But drugged or not, healthy or not, Scar-lip had recognized Jack, remembered him. Which meant it could remember Vicky. And if it ever got free, it might come after Vicky again, to complete the task its dead master had set for it last summer.

The ticket man had begun banging on the rakosh’s cage in a fury, screaming at it to get up and face the crowd. But the creature ignored him, and the crowd began to wander off in search of more active attractions.

Jack turned and headed for the exit. He’d come here hoping to explain Monnet’s interest in a freak show, but that was all but forgotten now. A cold resolve had overtaken his initial shock. He knew what had to be done.

4

Luc had promised himself not to hover over Nadia while she was working—he knew how distracting that could be. She never would be able to give her scientific inventiveness and creativity full rein if she felt someone was looking over her shoulder every minute. But curiosity and just plain need to know had overcome him.

He’d been disappointed to find her signed out, but he’d come down to the dry lab to see what she’d entered into the computer. He tapped on the keyboard to retrieve the last image she’d been working on.

He sighed as a hologram of the too-familiar inert Loki molecule materialized in the air. He’d seen too much of that. He was reaching for the escape button but stopped when something on the monitor caught his eye. He stared in disbelief at the date on the screen, indicating that the image had been created at 9:20 this morning. Not recalled—created.

Impossible. Nadia could not have generated a fresh image without a sample, and he hadn’t supplied her with any inert Loki. This had to be a mistake.

Luc checked the sample chamber and felt his chest constrict when he found a residue of yellow powder. How could this be? She must have used some inert Loki he’d left here—that was the only explanation.

But why couldn’t he remember leaving it?

Stress. That had to be it. It sapped focus, the ability to concentrate. And he’d certainly had more than his share of stress lately.

And yet… Luc wished he could be sure. Was it possible she’d heard about a street drug that decomposed every month and had picked up a sample? Not Nadia. She wasn’t the type to take drugs or have any interest in them.

Still, he couldn’t mention this to Kent or Brad. They’d panic and want to do something rash on the chance that Nadia might link GEM to Berzerk. They’d become positively bloodthirsty.

No, he’d wait. Nadia was too valuable an asset.

But she’d bear watching. Close watching.

5

“Damn!” Nadia said as she hung up the phone, none too gently.

“Something is wrong?” her mother said from the kitchen.

Nadia stood in the front room. The little apartment was redolent of the stuffed cabbage Mom was simmering in a big pot on the stove. Since she knew how Doug loved the dish, she’d suggested that Nadia invite him over for dinner.