"New boss...? Oh!" She half-runs over to April and puts out a hand to be shook. "Ms. Turnberry! It's so nice to meet you! Well, okay, maybe not so nice for you because your uncle died and I'm sorry about that too because he got me a job here taking care of all these plants! And I get to try out new equipment and make everything better and my work feeds real people it's not just experimental! I promise I'll do good work for you if you let me stay! Even though I know production has been a bit behind lately." 

"Wow, hi. Samantha, right?" She shakes her hand, though she's a little slow about it. "It's all good, I'm pretty sure we can afford the occasional slow day. Feel free to tell me to get out of your hair, but can I ask, why's it so fuckin' pink in here? Like, I assume the plants like it, but what's up with that?"

"Oh! It's the chlorophyll! Like, the green stuff that plants use to absorb sunlight! It's what makes plants be green. And it's green because plants absorb the red and blue light and reflect the green off of it. So because plants mostly want red and blue light, at a ratio of about five to one, this place is mostly lit with a mix of red and blue light, at a ratio of about five to one. Well, technically it would work even better if we used full spectrum lighting that was just really really heavy on the reds and blues, but this is what my predecessor" (she makes a face) "installed, and so this is what we're stuck with until I get around to replacing it. But it wouldn't be that much of a production gain even if it would make the plants happier, and I'm busy with installing the aeroponics equipment on more of the racks. Which is taking longer than I had anticipated, sorry," she adds, hanging her head a little. 

"Don't sweat it! Like, it sounds like the new thing's gonna be way better than the old thing, right? So it makes sense to put up with it slowing stuff down a little temporarily if it's gonna make up for it down the line."

"I mean, yes, of course, aeroponics is much more efficient for most plants than hydroponics but I thought I could keep everything running perfectly but stuff keeps falling behind!" 

"I told you before your plan was a bit... optimistic," Morrison said, "but that we were fine and had the liquidity to purchase some food from elsewhere in the time being. Please, don't sweat it. In the long run, what you're doing will be much more worth it." 

"Oh. Okay. Um. It was nice to meet you, Ms. Turnberry, but I should probably get back to work now I think. If that's ok with you?" She starts to turn away from them, clearly ready to be dismissed. 

"Sure, sure," she says agreeably. "Good luck with the plants!" And maybe chill out some! She's not going to say that part, because she is not a total asshole.

"Okay. Thanks! Nice to meet you!" she says, and then winces just a tiny bit at her own words and hurries off. 

Morrison sighs once she's out of earshot. "I wish she'd make more friends," she says. "She's brilliant, but a bit odd, and usually that isn't a problem here, but she's kept herself rather isolated which means she's stayed just as high-strung and overachieving. We'll need to figure out how to get her to do something socially soon or else she's going to burn out." She pulls out her phone to take some quick notes. 

"She did seem kind of... tightly wound."

"She is. It was in her initial assessment. Her parents were rather...overbearing during her childhood, and while they did drive her to academic excellence they also left some difficulties in her demeanor." She puts her phone away. "I'm glad we came down here, she was hired only half a year ago, and what with the recent goings-on with your uncle's medical condition this nearly fell through the cracks." She purses her lips. "Alright, where to next? Or should I propose some places I think you might like?" 

"What places are you thinking of?"

"Well let's see. You've already seen the rainmaking lasers, that one is probably the flashiest. We could check our pharmaceutical division, they're working on some really promising seizure treatments." She pauses. "Actually maybe we should skip there; you might not like the off-the-books applications of their work." She pauses to think for another moment. "How about our technology division? They're working on a really efficient image compression algorithm at the moment, you might be more interested in that." 

"...what's the off-the-books application of seizure treatments? Is it horrifying? I bet it's horrifying."

She sighs. "At high enough doses the drugs can be used as a sort of brain-disabler, which temporarily stop the majority of brain activity altogether, and due to the way it's absorbed by the body it's practically untraceable." He voice is starting to shift a little, the words sound almost rehearsed. "A great way to debilitate or disable an enemy that you don't want dead, yet, just temporarily out of your way." 

"How did I guess! What about the image compression, what's the secret there?"

"The methodology used allows for surprisingly efficient and essentially undetectable steganography -- that is, hiding a secret message in the picture. This can allow organizations to pass messages in public channels without anyone knowing a message is even being passed -- and if the format gains sufficiently widespread adoption, other people's images could be used, for additional layers of obfuscation." 

"That's almost cute, really."