"Yes! Thank you! This solves everything!"
Sarina wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a hug and kiss. We lost our balance a little as the driver turned into the driveway for Cumberland, but managed to avoid any clashes of teeth.
The first thing I saw when I stepped out of the car was that short chick from Sarina's floor, Millie, standing outside the dorm with her hands on her hips. She threw up her hands in mock disgust when I helped Sarina out of the car.
"Are you fucking serious right now?" she asked, coming over to us.
"What?" asked Sarina.
"I just walked home from a date at the messiest house I've ever seen, by myself because "the game" was on, and you turn up like this? It's not fair." Millie turned to me. "You got any friends?"
I laughed. "Um … they're all taken, I'm afraid."
"You coming up?" asked Millie. "I'd like to grill you in the common room about why men are such a-holes."
"Sounds like fun, but I've got somewhere else I need to be tonight."
"Such a shame." Sarina slipped her arms inside my jacket and cuddled up to me.
I would have loved to come up and christen Sarina's bed with her, but my interrogation serum from hell was at a stage where I had a relatively small window to put the final touches on, or the whole batch was fucked. Either way I was glad to go without playing the agony aunt for Millie.
"Hey! You should come to the Halloween party! Dress up! Guests are allowed!" She poked Sarina in the arm.
"Oh … I'm not really sure Ryan's interested in that … " said Sarina.
I remembered the Halloween parties from my college years, they were invariably incredible boozefests and the source of many a story for everybody who attended. Lots of fun. Plus, it would do my heart good to see the sexy thing snuggled up to me dressed as Sarina the Slutty Teenage Witch or something.
"I'm in," I said.
"Really?" Sarina looked up at me.
"Oh yeah, those parties are always memorable, if you can remember them at all. But, listen, I've gotta go. Talk soon, OK?"
"OK."
Sarina rose up on the tips of her toes and kissed me before letting go and heading towards the entrance with Millie. It was almost enough to make me forget about the potent chemicals bubbling away in my lab, but not quite.
"Bye. Talk soon?"
Sarina nodded and the girls both waved me off. I re-entered the car, and the last thing I saw as I was driven away was Sarina and Millie heading towards the entrance of Cumberland, with a couple other girls rushing out to get a debriefing on their dates.
Ryan
There were always a few Acardi soldiers around the lab, and even in the lab if it was just before a top to bottom clean anyway. They were there for security, to deter any stupid motherfuckers from trying to rob the place, or at least hold the fort while reinforcements came if a serious threat was posed to the operation.
Now that the latest batch of my interrogation serum was ready, all I had to do was wait for one that I hadn't questioned before. There was a constant rotation of new people, so all I had to do was sit here at my computer with the bait out and see what I caught.
I'd never seen any of the soldiers on duty today, so it was the equivalent of an untapped fishing spot. I made sure my desk was clean, except for a Ziploc bag containing small sheet of absorbent paper divided into small squares and decorated with various cartoony pictures and other designs. They looked just like the acid tabs I was going to pretend they were.
It was around five o'clock in the afternoon when the greasiest mobster I'd ever seen wandered through the lab as my team packed up for the day, ahead of a major scrub-down they were doing in the morning. His hairstyle was a straight-up nineteen-fifties slick-back that may or may not have been assisted by copious amounts of lard and black shoe polish.
"Hey, what's that you got there?" he asked.
"Hmmm? Just some LSD I got on the weekend. It's getting a bit of a reputation in the club scene as some pretty good shit, a well-deserved reputation in my experience, so I brought it in to run some tests to see if I could figure out what they're doing differently, and maybe who "they" are."
"You … uh … need to test all of it?"
"No, why?"
"Well, I hooked up with this broad a couple weeks back. Real raver kinda girl, likes to wear hotpants, crop top and a glow in the dark pacifier when she goes dancin', you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Yeah, I know the type," I said.
"After the rave's over, she likes to suck dick and I like to be around when she feels like that. We were gonna go out this weekend, so maybe I could grab some tabs and we'll be the life of the party, whaddya say?"
I swung my chair round to face him and sucked air in through my teeth. "I dunno man, this is some potent shit. There's not many Italians that could handle it."
Somehow, I managed to contain my smug smile as I played him like a fucking maestro. His eyes widened in surprise and he almost choked on his sudden sense of bruised ego.
That was one thing I could always count on with these Acardi fucks, a massive sense of self-importance that was easily manipulated. What the fuck was their induction process like that they were so genuinely surprised when somebody didn't lick the ground they walked on?
"You mouthy fuck, I was droppin' acid when the best-"
I held up my hands and waved him down before he could recount the lengthy history of Italy, his family, the Acardis, and how badly he'd fuck me up.
"Take it easy, take it easy. I'm just saying, it's potent shit. Tell you what, just to show you I meant no disrespect, how about this, alright? You can take one for free, but just chill out here for a while and see how it hits you? You like what it does, then you can buy enough for yourself and that dick sucking raver girl to have a hell of a night, OK?"
My new friend straightened his suit and raised his chin proudly as if he'd really asserted himself well. "Yeah. Alright. Fuck it, I'm clocking out for the night."
Oh he had no idea.
"What's your name, man?"
"Tony."
"OK, Tony," I said, opening the bag and tearing off a square with a picture of a grenade on it. "Here you are. Down the rabbit hole you go."
"Hey, thanks, maybe you're not so bad."
Tony put the tab on his tongue and scratched his neck awkwardly. I could see he was the kind of guy who had to decide how low to stop shaving his face and say "OK, this is chest hair now."
"Take a seat, man," I said, gesturing at the spare office chair. "I can put some music on if you want to listen to it while you wait for a while. I've got to get a little bit of work done though, if you don't mind."
Tony looked over at the chair and then sat in it. "OK, that'd be great. Hoo-boy, I can already feel it kickin' in over here."
I found some generic rave music on the internet, and a moment later my computer speakers were doing the best they could. It wasn't much, but it didn't have to be.
Changing screens back to some test results, I pored over them for about ten minutes before glancing over my shoulder to see what kind of state Tony was in. It turned out he wasn't in any kind of dancing mood.
Staring straight ahead at nothing, I could see he was already breathing quick and shallow. Sweat was beading and dripping down his forehead and the sides of his face. To his credit, the sweat looked clear, so I at least had some evidence that he hadn't used shoe polish to get that slick-back style going.
I rose to my feet, closed the door to my office and approached the poor bastard known as Tony. He was probably seeing some pretty trippy colors right now, but as the drug worked its magic and triggered the production of m-chlorophenylpiperazine in Tony's brain, well, that was when the shit was really going to hit the fan.
The office chair he was sitting on rolled easily on its wheels, and I pushed him casually over to my decontamination enclosure. It was like the world's most intense shower, and if anything dangerous was ever spilled on me, that's where I'd run to.
Things might get messy with Tony, so it was important to question him somewhere that was easy to clean. I took him to the edge, until the chair hit the frame around the door, and tipped him in.
Tony sprawled forward, instinctively putting his hands out to brace for an impact he couldn't see coming as he sensed the sudden movement. He landed mostly inside the enclosure and I moved the chair aside before planting my foot on his ass and shoving him the rest of the way in.
Unable to keep his balance in the throes of whatever mind-expanding experience he was having, he tumbled forward again, this time breaking his fall with his face. He grunted and I shut the door, locking him inside in complete darkness.