CHAPTER 3

Traci Weber

Professor Weber carries a grudge towards against chairs in lecture theaters, for good reason. Their discomfort is a wink-and-a-nod to her fidgetiness. She used to be a hair twirler too, until she shortened it to a cheek-length bob cut. These days, she soothes her restlessness by stretching her legs between presentations. To avoid creating a disturbance, she is wearing black ballet flats (so she won’t click-clack across a solid floor, and at five feet five, she does not need the additional height). 

Reserving a seat at one end of the back row assists her walkabouts. This had been accomplished through a nod to her German heritage. She had written her name in Sharpie script on the front cover of her conference program, which she had placed on the appropriate chair before breakfast. Like commandeering a pool chair with a towel.

She despairs at the physiological disadvantages of being in her mid-fifties: her slowing metabolic rate, reduced muscle mass, and decreased blood circulation. These are all allies of the building’s air conditioning. Her stretch jeans, and the blue blazer that covers a striped, button-down shirt, are no match for the onslaught of chilled air. She loses focus during this final lecture’s Q and A, and it crosses her mind that declining cognitive function is an early symptom of hypothermia.

The session Chair loses patience when the last question defies her request that it be brief. She cuts in. “Clearly this is a complex topic. But we are already running late. Maybe you and the speaker can pursue this discussion over drinks.”

The thirsty audience breathes a collective sigh of relief as it makes a creditable attempt to depart hastily without betraying a sprint towards the bar. Traci’s starting position is close to the exit. She also benefits from deference towards her gender from a couple of chivalrous Texans. They usher her through the doorway.

It is the happy hour (free beverages!) prior to the evening meal. Or rather, a happy thirty minutes, since today’s session finishes so late. A mobile drink station with just a single server operates at one corner of a sunken courtyard surfaced with faux medieval, cobblestone pavers. Fluted, gray planters compete for space with patio sets: recycled plastic fashioned into chairs and rectangular, slatted tables. After collecting their drinks, most of the attendees ignore the seating, and gather into small circles. Because it is easy to sneak away from a standing group, in order to join another that is higher up the scientific hierarchy.

A table conversation forges a more structured social bond that is difficult to break. Nevertheless,  Traci takes a generous pour of Chardonnay to a seat. She wants a few moments alone, for an introspective on her first visit to Gunn University, which lies half-way between Corpus Christi and the town of Alice. 

She appreciates that the conference is snappily named. Kinases: War and Peace. The war is the pathology resulting from kinase dysregulation; peace is the successful, post-therapeutic condition. Such benefit-driven taglines attract more attendees. Dramatic conference titles are also important for brand consolidation, and not just to impress those researchers who work outside this field. There is a much broader audience to curry favor with - funding agencies and taxpayers. They would not happily bankroll scientists who confessed to only being motivated by a curiosity to unravel the basic laws of nature. No, that will not work at all. Researchers have to boast about the tangible, practical outcomes of their research. 

Consequently, those working in the field of biosciences claim their primary commitment is to improve human health and well-being. Of course, financial support for that goal is limited. So,  each research specialty battles for market dominance with its own, passionate claim. We work with the most successfully exploited group of drug targets; we analyze processes that consume most of the cell’s energy; we investigate the maintenance of genetic integrity that is key to human survival; we study the 75% of the human genome that many ignore – that large portion of our DNA which encodes regulatory RNAs, not proteins. 

If exaggeration ever tips into distortion, no worries. Dubious statements will eventually become accepted if they are reiterated often enough. It is the illusory truth effect. 

If the susceptibility of humankind to illusory truth were merely a plaything for scientists, maybe the world would be a better place. Alas, the phenomenon has serious, real-life consequences. Such as the widespread belief in the never-ending complaint that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged. Perhaps purveyors of this myth are aware that slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea. So goes Mein Kampf. 

This is the first symposium Traci has attended since Chuck’s still-unsolved murder. She still  grieves the loss. They had been close colleagues who had collaborated on a couple of projects. The two of them had often sat together at conferences, especially at meal breaks, or in the late-night drinking groups. It was Chuck who had chaired her presentation at the ill-fated meeting in San Diego - the very symposium that had been abandoned on its final morning, after his body had been discovered by a designer-dog walker at dawn. A Dalmatian-Corgi crossbreed had sniffed out the remains in the bushy perimeter of the conference hotel grounds. 

She wishes she had not learned how difficult it is to walk away from a crime scene when the body under the forensic tent was said to be someone you had been close to. She had been fixated by the grim theater: officers in latex gloves inspecting the ground, while a curtain of September sea-mist retreated from the canvas, under a spotlight of early sunshine. She had been frozen with disbelief. The police must be mistaken. It isn’t Chuck who is lying there. It really isn’t. 

“Ma’am. . .?” That interruption had been polite but official. “We must take your statement.” 

A uniformed arm had directed her away from the perimeter of yellow tape, towards a lecture hall repurposed for interviews with the attendees. 

Traci recalls a near coincidence. A group of clerics had almost been available to hand out pastoral solace and some glossy brochures. The hotel had hosted a conclave of leaders from the Brotherhood of Young Earth Creationists. But that meeting had closed on the same morning that most of the scientists had arrived. She wonders if the pastors rue missing that boat.

Chuck had expressed disappointment. He had grumbled it was a lost opportunity to pursue a frank exchange of views concerning the origin of the Universe: the 14 billion years for order to self-assemble from chaos, versus the 10 thousand years since bespoke lifeforms were assembled by an all-powerful entity. Traci had queried Chuck as to his motivation to engage. She is not a religious person, but she knows a number of researchers who are. Most of them – as far as she can tell – accept the science behind the timescale of evolution, with the caveat that God surreptitiously intervened, most notably at the beginning. It is a proposition that Traci has never cared to argue about. She had offered Chuck the opinion that both cosmological and divine interpretations of creation require belief in phenomena that are beyond our comprehension of spacetime. A supreme being must either be eternal, or arise spontaneously. The same goes for a self-evolving universe. The choice of faith is yours. 

But Chuck had been on a mission that day. He had brushed aside her neutrality. “The Brotherhood is a fringe organization right now. But it aspires to increase its influence on the broader conservative movement. It wants to eliminate the constitutional separation of church from state, so it can be a revisionist force in education and politics. This organization is a threat to our democracy, because it cultivates a fertile breeding ground: forty percent of Americans accept a young earth version of creationism. That proportion has persisted through almost half a century of dramatic scientific progress. I see that as a failure of science; one of its worst. I believe it is my duty to fight back. To do whatever I can.” 

Traci’s participation in this conference - it has scraped the scab off painful memories - would have been an emotional challenge just by itself, without Karen adding angst to the mix. Her sister has arranged to visit in a couple of weeks. To get a break from swim season, supposedly. For too many of the previous winter’s weekends, Karen had maintained, she and her husband had endured long hours of boredom perched on uncomfortable bleachers in the chlorinated atmosphere of an indoor pool. “It’s been a long season, and Summer League starts in March,” Karen had complained during last week's phone call. “The kids didn’t want to miss any training before the upcoming Championship Meet; Tom will deal with it. But I need time off. To get away.” 

Traci knows Karen’s motives are not so neatly wrapped. It’s a cover story. She'll want us to talk about Mom. This will be a tough row to hoe. 

She faces the lecture theater she has just exited. Behind it, she can see the top section of a 100 feet, freestanding clock tower. Its first three floors are occupied by the Gunn library, which Traci had toured during a break in the conference. It was here where she had been surprised to read passages from Sophie Gunn’s detailed diary of her thoughts and experiences during the University’s construction in the Roaring Twenties. Sophie had been the consummate flapper. In surprisingly unexpurgated text (which would not be on display if this were a State-supported school) Sophie had immortalized her enjoyment of the era’s increased freedom for women to express themselves sexually, including the intense courtship that led to her marrying into the Gunn family. Traci had left the library in a bleak mood. The experience had been an unwanted reminder of a lack of intimacy in recent years. 

Traci remembers her sister's advice to relive tension. She pushes back her shoulders and takes three slow, deep breaths. She focuses on the flowers. It is late February in the south of Texas, so the planters are colored with tulips, crocus and, to her delight, dark purple petunias. Faint whiffs of honey come and go in the light air. The late afternoon sunshine is also soothing. The concrete floor helps too. It radiates the heat it captured earlier in the day. She removes her jacket and folds it over the chairback. For good measure, she knocks back two large mouthfuls of wine. 

Two of the conference attendees join her table: Agarwal Rakesh, with a glass of red, and Steve, his postdoc, holding a bottle of IPA in each hand. He senses the need to explain. “I didn’t think there would be enough time to queue for a second one.” 

Agarwal had introduced Steve to Traci yesterday, along with the explanation that he had arrived from the UK at the start of this year. Traci thinks of him as English Steve; his surname has escaped her. His face strikes her as being distinctly long and narrow. She knows her Mom would have described his body-type as being in sore need of some stick-to-his-ribs cooking. Traci wonders if a better word-association is Skinny Steve.

It appears that her two companions do not shop at the same clothing store. Agarwal is a dapper double doctor: an MD-Ph.D. Consequently, he is wearing a two-piece charcoal suit. His unbuttoned jacket reveals a light gray shirt and a navy tie with a few narrow white stripes. Steve, who is half of Agarwal’s age and earns one fifth of his salary, wears baggy brown cargos and a loose fitting, black T-shirt. Steve’s footwear is a pair of high-top sneakers; Agarwal has chosen dark brown brogues. 

Steve focuses on his first beer while Agarwal and Traci perform some post-game analysis: they opine on which talk was the highlight of the day, there is agreement on which presentation was devoid of new data, and they recognize the member of the audience who posed the same question today as they had at a previous conference. Traci uses subtle eye contact in an effort to encourage Steve into the conversation. She worries for him. If he continues to neglect opportunities for academic networking, will he be only faintly remembered as that English fella who likes beer? 

It is the nature of the architecture that finally encourages Steve to speak. He waves his non-drinking arm in a wide circle to emphasize common features of the student services building on the left, the main campus lecture theater they just exited, an administrative building on the right, and the dining room behind Traci. All of these structures are faced with ivy-clad limestone, enhanced with columns, door moldings, window tracery, gargoyles and parapets. 

“What’s the thinking behind the fake Gothic architecture?”

“It’s not actually phony.” Agarwal tries to help Steve make sense of it all. “It was a genuine, recognized style in the 1920s. Collegiate Gothic. It was designed to convey academic prestige. Like your Oxford and Cambridge.”

“Prestige?" Steve is not impressed. "That’s not how it works in the UK. Less than one percent of the population is selected by those two institutions. But their graduates represent a quarter of our Members of Parliament and most of our senior judges. Many see this as elitism. Perpetuation of aristocratic rule.”

“That’s ironic,” Traci observes. “Our college system is not under attack from liberals. We face a backlash from the opposite end of the political spectrum, which is especially riled just now. Because of the recent campus protests over the Gaza situation. 

"And it's an election year. It suits the Republicans to denounce elitism in higher education for what they say is its anti-American, liberal ideology. They’re fixin’ to shut down the truth, because they can’t stand to face it." 

Traci realizes her articulation is regressing. It happens when she gets worked up about something. She takes a breath, not wanting to be mistaken for a simple-minded, Southern lunatic. 

“Have you seen any recent campaign videos from Trump?” She speaks at a more measured pace. “He said the Government should not be supporting institutions that breed communists and terrorists? Don’t you think that sounds like he is resurrecting red scare tactics from the 1950s? Aren't y’all worried this will become an excuse to reduce Government funding of universities, if he's elected." 

Agarwal banishes Traci's concerns with a dismissive wave. Rather too haughtily for her liking. “That won’t happen. The last two Quinnipiac polls are consistent. Biden has the lead. Between four and six points. And remember, Biden has already beaten Trump once. In 2020.”

Traci is annoyed by the mansplaining. But she does not push back. Just this once, she yields to the weariness of battling chauvinism, and the exhausting demand that she be more assertive. It has sapped some of her energy during the last three years, during the time she has chaired the Cellular Signaling Department at the FIB: the Federal Institute of Biosciences. 

 A position at the FIB had been an offer she felt unable to refuse. The institute had opened in the 1960s, to anchor a new research and technology park through a handshake agreement between the US President and the Florida Governor (tax dollars for the State!). Federal funding arrives directly from DC, through procedures that largely avoid Congressional scrutiny. Much of it is earmarked by the US Senate, through turgid legalese buried deep into Appropriation Bills. In addition, the Defense Department provides brown envelope money. By total coincidence, of course, a military base is one of the FIB’s neighbors. Traci does not dwell on the intrigue that lies behind the institute’s funding, she is simply grateful that the resources for her work have much improved since she left her university position. 

But it had been a tough start. She had inherited a crisis that needed to be dealt with strongly. One of her group leaders, Graham Rice, had shown "a cavalier attitude towards Federal regulations." That was how she had described her feelings about the offenses to the FIB's Scientific Director who, she felt, was not dealing adequately with the situation. Despite the danger of starting a new job by creating an enemy, she had successfully pushed for Rice to be removed from her Signaling Department.

It has also been tiresome that some university academics express jealousy towards her (and even anger, behind her back) concerning the luxuries they perceive to be enjoyed by Government scientists. They say that being a tenured Federal employee awards greater job security. They are disdainful that she is liberated from writing grant applications to fund lab expenses and staff salaries. They note that she is freed from teaching – unlike the college system, there are no students. Traci has attempted to explain that these benefits are tied to exacting requirements from the institute's leadership. She spells out that funding is tied to her publishing multiple, ground-breaking discoveries in the major journals. To sustain that level of productivity, and perform her departmental responsibilities, she feels compelled to work longer hours than she did as a university professor. But her detractors - and there are more of them since she joined the FIB - they think her excuses are not worth a shit.

Steve places an empty bottle on the table, reaches for his second, and describes his recent encounter with the consequences of inordinate tuition fees. “It must be expensive to study here,” he says. “A lot of the students can’t even afford proper accommodation. Yesterday afternoon I walked around campus and discovered a tent city. Full of homeless students. Hundreds of them. How is that allowed?”

Traci is sympathetic towards Steve’s struggles with American cultural quirks. It takes time. But she assumes he will eventually become accustomed to dentists advertising cut-price specials (summer discounts on root canals! I’ll take two, please). And maybe he will appreciate that the World Series is not a contest with global participation, and he can acquire tolerance for the energetic, punchy enunciation of TV newsreaders, even when the exigency is a rodent predicting the end of winter, or a Presidential pardon for a turkey.

She asks, “was this near the basketball arena?” 

“What. . .?” Steve's bewildered face suggests he has just been asked to comment on the price of eggs in China. “The tents were set up on a large lawn. There was a building nearby that could have been a stadium, I suppose. I didn’t pay it much attention. I was more concerned about how these poor students were getting fed. I didn’t pause to wonder what sports they might like to play.”

“They are not homeless,” Traci explains through a patient smile. “The Gunn Basketball team have a huge rivalry with a nearby state-funded university. The tickets are extremely difficult to get. The street price can exceed a thousand dollars for the better seats. Hundreds only gets you the nosebleeds.

“The Administration has a limited allotment of free tickets for the students. But it’s first come, first served. This is why they camp out for weeks beforehand. To reserve their place in line.”

Steve just cannot grasp this concept. “They choose to sleep outside? In the winter? College sport is that important?” 

Agarwal takes the opportunity to assert authority over this discussion. “You bet. And the university certainly thinks so too. I can guarantee you that the basketball coach is by far the most highly paid campus employee. And I’m talking millions.” 

Steve slowly absorbs the concept that the salary structure at American universities has nothing to do with the importance of receiving an education. But he has not finished posing questions that bring him astonishing explanations. “How did this University get its name?” 

Traci wishes Steve had not asked, and not because she already knows the answer. Her reticence is brought on by Agarwal gently stroking his goatee. This is not the only sign of his cognitive effort. Receding white hair has allowed his forehead to grow taller, highlighting three horizontal furrows of concentration - Traci sees a hamburger button. 

She is antsy because of previous experience with Agarwal not simply being a walking Wikipedia. He has also mastered its narrative style: overly factual and lacking in engagement. True to form, the lecture begins with an unduly elaborate description of the American arms industry exploiting an untapped home market in the 1900s. Agarwal acknowledges an essay on that era that he came across in Time Magazine. He describes a prototypical slogan that the magazine had reproduced. “Protect your family!” These words, Agarwal explains, were placed above an image of an armed husband shielding a scared wife as they cautiously stepped down their staircase at night.

“Other adverts would advise you to hide a pistol between your car seat cushions, or demand that every 12-year-old boy should be armed. The idea was to generate fear and promote masculinity. Today’s gun lobby continues to deploy these tactics. Large sections of the American public still lap it up. 

“The Gunn family were among those who acquired vast wealth from firearms in the 1920s. They decided that constructing a private university would be a suitable, self-aggrandizing legacy. Their manufacturing facility remains in the family, and continues to fund this institute.

It is all too much for the innocent postdoc. “What? The Gunn family still sell weapons? And nobody questions a place of learning that is funded by products that kill?”

Agarwal nods in sympathy to the nature of these questions. “Not in Texas. And it’s not the only example. Several American universities have been accused of accepting funds from the tobacco industry in return for indirectly assisting with their PR campaigns.”

Traci thinks the main points of Agarwal's address could have been more succinctly put by not  beginning at the time the dinosaurs died out. It is the reason that her attention wanders away from their table. She observes that Batman and Robin are expressing frustration; they remain in the line for drinks. Traci wonders if provision of a single server was a ploy to cap the entertainment budget. 

Remembering names is a problem for Traci. She tries not to worry about it, having read a study that concluded the human brain is bombarded each day with over thirty gigabytes of information. That is the equivalent of two complete seasons of Game of Thrones (in high definition). With its cast of several hundred, who remembers all of their names? 

She has become grateful to a memory aid that she found on-line: Name Games. The strategy is to link a person’s name to a shared characteristic. One of its successes, she now realizes, is her recall of James Bateman and Robin Johnson. Even though it is Robin, at a burly six feet two, who is the taller of the pair. James, a less superheroic six inches shorter, is African-American. It dawns on Traci that she has unwittingly constructed an allegory for the underrepresentation of Blacks in Science being as severe as it is among costumed crime fighters.

This dynamic duo had been Chuck's major postdoctoral driving force during his most productive era. It is why everyone expects them to benefit from a recent amendment to the statutes of the GigantoPharm Cancer Prize. This information had leaked out the previous December, so it was not a big surprise to hear it announced at the conference this morning: a posthumous award is now permitted. Beginning with the next commendation in January 2025. So, it is a no-brainer that Chuck Standish will be the beneficiary. As for the accompanying two-million dollar award, that will go to whomever the Awarding Committee decides are Chuck's most productive colleagues: Bateman and Johnson, naturally. 

Traci has no problem acknowledging their deserving graduation into tenure-track scientists at their own institutions. But she wishes both of them had subsequently reviewed Chuck’s science more impartially. She has served on grant review committees with them. Furthermore, as an academic editor of some important journals, she has seen their referees’ reports. She feels that both of them were too slavish with their praise, and too reticent with their criticisms. Both of them would have felt indebted towards their mentor. It would be instinctive not to turn against him. Traci could not imagine that Chuck would have requested favoritism from those whom he has trained. But, Traci thinks, he certainly did benefit.

How often does such give and take between colleagues slip into unethical territory? It is a question Traci has given much thought to. After all, she also bent the rules once. Only a minor and justifiable infraction, she has convinced herself. She had interceded in the process of a manuscript review, in order to allow Chuck the opportunity not to publish an embarrassingly incorrect conclusion. One that would have provided Roger Spinnit with ample ammunition in the war of attrition between him and Chuck. I only acted to save the field from bad data being published. I prevented an outbreak of controversy. I extended my network of friendly colleagues. Nothing dodgy in that.

She had not expected any payback. But of course, it had been gratefully received. Chuck had raised her profile through invitations to speak at a couple of important conferences. He had shared some of his unpublished data with her, when he knew it could help her own research. It was Chuck who had facilitated her appointment at the FIB. He had learned how GigantoPharm had head-hunted the previous Chair of Cell Signaling, Ted Worthington (Ted the Head is Traci's cue). She is sure Chuck's letter of recommendation had assisted her in being recruited as Ted's replacement. 

Traci’s thoughts are interrupted as she observes that Batman and Robin are being spoken to by Nick Robbins (Nick the Prick; that was an obvious one!). Their body language appears to Traci to signal that they are not thrilled to have this conversation. A couple of minutes pass. They shrug their shoulders in synchrony, which ends a brief exchange.

Robbins strides over to Traci’s table. Darn, she thinks. The three senior academics exchange brief pleasantries. Agarwal makes the effort to introduce his young postdoc, but Robbins ignores this. Traci observes the rudeness, but also concludes that Steve appears unperturbed. He seems perfectly happy making sure his second beer is not wasted.

“I need to ask you both a question,” Robbins remains standing as he speaks, casting a shadow over the table. “Have either of you been contacted by a journalist? She goes by the name of Lydia Goode.”

Traci takes the aggressive tone in Robbins' voice as a warning. Something is off. She shakes her head, deciding not to mention the voicemail that the journalist had left for her, only a couple of days ago. Traci also makes a mental note: I really should return that call. 

Agarwal is more responsive to Robbins' query. “Yes. She is writing a biography of Standish. She knows about the PNAS paper that he and I had published together. As part of her research, she wants to interview me. We’ve arranged to meet up next month, at the gerontology symposium that I am organizing in New Orleans. ”  

Knowing that Robbins has not signed up for this meeting, Agarwal follows with one-upmanship. “It's the 75th anniversary of the American Academy of Gerontologists. It's a big deal. Lydia has a commission to write a commentary on the meeting.”  The implication is that an important opportunity is being missed. Agarwal also wants it noted that he, too, is on first-name terms with an influential journalist.

“I have no interest in the AAG.” Robbins speaks at a volume that would be appropriate for an audience stationed at the back of an airplane hangar. “I know about the biography. She and I met for the same reason, a few weeks ago.” 

He has prepared his lies carefully. “She wasn’t interested in my tributes towards Standish. She only wanted dirt. I wouldn’t play that game. I have no desire to speak ill of the dead. I kicked her out of my office. 

"After that, I checked into her background. Peculiar thing is, only her journalism credentials show up on the internet. She’s written several commentaries for Science and Nature. And she has her own web site. But her online headshot is fake, it’s absolutely nothing like her.”

Traci ponders whether Robbins is aware of the concept of a private conversation, as his voice cannons into an adjacent table of Europeans. She reads their amusement as heads turn. Perhaps, like tourists on safari, they will enjoy reporting home about sighting an insufferably loud American in its natural habitat? 

“What does this journalist look like?” she asks. 

“Well, she’s quite tall. I guess in her early thirties. And she reminded me of Halle Berry.”

She’s Black?” assumes Traci.

“Nooo." It's like he’s answering a stupid question. “Her hairstyle reminded me of Halle Berry.”

Steve makes the mistake of assuming he has something useful to contribute. “Do you mean close-cropped as in Die Another Day, or curly wig in The Call?” 

Attempting to curry favor as a movie buff teaches that Robbins is not interested in expanding his circle of friends for game nights. Instead, Steve receives a scowl that conveys the disgust one experiences when stepping into dog shit. He mouths his displeasure with American arrogance - wanker! - and returns to his beer. 

“My point is,” Robbins bellows, “this woman has something to hide. She’s using an alias, I’m sure of it. I can’t even find out if she really has a Ph.D. She told me she has, but she didn’t say where it was from. I don’t even know which state she lives in. I tried a reverse number search on her phone and found nothing. I guess she’s using a burner. But why? What doesn’t she want us to know?

“I just discovered something else weird. She told me that she is setting up interviews with those who had worked with Standish. But I just spoke to Johnson and Bateman. Goode has not tried to contact either of them. If she genuinely wants to write an informed biography, then surely she would have set up interviews with the people who had worked in his lab. Why hasn’t she done that?” 

Traci offers an alternative viewpoint. “You can’t assume she won’t, at some future point.” After all, as far as Robbins is concerned, she has not contacted me either. She also speaks from her knowledge that those who have come through Chuck’s lab remain extremely loyal to him. “Maybe she considers that Chuck’s alumni would be too biased? They might sugarcoat him.” 

Their conversation is momentarily interrupted by an ironic cheer. Batman and Robin are clinking bottles in celebration. The disturbance prompts Steve to appreciate there is no longer a line at the bar. He glances at his watch, and concludes that the four minutes that remain before dinner offer ample opportunity. He excuses himself – to nobody in particular – and hurries to procure another IPA. 

Again, Robbins looks directly at Agarwal. “I just need a photo of her attending your conference in New Orleans. I can’t do it myself. The registration deadline has passed. I could use her image to scan the internet using facial recognition. Pictures of her must surely exist somewhere. I think we should all know who she really is. So I'm wondering if you would help–"

“Nick, that's an appalling suggestion.” Traci feels obliged to intervene. “If she wants privacy, you should respect it. Maybe it just works well for her career to be anonymous.”

Robbins flashes her a cold, predatory glare. She reflexively jerks back into her seat. Her heart races. Did Agarwal see that anger? It seems not, as Robbins covers his tracks with a forced smile. “Don't we all want to protect Standish’s legacy?”

Traci knows Robbins is acting deceitfully, because she remembers a conversation with Chuck from a couple of years ago. She had learned how he and Robbins had seriously locked horns. Their dispute arose out of a conversation at a conference in Japan. Robbins had bragged about his discovery of a novel pseudokinase, which he had said was abundant in the pancreas. In the following months, Chuck had gone on to investigate this protein as a therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer. In his lab’s first paper on this topic, Chuck had cited Robbins' work, and emailed him a copy of the manuscript prior to its publication. 

Chuck had confided that Robbins went apeshit over the phone, claiming the application to pancreatic cancer was his idea. Chuck had refused to agree to Robbins' demand to be a coauthor of the study. The call had ended with dueling epithets. Traci cannot understand why Robbins now claims to be the guardian of Chuck's fine reputation. 

A new voice, from up high, conquers the courtyard's discourse. “Ladies and Gentlemen!” Traci  turns around and observes that the announcement has been delivered by an overfed man in a white apron and a tall, pleated hat. At his side is a young woman in a business suit. They occupy an elevated position, atop the steps outside the cafeteria. The man introduces himself as George Baker. 

He pauses to see if anyone makes the connection. Nobody does, so he moves on. He makes a show of patting his ample belly. “They say you should never trust a skinny chef.” This time, his audience senses that soft chuckles represent an appropriate response.

“So,” he continues, “one look at me should tell I've prepared a great dinner for you tonight.” He holds out an arm to introduce his companion. “Alison will lead you to the dining area that we have reserved for you on the second floor. Please follow her. And enjoy!” 

There is one last request from Robbins. “All I’m asking is, if you find anything out about her, would you let me know?” And with that, he quickly strides off; it is the only gait he seems to know. He snowplows other delegates aside, clearing his path towards Alison. After a few seconds, she laughs at some joke he makes.

As Traci observes all this, she expels a tired sigh. She gathers up her jacket, and inspects the contents of her purse. She knows it’s a little obsessive, but she can’t avoid checking she still has hold of her important possessions. Credit cards. Cell phone. Car Keys. But something is missing. Where's my Sharpie gone?