Silence. Nobody moved. A woman had just died in their hands. Gwen's mind went blank. What was this bitterness she felt? Failure? No. The had worked hard for this. But the answer was right in front of them. This was not what they were trying to achieve. Months of har-
Whoosh!
A file flew past her ear and hit the glass wall. It did nothing, not a single crack, against the wall. But the action snapped Gwen out of her reverie. She turned to find, as expected, Aldo was pissed off. Her expression turned ugly. It was usually her who did the throwing of things around and not the other way.
"Explain this!" Aldo pointed a finger down as he demanded in fury.
"And just how do you expect me to do that?" She countered, equally pissed off.
"You said you were prepared, that you were ready, THAT is not the result we were expecting, is it?"
"Then what else do you expect me to say? It's just as you see it!"
"The King will demand an answer, THAT is not an answer I will be giving! No!" He turned away and punched the door of the observatory in frustration.
Bleugh! The two looked in the direction of the sound to find Esmeralda on her knees throwing up in a trash can. Gwen scrunched up her nose in disgust at the sight. Aldo's heart softened when he saw this. He directed his gaze towards the floor and felt his rage grow.
He walked over to the sound panel and turned on the mic as he shouted, "What are you standing there for? Clean that up!"
The medical team recovered from their shock and wheeled the dead body out of the room. Gwen mentally scoffed at Esmeralda. 'How is she in the organization when she can't stand a dead body', she mused and rolled her eyes.
Esmeralda recovered and received a tissue from Aldo to wipe her mouth as one of the bodyguards took away the trash can. She chuckled as she looked in Gwen's direction. "I seem weak for reacting like that but, surely we all have that one thing that riles up our insides?"
She threw a meaningful gaze at Gwen while wiping the corners of her mouth. Gwen's mind flashed with certain images and some grunting sounds. Her face paled from such vivid images but she suppressed the disgust and put on her usual impassive expression. Her fists were clenched as her nails almost drew blood against her palms.
Esmeralda passed the used tissue to a bodyguard to get rid of it. "Call Dr. Mortimer."
"Yes, ma'am", the bodyguard answered.
"Since Miss Cancino doesn't have the answers, Dr. Mortimer should", she said.
The room fell quiet as they waited for the doctor. It took a few seconds for him to be brought into the room. He had on a grave expression knowing the higher ups expected answers for the failure of the test. The man could hardly keep his shaking hands still even when he clenched them into fists.
"Why?" Esmeralda started.
The doctor looked at Gwen in obvious fear before looking back at Esmeralda. He didn't dare look at Aldo because the man looked like he could kill anyone and anything in that moment. He swallowed a hard lump as he looked down.
"Hey", Esmeralda gently called out earning his attention. "It's okay. You can tell me."
As endearing as that was, he kept his gaze down. Still, he could not dilly dally. One way or the other, he would need to provide answers.
"Actually, ma'am, we have been developing this drug manually which is why we were unable to detect such a problem. And since we had to have everything ready before the gala..." He looked at Gwen and fell in fear as he stuttered. "We should have worked harder. Please forgive us. We will make improvements. We just need a bit more time."
"Why?" She asked again. He looked at Gwen and she too did with an arched brow.
Gwen sighed, "Because of that bitch, Amy Harper!"
"You still haven't found her?" Aldo was surprised.
"Nobody can! And it's possible she has been monitoring us to find an opportunity to strike", Gwen crossed her arms against her chest as her face showed her irritation.
"Don't you have a 'helper' that can detect her presence should she try anything?" Aldo asked.
"We can't underestimate her masking skills. She could be in our system right now and we won't know", she responded.
"Or you're just paranoid. If she knows who we are, she shouldn't dare to do something. The Corporate gala passed, did she do anything? No", Esmeralda pointed out what seemed to be the obvious.
"It's called playing it safe. This is a woman who took down a whole corporation, she is not to be underestimated. If I had allowed them to develop this drug using the system, it also means allowing documentation of every step of the development; that's practically feeding her all the dirt on us. We can't let her find out, especially after this", she pointed to the floor below where the woman had died.
The two fell silent. They knew Gwen made a good point. It all made sense. But they were not the ones to make the final call.
"I'll talk to The King", Esmeralda said as she made to leave the room.
The watched her leave. The doctor stood there awkwardly unsure of whether he was dismissed or not. He feared to even ask Gwen after his response earlier. He was practically shifting the blame to her for their failure. He looked up and found her staring with her usual expression. He was about to get down on his knees to beg for forgiveness when she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. He gladly complied.
Aldo chuckled, "Why are the men so scared of you?"
Gwen didn't answer. She was already frustrated by the situation she didn't need him to add on. She wished they would just leave and things wto go back to her trumping on everyone without anyone keeping her on her toes. Aldo didn't pursue the matter and welcomed the silence.
Esmeralda was gone for a while. She was on a call with The King explaining the situation. Gwen could not help her curiosity. She had never met him but only spoke to him when he felt the need to speak to her. Those were never pleasant moments for her. The man always instilled fear in her even when he was not in the room. Kind of like Zach.
Speaking of Zach, she thought of his assistant. Although she had gotten a different result, she still could not shake off her gut feeling. However, what would be the motive behind him digging into their doings? They are not in the pharmaceuticals business. And that assistant of his, he looked too weak to perform such a stunt. Did she overreact in desperation to catch the culprit?
"Where's the doctor?" Esmeralda walked back in as she put away her phone.
"I dismissed him", Gwen answered. Both she and Aldo were curious to know what the new orders from The King were.
"Well, with our current problem, Miss Harper to be specific, we'll continue to develop this manually for three months. If she does nothing during this set time, we'll speed things up and use the system. We cannot continue to delay things because of one person. The King doesn't want a repeat of this mistake. Surely, we don't want to kill the project before it's launched", she sounded so menacing when she said her last sentence.
Her face turned ugly in anger. Her gaze was directed at Gwen. She knew that the responsibility had befallen her. Gwen, felt her anger boil from the woman's actions. She hated being looked down upon. In her suppressed rage, she sent a text to Peter. She didn't care what he was doing, she needed her punching bag.
Gwen: You have fifteen minutes to come to my office.
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