Dead Duck (Flynt & Steele Mysteries Book 2)

by Micheal Maxwell

  He remembered the detectives trying to get him to fess up about where he’d bought the drug from. In all honesty, Ben barely knew the guy he purchased it from. What he did know was that the supplier was that same professor. Ben attended some of the Awakening meetings and heard the hare-brained professor speak, and he had a good idea of where the drug would be. The idiot all but told him and a few other kids after one of the meetings. That night was the first time Ben tried the drug.

  It was a little after nine o’clock when Ben got to the school. He’d half expected to see cop cars lining the parking lots, red and blue lights flashing, but the place was pretty quiet. There were only a few cars in the lots and the lights inside the main building were turned off.

  Ben drove around to the west side of campus and parked his car. He was not a student, so he didn’t have an ID card that would allow him into the college. He knew the place well enough. All doors were locked electronically after eight o’clock and the only way to get in between eight and eleven was with an ID badge. That was fine, though. In the forty minutes it took him to speed there, Ben grew both desperate and brave.

  It alarmed him how badly he wanted the drug, but he was even more alarmed by the fear of never having it again. That’s why he took the screwdriver out of his glove compartment and slipped it into his waistband. He felt the cold pressure of it against his waist as he walked to the rear of the psychology department.

  Professor Leik occupied a corner office. That was really all Ben knew. When he came to the first set of windows at the back corner, a simple peek inside the darkened windows revealed that it was a classroom. He dashed to the other end of the wing, feeling like a spy as he hugged closely to the building. When he reached the much smaller window at this end of the building and peeked inside, he found his view blocked by drawn shades.

  Figuring this was Leik’s office, Ben took the screwdriver out and stabbed it between the window frame and the window. He jerked it back and forth while slowly applying downward pressure on the handle. The window screeched a bit but then moved slowly upwards. Ben paused, fully expecting some sort of alarm to sound. When it didn’t, he continued on, working quickly.

  By the time he got the window up, the screwdriver was badly bent. He climbed through the open window, and nearly pulled the shades down as he went. When he got to his feet, he looked all around the small office and was amazed to realize how easy it was.

  There, sitting on the edge of Leik’s desk, was a rubber ducky. He heard Leik talk about his little duck after two Awakening meetings. Leik also used ducks as the symbols of many of his metaphors for how the mind works. When Ben did the drug, he even saw Leik holding the duck in the same way a child might hold a cherished toy. Ben picked the duck up and brought it to his ear. When he shook it, he could hear something sloshing around inside.

  It took everything within him to not squirt a bit of the liquid into his mouth right then and there. His tongue wanted the taste, remembering the slight tinge of lemon and metal. But he needed to be clear-headed. He must wait until he made it back home. The last thing he needed was to be tripping out of his mind on campus with those detectives around.

  Clutching the duck carefully—but not tight enough to cause any to squirt out of the little squeaky hole at the bottom—Ben returned to the window. He pushed the shades aside and carefully lowered himself through the window. As he did, he heard the rubber ducky make a wet whooshing noise.

  Ben felt something moist on his hand, right between the webbing of his thumb and index finger.

  He heard Leik and his dealer both explain that contact with the skin could cause a trip. It seemed ridiculous to Ben. No drug was that powerful, right?

  Once out the window, he started running as soon as he hit the ground. He didn’t bother closing the window behind him.

  Thirty seconds later, before he even made it back around to the front sidewalks of the psychology building, Ben discovered that Leik was right. This drug was potent enough to work by simply absorbing into the skin.

  Ben stopped in his tracks and looked to the glowing spheres of the streetlights bordering the sidewalks. They seemed to breathe; the lights descended from the poles like angels. Spiral shapes of colors came in behind the lights, warping the sky and creating a vivid tunnel of shapes and colors.

  Behind it all was the voice of the gods.

  And they were quacking.

  CHAPTER TEN

  All it took was a quick look at the college website to find out when and where the Awakening meeting was being held. Steele found it odd that something that might be seen as so controversial would be so easy to find. It was posted on Professor Leik’s personal page on the college website. Then again, Steele also knew that sometimes the best places to hide something dangerous was right in plain sight.

  So once again, the detectives headed back towards the college. The meeting was scheduled to meet at eight o’clock, so when they arrived the parking lots were mostly empty. It made Steele think of how Tori described the parking lot when she had her encounter with a drugged-up Carson Butler.

  They made their way over to Cutler Hall, where a small auditorium was located. The little auditorium was three-quarters full when Flynt and Steele passed through the double doors. The terraced seating held a wide spectrum of attendees; dreadlock neo-hippies, college kids in mascot sweatshirts, goths, academics with notepads at the ready. He was rather shocked to also see a mix of business types and working-class men in well-worn work clothes. The group was heavily male, but there was a scattering of women and clusters of couples. There were about twenty-six people in all, looking to the front of the auditorium where Professor Leik was looking through a set of notes.

  Before they could start walking down to find seats, someone approached from behind them. “Excuse us,” a pretty blonde girl said politely.

  A group of eight more students with backpacks and laptops paraded past them and took seats across the hall.

  “We better get a seat,” Flynt said softly. He looked around expectantly as if they were in a theater to watch a movie rather than get a better read on Leik and his Awakening meetings.

  There were three seats on the aisle about halfway down. They sat with an empty seat between them. Now that they were in the room, Steele noticed very soft music being played over the built-in audio system. It was a spacey blend of Indian influenced rock with a strong droning synthesizer foundation. The lights were dimmed, giving the room a soft relaxing feeling.

  “That music is kind of cool,” Steele said leaning over.

  “If I’m not careful, I may fall asleep,” Flynt bobbed his head as he chuckled softly. “This is the kind of stuff I listen to when I have problems sleeping.”

  Several seconds later, Professor Leik looked up from his notes and smiled at the small crowd. Steele took a quick headcount and saw that there were now forty-seven people in attendance. He wasn’t sure why, but he was not expecting so many people. With confidence in his step, Leik approached the podium.

  “Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. Tonight, I’m going to delve into the first in a series of lectures on what I refer to as The Awakening. Now, I’m sure that many of you are familiar with me, but this is a larger crowd than I am accustomed to. So, for those of you that are new to The Awakening, let me share a bit about myself. I feel it always helps to know more about the person that tells you that you may very well be living your life wrong.”

  This received a murmur of chuckles from the crowd. Steele looked over to the men that looked like they just stepped out of a business meeting. He wondered if they were also from the college. They didn’t seem like college types, making their presence even stranger.

  “First of all, my name is Anthony Leik. I am a graduate of MIT and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. I hold degrees in chemistry, medicine, and psychiatry. I am a licensed physician in the State of California, though I admittedly don’t make much use of that licensure. If I do say so myself, I am also a great cook, poet, an
d second-rate guitar player.”

  The hall burst into more laughter here. This time, Leik even got a strange snort of approval from Flynt.

  “I suppose I can add comedian to my resume,” Leik teased. “Now, before I get too far off the rails, let’s ask ourselves: Why are we here today? Well, let’s see. I’d estimate that there are roughly fifty in attendance, which means we’d likely have about one hundred reasons for being here. You see some of us are of two minds. And that, in fact, is the purpose of my work.”

  “Clever,” Steele murmured under his breath.

  “I have titled this series The Awakening. At first, I thought it sounded too much like science fiction, like some Star Trek episode that never aired. Or even worse, it also sounds a bit like one of those awful self-help books that wore out their welcome in the mid-nineties. But then it struck me: that is exactly what my work, and the purpose of my life, really is all about. Awakening.

  “By definition, an Awakening is when the conflicted, confused, frightened self transcends to a higher consciousness. In this state, we find an awareness full of love and peace. Some call it Nirvana. Some Enlightenment. I don’t like those terms, particularly.

  “You see, a spiritual Awakening should not be confused with ‘enlightenment’.” He used air quotes when he said this last word. “The true meaning of an awakening is an intellectual understanding of a higher set or state of religious principles. That is not what we are here to discuss. Sorry, if there was any misunderstanding. We want our discovery to be the ‘touch of God’ through our humanity.”

  He paused here, leaning on the podium, and slowly scanned the crowd. After about ten seconds, he nodded and said, “Good, good. That’s the point in the introduction where I pause politely to allow anyone that might be freaked out to leave. I’m glad to see you’ve all stayed.”

  A few people applauded at this, but it was slight. Still, Steele was impressed with how well Leik could captivate an audience.

  “Now, when I was in my formative years, lysergic acid diethylamide, was in its heyday. For many, LSD or Acid was portrayed as a way to experience God, to glimpse something of the divine. Dr. Timothy Leary, whose writings have become a major influence on my own said: ‘Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present—turn on, tune in, drop out.’ And while I agree with almost all of that, I am here to tell you that it is much better to turn off, tune out and drop in. Interact harmoniously with the world around you.”

  Steele saw a series of expressive nods around the room. About half of the attendants were leaning forward, hanging on his every word. Flynt, sitting right beside him, seemed dangerously close to being one of them.

  “We are all one unit, you see,” Leik went on. “We are a nation, a people, a species that has become crippled, handicapped, and chained. We are all bound by denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. This will, in the end, destroy us all. Throw into the mix the over-excitabilities of the external stimuli we carry in our pocket or purse.” He held up his cell phone. “And there is simply no hope.”

  “What if we were to free ourselves of these restraints? I don’t mean simply in terms of productivity. How would this freedom affect our cognitive abilities? What if that other ninety percent of our brain that we just accept as untouchable, suddenly were open to us?”

  There were a few murmurs at this comment, not necessarily of denial, but uneasy disagreement.

  “I know there are many that don’t accept this,” Leik said. “But there is some very outstanding science—backed by years upon years of research—that does indeed point to the idea that we, as human beings, only use about ten percent of our brain. Humans, by default, are not very humble. So, when you reveal to them that they are not using their brains to their fullest capacity, they tend to get a little grumpy. Now, if you are among that crowd, I ask you to just humor me…to assume that I am right. Just for the sake of this meeting, I ask that you accept that.

  “Now, that other ninety percent just sits dormant, doing nothing. But I believe it is there for a reason. I believe it contains some of the richest elements of the human experience. And I believe I have found a way to open it up. I know there are those in this group that have caught snippets of the findings from my study groups. The dining halls and lounges on campus are all atwitter. Yes, that word actually has a different meaning.” The audience laughed. “They are all atwitter; conversationally psychoanalyzing. The imaginings of what we could do with even another ten percent of our brain’s function are staggering.

  “Many of you have read, or heard, of what is referred to as Indigo Children. These children are believed to possess special, mystifying, and super natural traits or abilities. Notice, I said super natural—two words, a pause between each—and not supernatural. It is this dichotomy of traits that leads us to believe there is a curtain, a partition if you will, that separates us from that other ninety percent.

  “My work in the development of a compound, a formula, or for lack of a better understandable term, a drug, has made it possible for me to broaden my research and put it into psychotherapeutic practice.”

  At the mention of the word drug, that slight smattering of unease filled the room again. To the right side of the hall, one woman got to her feet and left. But Leik went on, undaunted.

  “We are told God said to Adam and Eve ‘you may eat of all the bounty of the garden, save for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. Knowledge, people! It is that knowledge that hides behind the partition. Some of my detractors say death was the result of their eating of the fruit, but I think it was the death of the special, mystifying, super natural abilities, those very special Indigo Children possessed.

  “Those same detractors say that what I offer is pseudo-neuroscience. Let me be clear on this: many of them, and many of you as well, confuse what I do—as well as many other psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists—with the mystical mumbo jumbo of a Navajo shaman! I am a chemist, a psychiatrist, but first and most importantly, a physician, a healer, and a diagnostician.

  “Now…never one to call someone out in front of a crowd, I can now refer to the lady that made her exit about thirty seconds ago. She hung around when I referred to a touch of God. But the moment she heard the word ‘drug’ she was out of here. And I don’t blame her. The media has drowned us in ads for all sorts of drugs and remedies so whenever someone hears that word, they assume I’m in this for money, that I’m going to charge hundreds of dollars for my solutions. But that’s just not the case.

  “We are a species in danger, friends. I am dedicated to our salvation. And that salvation is…”

  Leik turned around to where a small whiteboard was positioned behind him. He picked up the marker and in big, bold, black letters he wrote:

  The audience began to whisper. An overall sense of confusion swept through the room. Steele waited for others to leave just like the woman did moments ago, but everyone decided to stick around.

  “For those of you not blessed with a Hebrew school education, this is the Hebrew word for scale. For simplification, we will just call it D710. The scales shall drop from the eyes of the user. That curtain we spoke of will be ripped apart and we will see the knowledge of good and evil.

  “We do not need the buy-in of our detractors. As Doctor Leary said so many years ago, ‘Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top!’

  “Today we stand at the door of the greatest Awakening in the history of mankind. I am asking for your help. We are still doing trials of D170. Just as the Merry Pranksters and Ken Kesey did in the sixties with their Acid Tests, we are going to gather a group of modern voyagers and touch the face of the God within us! So, the only question for you now is…who is with me?”

  He stepped back from the podium a bit and surveyed the crowd. Steele sat there, dumbfounded. He did not believe in any
sort of enlightenment through drugs, but he had to admit just how passionate and educated the man seemed on the matter. If this career failed Leik, he would make one hell of a talk show host.

  “Are there any questions?” Leik asked.

  “Is it safe?” a voice called out from the crowd.

  “As with any new drug, there are dangers,” Leik said. “But they are all minor. D710 is a psycho-neurological drug which occasionally causes psychotic behavior in people who have never taken it before. That’s why, for those that would take it, a doctor of psychiatry would also prescribe a more traditional medication to deter that unpleasant side effect. Also, it is important to note, that we are continuing to work on eliminating that side effect altogether in current clinical trials.”

  A man closer to the front of the room stood up and asked: “How much?”

  “Oh, here’s the beautiful part. For those that take part in these initial Awakenings, as we uncover the drug’s true potential, there is no charge. Honestly, placing a price on it when it goes public is not in my wheelhouse. I find the practice of placing a dollar value on any drug a wretched practice.”

  All across the hall, people jumped to their feet cheering and clapping. A woman across the aisle from Flynt began singing in a strange unearthly, fairy-like vocal that sounded as if she was singing in harmony with herself. Steele hated to apply stereotypes to people, but she seemed like the type that may have already experimented with Leik’s drug. And many others as well.

  “OK, this is getting weird.” Steele turned, and to his amazement, Flynt was standing and clapping with tears streaming down his face.

  Leik put the palms of his hands together and bowed deeply to the crowd. “Any other questions?”

  “Yeah, where do I sign up?” a man yelled from the back of the room. Everyone laughed and cheered at this and suddenly, the room was more like a small rock concert than a meeting of the minds.