Fatal Reaction

always beat you up at the end over price. The important thing is not to give in to it.”
    “And what do you propose we do?”
    “I’m not sure. But at least give me a chance to come up with a counterproposal.”
    “Fine,” said Stephen, grimly looking at his watch. “Have it on my desk at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
     
    Setting aside my fatigue I spent the rest of the night tearing our original proposal apart, trying to come up with a way to craft a counterproposal that reduced Azor’s asking price without affecting the dollar amount that Azor would get up front if the deal were signed. My central dilemma was far from unique, but rather one faced by all small pharmaceutical firms—how to avoid giving up, as the price for developing a new drug, all but a shred of its value. Somewhere around three o’clock in the morning I came up with what I hoped was a workable plan.
    The original proposal divided future royalties for the new drug by carving up the world into geographical regions. By taking back Europe, Azor could potentially decide to sell the drug there itself, or it could license it to another partner, perhaps netting another $50 million in a few years. If I could make the numbers work out the way I wanted I figured Azor could now capture—for the reduced price of something less than $30 million— half the world market for a molecule it was nowhere near producing.
    I knew Stephen would see it as a reckless proposal, but if my interpretation of Takisawa’s pullback was correct— that it merely represented a bargaining position—then I thought there was a good chance they would go for it.
    Satisfied that I had finally come up with at the least the skeleton of a workable plan, I pushed my chair back from my desk and went off in search of sustenance from the vending machines. Walking down the silent hallway I was feeling just ragged enough to begin imagining things. Largely deserted, the building almost seemed to have taken on a life of its own, filled with breathy sounds of machinery. Through the ventilation ducts I could hear the nocturnal scratching of the doomed lab animals incarcerated in the basement. Somehow the thought of Paramilitary Bill pacing the lobby with his well-oiled pistol did little to reassure me.
    Expecting to have the place to myself, I was surprised to see Michelle Goodwin sitting at a table in the corner of the lunchroom, headphones clamped over her ears, eating a container of yogurt and reading a scientific journal. Of all the ZK-501 scientists she was the one who most preferred to work at night when there was a scarcity of human interference and an abundance of cpu time. Several times I had seen her leaving the building to begin her daily workout as I was just arriving.
    Tonight Michelle seemed totally wrapped up in her own thoughts, cut off from the rest of the world by whatever music was coming out of her headphones and the submicroscopic universe that occupied her. There was an intensity about her, even in eating, a singularity of focus. It was a trait I had recognized in all sorts of people who were driven to excel.
    Watching her I felt a strange kinship. I suspected that at this point in time Michelle felt she carried the entire burden of the ZK-501 project on her shoulders. Childress she viewed as window dressing, always heading to some conference or other while she concentrated on getting the work done. Like a runner in a relay race, until the structure of ZKBP was solved, she carried the baton alone. Seeing her there, in the middle of the night, I felt fiercely protective. I wanted to make the deal that would let her see the race through to its completion.
    I hated to disturb her, but it seemed strange for us to be together in the middle of the night without acknowledging each other. Besides, I was afraid if she caught sight of me unexpectedly I might startle her. Slowly, I moved into her field of vision and stayed there, until she finally looked up.
    “What are you doing here?” she demanded. Despite my best intentions I had clearly startled her.
    “Stephen needs something on his desk by nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” I replied. The emptiness of the building seemed to weigh on our conversation, making small talk seem stilted and our voices seem unnaturally loud.
    “It never occurred to me that lawyers had to work through the night.” It was obvious that Michelle knew as little about the practice of corporate law as I did about crystallography.