“I’m Candace Brickmann,” Candace said without missing a beat. She reached out a hand. Melanie introduced herself and asked if she could join them.

“By all means,” Candace said.

Candace and Kevin were sitting side by side. Melanie sat opposite.

“Are you responsible for our local genius’s presence at the ptomaine palace?” Melanie asked Candace. Melanie was a sharp-witted, playfully irreverent woman who’d grown up in Manhattan.

“I guess,” Candace said. “Is this unusual for him?”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Melanie said. “What’s your secret? I’ve asked him to come over here so many times to no avail that I finally gave up, and that was several years ago.”

“You never asked me specifically,” Kevin said in his own defense.

“Oh, really?” Melanie questioned. “What did I have to do—draw you a map? I used to ask if you wanted to grab a burger. Wasn’t that specific enough?”

“Well,” Candace said, straightening up in her seat. “This must be my lucky day.”

Melanie and Candace fell into easy conversation, exchanging job descriptions. Kevin listened but concentrated on his hamburger.

“So we’re all three part of the same project,” Melanie commented when she heard that Candace was the intensive-care nurse of the surgical team from Pittsburgh. “Three peas in a pod.”

“You’re being generous,” Candace said. “I’m just one of the low men on the therapeutic totem pole. I wouldn’t put myself on the same level with you guys. You’re the ones that make it all possible. If you don’t mind my asking, how on earth do you do it?”

“She’s the hero,” Kevin said, speaking up for the first time and nodding toward Melanie.

“Come on, Kevin!” Melanie complained. “I didn’t develop the techniques I use the way you did. There are lots of people who could have done my job, but only you could have done yours. It was your breakthrough that was key.”

“No arguing, you two,” Candace said. “Just tell me how it’s done. I’ve been curious from day one, but everything has been so hush-hush. Kevin’s explained the science to me, but I still don’t understand the logistics.”

“Kevin gets a bone-marrow sample from a client,” Melanie said. “From that, he isolates a cell preparing to divide so that the chromosomes are condensed, preferably a stem cell if I’m correct.”

“It’s pretty rare to find a stem cell,” Kevin said.

“Well, then you tell her what you do,” Melanie said to Kevin, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’ll get it all balled up.”

“I work with a transponase that I discovered almost seven years ago,” Kevin said. “It catalyzes the homolygous transposition or crossing over of the short arms of chromosome six.”

“What’s the short arm of chromosome six?” Candace asked.

“Chromosomes have what’s called a centromere that divides them into two segments,” Melanie explained. “Chromosome six has particularly unequal segments. The little ones are called the short arms.”

“Thank you,” Candace said.

“So…” Kevin said, trying to organize his thoughts. “What I do is add my secret transponase to a client’s cell that is preparing to divide. But I don’t let the crossing-over go to completion. I halt it with the two short arms detached from their respective chromosomes. Then I extract them.”