Chapter 9 - THE COPY NO ONE COULD OWN
The Swiss shipment belonged to Novacene AG, a private biotech company incorporated two months earlier.
Nolan held no shares on paper. His brother-in-law controlled the trust that owned it. Celeste negotiated a consulting agreement worth millions if Novacene acquired the Aurelia patent after Cascadia’s purchase.
Their plan was layered.
Sabotage the visible specimen. Trigger Greer’s biometric override. Use that login to copy the master culture map. Transfer the plant under emergency authority. Complete the biotech sale while Greer and Rafe destroyed each other publicly.
If the orchid died, Novacene held the only viable tissue. If it lived, Cascadia owned it cheaply.
Either outcome paid Nolan and Celeste.
Miriam sought an international preservation order. Swiss authorities froze the tissue but would not return it until ownership was resolved.
Greer faced an uncomfortable question: who owned a living organism built from a wild orchid, university methods, Aldercrest funds, her intellectual labor, and Nolan’s participation?
She had spent eighteen months speaking of “my research.” Now that possessive sounded less stable.
The original orchid species grew in a protected Andean region. Its genetic material came through a conservation partnership requiring benefit sharing with the local community. Nolan’s patent draft omitted that obligation.
Greer called Dr. Lucía Quispe, the botanist who arranged the original collection. Lucía listened, then asked why Greer had not attended the last four partnership meetings.
Greer blamed schedules. Lucía answered, “Nolan attended. He told us you supported the patent language.”
Greer had delegated the relationship to the person now erasing it. Her good intentions existed only in her mind; the council experienced her as an absent name above Nolan’s decisions.
She apologized without asking Lucía to reassure her.
Greer had signed early collection forms without noticing the later patent excluded the community.
She was not part of Nolan’s theft, but she had benefited from a system she did not inspect closely—Rafe’s failure in another language.
She contacted the conservation council and disclosed everything.
The council’s attorney requested suspension of all commercialization. Greer agreed.
Nolan called her from an unknown number.
“You are giving away years of our lives.”
“They were never ours alone.”
“Rafe taught you that? The billionaire discovers ethics after losing control?”
“No. Losing control taught both of us to notice who never had any.”
Nolan warned that without private funding, the cell line would die before regulators finished arguing.
“Then release the protocol to independent preservation labs,” Greer said.
He laughed. “You would publish the method?”
If Greer made the preservation protocol public, Nolan could no longer monopolize it. But premature release could compromise patent rights and allow unsafe experimentation.
May you like
She had forty-eight hours before the Swiss freezer contract expired.
Another countdown. This time no one would force her to decide alone.
