Juan felt a twinge of guilt. “I’m sorry, Carol. I know I’ve been in meetings for most of the last two weeks. It’s just that ever since we confirmed Hercules’s results, the folks in HQ have been going bonkers, and I’ve got to keep them happy.” He laced his fingers together in a playful show of begging. “Can you please do a metabolic panel on Hercules and then get blood and tissue samples for DNA extraction? I promise you I’ll get some decent help as soon as I can.” With a pang of guilt, Juan admitted, “Winslow’s got me going to DC around noon to meet with him. I’m not one hundred percent sure why, but I think if we line up enough supporting data, we may stand a chance for getting an approval for phase zero clinical trials.”

Carol’s eyes narrowed, then the hint of a smile pushed its way through her grim expression. She put the rat back into the cage and shook her head. “Oh, stop begging. You’re embarrassing yourself.” She cleaned her hands with some gel-based disinfectant and grumbled, “I’ll do the panel and start the extraction, but I won’t do the analysis. Tomorrow’s my birthday, and I am taking it off.”

Juan’s cell phone vibrated, warning him he needed to head to the airport.

“Thank you so much, Carol. I’ll be back late tonight and take over the analysis while you enjoy a well-deserved day off. I’ll get one of the interns to help.”

At that last remark, Carol grumped, “Good luck with that.”

###

It was even later than he had anticipated by the time he returned to the lab. Mike Kim was already at work on the analysis. Mike was a PhD candidate from Stanford, and Juan was pretty sure he was the one Carol said “peed himself” every time something needed to be done with the animals. He was great with computers; with the rats, not so much.

“Dr. Gutierrez,” Mike called out as he entered the lab. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m comparing the DNA profile for specimen 153 to the standard control profiles, and I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is right.”

Juan weaved around cluttered lab benches piled high with handwritten notebooks, centrifuges and magnetic stirrers. The place smelled of rubbing alcohol, and due to it being well past the normal work hours, the lab was deathly quiet. He grabbed a stool and sat next to Mike. “Okay. What’s up?”

Mike pointed at the computer monitor. “Well, when I ran Hercules’s DNA profile through the GeneMark software, it gave me this.”