There were gasps from the audience. Dr. Feinberg shook her head sadly. She looked to the announcer who had been friendly. He smiled at the woman. He understood. There was nothing more terrible about man-eating tiger genes than about the genes of a mouse. Both of them could hardly survive outside their carriers. If they were not already dead anyway.

Dr. Feinberg drank the liquid in the test tube and made a face.

"Would anyone care to select another test tube?" she said.

"They're not real killer chromosomes," yelled someone and that was enough.

"You stupid, stupid, ignorant people," yelled Dr. Feinberg in frustration. "You won't understand."

Furiously, she rammed her hand into the gelatin insulated tank, snatched another bottle, and drank it. She drank another. She drooled and drank. She uncorked and drank. She finished every one of those test tubes and it all tasted vaguely like someone else's spit. And there she was.

"Here. What do you expect me to do, change into Wolfman? You ignorant, ignorant people."

And then she shivered. And her short haircut shivered. And, like an old bolt of cloth, she collapsed to the ground.

"Don't touch her. She might be contagious," yelled baby Ethel's mother.

"Idiots," snapped the announcer for the TV station, breaking his code of impartiality. He called an ambulance and after the unconscious Dr. Feinberg was taken out in a stretcher, still breathing, one of her colleagues explained it was unfortunate she passed out because he was sure the genetic matter she swallowed could not have caused even an upset stomach. She had passed out from the excitement, he said.

"I mean, it is improbable that the genetic material had anything to do with it." he said.

But no one listened. One of the leaders of the protesting group jumped on the lab table near the fish-tank.