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Cheng’s smile faded. “The YBR2874W strain, Doctor Feely. Properly named — Y for yeast, B for chromosome two, R for right arm, 2874 for strain number and W for coding strand.”

Tim slapped his hands on the table in an exaggerated bit of outrage. “Oh no you don’t, Chubby. Naming goes to the discoverer or creator, and I be both. We already have a proper name, you blowhard, and that proper name is Saccharomyces feely. But you can call it the Feely Strain, if you like. Note the repeated emphasis on the word Feely, as in, you feel what I’m cookin’?”

The teleconference screens let people in different parts of the world make actual eye contact, let Cheng look Feely right in the eyes.

“Naming nomenclature is an established practice, Doctor Feely,” Cheng said. “Many researchers are involved in this project. We wouldn’t want to disa.s.sociate them from any credit by putting only your name on it.”

And with that, it was instantly clear that Cheng’s decision was about disa.s.sociating someone. He intended to take the credit for Tim’s brilliance, for Margaret’s discovery of the new cellulase, for everything, even though he’d been safe on Black Manitou Island while Margaret and Tim had been shot at, nearly blown up and almost drowned. Cheng couldn’t grab all the glory if the strain was named after Tim.

Tim leaned back in his chair. He smiled, laced his fingers behind his head, and looked at Murray’s monitor.

“Director Longworth, perhaps you should arbitrate this disagreement,” he said. “As our impartial third-party observer, who is right? Cheng … or me.”

Murray stiffened. Tim seemed so confident, almost as if he had something on Murray, or as if the two had worked out a backroom deal.

The director waved a hand in annoyance. “Fine. Cheng, you wouldn’t have had anything to work on in the first place if it weren’t for Feely’s work. The yeast already has a name, so use it and let’s move on.”

Tim rocked slowly in his chair, smiling wide at Cheng.

Cheng’s fat cheeks quivered with anger. “Very well. We’ve initiated an intensive incubation program to increase the yeast cultures that were delivered yesterday. We’ve also, as I mentioned earlier, altered the genome to create additional strains — some of which, I might add, show far more potential to be our magic bullet.”

Margaret wasn’t surprised. Cheng was a climber and a glory grabber, no doubt, but he was no fool and he had a small army of scientists at his disposal. Creating multiple strains was the logical approach. The more weapons they developed, the better chance of having one or two that would devastate the enemy.

“Developing variant strains is mandatory, Doctor Cheng,” Margaret said. “But that doesn’t address ma.s.s production. How are we going to make enough of this stuff to dose over seven billion people?”

Cheng’s easy, arrogant smile returned. Margaret knew he’d come up with an original idea, one he’d be ent.i.tled to claim as his own.

“Breweries,” he said.