2. Personal Armageddon
As his life flashed before his eyes, Ransom tried to remember how he got himself into this situation and why he has this particular state of mind.
Contemplation was the enemy of action. Why was he so hesitant?
Was God keeping him from doing the obvious? He was not a person who thought about God’s will anymore. He couldn’t forget the day that God became as good as dead to him. It was a little more than a year ago.
He’d come a long way from his parents’ tiny condo in CenFlo. A financial blunder had turned the couch in his parents’ living room into his temporary sleeping place. But Ransom was not the type to let something like that get him down. He remembered being happy then.
His parents lived rather close to the Baseball City Vacation Resort Complex, which gave him a conveniently short commute to the security department building where he worked as an officer. He was fortunate to be a full time employee of General Telepresence, a media company that owned practically all of Baseball, and the better part of all the hotels, theme parks, and resorts in Florida and the rest of the globe. GT was The Media Company. And as mentioned in the corporate pledge that he had to recite during certain corporate events, it was one of the world’s ten largest corporations. Ransom never understood why they bragged about that. There only were ten corporations in the world.
GT had an economy larger than all but three of the nations on this planet. One would think that they could afford to pay Ransom more than seventy-five dollars an hour. That was a little more than what’s considered a “living wage.”
A restless loser nearing the end of his youth. He remembers that in high school he wanted to save the world. Ransom was now satisfied just to save himself from life’s crushing ennui and still have enough time to drink beer with his friends. He had accepted a long time ago that if everyone was born with God-given unlimited potential, then most realities are filled with disappointment.
He remembers that on that day he received a call from his friend Ken while driving to work. His wristserver began to beep.
INCOMING CALL: Ken Cedars
“Hello?”
Ken’s voice came in over the speakers in his car. “Ransom, I need a favor.”
“Of course you do.”
“Can I crash at your place tonight?”
“Your Dad?” asked Ransom.
“He won’t stop hounding me to get a job! My mother almost called security because he shoved me and I shoved him back. I don’t know how much I can take of this. Everybody wants so much of me.”
Ransom rolled his eyes. “I get off tonight at seven.”
“I need, uh, another favor. Can you loan me a couple hundred?”
“You’re already in the hole to me for three thousand. Besides, I’m thinking of getting out of the interest-free loan business.”
“It’s not for pills, I swear.”
“Look, I get off at seven. We can talk about it later. Later.”
Ransom hated being bothered during his commute. Ken would understand this if that bum had a job. He would have a job if he could even keep a job for more than a month. But lately, Ken couldn’t even find a job. But when you steal from your employers, possible future employers have trouble trusting you.
There are advantages, perhaps, to maintaining a one-sided relationship where one friend is always getting into trouble and asking for money and help. At one time, Ken and Ransom had seemed so alike. They both had the same upbringing, attended the same church youth group and the same high school. In fact, they met when they were both caught skipping class by school security guards on the same day. But that was years ago. And the choices made; the drugs, the thefts, the refusal to conform had turned Ken into one person and Ransom into someone totally different. So he kept Ken around, if only to make him remember that there were people in the world much worse off than him. But Ransom could do without him if not for the nagging discomforts of empathy and Christian guilt.
That day Ransom was assigned to the parking garage back behind Fantasy World. It was a cakewalk post. All he did was spend half his time in the office watching the monitors, and the other half riding his bicycle around. And it was while he was riding that his wrist server began to beep.
GARAGE SERVER DETECTS POSSIBLE LOITERING VIOLATION. Level 3, North Quad. Vehicle information?
Non-urgent message:
Officer Archer, please contact Sergeant Anjou at your earliest convenience.
Well if his supervisor was being so nice, it must mean that he wants something. Ransom decided to check on the stragglers in the garage.
The security server for the garage uses thermal scanners and cameras to keep track of everyone in or around the structure. The cameras are able to capture vehicle information. The server is even able to recognize behavior that might be suspicious. For example, it notifies him if a person stays in one place for more than fifteen minutes. Ransom found a ‘28 champagne SUV with fogged up windows. Luckily, there was no problem, just a couple of dumb kids trying to get it on. “Aw, how sweet.” he thought as he banged on the window with his flashlight. He walked away and waited for them to get the idea and take their teen lust elsewhere.
No doubt there are some officers that would have had those kids banned from the resort. Ransom is not one of them. While he was waiting for them to leave, he called his supervisor. The Creole accented voice of Sergeant Anjou called out from his badge.
“Ransom, good buddy, what are you doing tonight?”
“Um, lemme guess. Working a double?”
“I just had someone call in sick, and I need someone to work the door at Matrix Quest. Thank you, sir. I would really appreciate it.”
“Uh, yeah, no problem.” Ransom kicked himself for being such a doormat. He sent a message to his parents asking them to expect Ken. Ken didn’t answer his call for some reason.
Doorman, gate, and turnstile duty were some of the most hated posts at the resort. Ransom didn’t mind doing it on a regular length shift. But on the last quarter of a sixteen-hour shift, the repetitive actions and the ache in his back were really starting to get to him. There was an audio loop emanating from the threshold of the Matrix Quest building that repeated every five minutes or so. Ransom had it almost completely memorized. It was almost time for him to take the second lunch break of the day. Instead of eating, he would go to the backstage area and sit down on the tattered old couch in the employee break room. He would melt away any of the good posture expected from GT Resort Security people. He would turn into a gelatinous mass and remain in that state for thirty minutes, at which time he would harden up again. The audio loop was restarting.
“Welcome to Matrix Quest, one of the hottest attractions of the Baseball City Tourist District, where you can experience the newest, most technologically advanced games and interactive virtual environments. Using sensor embedded smart rooms, and our suspended haptic interface suits, you can enter the world of telepresence, not just with your eyes and ears, but with your whole body. Haptic interface technology allows you to feel your interactions in the 3-D computer generated world. So it’s like you’re really there! Matrix Quest has its own broad-spectrum Net transceiver, allowing you to compete with players from all over the world in real time. Why not experience the fun? Feel the adventure, at Matrix Quest!
“It’s here! The fantasy action game of the year, adapted to haptic interface technology! Eternal Fantasy, new at Matrix Quest!
“You are Alonzo, the poor young shepherd chosen by the Spirit Elders for a dangerous mission. You must deliver the Eternity Diadem to its rightful place in the High Castle of Palladour. To get there, you must travel through the haunted Blackthorn Wood. With sword and magic, you must battle the zombie hordes of the vicious Lord Necron. Do you have the courage to follow the path of heroes? Don’t be satisfied with the quiet life. Use your God-given potential to save the world!”
Ransom was starting to lose it. The key to working all these long, boring, stationary shifts is to keep your mind occupied. An easy way to do that is people watching. You keep yourself sane, and all the guests think that you're observant and you really care about your job. He’d grown bored of playing the “would I do her?” game, in which he checked out a female costumer and decided whether or not he would like to have noncommittal casual sex with her. He decided instead to imagine the type of pathetic lives these people had.
What losers these people must be. What kind of dull, uninteresting life devoid of responsibility or challenge would a person have if he came to this bazaar of false experience, time and again, sometimes several times a week, to spend an inordinate amount of money playing with this stupid pointless high-tech nonsense?
A guest put his hand heavily on Ransom’s shoulder. A shiver went through his body that was almost like rage. “Hey, dude, I heard this place is cool.” This kid was looking at Ransom with a huge grin. The kid was obviously regarding him as his newfound friend in the brotherhood of man. Symptomatic of that shifted consciousness that comes with inebriation. Ransom thought of him as a kid even though the “kid” looked about as old as Ransom, who was twenty-five. “Dude, I’ve never been in this Matrix Quest place before. Is it any good?”
“Dude, it’s totally awesome.” Ransom smiled. He was a good actor and took a certain perverse pride in his customer service skills.
After getting back from lunch, Ransom got back to work. He greeted the guests and he asked random guests if he could check their bags, and sent a few people through the walkthrough positron emission scanner, and checked a few bags with the nano-sensor bio-scan wand. One kid was stupid and he dropped his stash when he was asked him to empty his pockets. He would’ve gotten away with it if the dumbass had just left it in his pocket. The scanner won’t look for drugs, only weapons.
Ransom picked up the little baggie. NanoContin pills. Little green capsules stamped with the letters “TERRA PHARMA--CF,” which meant that it was CF NanoContin. He tried to imagine the tiny mechanisms inside each indigestible pill. Tiny sensors hooked up to a microscopic computer that monitored heart rate, respiration, and other vitals as it pumped out a powerful narcotic one nanogram at a time. One of these pills would take you to a fuzzy wonderland for days at a time. And there was a ninety-nine percent chance that this clown had them illegally.
“Oh, man. Those aren’t mine.”
“Put them back in your pocket.”
“You see, my friend just had an operation, and he asked me to hold them for him.”
“Just put them back in your pocket.”
The kid finally realized that he wasn’t going to bust him. He put his chemical joy back into his pocket, mumbled what might have been a “thank you,” and ran into the building.
Nathan, the eighteen-year-old officer working the door with him, looked him a question. “Pain pills.” Ransom answered.
“Aren’t we supposed to report any possible illegal pharmaceuticals?”
Ransom liked Nathan. But he was tired, and the younger man’s candor pained him tonight. But rather than say, “I don’t care,” he shrugged his shoulders.
“Sergeant Diaz would be pissed.” Said Nathan.
Ransom rolled his eyes. Diaz was a part of a dying breed of security guards who had cop souls. The type who would always talk about respect and authority. His mustache was always perfectly trimmed. And the crease in his slacks was so sharp it could give you a paper cut. The word around the department was that he was much cooler before his son died.
“Gee, I wish my son would die of an overdose so I could be a prick all the time.” Nathan just stared at him. There, that shut him up.
Ransom tried not to let the Sergeant Diazes of the world annoy him. He just did his job. The parts of his job he felt like doing, anyway. He scanned some people, and checked some people. He did this whole act to make people think that The General Telepresence Media Corporation cared about keeping them safe. He cheerfully told the kids to have fun. And he meant it too. As long as the masses were happy and blissfully distracted, they would leave him alone.
It was a quarter to midnight when a loud voice emanated from his badge. “Anjou to Archer. Please respond.” He was startled. His badge only went audible when it was important. “Yeah?”
“Officer Coulantes is coming to relieve you. I need you to come directly to the briefing room.”
Ransom was cool when he got to the briefing room. He thought nothing of it when he saw a Polk County Deputy in the room with Anjou. The sergeant motioned him over to the media board. The lights dimmed, and the day’s assignments that had been written up earlier disintegrated into the life-size image of a man sitting behind a desk. “Hello, Mr. Archer. My name is Randall Wetzel. I am with the Bureau of Sin.”
The Bureau of Sin, formerly known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, Narcotics, Stimulants, and Firearms. Ransom was starting to get nervous.
“Hopefully, this won’t take up too much of your time. I just have a few questions that I need you to answer. First, tell me, do you know what this is?” Next to the agent’s image, another picture appeared. A watermelon? It was a large green pill blown up a thousand times.
“Yeah, that’s CF Nanocontin.” Ransom’s larynx turned into a golf ball. He could not believe this was happening. They found out about the kid with the pills. How? Cameras? Did Nathan bust him?
“Mr. Archer, I’ve had a lot of trouble with this little pill in the last year. CF NanoContin contains an extremely potent narcotic called carfentanyl citrate, which is approximately ten thousand times more powerful that morphine. Before the invention of the finer methods of introducing drugs into the body, carfentanyl use was restricted to large animals such as bears, elephants, and woolly mammoths. Less than thirty years ago, Chechen terrorists took over a theatre in Moscow and held over seven hundred civilians hostage. The Russians tried to thwart them by pumping an aerosol form of this drug into the building. Federal agents killed all the terrorists but lost one hundred, twenty-eight hostages, all but two of them killed by the carfentanyl.
“Ironically, today CF NanoContin is safer than Tylenol. You can swallow an entire bottle of pills and have no adverse effects. That is, I should say, it was safer until some indulgent worthless addict somewhere discovered that if you stick CF NanoContin pills in the microwave oven, then crush them between your fingers and swallow the pieces; you’ll get a single huge rush of drugs into your system instead of a continuous release.
“The Terra Pharma Corporation has decided that rather than fix the problem and recall billions of dollars worth of product, it would be cheaper to settle the lawsuits with the parents of stupid dead college kids. They also get their lobby to put pressure on the government to do something about the idiots who abuse this drug.”
Ransom hated this guy for the lecture he was giving him. If he was going to bust him, why won’t he just do it? But then, the picture of the NanoContin pill was replaced with a cracked shard from smashed pill. The already enlarged piece began to grow even larger. He could see the thin black lines that would have crossed the length and width of the capsule. As the image zoomed in even closer, one could see that the black lines were actually microprinting. Soon, the microscopic line of data printed thousands of times over the surface of the capsule filled the length of the screen.
---RANSOM ARCHER 48002411725 GAS N’ GO PHARMACY 62644701, 02OCT 2029---
It was his name, his federal medical ID number, a pharmacy, the pharmacy’s routing number, and the date of purchase. Ransom was immediately relieved. There was no way a pill with that information on it made it into Matrix Quest.
“Mr. Archer, on October 2nd did you purchase a sixty count bottle of CF NanoContin capsules, along with a fifty count box of morphine dermal patches and a six pack of pharmaceutical strength endorphinated milk from the pharmacy kiosk in the Gas N’ Go on Bloom Street?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Do you know a Ken Cedars?”
“Yes.” Ransom grimaced. That idiot Ken tried to sell the pills that he gave him and he got caught. He will never forgive his stupid ass.
“Are you aware that Ken is a convicted felon and designated as a narcotics addict by a licensed therapist?”
“No, I mean, yeah, I knew that.”
“Did you at any time give pharmaceuticals registered under your name to Ken Cedars for any reason? Remember, you have the right not to answer these questions or request that you have an attorney present or telepresent.”
“No.”
“And were you aware that Mr. Cedars possessed pharmaceuticals registered under your name?”
“No.” For a moment, Ransom was worried whether the federal agent had lie detector running. Not that that could be used in court.
“Okay, Mr. Archer, that’s all I need for now. Thank you for your time.”
“Wait! I mean, what happened?”
Agent Wetzel’s cop face softened slightly. “Are you a friend of Mr. Cedars?”
“Well, I mean, yeah, sort of.”
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but right now he’s at the Seventh Day Hospital in Baseball. He was found earlier today, unconscious from an apparent overdose. We found your NanoContin capsule fragment in this bottle on the floor.” Another window appeared next to the agent’s head. The image was labeled “evidence.” It was an old vitamin bottle with label peeled off. It was labeled “death” in black marker. It was Ken’s handwriting.
“Is he okay!? I mean, is he alive?”
The agent answered, but then stopped, immediately regretting his choice of words. “Well, that would depend on your definition of, alive.”
Contemplation was the enemy of action. Why was he so hesitant?
Was God keeping him from doing the obvious? He was not a person who thought about God’s will anymore. He couldn’t forget the day that God became as good as dead to him. It was a little more than a year ago.
He’d come a long way from his parents’ tiny condo in CenFlo. A financial blunder had turned the couch in his parents’ living room into his temporary sleeping place. But Ransom was not the type to let something like that get him down. He remembered being happy then.
His parents lived rather close to the Baseball City Vacation Resort Complex, which gave him a conveniently short commute to the security department building where he worked as an officer. He was fortunate to be a full time employee of General Telepresence, a media company that owned practically all of Baseball, and the better part of all the hotels, theme parks, and resorts in Florida and the rest of the globe. GT was The Media Company. And as mentioned in the corporate pledge that he had to recite during certain corporate events, it was one of the world’s ten largest corporations. Ransom never understood why they bragged about that. There only were ten corporations in the world.
GT had an economy larger than all but three of the nations on this planet. One would think that they could afford to pay Ransom more than seventy-five dollars an hour. That was a little more than what’s considered a “living wage.”
A restless loser nearing the end of his youth. He remembers that in high school he wanted to save the world. Ransom was now satisfied just to save himself from life’s crushing ennui and still have enough time to drink beer with his friends. He had accepted a long time ago that if everyone was born with God-given unlimited potential, then most realities are filled with disappointment.
He remembers that on that day he received a call from his friend Ken while driving to work. His wristserver began to beep.
INCOMING CALL: Ken Cedars
“Hello?”
Ken’s voice came in over the speakers in his car. “Ransom, I need a favor.”
“Of course you do.”
“Can I crash at your place tonight?”
“Your Dad?” asked Ransom.
“He won’t stop hounding me to get a job! My mother almost called security because he shoved me and I shoved him back. I don’t know how much I can take of this. Everybody wants so much of me.”
Ransom rolled his eyes. “I get off tonight at seven.”
“I need, uh, another favor. Can you loan me a couple hundred?”
“You’re already in the hole to me for three thousand. Besides, I’m thinking of getting out of the interest-free loan business.”
“It’s not for pills, I swear.”
“Look, I get off at seven. We can talk about it later. Later.”
Ransom hated being bothered during his commute. Ken would understand this if that bum had a job. He would have a job if he could even keep a job for more than a month. But lately, Ken couldn’t even find a job. But when you steal from your employers, possible future employers have trouble trusting you.
There are advantages, perhaps, to maintaining a one-sided relationship where one friend is always getting into trouble and asking for money and help. At one time, Ken and Ransom had seemed so alike. They both had the same upbringing, attended the same church youth group and the same high school. In fact, they met when they were both caught skipping class by school security guards on the same day. But that was years ago. And the choices made; the drugs, the thefts, the refusal to conform had turned Ken into one person and Ransom into someone totally different. So he kept Ken around, if only to make him remember that there were people in the world much worse off than him. But Ransom could do without him if not for the nagging discomforts of empathy and Christian guilt.
That day Ransom was assigned to the parking garage back behind Fantasy World. It was a cakewalk post. All he did was spend half his time in the office watching the monitors, and the other half riding his bicycle around. And it was while he was riding that his wrist server began to beep.
GARAGE SERVER DETECTS POSSIBLE LOITERING VIOLATION. Level 3, North Quad. Vehicle information?
Non-urgent message:
Officer Archer, please contact Sergeant Anjou at your earliest convenience.
Well if his supervisor was being so nice, it must mean that he wants something. Ransom decided to check on the stragglers in the garage.
The security server for the garage uses thermal scanners and cameras to keep track of everyone in or around the structure. The cameras are able to capture vehicle information. The server is even able to recognize behavior that might be suspicious. For example, it notifies him if a person stays in one place for more than fifteen minutes. Ransom found a ‘28 champagne SUV with fogged up windows. Luckily, there was no problem, just a couple of dumb kids trying to get it on. “Aw, how sweet.” he thought as he banged on the window with his flashlight. He walked away and waited for them to get the idea and take their teen lust elsewhere.
No doubt there are some officers that would have had those kids banned from the resort. Ransom is not one of them. While he was waiting for them to leave, he called his supervisor. The Creole accented voice of Sergeant Anjou called out from his badge.
“Ransom, good buddy, what are you doing tonight?”
“Um, lemme guess. Working a double?”
“I just had someone call in sick, and I need someone to work the door at Matrix Quest. Thank you, sir. I would really appreciate it.”
“Uh, yeah, no problem.” Ransom kicked himself for being such a doormat. He sent a message to his parents asking them to expect Ken. Ken didn’t answer his call for some reason.
Doorman, gate, and turnstile duty were some of the most hated posts at the resort. Ransom didn’t mind doing it on a regular length shift. But on the last quarter of a sixteen-hour shift, the repetitive actions and the ache in his back were really starting to get to him. There was an audio loop emanating from the threshold of the Matrix Quest building that repeated every five minutes or so. Ransom had it almost completely memorized. It was almost time for him to take the second lunch break of the day. Instead of eating, he would go to the backstage area and sit down on the tattered old couch in the employee break room. He would melt away any of the good posture expected from GT Resort Security people. He would turn into a gelatinous mass and remain in that state for thirty minutes, at which time he would harden up again. The audio loop was restarting.
“Welcome to Matrix Quest, one of the hottest attractions of the Baseball City Tourist District, where you can experience the newest, most technologically advanced games and interactive virtual environments. Using sensor embedded smart rooms, and our suspended haptic interface suits, you can enter the world of telepresence, not just with your eyes and ears, but with your whole body. Haptic interface technology allows you to feel your interactions in the 3-D computer generated world. So it’s like you’re really there! Matrix Quest has its own broad-spectrum Net transceiver, allowing you to compete with players from all over the world in real time. Why not experience the fun? Feel the adventure, at Matrix Quest!
“It’s here! The fantasy action game of the year, adapted to haptic interface technology! Eternal Fantasy, new at Matrix Quest!
“You are Alonzo, the poor young shepherd chosen by the Spirit Elders for a dangerous mission. You must deliver the Eternity Diadem to its rightful place in the High Castle of Palladour. To get there, you must travel through the haunted Blackthorn Wood. With sword and magic, you must battle the zombie hordes of the vicious Lord Necron. Do you have the courage to follow the path of heroes? Don’t be satisfied with the quiet life. Use your God-given potential to save the world!”
Ransom was starting to lose it. The key to working all these long, boring, stationary shifts is to keep your mind occupied. An easy way to do that is people watching. You keep yourself sane, and all the guests think that you're observant and you really care about your job. He’d grown bored of playing the “would I do her?” game, in which he checked out a female costumer and decided whether or not he would like to have noncommittal casual sex with her. He decided instead to imagine the type of pathetic lives these people had.
What losers these people must be. What kind of dull, uninteresting life devoid of responsibility or challenge would a person have if he came to this bazaar of false experience, time and again, sometimes several times a week, to spend an inordinate amount of money playing with this stupid pointless high-tech nonsense?
A guest put his hand heavily on Ransom’s shoulder. A shiver went through his body that was almost like rage. “Hey, dude, I heard this place is cool.” This kid was looking at Ransom with a huge grin. The kid was obviously regarding him as his newfound friend in the brotherhood of man. Symptomatic of that shifted consciousness that comes with inebriation. Ransom thought of him as a kid even though the “kid” looked about as old as Ransom, who was twenty-five. “Dude, I’ve never been in this Matrix Quest place before. Is it any good?”
“Dude, it’s totally awesome.” Ransom smiled. He was a good actor and took a certain perverse pride in his customer service skills.
After getting back from lunch, Ransom got back to work. He greeted the guests and he asked random guests if he could check their bags, and sent a few people through the walkthrough positron emission scanner, and checked a few bags with the nano-sensor bio-scan wand. One kid was stupid and he dropped his stash when he was asked him to empty his pockets. He would’ve gotten away with it if the dumbass had just left it in his pocket. The scanner won’t look for drugs, only weapons.
Ransom picked up the little baggie. NanoContin pills. Little green capsules stamped with the letters “TERRA PHARMA--CF,” which meant that it was CF NanoContin. He tried to imagine the tiny mechanisms inside each indigestible pill. Tiny sensors hooked up to a microscopic computer that monitored heart rate, respiration, and other vitals as it pumped out a powerful narcotic one nanogram at a time. One of these pills would take you to a fuzzy wonderland for days at a time. And there was a ninety-nine percent chance that this clown had them illegally.
“Oh, man. Those aren’t mine.”
“Put them back in your pocket.”
“You see, my friend just had an operation, and he asked me to hold them for him.”
“Just put them back in your pocket.”
The kid finally realized that he wasn’t going to bust him. He put his chemical joy back into his pocket, mumbled what might have been a “thank you,” and ran into the building.
Nathan, the eighteen-year-old officer working the door with him, looked him a question. “Pain pills.” Ransom answered.
“Aren’t we supposed to report any possible illegal pharmaceuticals?”
Ransom liked Nathan. But he was tired, and the younger man’s candor pained him tonight. But rather than say, “I don’t care,” he shrugged his shoulders.
“Sergeant Diaz would be pissed.” Said Nathan.
Ransom rolled his eyes. Diaz was a part of a dying breed of security guards who had cop souls. The type who would always talk about respect and authority. His mustache was always perfectly trimmed. And the crease in his slacks was so sharp it could give you a paper cut. The word around the department was that he was much cooler before his son died.
“Gee, I wish my son would die of an overdose so I could be a prick all the time.” Nathan just stared at him. There, that shut him up.
Ransom tried not to let the Sergeant Diazes of the world annoy him. He just did his job. The parts of his job he felt like doing, anyway. He scanned some people, and checked some people. He did this whole act to make people think that The General Telepresence Media Corporation cared about keeping them safe. He cheerfully told the kids to have fun. And he meant it too. As long as the masses were happy and blissfully distracted, they would leave him alone.
It was a quarter to midnight when a loud voice emanated from his badge. “Anjou to Archer. Please respond.” He was startled. His badge only went audible when it was important. “Yeah?”
“Officer Coulantes is coming to relieve you. I need you to come directly to the briefing room.”
Ransom was cool when he got to the briefing room. He thought nothing of it when he saw a Polk County Deputy in the room with Anjou. The sergeant motioned him over to the media board. The lights dimmed, and the day’s assignments that had been written up earlier disintegrated into the life-size image of a man sitting behind a desk. “Hello, Mr. Archer. My name is Randall Wetzel. I am with the Bureau of Sin.”
The Bureau of Sin, formerly known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, Narcotics, Stimulants, and Firearms. Ransom was starting to get nervous.
“Hopefully, this won’t take up too much of your time. I just have a few questions that I need you to answer. First, tell me, do you know what this is?” Next to the agent’s image, another picture appeared. A watermelon? It was a large green pill blown up a thousand times.
“Yeah, that’s CF Nanocontin.” Ransom’s larynx turned into a golf ball. He could not believe this was happening. They found out about the kid with the pills. How? Cameras? Did Nathan bust him?
“Mr. Archer, I’ve had a lot of trouble with this little pill in the last year. CF NanoContin contains an extremely potent narcotic called carfentanyl citrate, which is approximately ten thousand times more powerful that morphine. Before the invention of the finer methods of introducing drugs into the body, carfentanyl use was restricted to large animals such as bears, elephants, and woolly mammoths. Less than thirty years ago, Chechen terrorists took over a theatre in Moscow and held over seven hundred civilians hostage. The Russians tried to thwart them by pumping an aerosol form of this drug into the building. Federal agents killed all the terrorists but lost one hundred, twenty-eight hostages, all but two of them killed by the carfentanyl.
“Ironically, today CF NanoContin is safer than Tylenol. You can swallow an entire bottle of pills and have no adverse effects. That is, I should say, it was safer until some indulgent worthless addict somewhere discovered that if you stick CF NanoContin pills in the microwave oven, then crush them between your fingers and swallow the pieces; you’ll get a single huge rush of drugs into your system instead of a continuous release.
“The Terra Pharma Corporation has decided that rather than fix the problem and recall billions of dollars worth of product, it would be cheaper to settle the lawsuits with the parents of stupid dead college kids. They also get their lobby to put pressure on the government to do something about the idiots who abuse this drug.”
Ransom hated this guy for the lecture he was giving him. If he was going to bust him, why won’t he just do it? But then, the picture of the NanoContin pill was replaced with a cracked shard from smashed pill. The already enlarged piece began to grow even larger. He could see the thin black lines that would have crossed the length and width of the capsule. As the image zoomed in even closer, one could see that the black lines were actually microprinting. Soon, the microscopic line of data printed thousands of times over the surface of the capsule filled the length of the screen.
---RANSOM ARCHER 48002411725 GAS N’ GO PHARMACY 62644701, 02OCT 2029---
It was his name, his federal medical ID number, a pharmacy, the pharmacy’s routing number, and the date of purchase. Ransom was immediately relieved. There was no way a pill with that information on it made it into Matrix Quest.
“Mr. Archer, on October 2nd did you purchase a sixty count bottle of CF NanoContin capsules, along with a fifty count box of morphine dermal patches and a six pack of pharmaceutical strength endorphinated milk from the pharmacy kiosk in the Gas N’ Go on Bloom Street?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Do you know a Ken Cedars?”
“Yes.” Ransom grimaced. That idiot Ken tried to sell the pills that he gave him and he got caught. He will never forgive his stupid ass.
“Are you aware that Ken is a convicted felon and designated as a narcotics addict by a licensed therapist?”
“No, I mean, yeah, I knew that.”
“Did you at any time give pharmaceuticals registered under your name to Ken Cedars for any reason? Remember, you have the right not to answer these questions or request that you have an attorney present or telepresent.”
“No.”
“And were you aware that Mr. Cedars possessed pharmaceuticals registered under your name?”
“No.” For a moment, Ransom was worried whether the federal agent had lie detector running. Not that that could be used in court.
“Okay, Mr. Archer, that’s all I need for now. Thank you for your time.”
“Wait! I mean, what happened?”
Agent Wetzel’s cop face softened slightly. “Are you a friend of Mr. Cedars?”
“Well, I mean, yeah, sort of.”
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but right now he’s at the Seventh Day Hospital in Baseball. He was found earlier today, unconscious from an apparent overdose. We found your NanoContin capsule fragment in this bottle on the floor.” Another window appeared next to the agent’s head. The image was labeled “evidence.” It was an old vitamin bottle with label peeled off. It was labeled “death” in black marker. It was Ken’s handwriting.
“Is he okay!? I mean, is he alive?”
The agent answered, but then stopped, immediately regretting his choice of words. “Well, that would depend on your definition of, alive.”
posted by Graham at 5:32 AM
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