“You won’t catch him in the main part of The Bakery,” said Roberts. “Not unless you get up real early in the morning. See that little room back by the rear hatch? That’s his private lab.”
“More security?”
“Nobody knows what the hell O’Donnell’s doing. Not even me, and I’m supposed to be his tech.”
And pissed about it, noted Weiss as Roberts propelled himself toward the front of The Bakery. Weiss allowed himself to follow. The reporter pretended to be casually studying the different workstations while keeping one eye on O’Donnell’s lab. It wasn’t very large, certainly not large enough for any of the equipment that dominated the main section of the module. Why was O’Donnell so unpopular? Why was his presence of such concern to Bianco and Skillen?
As if his thoughts had been translated into prayers and then immediately answered, Bianco and Skillen flew past him and stopped at the door to O’Donnell’s lab. Skillen rapped sharply, visibly shaking the fiberglass partitions that formed the lab’s walls. The door opened enough to allow Weiss to see O’Donnell eye his visitors from behind his wire-frame glasses. Weiss drifted closer.
Skillen introduced O’Donnell to Bianco. There was a smug tone in her voice, as if Bianco’s presence fulfilled a threat she had long held over
O’Donnell’s head. O’Donnell squeezed out of his lab and pressed the door closed behind him. Weiss noticed that the door did not latch.
Skillen fired a salvo of complaints about O’Donnell’s use of the module’s hardware. This began a three-way argument, Skillen’s shrill voice countered by O’Donnell’s deeper growls, with Bianco’s clear tenor in the middle. As the shouting intensified, the trio gradually drifted along the aisle. O’Donnell’s lab door slowly opened, giving Weiss a partial view of the lab’s interior.
With an exaggerated sigh of pained innocence, Weiss surreptitiously turned on the Minicam hanging on his chest and pointed his body at O’Donnell’s lab. Vials of colored liquids lined one wall. A laptop computer displayed three-dimensional figures that Weiss now recognized as strands of genetic material. But the plants O’Donnell was growing under high-intensity lamps were like nothing he had seen anywhere on Trikon Station.
Nobody was paying any attention to him, so Weiss took the Minicam in his hands and zoomed in on the plants. But before his fingers could adjust the lens something hard crashed into the side of his face. The Minicam squirted out of his fingers. Another blow followed, this one to his midsection.
“No pictures, goddammit!” O’Donnell screamed. Weiss curled himself into a ball and tumbled beneath the onslaught of O’Donnell’s punches. They caused more annoyance than pain; O’Donnell had not anchored his feet and his swings had no real power behind them. But Weiss sensed that O’Donnell had the strength and the inclination to kill him if his anger went unchecked.
Roberts and another tech pried them apart—after enjoying themselves watching for a while, Weiss thought. O’Donnell’s glasses were skewed on his face. His hair poked through his hairnet like a forest of cowlicks. His shirt billowed about his chest, revealing a stomach that was lean and tautly muscled.
Weiss pulled his hat back onto the top of his head, adjusted the cord of linked rubber bands under his chin, and tucked the flaps of his denim shirt into his chinos. The Minicam was still tethered to his neck; it was not damaged.
“Give me the camera,” said O’Donnell.
“The hell I will,” Weiss said.
“You can see what I mean about Mr. O’Donnell,” Skillen said to Bianco. “He’s a troublemaker.”
“Go squat on a fire hydrant,” said O’Donnell. “I’m no trouble to you.”
“Basta! Enough!” said Bianco.
The two techs released O’Donnell and Weiss. O’Donnell closed the door to his lab and held it shut.
“Mr. Weiss, did you take footage of Mr. O’Donnell’s lab?” Bianco asked. Anger flared in his eyes. He was not a frail old wreck anymore, he was the man in charge.
“Sure I did.”
“Hand me the camera.”
“It’s not your…”
Bianco’s eyes were molten lava. “The camera, Mr. Weiss. Now.”
Weiss felt a shudder go up his spine, as if he were facing an angry Mafia don. Reluctantly, he slipped the cord over his hat and handed the minicam to Bianco. Bianco passed it to O’Donnell.