someone who spoke the same language. “An analogue of PCP that blocks your glutamate receptors. PCP was a bitching pain blocker back in the good old days, but the side effects…whoa.”
“Hallucinations, paranoia, schizophrenic delusions, rage. I know all about it.”
“Heh. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been getting wet yourself.”
“Getting wet?”
“Yeah. They used to dribble the liquid on a cigarette. But you can snort it or carry it like a rock crystal. Versatile.”
Alexis was uneasy, trying to comprehend what he was saying. “It’s a dangerous dissociative drug.”
He gave a casual wave of dismissal. “This new version would blow that shit out of the water. You’re noodling around with neurotransmitters and they all run through the amygdala, right? I’m surprised you didn’t see it yourself.”
Alexis was, too. Briggs must have made the same extrapolation, linking the glutamate inhibitors with the role of serotonin and dopamine. She’d been so fixated on existing compounds that she hadn’t made the leap into drugs that couldn’t exist.
Darrell Silver, the scruffy, boyish savant who didn’t even know the rules, much less play by them, was able to see without his vision being clouded by knowledge. That was a particular kind of genius Alexis would never possess.
But she sure as hell was going to possess Seethe.
“Did you produce any of it?” she asked, disguising her envy.
“I had some precursors lying around but they got seized. Give me a little time and I don’t see any problem. Spinning off the fluorides might be a little tricky, though.”
“We can go over the chemistry later,” she said. “You’ve made a very valuable discovery.”
Silver ignored her obvious impatience. “So I hear. No need to go baking up sheets of acid at two bucks a hit wholesale when I can auction Seethe to the highest bidder.”
Goddamn. Somebody got to him. He knows what he has.
There wasn’t time for negotiation. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Darrell. These guys are willing to kill.”
Darrell gave a stoner laugh. “I used to hustle nickel bags in Needle Park. I know all about killing for a fix.”
“I’ll pay you double. But I need the Halcyon.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Silver fished around in his pants pocket as if looking for change. He came out with a tiny slip of rolled-up paper.
Alexis thought for a moment it might contain the revised chemical formula, but Silver jammed the paper into his mouth and leaned the tip toward a candle. He inhaled as the sweet, cloying odor of marijuana filled the maintenance well.
“I know you’re in with them,” Alexis told him. She didn’t want to tip her hand, but she also didn’t want to waste more time. Mark was running on fumes, and if she didn’t get him some Halcyon soon, he might drift into a rage and kill them all.
“There are a lot of ‘thems’ running around, man,” Silver said, taking another hit and holding it in his lungs a moment before blowing it toward Alexis with a flourish. She waved the smoke away, her eyes stinging.
“Well, you know you can’t trust them, and you know I need you,” she said. “I wasn’t the one who turned you in.”
“Here’s the deal,” he said. The marijuana must have been “superduperfied,” too, because it had already relaxed him and he talked more languidly. “I got to have some cash. Lots of it. I’m heading for Canada. My lawyer thinks I can beat this rap, but I don’t want to be locked in the loony bin for years while the wheels of justice are grinding.”
“They didn’t bust you for the drugs,” Alexis said. “They busted you for Halcyon.”
“That shit’s not even on the books. I could patent it and sell it legit, but I don’t want to hang around, if you know what I mean.”
“This is bigger than you know.”
“Tell me about it, Dr. Morgan. I’ve met some very interesting people lately. And I’m not talking about the nuts in the psycho ward. I’m talking about the nuts at the top of the tree.”
Alexis wondered if Mark had entered the building and was listening from above. He’d dropped her off a block from the lab and promised he’d be watching. Of course, he was watching because he didn’t trust her, not because he wanted to protect her.
She lowered her voice. “I can get you twenty thousand.”
Silver giggled and took another hit of weed. “Doc, if I am going to be in exile, I want to live like one of these deposed dictators. I’m not going north to hunt caribou and sleep in an igloo.”
She jangled her car keys. “My car, too.”
“That’s better. But somebody else made me an offer today. Six figures.”
“CRO,” she blurted out.
“Hey, I’m a dealer,” he said, crushing out the joint on the tabletop. “No names. Sudden amnesia. I deliver and forget it.”
“Do you have the new Halcyon here?”
He lifted his palms in supplication. “They picked the place clean. They didn’t even leave a crumb for the mice. Not to mention the roaches.”
“I can meet you here in an hour with the money.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. Morgan. I know you gave me an A in neurochemistry, but I don’t owe you any favors. I need to go with the high bidder here.”
Alexis felt her own surge of anger and wondered if it was anything like what her husband experienced when the Seethe took control.
No. I’m in charge of my emotions. If the Monkey House trials proved anything, it’s that I can survive.
Even if no one else does.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.” She raised her voice. “Mark!”
Silver let his eyelids droop and shook his head sadly. “Man, everybody’s watched too many Coen Brothers movies.”
“Mark!” Alexis shouted again, the name slapping off the concrete walls.
Mark’s face appeared in the opening above the ladder. “Found a friend,” he said.
He gave a grunt of effort and then Wallace Forsyth’s wizened face emerged from the gloom.
“Hello, Alexis,” Forsyth said. “I see we’re both still engaged in the pursuit of happiness. But I think Mr. Silver there is happier than any of us.”
“Dude, did you get busted?” Silver said to the older man.
Forsyth tried to smile but his face curdled as if he’d smelled something unpleasant. “I’m too old to play hide- and-seek.”
Mark stuck his hand into the lighted space so that Silver could see the gun pointed at him. “Give Alexis what she wants.”
Silver giggled. “Hey, Dr. Morgan, you have a well-trained husband there. A regular monkey on a leash.”
“He’s quite capable of murder,” she said. Her coldness must have made an impression on the stoner, because his mouth fell open and he blinked rapidly.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “That’s the real bitch of the drug business these days. Used to be just people helping each other feel good, with a little spending money swapping hands. Now it’s all guns and gangs and fucking conspiracy theories.”
“Great,” Mark said. “A hippie with a conscience. I thought you said this guy had a brilliant scientific mind. I think he’s sampled a little too much of his product.”
“Please, Darrell,” Alexis said. “Your life is in danger.”
Silver glanced at Mark’s gun.
“Not just from him,” Alexis added. “But from the people who put you in the hospital, the people who got you out of the hospital, and the people who don’t trust either of those people. None of us are safe.”
“Shit, Doc, you’re higher than I am.”
