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battery of tests but I don’t want to take them. I want to talk about the creature.  
    “Listen, that thing ate Jorge’s mind. I know it. Why are you wasting time examining me when you should be talking to OpCom and deciding what to do about the Rift Zone? If you want my opinion, it should be scrapped. Way too dangerous.”  
    She nods quietly. “OpCom has already been informed.”   There’s something she’s not telling me.  
    I push away the fourth needle she’s poked me with in the last hour. “No more blood, no more EEG’s, no more anything until you tell me what you’re hiding. You know more about this than you’re letting on.”  
    Margaret’s lips twist and I can tell she’s deciding whether or not to confide in me. And then I know. At least, I know part of it.  
    “You knew,” I whisper. “You knew that thing was out there and yet you sent me out anyway. I could have been killed—”  
    “Shut up.”   She locks the door and makes sure the intercom and recorder are silent. “All right, we knew. We’ve known about the creature for seven months. It didn’t eat Jorge’s mind, or any of the rest of them, for your information. They all walked. I’m telling you the truth,” she adds when I stare at her.  
    “How many Jumpers did you lose after you knew about it?”   I want answers.  
    “Only two. Yin Lee and Jorge.”  
    “Why did you send me out there?”  
    She sighs, then drops into a nearby chair. She looks exhausted. “You don’t want to know.”  
    I slide off the table. I’ve never been a violent person but now a rage so white, so hot filters through my fingers and before I know what’s happened, I find her throat in my hand. I slam her against the wall. I’m stronger than she is.  
    “Are you going to tell me the truth, bitch?”  
    Margaret gurgles and nods. She knows I’ve got her. She rubs her neck where finger-marks bruise the pale skin. “You win, but I guarantee you, you aren’t going to like it. And if you ever try that again, I’ll kill you. I’m wired with Methoclide, and I’m immune. One whiff and you’re dead. Do you understand?”  
    I back up now, horrified by what I just did. “Yeah.”   I’ve never hurt anybody in my life.  
    Margaret motions for me to hop back on the table. “We’ve been trying new drugs that affect the brain. We were hoping that one of them would give you control over the creature. Can you imagine what a weapon something like that would mean to the government if we could control it?   The creature could seduce an army into laying down their weapons.”  
    “Telepathic war,” I whisper.  
    “Psionic control,” she counters.  
    It’s too quiet as I think about what she said. Finally, I gather my courage. “It doesn’t look like your drugs are working. So what side effects can I expect?”  
    “Up until now, they’ve produced only mild side effects, within acceptable limits.”  
    “I’d like to know who decides what those limits are.”  
    Margaret gives me a bitter grin. “I’m violating the rules even telling you this. But I like you, Lisa. And I like Patrice. I don’t want to see anything happen to either one of you.”  
    “I don’t understand.”  
    She clears her throat. “You just saw one of the side effects. Today, after you Jumped, I injected you with a new formula, one that was supposed to give you the strength to take over that creature. It’s the same formula I gave to Jorge the last two times he Jumped. In between, he managed to beat up his wife so bad that she needed seventy stitches to repair her face. He also killed the neighbor’s dog for barking too loud. This is a man who has never been violent in his life. As soon as the seizure stopped, he was back to normal. When he realized what he’d done, he walked out.”  
    I stare at her blankly. “Did he know it was the drug that pushed him over the line?”  
    She shakes her head. “No. I wasn’t allowed to tell any of you.