“Does anyone remember what Mike drank that night?” Kierk asks.

Everyone pauses.

“Because I don’t,” he says.

The other three shake their heads. Jessica says—“But I’m pretty sure we were all drinking the same thing.”

“Okay. Well let’s assume that’s true for a moment,” Carmen says, excitedly digging around in her purse and pulling out a slip of paper. “So I went and found out what type of alcohol we had, what those drinks were. It’s something called kallu. It’s a palm wine: wine made from sap.”

“You went there?”

“I went there. I talked to them and this stuff, it’s just wine. It’s a little bit less alcoholic, actually.”

“That’s impossible,” Alex says. Everyone is silent for a moment.

“Rohypnol,” Carmen says, and then immediately looks around at every-one’s reactions. Jessica gasps. Alex, after a moment of reflection, rolls his eyes. Kierk is inexpressive, thinking.

Alex says—“But . . . But what would the motive be? That’s the thing. There’s no motive.”

Everyone looks over at Jessica, who’s shaking her head—“I’m fine, guys, I’m totally fine! Besides that hangover the next day.”

Kierk gestures a swift cut, stopping the quick back-and-forth. “Look, it could have been a known drug like Rohypnol. But it also could have been anything that does a short-term block of protein synthesis. Like Beta PMZ. Which stops the formation of new memories. Shuts down the strengthening of synapses so there’s no more plasticity. You could go into any of the wet-lab freezers of the CNS and rustle up a whole host of cocktails. Stuff that’s only used in research to block the memory formation of rats and monkeys. Stuff that wouldn’t show up on a tox screen. Any one of the people who were out that night could mix that up easily. Dilute it in some water, put it in an eyedropper.”

Carmen is nodding excitedly—“And that could account for the killer hangover we all experienced. Who knows what a short-term protein synthesis block feels like the next day? I’d guess it would feel like the worst hangover of all time.”

“Maybe we all have cancer now,” Kierk says. Everyone chuckles uncomfortably except him. He continues—“Let me tell you what I’m having trouble with . . . exactly what Alex said. Without motive there’s no reason.”

“Well there’s SAAR,” Carmen says. “There’s implicitly a motive. It’s happened before. Here, with Melissa, whose lab Atif was in. And in other universities too. It’s plausible. I’m not saying it’s true. It’s a hypothesis.”

“But you think they’re connected to the memory thing?” Jessica says. “That’s just so elaborate.”