Bill sat in the conference room and leafed through the file he’d found at Mike Bitner’s house. Almost immediately, he began to notice differences between this file and the one Theena gave him. Omissions, mostly. But also some completely different experimental results.

Some of Manny’s CTs and PETs showed abnormalities, which grew as his N-Som usage continued. In the file Bill had at home, the scans were all healthy and normal.

There were also notes that Manny had been put on the antidepressant Prozac and Xanax antianxiety. The doses had continued to go up, rising to levels that Bill thought were toxic. Eventually, Dr. Red Fletcher began giving him Compazine. This was a powerful antipsychotic, given to people with serious mental problems.

Manny’s mental health wasn’t the only irregularity. His diet had become increasingly extreme. He once went without food for a period of six days, refusing to eat. When the fast ended, he went into a phase where he only ate marshmallows and raw meat. Last month, Dr. Nikos came into Manny’s room to find him devouring a box of pencils.

Theena’s story of Manny being on a Stairmaster for nine hours was true, but it didn’t end because the equipment failed. It had ended because Manny began to scream, and was unable to stop screaming for several hours, until his throat began to bleed.

But Manny wasn’t N-Som’s only casualty. The more Bill read, the worse things became. He leafed through one disastrous animal experiment after another. Test subjects would become catatonic, or erratic. They would refuse food and sex. Some became sick, others became violent.

The worst thing that happened was to poor Sam the monkey.

Bill located the missing page, the end of the experiment. After Sam had become lethargic, he’d gone into a rage, attacking Dr. Nikos, biting Theena, and eventually…

Bill read the paragraph again.

Day 241—We found Sam this morning, dead in his cage. Cause of death was a massive hemorrhage. Sam had pulled his own eyes out.

He scanned through the autopsy report. A lesion was found in Sam’s corpus callosum, extending upwards to the cerebrum. Smaller lesions were found on the cerebellum, medulla, hypothalamus, and pons.

The monkey’s brain was almost twenty percent scar tissue.

Bill put down the folder and pushed away from the table. Could Theena have known how dangerous this drug was? Could all of this information have been hidden from her somehow?

He tried to make it work. He wanted her to have been deceived. Her father could have falsified data. Maybe she was kept in the dark. Maybe…

He picked up the Sam report again. The notes were in Theena’s handwriting.

So she knew.

She knew N-Som was dangerous. And she tried to hide that fact.

“What else have you done?”

Bill stood up, his heart racing. Had she been lying to him about her feelings, too? Was she in league with Rothchilde? Worst of all, did she have a part in Mike Bitner’s death?

He’d been deceived. Used. Played for a fool. The tenderness that had been growing inside him crumpled and blew away.

Bill collapsed in the chair, wondering what to do next. There was only one certainty. He wasn’t going to approve N-Som.

There was probably another certainty as well; Rothchilde’s men were going to kill him.

Bill had to make sure the truth about the drug got out, so even if he died, the drug wouldn’t be released. The media was probably the best option for that.

But first…

First he had to confront Theena.

Bill headed for the lab. He had every right to be angry, but mostly he was numb. He had no idea what he was going to say to her. Accuse her? Ask for an explanation?

He opened the lab door, watched as Theena quickly tossed a cloth over whatever she’d been working on.

“Bill! I’m sorry, I’m in the middle of something. If you could wait outside…”

“I know.”

She began to say something, then stopped. Her eyes changed. Bill detected sorrow in them, but sorrow wasn’t good enough. Nothing would be good enough.

Julia, who was standing by Theena, saw the intensity going on between them. She excused herself and hurried out of the room.

Bill walked over and calmly pulled the sheet off the bulge on the table.

Dr. Nikos’s head was in a vice. Theena had performed a craniotomy, and the skull cap was resting next to the head, upturned like a bloody, hairy bowl.

All at once, Bill knew. He knew a secret even worse than N-Som’s damaging effects.

N-Som wasn’t synthetic.

“You make the drug out of people’s brains.”

Theena said nothing. She just gave a soft nod.

“So the pill I took, where I had the nightmare about Mike Bitner’s death…”

“I didn’t know, Bill. My father prepared that sample. I thought Rothchilde had paid Bitner off. I swear.”

Bill was barely listening. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

“That wasn’t a nightmare, was it? It couldn’t have been. The images were too strong for a nightmare.”

“Bill…”

Bill focused on her. “I was experiencing his last thoughts, wasn’t I?”

“Bill, I’m sorry.”

“You grind up people’s brains to get the neurotransmitters. But memory is chemical. So you’re actually stealing their thoughts as well.”

Theena grabbed his hand, knelt down next to him.

“Bill, I swear. I only found out about Bitner’s death today. Albert told me in the car. He’s after both of us now.”

Bill looked at her as if she’d just sprouted horns.

“How could you? How could you do this, and still try to get the drug approved?”

“Bill…”

“Was it the money? You did it for the money?”

“It wasn’t for me, Bill.”

“Then who?”

Theena bit her lower lip. The tears streamed down her face.

“I did it for Nikos.”

“For your father?”

“He was more than my father.” Theena looked away, her face burning with emotion. “He was also my husband.”