The chapter opens with a flashback to the early 1900s, when a group of birds was locked in a barn and exposed to high levels of ionizing radiation. The narrator recalls that the birds were exposed to a lethal dose of gamma rays, which he believes is the same lethal dose that killed the man in the barn. He has three weeks to go before the summer break ends, and he doesn't want to miss the chance to witness the reunion of his student and his father. He remembers treating himself to a fine bottle of whiskey, and when he woke up with a headache, he decided to take a sample of his own cells and compare them to a microscope. When he looked at them, he found that his own chromosomes had been torn up and that his cells were on fire. He returned to the lab and tried everything he could think of to find out what was wrong with his own body, but he couldn't find any trace of his mother's dna. He had to inject himself with Proteus dna to get his body back to normal.