Austin is called in when a reactor built by Serendip malfunctions, and a staff member inside is dead. The body is inaccessible because of the high levels of radiation flooding the chamber. By long distance, Austin manages to determine that the pattern of wear on the man's shoes indicate he wasn't the man in question. Rather, the ""victim"" faked his death, killing a bum and using a pre-programmed robot to plant the body and stage the malfunction. Unfortunately, while in hiding the guy's own robot inadvertently kills him.

By apppealing to his scientific vanity, Micky manages to lure Austin to a talk show/expose to act as a scientific consultant as host Marty Corrigan tries to discredit a self-proclaimed witch, Sabrina. However, the witch's curse apparently comes true after Marty drinks one of her ""potions"". Analysis of the potion reveals nothing, and it has no effect on anyone else. Corrigan appears to have died of an intense case of influenza. Then the witch turns up dead. Austin's investigation eventually turns up that an old colleague, Dr. Drakovich, killed Corrigan using the witch's potion as a ruse to deliver a genetically tailored ""designer virus,"" to protect his son from exposure.