasn't avoided a recession for over three hundred years by thinking like myopic USA investor sharks. Your actions were so short-sighted - could you imagine the long-run consequences of shooting the Assyrian empress? Assyria, our biggest R&D competitor, would never respect our patent laws again.


Dr. Venter: No, you know what the real problem with Acelera is? We've grown so obsessed with protecting our existing patents over developing new disruptive technologies. Now I know Dr. Nagato thought this strategy would make us more profit, and I've turned a blind eye to much of it so far, but you two have crossed the line. We should be innovating - we shouldn't care about what people do with our old patents. We should be ahead of them anyway, if we're adhering to my original vision for this company. Let them use them, they'll never catch up to us no matter how much they try or steal.
Dr. Sato: But we've already invented Miracle Cure, honorable CEO. We've conquered death, injury, and all sicknesses known and unknown. What more is there to do?
Dr. Venter: And that is why I am CEO, and you are not.


Dr. Venter: Go, you've wasted enough of my time already. I'll let you keep your jobs, but I'm cutting your paychecks by twenty five percent so you remember not to do this again.

Spoiler

Show

Note: I was granted express permission by Natalya to whiteagle her thread.

[Silverdream]

He seems too nice to be a Trattorian.

[Vami IV]

He seems too nice to be a Trattorian.

[Natalya]

He seems too nice to be a Trattorian.

[Kommander Ken]

Law-Abiding Trattorian. Coming this Summer to a Brikverse near you.

[M220]

Luckily summer is six months away for us down in Terra Australis

[Natalya]

Soledad, Doctrinum System, Meritocratic Republic of Trattoria



Dr. Sato: Ahh, I've been expecting you, Dr. Porreau.
Dr. Porreau: Greetings doctor.




Dr. Sato: Do you know how much this floor costs?
Dr. Porreau: I beg your pardon? It looks like an ordinary hardwood floor.




Dr. Sato: Ordinary to you, Dr. Porreau. Ordinary to someone who doesn't have the clearance needed to come to Soledad very often. Doctor, I will remind you that this world is a desert. There isn't a single forest in this entire star system. My floor here was actually imported from the black forests on a Bavarian world far from here. It is very expensive, as are the rest of my tastes, doctor.

[Natalya]

Dr. Sato: You see, my taste is for excess. That is the only taste worth having, because that's the only thing that separates man from his brother -- whether or not he is able to attain success and therefore excess.
Dr. Sato: But to be successful, one has to be effective. And, the way you chose to handle the foreign scientists was not very effective, Doctor.
Dr. Porreau: Doctor Sato, there was no way to know that the Assyrian empress was being protected by The Black Crotox. We had to make our move before the Canadian delegation left the planet.
Dr. Porreau: The targets were both in the same room at the same time. We were going to eliminate them and some security personnel, make it look like a political attack. We couldn't simply assassinate them both at their labs. That would have made it obvious that Acelera was behind the attack.
Dr. Sato: That's not good enough Porreau. Your men failed to eliminate either target and got the whole Assyrian security establishment thinking it was an assassination attempt. If they find your tracks, it will lead right back here. That is not what I paid you to do.
Dr. Porreau: Respectfully, if it weren't for The Black Crotox our plan would have been executed perfectly, but he intervened. You must understand that it would have been impossible to forsee such an event. How was anyone supposed to know that a mystical asteroid hermit would be in the employ of the Assyrian Empress?




Dr. Sato: That's something you should have figured out before the operation Porreau. You're fired. Now get out of my office.




Dr. Porreau: Lawyers. They certainly live up to their reputations.

[Natalya]

About 30 minutes later...



Dr. Sato: Ah, Dr. Herder, so nice to see you.
Dr. Herder: Hello Dr. Sato.




Dr. Sato: Come, pull up a chair. We have much to discuss.




Dr. Sato: I like this plan you have with the Akkan Dosh Unity. My men have done their work and I have the files you need.

[Natalya]

Dr. Sato: Tell me, how were you able to determine that the Akkan Dosh were supplying the TMAH used in the MCC's bulk micromachining lab? And why aren't the Canadians making their own TMAH? It is such a simple chemical.




Dr. Herder: Well, the Canadians were manufacturing industrial quantities of TMAH at a plant in Brittanian Columbia up until about 4 months ago. The plant was the target of an OASIS terrorist attack which damaged their automation control systems and chemical storage containers. They won't be up and running again for the next two months. Until then, Akkan Dosh is exporting TMAH to Canadia.




Dr. Sato: Excellent work Dr. Herder. That's the kind of wit this company needs more of. We need to look at the quiet factors, survey the entire environment, and use that knowledge to target the vulnerabilities of our competition.

[Natalya]

Dr. Sato: I have the files you need regarding Amestrian interests and fleet deployments near the Akkan Dosh. Don't let these files leave your sight.




Dr. Sato: I had to go through some difficult channels to acquire this information, use it wisely.




Dr. Herder: Understood.

[Natalya]

Dr. Herder: I will set this plan into motion at once.




Dr. Sato: If this goes well, the MCC will be forced to delay their research, which will please the COO no doubt.




Dr. Sato: Do not fail me, doctor.

[Natalya]

Meanwhile, at a robotics lab on the Assyrian capital world Austere...



Dr. Bradley: Okay Dr. Biggs, you had a request of me?




Dr. Biggs: Yes sir. This is the second droid we've looked at. Unlike the first one where the cpu and bus were damaged by gunfire, all of this ones primary electronics remain intact. The damage it sustained caused a short in the power system, but fuses protected the electronics. Right now we swapped the fuses and repaired the damaged circuits, so it is okay to boot up, but we don't want to do that because that will wipe everything in the RAM.
Dr. Bradley: What are you talking about? Isn't the RAM empty already because it powered down?
Dr. Biggs: Yes, but because the system didn't do a proper shutdown there should be vanishing but still-present charges in the RAM. What we've been trying to do here is use this equipment to measure that charge, but our instruments aren't quite sensitive enough to read the micro-charges.



Dr. Biggs: Helena, show the Dr. what we're talking about.

[Natalya]

Dr. Helena Rose: Okay, here goes.
The platform began to rotate.








Dr. Rose: Beginning scan.