Page 33 of The Fallback

A steady stream of people got on, most of them coming straight up the stairs and immediately looking around for spaces to sit. Rosie pulled her bag onto her lap as a man in a suit squeezed into the seat next to her. She looked back at the message from Graham and scanned it quickly, trying to decide whether this was something she could read in her now cramped position or if it should wait until she got to work. That tingle of excitement she had felt last night crept its way back up her spine and she realised that she didn’twantto wait, maybe thiscouldactually be fun.

Graham’s message was polite and funny. He seemed like a genuine guy, although Rosie tried to remain sceptical. It was so unlikely to have a real potential match that she needed to remain vigilant about getting carried away. She began composing a reply as she drifted off into thoughts of where they should go on their first date to where he might take her on their second and, before she knew it, they were several months in to a relationship and discussing living arrangements.

She was jerked out of a delightful daydream in which she had just introduced Graham to Mitch, which resulted in Mitch becoming uncontrollably jealous and swearing his undying love for her, by the realisation that the bus had arrived at her stop.

Grabbing her bag and apologising profusely to the man next to her as she inelegantly clambered over him, Rosie ran down the steps of the bus just in time before the driver closed the doors. She took a moment to get her breath back on the pavement before walking the few yards to her work. She also took those moments to have a stern word with herself about wasting time on ridiculous and unrealistic, not to mention unhealthy, daydreams. Getting back on the dating scene was about ridding herself of her infatuation with Mitch, not about trying to make him jealous.Stupid, she thought to herself, Mitch would be thrilled if she met someone because he was her best friend, and best friends were always happy for each other’s happiness, right? Just like she would be for him if he met someone, right? Right, she told herself as she pushed open the doors to her office building with a determination to set something up with Graham before the day was out. And to really stop getting carried away.

Rosie didn’t have a chance to finish her message to Graham since Rachel had called an impromptu emergency meeting to discuss the changes in central funding from the government and how it might impact their department. Rosie sat at the back of Rachel’s office as her eyes began to glaze over; none of this would really affect her as most of her funding came from non-government grants but she was a good team-player and tried to take an interest for the sake of her colleagues. Nadia had spent the meeting alternating between chewing her pen and shooting her hand up at every available moment to ask a question. Rosie could tell that Rachel was about ten seconds away from completely losing her patience when the meeting thankfully ended. Rosie planned to grab Nadia straight afterwards and see just how badly she had taken this news when Rachel called her back in.

‘Rosie?’ Rachel called, looking up from her desk just as Rosie made it to the door. ‘Can I have a word?’

Rosie shot Nadia an apologetic look and mouthed, ‘Sorry’ in her direction. Nadia grimaced and started chewing her pen again as she made her way down the corridor.

‘Yes of course.’ Rosie turned on her heel.

‘Come in,’ Rachel beckoned her, ‘and close the door.’

Rosie took a moment for this to sink in. Rachel hardly ever had time for a quick word, and if she did, the word was over before the office door was closed. Either this was going to be interesting or Rosie had done something wrong. She wracked her brains trying to think what the latter could be but came up with absolutely nothing.

‘Rosie,’ Rachel began, leaning back in her chair and folding her neatly manicured hands over her perfectly pressed teal shirt. ‘We’ve been approached about something rather confidential that I need your input on.’

Rosie nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, silently thankful that so far this didn’t seem to be going in the direction of being fired and immediately escorted from the building by security.

‘I need your guarantee that you’ll keep this to yourself for the moment?’

‘Of course.’ Rosie nodded again.

‘At some point they will probably want us to sign an NDA, but so far they’re happy just to take our word for our discretion.’

‘Sorry, Rachel, can I ask who you’re talking about?’ Rosie asked a little nervously.

‘BioChem,’ Rachel said, a look of steely determination settling on her face.

Rosie swallowed. BioChem were one of the biggest pharma companies in the vaccine and anti-viral area of the market. But they never farmed out their work; they were notoriously secretive and did all their research in-house. This didn’t make any sense, why would they approach academics to partner with? They had the in-house expertise, she was sure of it. Plus Rosie would bet that their facilities were far superior to those funded by a university. And then Rosie remembered – Rachel had been at university with BioChem’s CEO, the two of them were friends from years back. Possibly more than just friends.

Rosie recalled a conference she had attended soon after she had started in Rachel’s lab, a conference which had been funded by BioChem. That was where she had been, sat at the hotel bar late one evening, when she saw Rachel and the CEO coming back from dinner together and then getting in the same lift, and she’d made the connection. Not that there was anything wrong with that. As far as Rosie knew, they had both been single, and anyway getting in the same lift with an old friend was not the same as banging their brains out in a hotel room. Rosie should know that – she’d shared countless lifts with Mitch and thus far no banging had occurred. But this might just explain why BioChem were outsourcing their research.

Rosie caught Rachel’s eye and saw that Rachel one-hundred per cent knew where Rosie’s brain was going.

‘As you know, Brian and I are old friends,’ Rachel said, gripping the thorny issue tightly before it became any more uncomfortable for either of them. ‘Of course, BioChem normally keep their research in-house but they felt in this instance we had the expertise they needed.’

She pointed at Rosie who blushed.

‘Yes,’ Rachel confirmed. ‘You should feel flattered. They know about you and they’re impressed.’

‘Wow, OK, thanks, Rachel,’ Rosie stumbled, unsure what to say next. It was flattering, sure, but there was a reason Rosie had never dipped her toe into the murky, corporate world of Big Pharma research. Working in academia, Rosie could pretend that nothing she did lined the pockets of pharmaceutical companies, even though she knew this was not strictly true. They were all linked in an unhealthy alliance of money, drugs and power, which made them sound like a cartel. But there would be something different about working directly for a pharmaceutical company.

‘This makes you uncomfortable.’ It wasn’t a question, merely a statement from Rachel which made Rosie even more convinced that Rachel had superpowers and could read her mind.

Rosie made a non-committal sound and pretended to be very interested in her trainers. Which were really good trainers – Vans hi-tops, 1980s style – but not good enough to justify studying instead of engaging with her boss.

Rachel sighed and put her elbows on her desk, gazing across it at Rosie. ‘I get it, OK? I’ve never wanted to work for a big corporation, either, but don’t be naive Rosie.’

Rosie felt herself reprimanded and tore her eyes away from her trainers.

‘We’re all linked,’ Rachel continued. ‘We might be able to pretend that we’re clean and free from any corporate pressure, but the truth is we take money from all sorts of sources and while we might pretend that we can’t be held responsible for what pharmaceutical companies do with our results once they’re in the public domain, the reality is that what we do heredoesfuel Big Pharma. And we can close our eyes and pretend it’s not happening and wait until our funding is cut off entirely. Or we can take their money and put it to good use in our lab.’

Rosie took a deep breath. Rachel was right, of course she was right. So far, Rosie had been able to distance herself from this truth, but it was a truth. None of them were squeaky clean and Rosie had to make peace with this fact and, maybe, in a small way, use what she was given to exercise some power and do some good.

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