Patience worked hard on her designs all day. By the time she had finished, it was half past eleven at night and everyone else in the office had gone home. There was no one to take her designs to George Hedare at the factory. Patience decided to take them to him herself.

She didn't have much time, so she took a taxi to the Hedare Beauty factory. She tried a door but it was locked. She looked at her watch. 'Oh no! It's almost too late,' she thought.

She shouted as loudly as she could, 'Hello? Is anyone there?' But there was no reply.

Then she saw some lights at the back of the factory. She walked towards them and found another door. Luckily it was open. Patience went in.

She could hear people talking in a room not far away. She walked towards the room.

'I don't care if women get terrible headaches when they use Beau-line,' Dr Slavicky was saying. 'I can live with that. And I don't care if women can't stop using Beau-line. That will make me very rich! But I don't want to destroy women's faces. I won't do it.'

Patience looked into the room and saw a video screen. On the screen there was a woman's face. It was an old face, with lots of lines. Then, slowly, the face began to change. It became younger and younger. The lines disappeared. But the face continued to change. It became hard like a stone. The skin began to crack.

Patience turned and ran. She crashed into a table.

'Who's there?' shouted Slavicky.

Patience ran as fast as she could. A door opened and two men came out. Their names were Armando and Wesley. Their job was to protect George Hedare, and they went everywhere with him.

Patience hid behind a big machine.

'Come out,' Wesley called. 'It's OK. We only want to ask you a few questions.'

'Oh good. That's OK then,' thought Patience. She came out from behind the machine. 'I'm sorry. I think I'm in the wrong...'

Bang!

A bullet from Wesley's gun hit the machine beside her.

Patience dropped her designs and ran. Bullets flew past her as she ran through the factory. She came to a pool of dark water. There were lots of metal bridges over it, but there was no way out to another part of the factory. Patience looked up. Above her were several huge pipes. Maybe she could find a way out up there.

She climbed inside one of the pipes and began to move down it on her hands and knees. Then, suddenly, she reached the end. It felt like the edge of the world. Far below her was a fast river. And between her and the river were 200 metres of nothing.