"Do you realize these are extremely delicate materials?" Dr. Sosa moaned. "You may have just undone months of work."

"I… I'm sorry," the moving guy mumbled.

"It's my fault," Liz said quickly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Sosa. I didn't know where to go, so I was about to ask this man. I distracted him."

Dr. Sosa glanced at Liz, then sighed. "Ms. Parker. Starting off your tenure here rather badly, aren't you?"

He turned and disappeared back inside the lab, leaving Liz horrified. She couldn't believe she'd made a bad impression already. And she couldn't believe how rude he'd just been to her!

The moving guy shot her a sympathetic smile as she squeezed past him into the lab. Dr. Sosa seemed to have forgotten about her already. He was busy arranging a complicated system of test tubes and jars on a lab table. Liz waited quietly just inside the door, not wanting to risk his anger by interrupting his work. After about two minutes, though, she felt she had no choice. "Um, Dr. Sosa?" She was dismayed to find her voice little more than a squeak.

"What?" he said without turning around.

"I was wondering what I should be doing," Liz said. "Can I help you with anything?"

Dr. Sosa whirled about so quickly that Liz jumped back in surprise. His graying hair was too long, and flopped when he moved, making him look like a mad scientist. He stared at Liz in silence, his eyes boring into hers as if he was trying to read her mind.

"Why do you want to work here instead of lying by the pool all summer?" he asked in a low voice.

Liz, taken aback, could think of nothing to say.

"You're young, you're free. Why don't you just leave right now?" he went on.

Liz felt awful. Did he think she was unqualified for this job? He seemed to believe she was some bubblehead with nothing on her mind but getting a tan. Or maybe he'd checked over her grades lately. Maybe he'd realized the wrong student had gotten this work-scholarship.

Liz opened her mouth to speak, but another voice cut her off.

"Liz!" Maris Wheeler floated into the room. She was wearing a gorgeous business suit, and Liz smelled expensive

perfume. She immediately gave Liz a warm smile and a little hug. "Welcome to Meta-chem!"

Liz forced a smile. "Hi, Ms. Wheeler."

"Maris, please."

"Maris," Liz corrected herself. She didn't really know what to make of Maris Wheeler. The woman was beautiful, and she seemed to belong in a mansion somewhere, not running a pharmaceutical company. But her steely blue eyes held a great intelligence.

Maris turned to Dr. Sosa. "Good morning, Alan," she said. "Are you helping Liz get settled in?"

His eyes shot down to the floor, and his cheeks turned white. He didn't reply. There was a strange, awkward pause.

Finally, Liz couldn't stand it. "I just got here," she said. "We haven't really had time to settle in."

Maris nodded. "Well, I'll give you the overview while I'm here. Obviously I'm no scientist like Dr. Sosa, so he'll have to fill in the details once you get to work."

Liz glanced at Dr. Sosa. He had turned his back to them, and his shoulders were hunched up as if he was stressed. There was something weird going on here.

"Dr. Sosa is doing some very important work for us," Maris was saying. "He's a cancer researcher, as I'm sure you know."

"Yes," Liz said.

"Most cancer treatments are designed to deal with the cancer once it occurs. But here at Meta-chem, we're working on a treatment that will attack the cancer at its source," Maris said. "Cancer, of course, is a mutation."

"Right," Liz said. "Regular cells mutate into cancer cells."

"Exactly. And what we want to do is prevent the mutation from ever occurring."

Liz frowned in confusion. "How is that possible? We don't know what causes the mutation."

"True. But we do a lot of work with DNA here. Our goal is to make human DNA resistant to mutation. Strengthen the resistance, protect the DNA… and the cancer never happens."

Liz knew this conversation was oversimplifying things, but she couldn't help thinking that it all sounded like a pipe dream.

"But if you make human DNA resistant to mutations, it could also be harmful," she pointed out. "Some mutations are good. Evolution is a history of mutations."

"Of course we're trying to isolate specific genes that are most likely to lead to the growth of cancerous cells," Maris said.

"Isn't it dangerous, though?" Liz asked. "I mean, once we start messing with people's DNA, who knows where it could lead."

"That's exactly right, Ms. Parker," Dr. Sosa said. It was the first thing he'd said since Maris had arrived, and Liz was almost surprised to hear his voice.

Maris smiled at Dr. Sosa, but her smile was a little forced. "There are ethical issues to any gene therapy," she admitted coldly. "But we at Meta-chem feel we know where the line is. And we'd like to eradicate cancer."

Now I've insulted her, Liz thought. What a terrible beginning}. "That's really impressive," she said aloud. "I had no idea you were working on such humanitarian things."

"We produce pharmaceuticals only to make money for our more important research," Maris said. "That's what Meta-chem is all about… helping people. Healing people."

Dr. Sosa coughed, and Maris shot him an aggravated look.

I guess Dr. Sosa doesn't buy the Meta-chem sales pitch, Liz thought, amused. It looked as if this job would be an education in office politics as well as science.

"I wanted you to be in the lab where our most interesting work is being done," Maris told Liz. "That's why I've placed you with Dr. Sosa. I'll leave you two to get started."

Maris headed for the door, then stopped and turned back to Liz. "I'm really happy to have you here, Liz. We both are. Right, Alan?"

Dr. Sosa met Maris's eye, then forced a smile. "Sure," he said.

The minute Maris was out of the room, his smile disappeared. Liz couldn't figure it out… he obviously wasn't happy to have her here. But why?

"I'm really excited to be involved with such cutting-edge research," she said. "What do you want me to do?"

"See that box?" he said, pointing to one of the crates the movers had left.

Liz nodded.

"You'll find about five hundred petri dishes inside. I want you to wash every one of them."

Liz gaped at him. Washing dishes? That was her fantastic new job? She could do that at the Crashdown!

"Just… wash them?"

Dr. Sosa rolled his eyes. "Did you think you'd be splicing genes for your summer job?" he asked.

Liz felt tears sting the back of her eyes. This guy was a jerk! "I'll get to work," she murmured.

Isabel stuck another grape into her mouth and sighed. "Are we really watching General Hospital?" she asked her brother, who sat next to her on the couch.

Max continued to stare at the TV

"Because I kinda had the impression that you'd rather be tortured in the White Room than watch a soap opera," she went on.

Max didn't answer. He just stared straight ahead, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. If he didn't get bored and leave, Isabel was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She needed him out of earshot before her new boyfriend, Jesse Ramirez, called. "In fact I thought soap operas gave you hives," she added.

No answer.

Isabel pointed her finger at Max and used her powers to shoot a tiny zap of electricity at his cheek.

"Ow!" he yelped, jumping in surprise. He glared at Isabel, then picked up the remote. "Just for that, I'm not letting you watch General Hospital," he said, changing the channel.

Isabel snorted. "You've been sitting here for fifteen minutes brooding and moping," she said. "And totally not paying attention to what's in front of your face. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, please, Max. Don't make me resort to dreamwalk-ing"