As it was still a day or two before undergraduate classes began, the halls were deserted. In another week or so, the corridors would be lined with students, students anxiously waiting for the chance to whine and whimper before their highly disinterested professors for a few extra points on a Chem IQ quiz or for a day or two extension on a paper deadline. Now all was quiet. As Joselyn walked down the hall, she looked through the half glass doors to the labs, hoping to see some other grad student at work. All the labs were dark, however.

She told herself that she wasn't worried about handling either of the two "animals", as Paul had called them. After all, she had been handling men all her life in one way or another. Yet, deep down, she did feel a twinge of doubt. Dr. Bertrand and Dr. Velasquez were not just ordinary men; they were special, famous, and very important to her career.

Her heart was racing as she knocked twice on Dr. Bertrand's office door.

"Come in," he said, his voice booming right through the wall.

Joselyn turned the knob and pushed the door open. She'd been in Bertrand's office before, so she knew what to expect in the way of clutter and refuse. It was a regular pig sty. The door only opened about two-thirds of the way because its edge struck a cardboard box on the floor. She had to slip into the room sideways.

"Ah, Ms. Foche," the professor said, delightedly.

She looked across the narrow room, across the desk top piled high with opened text books, old newspapers, magazines, odd scraps of paper and yards and yards of computer print out paper to the man sitting in the chair behind it.