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The Cash Cow's Catch-22

 

Not trying to brag or come off as pompous but I am the world's leading biochemist at this juncture in time. This assessment coming from world media, international conferences, collegial evaluations, impact of work and all the other traditional and non-traditional means people attach to sentimental bullshit such as who's who and at the top of whatever lists.

And what am I doing with my life?

Racing against a cruel clock and watching the only thing I care for wither and die. Oh I am also the slave of the world's largest illegal drug and organized crime cartel.

Of course I keep up the professional side and front. Wouldn’t be too comforting for most to know that the brightest mind in my field lends their talent to trying to make a synthetic version of the worst drug to ever grace the planet Earth.

Do I give a shit it is killing people slowly everyday making heroin and the like look tamer than caffeine? No I do not. Sorry if you are expecting sympathy. My heart was captured long ago and is held only by one and I'll accept the title of cold hearted bitch, bastard traitor to the human race, aloof scientist, unethical, unfeeling… I really don’t give a damn so just go away if that is the only reason you are here.

See I stopped caring for anyone or thing and became very selfish about six years ago and six years is a long time to learn a skill. I have the cold shoulder and narrow-minded focus shtick down pat.

It has become easy.

I sleep for a few hours. Get up and spend my time looking into production, overseeing the factories or working through some more research. Go and spend a few hours with my love pretending everything is a bad dream. Then sit in the dark drinking and cursing Schrödinger and other names before dropping off into a troubled sleep. Repeat cycle next morning.

Schrödinger… a genius, an ass and someone I have come to loathe. In essence I blame him for where I am today. You see, I believe in the natural laws of physics and the universe. And thus the fucking cat is dead, alive, make-believe and for all I know shaving a mohawk into it's side as we currently speak. I actually almost flunked physics simply because I was bored and spending too many hours that semester in the lab perfecting a purification system based on the newly discovered technology they had brought with them.

They being the demon species Frenicali. The Frenicali came through a dimensional portal some fifteen odd years ago. They brought with them a revolution I'd liken to the dawn of the industrial age, the discovery of fire and the final mapping of the human genome.

I being the hot young stud of the biochemical world latched onto the Frenicali tighter than a leech sucking the blood from a host. And oh I wanted to suck them dry. I and a few others spent every resource and ounce of energy on tearing apart their science and world.

I became the leading specialist on the chemical makeup of the Frenicali. Something about their makeup and structure just clicked with my grey matter. I actually had dreams. Kinda like the Crick and Watson dancing DNA strands, only the dreams were very vivid and detailed allowing me to bypass years of frustration, sweat and tears. And of course to thumb my nose at my colleagues as I watched them eat my scientific dust.

I was hailed as a visionary, a genius, a Midas. I simply had an inside track from God, another calling or just too many late night snacks of nachos and burn your gut out hot sauce. Who knows and fuck if I care. I was on top and the best.

And then it happened. I noted a weird property of the Frenicali's basic chemical makeup. They had a quantum quandary that in our world we have not been able to ever understand or grasp. A key part of their… well it is not blood like our blood but it is the life sustaining fluid that circulates through their system. Well a key part of their biology exists in a true state of quantum superposition.

And that became my world.

I could not believe the idea that Schrödinger's cat could actually exist. In a weird quasi-metaphysical way, in our universe the Frenicali were both alive and dead. Their life liquid existed in two states and by observing it you forced it to behave in one way or another.

Sarah Truscani came to my lab as I was starting to look into this and to confirm this was not some joke. I mean really, people always laughed at the concept of Schrödinger's cat. Many called it physics attempt at a sense of humor or the penultimate catch-22. I personally think the universe is a whoring tease and is having the last laugh and doing it very loudly.

I know the universe is laughing at me.

We'd been working for three weeks straight. Sarah brought a bottle of tequila to the lab one night. She told me she planned on taking a break, finding the solution and seducing me to her bed. All of that to be attributed to the miracle of the bottle she sat on the counter. By the bottom of the bottle we were convinced there was a pink dragon hibernating in the corner along with an indigo panda that kept whispering secrets to us about the Frenicali.

The panda told Sarah and I the key was the dual nature, the superposition. And then it told us for a fun time to have a go at the samples we were working on.

Well the next morning Sarah was dead, the lab destroyed and a videotape from the building's surveillance system was missing. Oddly nothing else was mentioned about the accident. It was covered up conveniently and I went back to my routine with double the work as I was missing a lab assistant.

Two weeks later I was ushered into an office and faced two women and a man. I watched an hour's worth of video tape in silence. I saw the events unfold and how board after chalk board had been filled by me in a semi drunken stupor and highly euphoric state resulting in a very interesting chemical mix. The mix we had ingested by night's end; the mix that had altered our biological system, enhancing it, making us different.

Intrigued I left the office with the tape and began working through the possibilities.

About a year into that project, I found out what where my research was leading. It seems I was the creator of the latest designer street drug called Pushme. Using the demon blood and a few altercations (like being sent through a handy dandy purification system perfected by yours truly and also a chemical mix again provided by me), I had perfected an awesome thing.

But there were drawbacks. Pesky details that did not taint my genius discovery only worried certain business professionals. It was not a very cost effective drug, allergies develop often and of course the demon blood has to be taken directly because it exists in superposition; no one yet as been able to pinpoint the exact makeup of the molecules that create Frenicali blood. The cat is both alive and dead.

Of course I had decided I wished to work on other things. I was bored and really had moved on. The only thing I wished to take with me from this part of my life was an assistant, a Frenicali. She'd caught my eye during testing and I found talking with her to be easier than anyone I had ever encountered.

I'd found something more important than science.

That was when things changed. The current supply of Frenicalis were not producing enough of the drug to meet demand. And we found that as the Frenicalis mixed in our society they were changing and thus their blood was changing. Universal constants, observer's paradox. I called it Schrödinger's revenge.

It became apparent Pushme had to be artificially synthed or the supply would eventually run out. As it was all of the last viable Frenicali were mysteriously rounded up and placed in farms so they could produce this wonderful drug that let humans be something a little more than they could ever dream of for at least a few moments of time.

She was going to get our lunch. She never came back.

I sold my services and soul so they would not kill her.

Do not try to justify what I did. I knew very well what the drug was and I quickly was able to play things out in my mind. I have an intimate knowledge of both human and demon physiology.

Actually my knowledge of demon anatomy has grown by leaps and bounds these last six years, both on a chemical and, well, also a more physically level. It only took about six months into my service before I stopped caring that we were watched as we touched each other and talked. As my knowledge of demon anatomy was increased through firsthand experience.

She easily draws my worries away leaving just the two of us and no other cares. She is the charmer, I am the snake. Her voice is the mesmerizing melody that calls me from my cold, scientific, deadened zone I occupy when working to release me for the dance of intimacy that we share.

But no trying to give me an out. I know what Pushme does to humans and what the overall effects will be as the drug continues to be pumped into people's veins and lives. I knew probably better than anyone on Earth at that time and still better than anyone now. I am the world's leading specialist on Pushme.

I have calculated everything from death rates and the change in economics as people used the drug to different scenarios of medical and even political reactions to Pushme. And I smirk now as so far I have not been wrong, about anything. All my predications continue to be fulfilled. I am a cutting edge scientist after all.

I did those things so they would not put her in a farm. Instead I produce lots of wonderful things for them to sell and use as well as continuing the research on Pushme. In return, I am allowed time with her and the knowledge she is alive.

So every two weeks when the next high paying customer comes to suck on my love, I am called to a room and sit in a straight backed chair in the corner forgotten as the transaction occurs. It was the only stipulation I ever really made. The only thing I demanded. She would never be used unless I was watching.

When the greedy, slobbering, pandering asses come to milk the cash drug cow, I go and I sit. I never move. Sometimes I think I have willed myself not to blink or breath during the session.

I sit and watch. It reminds me, gives me motivation. Like Ponce de Leon drinking from the Fountain of Youth, I become young again, frisky, driven. This act of rape is my rejuvenation; it is the slap in my face answering the why.

Why the most talented biochemist on the planet Earth slaves 20 hours a day to unleash a steady supply of a material that will end up decimating most who succumb to the siren's deadly call. To manage the marketing feat of mass producing a substance that will bring satisfaction at a rate and price they can afford as they follow the lure of being just a little better than the average Joe.

So, I sit and observe as they take her life fluid.

The life fluid that carries a chemical that when ingested or intermingled with our blood produces a reaction greater than steroids or any other known drug. It enhances the human body to heights that existed only in fairytales. Of course the down side is many develop allergies and can only use the drug for so long before it stops having an affect.

Others develop an addiction to the lifestyle that the false strength and endurance provides. These saps become slaves to a never-ending treadmill that once they are on they have no desire to leave. Then in some, a physical need develops.

Many who develop the physical addiction will carry on to the next phase; a chemical change in their blood. Once this happens they become walking time bombs. If they cut themselves or injure themselves, their blood no longer congeals. Transfusions are like adding poison so even if they stop the bleeding, blood can not be replaced if too much has been loss.

I find it amusing since Pushme came onto the scene 6 years ago the rise in death from paper cuts has increased 300%.

I laugh so hard when I see that one day hemorrhaging will be the leading killer, not heart attacks, cancer, Grendal's plague. Nope it is the deadly paper cut. All because someone wanted to hit 900 home runs this season. They deserve my loathing.

And that is why users will never have my pity. Let them see the fucking tainted factories where Pushme begins its journey. They make chicken and pig farms look cleaner than a holy sanctuary.

Japella my love. I will find the key, I will break the fucking catch-22 cycle.

Cure cancer? Stop Grendal's plague? Synthesize a master antibiotic? No, all I care about is synthing Pushme so I may unhook the leeches from your body. Then we can go to that little café you long for. I will sip Italian ice sodas from a straw with you yet.

Have faith in me darling, my faith in you is the only thing I have left. I pray I can return the same gift to you.

Index

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page last modified - September 11, 2005

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