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was expected to answer.
    There were a lot of convoluted questions, some multiple choice, some yes/no, some requiring an essay answer. I refrained from asking if we were actually taking the SATs again, because the questions weren’t about algebra or literature. I did recognize the types of questions they were, however.
    This was a psych evaluation, and a really complex one. My father had given tests like this to me, Chuckie, Amy, and Sheila, my other best friend from high school, and, as I thought about it, to all my sorority sisters somewhere along the line. Always under the guise of either having fun or using us to see if a test was too hard or too easy. That none of us had questioned why a history professor needed to give psych evaluations was probably not something I needed to ponder at this precise moment. However, I did know this kind of test when I saw it.
    There were a variety of questions, all asking the same things in different ways, all trying their hardest to ensure that the testee wouldn’t have any idea what the “right” answer was, nor be able to fake replies for too long.
    While I contemplated which response was the most accurate for me in the question of who I would save during a bank robbery—when the offered replies were Other Bank Robbers, Bank Manager, Your Accomplices, or Best Hostage Option—the balance of my mind was trying to figure out what this test proved and why everyone working with Centaurion Division in a nonmilitary role had to take it.
    Every question seemed to be determining what level of bad guy the responder was. I scanned the test again. Sure enough, every question I saw seemed more suited to The Club of Evil Megalomaniacs Entrance Exam than the HSAC test, at least insofar as it had been described to me. I couldn’t imagine Jeff and Christopher thinking this test was no big deal.
    “Yes, Mister White?” John said.
    I looked up and around. White had his hand up.
    “I’m done.” White smiled at me. “I saw no reason to prolong the experience.”
    Ah. He’d used hyperspeed. Lucky duck. I wasn’t able to control it well enough to read and write like an A-C could. I wanted to ask White what he’d thought of the questions, but John had him bring his test forward, then had White sit at the front, near to him.
    One by one, everyone else finished. I was still struggling with how to answer any of these questions and not sound like my next act after the test was going to be blowing up the Base. Maybe they’d put this into effect after Operation Drug Addict, because of Serene and the Security team infiltration. But even so, this test wasn’t going to tell anyone anything realistic about aliOpeour crew.
    The others were all sitting in a row in front of me by now, and they were clearly antsy. I couldn’t blame them. I normally didn’t take forever to do a test.
    I flipped to the back, to see if there were any normal questions before I gave up and asked for a room so I could eat and sleep while finishing the test version of
War and Peace
. As I did so, Sandra spoke again.
    “Why don’t we let the others go? Clearly Missus Martini isn’t close to being done yet.”
    “It’s not in the rules,” John said.
    They argued quietly about this, but I stopped paying too much attention, because a set of questions had caught my eye.
    Who is Esteban Cantu and what is his position within the United States Government?
    Well, I knew the answer to this one. Cantu was part of the C.I.A., the head of their Antiterrorism Unit, to be exact, and he’d been involved in some ways in both Operation Confusion and Operation Assassination. He was also, absolutely, not a friend to Centaurion Division or anyone who protected the A-Cs in any way.
    What is Esteban Cantu’s affiliation, to the best of your knowledge?
    Evil, bad, pick a negative adjective, probably affiliated with whoever wrote this test. He’d been in league with John Cooper, when Cooper had run Operation Confusion. And he’d been in league