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Gaia was unwrapping her package.

“I know a person,” she explained, “who has a. . . disease. I guess you could call it a disease. There's something. . . unusual about this person.”

“Go on.”

“There's a family history of disorder,” Gaia went on. She was choosing her words carefully. “There's a direct genetic cause for all of it. This person's uncle had a rare blood disease in childhood, and there's a younger sibling with very unusual psychological traits. But the point is, this person might want to be. . . cured of the disease if it's possible.”

“I would not know how to discuss this,” Ulrich said. “I do not know the details.”

“Look,” Gaia said.

She'd opened her package and brought out a very small glass bottle the size of a thimble. The bottle was tightly sealed, and sliding around inside were a few drops of dark red fluid.

Human blood.

When Ulrich saw the bottle, his eyes widened. He leaned forward, peering at the object in Gaia's hand.

“The person I'm discussing is very concerned about privacy,” Gaia went on. “But the possibility that the. . . disease. . . could be treated is very attractive to this person. So the person agreed to give me a blood sample for you to examine.”

“Just so. Please, let me see?”

Ulrich's hand reached toward her across the desk. Gaia handed over the bottle—the bottle she'd stolen from the Village School's science lab and filled with her own blood that morning in the bathroom at the Collingwood boardinghouse.

“Arterial blood; drawn in the last six hours, judging by the color and coagulation. Come this way,” Ulrich said, quickly snapping a new pair of white surgical gloves onto his hands. “Let us see what you have.”

Here goes,
Gaia thought as she followed the small man across the room toward the big table and the hulking gray machine.
Now we'll see if this guy's as good as he thinks he is.

Gaia watched as Dr. Ulrich's gloved hands quickly transferred her blood onto a small metal grille the size of a quarter. He moved very fast. First he used tweezers to put the blood-soaked metal disk into a steel bottle shaped like a soup can. Next he screwed its cover down tight, creating a vacuum seal. Then he swung
open the big round door on his machine. Inside, the walls were copper mesh. He carefully placed the steel bottle in the center of the machine's cavity and then closed the door and latched it tightly shut. Unexpectedly, he then reached for a telephone on the table and dialed.

“Donaldson?” Ulrich said into the phone. “
Ja,
it's me. Could you please start a sequence now? The chamber is loaded.”

As Gaia watched, the machine suddenly started clanking and humming all by itself. A brilliant light shone out of its round window; Gaia's eyes watered and she had to look away.

“This will now take just a few moments,” Ulrich said, leading Gaia back to his desk. Behind them the machine kept humming and clicking. “The computer lab is downstairs; this is where they control the genetic examination. We will see the results here.”

“Okay,” Gaia said. She resumed her seat as before, facing Ulrich across the desk. “That's pretty amazing, that it works so fast.”

“Amazing, yes. But we have paid for that speed with years and years of testing. The technique is only just now becoming feasible; a few months ago it would not have been possible to get the results so quickly. If all goes well, soon every hospital will have one of these. Then the treatment of—ah!”

A laser printer on the floor was making clicking
noises as pieces of paper slid out. Dr. Ulrich reached down and picked them up. He began reading.

Then he frowned.

Gaia glanced back over at the two-hundred-million-dollar machine. It was silent now. Its lights had gone out.

The phone rang. Ulrich picked it up; he was still squinting at the pages. “Hello?
Ja,
I see it, too. And the missing portions. . . are you sure this is not another software problem?”

There was a pause, during which Gaia could hear a man's voice speaking loudly on the other end of the phone.

“Of course I loaded the machine correctly,” Ulrich said angrily. “What do you take me for, a fool? But you are correct: it cannot possibly be faked. . . . Well, if you are sure, then I am sure.”

Ulrich slammed down the phone. “That was the computer lab—they can be troublesome,” he told Gaia. “This is perhaps the most extraordinary human chromosome I have ever seen, Ms. Moore. A person with these genes. . . ” The man shook his head, as if lost in thought. “Well, the results would be remarkable. There is no way of telling how a person would exist without. . . ”

He can see it,
Gaia thought.
He can actually
see
it.

“Remember,” Gaia said, “that you promised to keep this a secret.”

“Hmmm?” Ulrich looked at her sharply, as if suddenly remembering that he wasn't alone in the room. “Oh, yes—of course. But you must understand, Ms.
Moore, this person whose blood you have shown me—this ‘disease,' as you call it—is unique in my experience. Such a person could be exhibited in scientific conferences around the world for years, if it were permissible.”

“But you could treat it?” Gaia asked, leaning forward in her chair. Her breath was fogging in front of her face; the coldness of the room was getting to her. “If the person came to you. . . you could fix the person's genes? Make them normal?”

Ulrich stared back at Gaia. He was reaching into his breast pocket. He pulled out a business card and handed it over. He was still wearing his surgical gloves.

Gaia looked down at the card. It had Ulrich's name, a Rodke and Simon logo, and, penciled in underneath, another phone number and address.

“It is as if you had read my mind,” Ulrich said intently. “That is precisely what I would be most interested in doing. The successful completion of such a procedure would be a tremendous scientific breakthrough. It would bring me and my colleagues immeasurably closer to our goals. I simply never dreamed that such a person. . . that such a unique genome. . . could naturally occur. By correcting nature's ‘mistake,' I could take a quantum leap in understanding blood-related diseases and imbalances. So, yes, Gaia,” the doctor concluded. “I would be quite willing to do what you say.”

“I see.” Gaia tried to appear calm, but she wanted to scream with excitement.

“I understand that you are interested in confidentiality,” Ulrich went on, “so I give you my home number. If the person you speak of wishes to discuss this condition and how to treat it, he or she may contact me in confidence. But as I have said, I would be immeasurably grateful for an opportunity to study this incredible chromosome in more detail, even as its effects were corrected and removed.”

Corrected and removed,
Gaia thought. She almost felt dizzy. Those two words contained the magic formula for changing her entire life.

“Okay,” Gaia said, taking a deep breath. She rose to her feet. “Okay. Thanks, Dr. Ulrich. Thanks for taking the time to see me.”

“No, thank
you,
” Ulrich said sincerely, reaching to shake hands. “You are a most interesting young lady. And you have brought me priceless blood.”

Tortured Zombie

THE MORE SHE THOUGHT ABOUT IT
, the lonelier she felt: her big fat secret, her big fat genetic glitch and all its pros and cons and ups and downs and joys and pains—Gaia had run her options through her head so many times that they
had grown ragged and stale and downright unbearable. But she just couldn't focus on anything else. Certainly not school.

So here she was, sitting on the hot stone stoop of a brownstone, staring at the dark weathered doors of the Village School with her mind in a horrible mess of impenetrable knots. She might as well have had a forty in one hand and a cigarette in the other, like every other pathetic squatter in the village. All she could do was sit there like a tortured zombie, cutting class for no reason at all, like the most clichéd juvenile delinquent in New York.

The real agony was the not talking, trying to carry on the entire dialectic in her own head. But she couldn't talk about it. Who was she going to talk to? Oliver? She was thrilled to have the real Oliver back in her life, but they hadn't reached
that
level of trust just yet. Besides, it would just be too weird looking into the face that once belonged to Loki and trying to talk about this. Way too much nightmare flashback potential. Jake? She was already avoiding Jake in her own inimitably pathetic style. She wasn't even ready to have the whole commitment conversation, let alone try to figure out how to broach this monster subject. No, there was no one. The subject was simply undiscussable.

Unfortunately, it looked like Chris Rodke was going to try to discuss it anyway.

Chris pushed through the old school doors and immediately spotted Gaia across the street.

Keep walking,
she begged silently.
Please, Chris. Just keep walking.

But it was no use. Before she could even open her mouth to say no, Chris had jogged the few steps across the street and sat himself down right next to her on the stoop. The look on his face was so damn kind, she almost felt guilty for wishing so very much that he would just leave her alone.

It wasn't that she didn't like Chris. She did. She liked his intelligence and his straightforwardness and his brotherly ease. She'd found an unexpectedly high comfort level with Chris and Liz, and that was no small feat in the social life of Gaia Moore. But on this particular day, at this particular hour, she really just wanted to sit with her irreconcilable thoughts and stew in a pool of old-Gaia futility. Chris wouldn't allow it.

“All right, look,” he said, leaning forward and bumping his shoulder against Gaia's. “I have no idea what it is that's put that dreadful look on your face. But I know you're going to burst a blood vessel in your brain if you don't talk about it.”

“I'm fine,” Gaia mumbled. She had too much respect for Chris to give him her patented “piss off” stare. “Really, I'm fine. It's just. . . a mood.”

“Uh-huh.” He smiled dubiously. “Right. A mood. You're a bad liar, Gaia, did anyone ever tell you that?”

“It's not my forte,” she admitted, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.

“Hey. . . ” He leaned his face closer to hers and bumped her shoulder even harder.
“Hey.”

Gaia finally turned toward him. Anything to avoid another shoulder bump. “What?”

Chris pulled off his shades, revealing his inhumanly blue eyes. “Look,” he sighed, “I know we're not exactly best buddies just yet. But in my personal opinion, if you've got a problem—if you're mulling something over right now—it's actually far better to discuss it with someone you
don't
know so well. Objective advice is what you need.” Chris suddenly thrust his hand out for a handshake. “Chris Rodke.” He grinned. “Teen psychiatrist. I specialize in pain, confusion, and unbearable existential angst.”

“Chris,” she said as gently as she could, “I really don't want to talk about it.”

“Yes, you do,” he insisted.

“No. . . I really don't.”

“Um. . . yes. You really do. Try me, Gaia. You won't be disappointed. Ask Liz. I'm good at this stuff. Tell me what's going on in that fashionably disheveled head of yours.”

“Okay, look,” she said, running her hands through her hair self-consciously. “What is the nicest, most respectful, most inoffensive way for me to get you to leave me alone?”

It was risky, but its only effect was to widen Chris's grin. No matter what she did, it only seemed to make
Chris like her more. Which she supposed was a good thing.

“Easy,” he said. “Tell me what's up. You tell me what your problem is, I give you some A-1 golden advice. Your problem is instantly solved. And then I leave.” Chris threw his hands out and smiled with Tom Cruisian confidence.

“Right,” she said with a snort. “Sure.” She dropped her head in her hands and pressed her palms firmly against her eyes. “
Ugh.
Chris, my life is torture. You have no idea. My life is nothing other than the repeated application of cruel sadistic torture, over and over and over and over—”

“Hi,” Chris interrupted her suddenly.

“Hi?”
What does he mean
, “Hi”?

Gaia brought her head back up toward him and quickly realized that he was talking to someone else. She followed Chris's sight line to her left, and then her lungs instantly compressed to the point of near suffocation. Standing only inches from her shoulder, right next to the stoop, was none other than Ed Fargo.

Gaia was at a loss. Being at this close proximity to Ed was so unusual that it had left her momentarily speechless. Avoidance and distance. Those were supposed to be the rules. Not that Gaia exactly delighted in those rules, but that was how Ed had wanted it, wasn't it? So what was he doing here, breaking the rules?

Ed seemed to be somewhat vocally challenged
himself. The silence between them was getting louder and louder.

Chris broke it first. “Um. . . I'm Chris,” he said, obviously feeling compelled to break the world's most awkward silence.

“I know,” Ed said, leaving Gaia's eyes momentarily to shake hands with Chris. “Ed.”

“Well, Ed, maybe you can help me out. I'm trying to cheer up my friend Gaia here, but she's what we call ‘help rejecting.' ” Chris made quotation marks with his fingers.

Ed turned back to Gaia. “What's wrong?” The instant concern in his eyes made Gaia suddenly want to cry, though she had no idea why.

“Nothing,” she said quietly. “Don't mind him.” She gestured to Chris. “He's just trying to be a pain in my ass.”