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Which one do I mean? Are
you an imbecile, man?”
    James looked up to the ceiling for help.
“Doctor, I haven’t unpacked all of your bags yet. Just calm
down.”
    He knew he would have his hands full on this
trip. A graduate student from New York University, he was working
as an assistant to Dr. Collins while completing his doctorate. Dr.
Collins was a renowned scientist working for the Florida Museum of
Natural History Ichthyology Department, and the world’s leading
authority on the behavior of gray reef sharks. He was also renowned
among his coworkers as an overly enthusiastic neurotic.
    “My research, James! My research! I’m losing my
patience!”
    James went back into the adjoining room. He
carried in an old weather-beaten briefcase and placed it on the
bed. “Here you go, Professor,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”
    James went back to brushing his teeth as Dr.
Collins tore through the briefcase. Looking in the mirror at his
reflection, he thought, Not too bad. He was a tall muscular
lad of twenty-five, and his clean-shaven face was finally
pimple-free. His good looks and athleticism on the football field
had made him popular with the girls at Fordham University in New
York. Now his brain was going to make the world stand up and take
notice. As annoying as Dr. Collins was, he was brilliant, and James
planned to be his heir apparent someday.
    “Here they are! Here they are, you idiot!” Dr.
Collins exclaimed.
    “Calm down, Dr. Two-Times. You’re doing it
again.”
    Dr. Collins stopped in his tracks and stood
upright. “Am I?”
    “Yes, every time you get excited, you say things
twice.”
    “I’m sorry, James. It’s just that we have an
extraordinary opportunity here.”
    “I know, Doctor. You will become more famous and
I will complete my thesis.”
    James finished his morning regimen and sat on
the couch, watching Dr. Collins admiringly. The professor was a
short, round man with a head of shocking white hair and an unkempt
white goatee. He preferred the granny style reading glasses that
made him look like a character out of a Charles Dickens novel. Dr.
Collins was now deep in thought as he perused his research papers
and made notations in his ragged journal. James looked about the
elegant furnishings in their twin rooms and silently recalled the
events that led up to this chapter of his life.
    About a month earlier, Dr. Collins had received
a phone call from a colleague named Dr. Silver, a noted marine
biologist who had just returned from Bikini Atoll with a group of
scientists on a National Geographic Research Project. During
the phone call, he told Dr. Collins that he had seen huge groups of
gray reef sharks in the lagoons of Bikini Atoll. He also explained
that the corals and wildlife were flourishing like never before,
but that there were some anomalies that were probably related to
the radioactivity. He informed Dr. Collins of strange-looking fish
that appeared to have morphed over the past fifty years to adapt to
their radioactive environment. Dr. Silver knew that this
information would intrigue his ichthyologist pal.
    Dr. Collins immediately applied for a grant to
study the gray reef sharks of Bikini. The museum’s board of
directors was leery of the project, but Dr. Collins convinced them
that it had great merit, explaining how the reef sharks had been
consuming radioactive fish for fifty years and that this could have
caused them to evolve differently than gray reef sharks in other
oceans. The sharks may have overdeveloped senses that would make
them better hunters; they could be larger and faster, producing
superior offspring. The possibilities were endless. No one knew the
exact effects of long-term exposure to radiation or the consumption
of radioactive food, which was known to be certain death for
humans. Sharks, however, were descendants from a long line of
prehistoric fish that didn’t get cancer. Dr. Collins finally had a
chance to study these prehistoric subjects. For all anyone