The governor exudes power. Rachel watches him from across the conferencetable. His occasional laughter is loud, his knowing smile invites others tospeak, but not for too long. Today is his first visit to the institute. Theinstitute’s director has introduced the senior researchers sitting around thetable, Rachel among them, and two of her colleagues have already made theircontributions to the conversation. “Who else?” says the governor.Dimitri finds Agniezka at the elevator. They are on their way back totheir offices, returning from an inter-group competition where they jointlypresented a product – and suffered a defeat against a group of colleagueswho showed a more effective design. Dimitri and Agniezka had worked ontheir idea for about a year, with high hopes to win today and move to thenext stages of development. Now, they have to reconsider. The elevator door opens