This choice: Alison quits in a rage, and steals her research • Go Back...Chapter #3Alison quits in a rage, and steals her research by: izdubarr   "You can't shut this project down, I won't allow it. This is unacceptable!" Alison ran out of the office holding back tears, striding past Sandra the receptionist and into the elevator. She was frantic, hysterical, but she was also resolute. They weren't going to shut her down!
She practically ran through her lab, tears streaming down her face. Julie and Craig, her lab tech and postdoctoral assistant were working in the corner. They were starting to synthesize treatment and placebo doses in anticipation of the clinical trials, and the sight of them working sent Alison off in a new bout of sobs. She pushed past them into her private office and slammed the door shut.
Once inside Alison took a moment and calmed down a bit. Panic and hysteria were replaced by resolve. It wasn't going to end like this. She grabbed a legal box from under the desk and began to pack up everything she could related to her work, pads, notebooks, stacks of papers, CDs everything she could find. She went to the computer and copied all the research information on her hard drive onto her memory stick and tossed that in the box too. Then she noticed the vials on her desk. Craig must have been working hard, bless him. On her desk were 12 vials, 6 doses of the treatment prepared for the never to happen clinical trials and 6 doses of the inhibitor. Alison's treatment was self-sustaining. Once taken the body would continue to synthesize protein into muscle at a hugely accelerated rate. Since that process would eventually kill the patient, literally smothering them in their own tissue, an inhibitor was required to stop the action of the initial treatment. She didn't think Craig would have been able to get 6 doses of each compound ready so quickly, but Craig often surprised her. Evidently he left the vials on her desk to show her just how efficient he was. Alison snatched the 12 vials up and tossed them on top of the box. She then sat down at her computer and composed a brief email resigning from FMG, sent it off to Mike Sullivan and left her office.
A legal sized box full of paper is a heavy thing, and Alison wasn't very strong, but she managed to heft the box onto her hip and sort of throw/waddle it out the door of her office. Once out in the lab she dropped it on the floor and called her staff over.
"Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out and say it. Bad news from Sullivan. We're being shut down." Alison put up her hand to stifle the inevitable questions from Craig and Julie.
"It's over. I've resigned effective immediately, you two are going to be reassigned to Dr. Peterson, I imagine. Sullivan is going to send people down to clean out the lab soon, I'm sure. Look, I'd like to answer your questions, but I .. I just can't right now" Tears were welling up in Alison's eyes again.
"You can reach me at my gmail account, I'll be in touch in a couple of days to try to explain everything."
With that Alison waddled out of the lab, swinging the heavy box down the corridor. She was crying again, tears streaming down her face, and the box was just too heavy, she needed to rest, but she really didn't want any more people than necessary to see her lugging the box out. The ladies' room was just around the corner, fortunately, and Alison swung the box through the door, praying that the bathroom would be empty.
It was. Alison dropped the box on the ground, panting and looked at herself in the mirror. She wiped the tears from her eyes - fortunately she wasn't wearing any mascara to run and splashed water on her face. It wasn't far to the parking lot, just a short break here and she could lug the heavy box to her car.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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