The sky was overcast, as though a torrential downpour could fall at any moment.
Samuel Sterns, his hair a mess, carried a briefcase as he muttered a curse at the damned weather. He jogged into the classroom. He was a professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Grayburn College, occasionally teaching students but spending most of his time holed up in the laboratory, tinkering with instruments and equipment.
This slovenly biology professor was extremely perfunctory in his teaching. He would basically read from the lesson plan for a few minutes, then tell the students to study on their own. He hated explaining gene regulation, protein science, cell signaling, and similar subjects to a bunch of brats, only to endure their endless questions—questions asked by dull-witted geese with sluggish reactions and minds as slow as eighty-year-old grandmothers.
The answers to those unimaginably simple questions could be found right in the textbooks, Samuel Sterns thought with a curl of his lip.
He was a well-known oddball at Grayburn College. He disliked socializing, had terrible relationships with others, and had always kept to himself. Most of his time was spent buried in bizarre research projects. Especially recently, he had strictly forbidden anyone from entering his private laboratory without permission. Even the cleaning had to be handled personally.
That had led some teachers to speculate in private that Samuel Sterns might be conducting some unspeakable illegal research behind closed doors. Of course, it was merely casual gossip among colleagues, and no one took it seriously.
Independent scholars like Dr. Sterns, obscure and unknown, had no steady source of funding and certainly no generous investors. They could only remain in the school's crude laboratories. The scientific world had always been realistic and cruel. Personal talent and promising research projects were the keys to proving