corporate-security-and-espionage

The chapter introduces Vergil Ulam, a brilliant but unorthodox genetic researcher at Genetron, who is engaged in secretive and ethically questionable work on biochips and mammalian cells. When Michael Bernard, a distinguished visitor, arrives unexpectedly, Vergil's covert experiments are exposed to company management, leading to tension over the unauthorized and potentially hazardous nature of his research. The chapter sets the stage for the ethical and scientific conflicts central to the narrative.