Eve Smith was the sort of quiet, intelligent young woman that is usually ignored by the rest of society. At twenty-nine years old, Eve's tall thin good looking form would make her the object of many men's fantasies, but her natural shyness led her to wear loose fitting clothes and her glasses did their best to hide her face. Added to this, Eve had been a lesbian her entire life and found most of the men around her trying at best. She found it a sad fact that men mostly sought women for their looks, not their intelligence and almost comical that as a woman blessed with both she found them depressingly predictable in their advances.
For the past three years, she had risen steadily through the ranks at GenTec, a small medical research company that had just changed hands after their former parent company went under. For the past six months, she had been the senior scientist of one of the larger labs under the direction of her oppressive administrator, Adam Hart one of those bigoted men that hated her for refusing his advances and feared her for her intellect.
"Evelyn may I have a word." Her supervisor’s voice interrupted her train of thought and she looked up from her microscope trying to hide her irritation.
A stick thin balding man in his fifties, Adam had a perpetually hunched posture made him look like some bizarre form of vulture that was enhanced by his ill-fitting lab coat. At this precise moment, he was stood by the entrance to her lab a sly smile plastered across his normally dour face.
"Yes sir what can I do for you" she replied, attempting to keep her distaste for him out of her tone.
"As you know my dear, our change of ownership has caused something of a shake-up in all the departments” he shrugged his shoulders as if to say such problems were to be expected before continuing in his usual dull monotone, “people are being reassigned, promoted and even let go it’s unfortunate but this disruption is one of the problems we have to work through."
Hart's oily condescending smile just seemed to ooze self-satisfied triumph, his dislike of Evelyn's rapid rise and disruption of his routine was well known and his gloating attitude wasn’t reassuring.
"Am I being reassigned sir?" she asked carefully.
"Now, now my dear, don’t be so fast to jump the gun. You have simply been requested to meet our new owner,” Adam oozed, “I'm sure he will simply want to talk to you on some other matter."
‘Some other matter’ Eve thought was highly unlikely, the new owner mister Black had only been in possession of the company for two weeks and so far everyone called to see him had been fired or 'reassigned'. If he wanted to see her it was no wonder her resentful boss would be so happy about it.
"When does he want to see me?" she asked.
"Immediately my dear” he replied, “it seems, Black likes to get things sorted straight away don’t worry about your experiment I'll have Collins keep an eye on it."
Collins was an ass kissing no talent toady who would love nothing more than to step into her shoes, resisting the urge to give in to temptation and tell her boss exactly what she thought of him she held on to her composure and smiled back politely.
"Very well sir, I assume he is in the administration block?" she asked keeping her tone carefully pleasant.
"You are to report to the company directors office, that’s all I was told my dear,” Adam replied looking positively gleeful, “well come on, no sense dawdling. Black is a busy man, I would hate to take up his valuable time waiting for you."
Getting to her feet, Eve left her cubicle and headed down the hall, Collins sat smirking at the next workstation having obviously listened in on their conversation.
"Don’t worry Darren, no need to get up my work can wait till I get back,” she snapped in passing but Collins just sat there smirking like some obese frog as she walked past and out of the door.
Once out of the lab, Eve removed her white coat and hat freeing her long golden blonde ponytail and smoothed the lines of her plain black skirt and matching blouse. Hart would probably dislike her if she were a plain woman for the simple reason her rise through the company ladder made her a threat. The fact that she was a tall, imposing natural blond with the good looks to catch any man's eye and the bust to keep them looking didn’t help matters. It was her total disinterest in men in general, and him in particular however that probably turned mere dislike into that quite uniquely British quiet hatred.
Eve found his oily attempts at seduction ridiculous and his oh so polite attempts to damage her career when they failed pathetic, having no interest in men all her life she had long become used to the rather infantile behaviour when they found she wasn’t interested. The men in the company openly called her the Nitrogen Queen, most of the women disliked her for fear her looks were a threat to them.
Collecting her thoughts she made her way out of the department building, across the central courtyard and into the administrative complex. Stopping only to ask directions of the brainless bimbo operating the reception desk, she made her way through the sprawling building. Taking a second to tidy herself and smooth her hair she gathered herself for the inevitable, putting on a mask of detached superiority knocked once loudly on the imposing oak door.
Opening the door, Eve expected to see her new employer and whatever committee of toadies was required to dismiss her, what she found instead was a room stripped to its oak panelled walls. Gone was the heavy oak Directors desk replaced with a glass and black metal minimalist construction that carried no more than a tiny mobile phone. The previous director's heavy office chair had vanished in its place the back of a huge black leather recliner dominated the emptied room.
"Miss Smith, I presume, its pleasure to meet you." The chair revolved on some hidden mechanical swivel revealing its inhabitant enthroned like some James Bond super-villain… well perhaps if reality had better quality to work with.
