“Even altering memories?”

Jack shrugged. “Nothing connected with that creature would surprise me.”

Nadia looked at Jack, then at her mug. “Why did I pour this? I was too jumpy for coffee before and I’m way too wound up now.” She half turned toward the door, then rotated back. “Do you want it?”

He’d already had a couple of cups, but it was always a shame to waste good coffee.

“How’d you make it?”

“Just black.”

“Add a couple of sugars and I’ll take it off your hands.”

Nadia emptied two packets into the mug, then handed it to him. He noticed her hand was trembling. Looked like the last thing she needed now was caffeine.

“The good news is it’s dying,” he said.

“Dying?” Her hands flew to her face. “Oh, God! That’s why he wants me to stabilize the molecule! He’s going to lose his source!”

“And soon, I think.”

“Dragovic’s behind it all. He’s forcing Dr. Monnet to do this. I know it, I know it, I know it.”

“I don’t,” Jack said. He sipped his coffee: good and strong, the way he liked it. “And besides, Mr. Dragovic has other matters to occupy his mind at the moment.”

Nadia brightened. “Yes! I heard about that.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Jack. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with his troubles, would you?”

“His troubles are with the law and his image,” Jack said and drank some more coffee.

“Anyway,” Nadia said. “We’ve got to stop him, stop the drug.”

“What do you mean ‘we’?”

“All right, you. I wouldn’t know—” She stopped as Jack began shaking his head. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t do drugs… other than caffeine”—he hefted the NADJ mug—”and ethanol, that is.”

“Well, good… great…”

“But what I mean is I don’t sell them and I don’t stop other people from selling them.”

“But Dragovic’s forcing—”

“You don’t know if Dragovic’s forcing anything, Doc.”

“All right then, forget force. The thing is, Dragovic has somehow involved himself in GEM and GEM is somehow behind this Berzerk poison.”

“Which people are buying and ingesting of their own free will.”

Nadia turned and stared at Jack, disbelief scrawled across her face. “Don’t tell me you approve.”

“I think drugs are stupid as all hell, and I think people who drug themselves up are dumb asses, but people have a right to control their own bloodstreams. If they want to pollute them, that’s their business. I’m not a public nanny.”

“You mean if you saw someone selling Berzerk to a twelve-year-old, you wouldn’t do anything?”

“Never been there, but I might break his arms.”

Jack thought of Vicky. And maybe his legs. And his face.

Nadia smiled. “So you would make it your business.”

“We were talking adults before. Now we’re talking kids. I’m not into crusades, but certain things I will not abide in my sight.”

She cocked her head and stared at him. “Abide… that’s a strange word from you.”