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Roland walked into work, strolling past the security devices as he waved his ID. Throughout the mundane routine, he didn't pause at all. He knew the route by heart, and he could probably walk the whole thing blindfolded. One hundred forty paces forward, and the secretary greeted him in her chipper, utterly plastic voice. At this point, another sixty paces to the elevator. He pressed the "up" button and tapped his foot impatiently. It always took a while for the elevator to arrive, since there were only two to service the entire building.

As he stood there, he began to ponder over the posh, glamorous lobby. GenCo really knew how to spend its money, huh? It was a shame they didn't fund this much into their R&D departments. Instead, they focused on the marketing. He couldn't blame them for that--they did have to present a good image to the public if they wanted to stay in business and stave off the political firestorm. If people got too upset over the ethical issues of genetic experimentation, they'd be shut down and he'd never be able to finish his research. So, they built a huge complex complete with marble floors and a chandelier, sent some lobbyists to the capital to grease hands, and started some special interest projects to "give back" to the community. All in all, their noses were kept clean, as far as the public ever got to see. But, at the same time, they used this approach for all of their operations, which disturbed him. Everything was marketing. Even their products were mostly marketing, trying to make it sound as if they had unlocked all the mysteries of the genetic code. Their experiments were still years off, but they needed the funding to continue. In the mean time, they could get by with some creative marketing. If anybody wanted to find out what they were really doing, they'd need a subpoena; otherwise, these countless acts of fraud would be disguised as "trade secrets". They'd only had a little "real" success at their research; the potted plants outside were proof of that. Some of the crop research was scientifically sound, but he was sure the special fertilizer and controlled environment in the production labs didn't hurt. Anything else the company made or did could be faked, or at least protected by the company's impressive legal team. Roland knew that, with a little more time and a little more money, he could provide them with authentic solutions. He wasn't that far away from a breakthrough in genetic altering of organisms that were already born, if he could only figure out how to make it stick. He couldn't understand why they were slowly pulling his funding away from--*DING!*

The elevator doors opened wide, displaying a full car of passengers on their way out. The tide swept past him, but he stood firm. Once the crowd had thinned, he stepped inside. Even though he knew where the button he needed was, he skimmed the floor listing, anyway.

1-Lobby
2-Human Resources
3-Finance, Sales, and Accounting
4-Security
5-Research
6-Development
7-Legal, Marketing, and Public Relations
8-Administration
9-Executive

He mused how all of the people who got to leave at a reasonable time of day were either close to the ground floor or at the top. He shrugged his shoulders and pressed the button for the fifth floor. He relaxed a little bit as he listened to the muzak softly tinkling from speakers hidden somewhere between the elevator car's ceiling and back wall, but it was over by the time he reached his destination. He got off, pushing through the crowd of people that had somehow accumulated when he wasn't looking. It was promising to be another long day, but today would be complicated by the imminent performance reviews that someone in middle management decided, apparently on a whim, to perform. He sighed, scrubbing up at the wash-basins and slipping on a white lab coat. Well, best get to work, he thought.