by Adam Nemett
Without asking, she plucked two gelcaps from the dish, pocketed them in her white jeans.
“Hey, seriously, slow your roll,” he said, curter than he’d intended. “I’m sorry, it’s just… I don’t know much and probably don’t have the same kind of experience you do, but… this stuff takes you deep. It’s not… recreational. I don’t think it’s strictly safe, psychologically speaking.”
She nodded silently, as if truly internalizing this information.
“You can hold those, but don’t do it alone, don’t do it when you’re doing anything else…”
“I understand,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “Not yet.”
— Ø —
“HOLY NOISE COMPLAINT! COSTUME CRUSADERS PULL OFF PARTY PRANK!”
Hot off the early-morning presses, the USV’s first vigilante orchestration on campus had received prominent below-the-fold billing on the front page of the Daily Princetonian. According to the article, a group of masked mischief-makers did little more than lock students out from their rooms—causing several to miss assignment deadlines—while disseminating a sleep aid. The phrase “mass drowsiness” was used more than once. It mentioned the vats of filtered and spiked liquid, but there was no mention of Ultraviolet’s inspired speech, very little description of individual superhero personas or costumes, and no allusion to the deeper unrest the USV aimed to uncover.
The epilogue to the evening was good news, however. Miraculously, no one had required medical attention for overdoses of the mysterious liquid, and after the guys had slunk away, the students adapted. Once they regained mobility and electricity, they placed speakers in their windows and blasted music into the courtyard. A Forbes party continued for an hour—a small act of defiance—until university proctors shut it down to take statements. One Princetonian photo depicted two students, both tongues out, index fingers and pinkies raised in the devil-horn rock salute, their eyes wide as the Nile.
Haley reached into her laptop case and tossed him a copy of her comic book, Tales of the USV #1, a propagandized version of how things might’ve gone down.
“Study what you’d intended it to be,” she instructed, and he did, all the way to the hospital.
As he flipped through the comic for like the hundredth time, he marveled at Haley’s artwork, which was sketchy yet sure, full of motion. He thought she made them look pretty damn awesome, actually. Her drawings carried a surprising amount of information, but she’d promised to include more detail on the next go-round, if David could give her more time. For this first one, though, he’d felt they needed to move quickly to make sure the publication was ready in time for the morning after. Sure, there’d be discrepancies with the reality of their stunt, but he knew an aspirational piece of press was essential.
As they parked and headed to the hospital entrance, Haley gave counsel.
“Okay,” she said, “when you get up there with them, be the first to speak. Don’t cast tonight as a failure, talk about it as a successful trial balloon. Be compassionate to the kid who got hurt, but then get out of the room quickly, like you’ve got somewhere very important to be. Don’t be rude, just be serious. And walk quicker. C’mon.”
David jogged to catch up with her. The emergency department’s automatic doors opened before them. For a second, David imagined she’d magically parted them with her mind.
David spoke as instructed when they got to Fu’s sterile room, shared with a curtained-off septuagenarian and his vases of flowers. Doctors had just finished stitching up Fu’s calf, leaving a long, scythe-like scar like a smiling purple mouth.
“Fuck that dinky Vespa,” Fu said, laughing. “I need a dirt bike, or something that can handle mud. Kawasakis! Maicos! Pursangs! Swedish Fireballs!”
Lee and Owen were huddled in the corner, munching dry cereal from the hospital cafeteria. Owen read the Daily Princetonian aloud, while the others pored over the comic. Mathias was apparently downstairs in a waiting room, being lookout.
Keeping his spiel short and constructive, David finished by introducing Haley Roth. They all knew who she was. Owen looked especially conflicted, realizing she was the one who got Bob expelled, but he stayed silent. They also all knew full well that she was the illustrator behind the comic book. Lee took the opportunity to be a dick.
“You guys boyfriend and girlfriend now?” he asked, giggling to himself.
“We’re colleagues,” David shot back. “She’s our marketing and communications specialist.”
“I’m also the motherfucker that’s going to make sure you never paralyze anyone ever again,” she said, shaking his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Lee glanced at Owen.
“Yeah, uh, Mathias already scolded me,” said Lee. “Completely unacceptable, but honestly it was just a mix-up—I accidentally pulled from the spiked—”
“What’s done is done,” said Haley. “Just don’t do it again. It’s illegal. We have to be smarter than this going forward. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”
She motioned for David to exit. So David did.
— Ø —
It was seven something o’clock when David and Haley found Mathias. He was still in the hospital waiting room, still awake, still partially in costume, still rereading Haley’s comic, and he’d tried to wash the purple paint from his face and body but streaks of violet were still caked around his ears and nostrils. David, too, realized he was looking filthy and still had a tremendous amount of hair gel in his mussed red Mohawk and neck-beard.
They sat down beside him, David putting himself between Haley and Mathias. He looked around the waiting room at all the normal folks skimming their Consumer Reports while he and Mathias hunkered behind dual copies of the same comic book, its cover plastered with cartoony action figures bearing striking resemblances to the half-cracked college freaks sitting just behind them. They must have been a sight.
Mathias flipped to the last page. He closed the comic and laid it atop a Family Circle.
“Didn’t exactly go as you planned, huh?” Mathias said, staring down an old man on the other side of the waiting room.
“Minor casualties,” David said. “The goal was student engagement. That goal was realized.”
“No one died, I hope.”
“So I’m Haley,” said Haley, leaning over David to eyeball Mathias. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” he said, bowing slightly. “The killer roundhouse. How’ve you been feeling?”
“I thought you did quite well last night,” she said. “Oratorically speaking.”
He opened a Newsweek and pretended to read. Didn’t even shrug off her compliment.
“I showed her The Egg,” David admitted. “All of it.”
“And?” Mathias said, clearly pissed at this breach of protocol.
“And I’d like you both to explain the Big Bang to me, to the extent possible,” she said, eyes front, now staring down the same old man.
“Dimethyltryptamine is a Schedule I narcotic,” Mathias explained, putting down the Newsweek. “But it’s also made in the human brain. Like melatonin, serotonin. It’s released during birth, death, near death… even sex.” He somehow resisted the urge to make this sound creepy or flirty, which only made him more suave and irresistible.
“It’s the most powerful psychedelic in the world, but very short acting,” David added, trying not so subtly to insert himself. “So we use the Zeronal to prolong the feel. That’s the Big Bang.”
“I’m no stranger to hallucinogens,” she said. “How is this different?”
Mathias held out a hand toward David, inviting him to comment. For his part, David hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his first experience in the Institute Woods. The memory swam in his mental soup, slippery, barely visible, covered with glutinous ooze. He recalled imagery and the overarching message, but he still couldn’t parse what parts were true revelation vs. just drugs.
“To be fair,” David began, “my experience was probably unu
sual. I got dosed without knowing what I was getting into, so the set and setting could’ve been better.”
“So you dosed a complete stranger with something that simulates a near-death experience?” she asked Mathias. “Did you dose everyone in the courtyard on purpose tonight, too?”
“What stranger? David’s famous! He stayed awake for a hundred hours touching that Hyundai!”
“And without his consent?” she continued, now visibly perturbed.
“I instructed Lee to add trace amounts of DMT to the water cannon, but clearly we overdid it. In the dusty days of America, Indians used to do a litmus test with Caucasian traders: they’d pump the white man full of peyote, and if he eased himself into the trip with dignity, they’d do business. If not, they’d take his scalp. When I dosed David, he stayed calm; he was totally safe.”
“I don’t remember calm,” David said. “I remember crazy. Though I don’t remember much.”
“What do you remember?” she asked, temporarily moving past the triggering details.
David took a breath. “The first thing was my grandfather. His disembodied head. Like Marlon Brando as Jor-El in Superman Returns. He got really smug about how he used to make jet engines for GE and was like, ‘So what do you make?’ He said I was like the sawdust they sprinkle on factory floors to soak up moisture. That I don’t produce anything, I just sit there and absorb runoff.”
“Ouch,” said Haley.
“Then things got weird,” David said. He closed his eyes. He started to relay his memory of flying up that tube, the DNA double helix, but when he got to the far-off star and the self-dribbling basketball elf thingies with Halloween masks, Mathias stopped him.
“At this point, David’s going to start sounding insane,” he said to Haley. “But that’s good, you saw the Masks, good,” Mathias said. “Excellent. What else? We never fully processed.”
“There was an explosion, and then this giant red ball of fire, I think. Or a massive heart?”
Mathias said, “That’s the red-blue core of meaning, basically.”
David laughed at his use of the word “basically.”
“I’m sorry”—Mathias laughed, too—“it’s just… hyperspace is a huge room with a million doors. We’ve all seen the same room, but from the POV of a different doorway.”
“And, yeah, but, do you know what was happening inside the room?” David asked.
“Do you want to say it?”
David didn’t even want to think it. But he couldn’t think of anything else. His voice got tight.
“I feel like it’s the End,” David said. “I saw the chain of events. The Earth spins. The ice melts. Floods. Then the power fails and order breaks down and… and there’s only one natural end.”
“Or there’s two.”
“I see one: we all die.”
“Or two: some of us die. Others evolve and survive.”
They were all quiet for a moment. David figured Haley would be out the door, but her attention was rapt. He worried she was idealizing something she didn’t understand.
“Normally, I’d probably just let you see for yourself, unprompted,” David said to Haley. “But… I feel I need to warn you: it’s not fun and games in there. There are dark, nefarious entities.”
“Demons, basically,” Mathias confirmed.
“Is that what was coming out of my body in the river?” David asked him.
“Shit, did you become the Null Point? That doesn’t happen to many people, dude.”
“I was a flat portal, they were shooting out of me, flying into the sky like I was their factory. They were dueling this other force coming from the sky. I don’t know if they were good or evil.”
“So, okay,” Mathias said, forgetting Haley and just speaking to David. “Go back to your grandfather/Marlon Brando head thing, asking what you make. Now I’ll ask, what do you produce?”
“I’m still not sure,” David admitted. But he had an idea.
“But you have an idea,” Mathias confirmed. “What could you make?”
David shrugged. “The evolved ones,” he said. “Spiritual warriors.”
Mathias smiled.
“How long does it last?” asked Haley, after a reasonable amount of time.
“Only five minutes or so,” David said. “But it feels like longer.”
“I can do five minutes,” she said, more to herself.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Mathias said to Haley. “If you want to do it, we’ll just do it. We’ll establish a safe space at The Egg, ensure your mind is clear of obligations, doubt, regret—”
“Now,” she said. “Let’s do it now. Here. Somewhere in this hospital. A public space will make me feel safer than a private one, I’m sure of that. And…” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a pill she’d pilfered from The Egg. “We’ve got what we need. You’ll talk me through it.”
Mathias scrunched his face. David tried to echo the silent sentiment, shaking his head no.
“Forgive me, Haley, if this is insensitive,” Mathias said. “But I’ll just say it: Doesn’t the idea of taking an unknown, incapacitating psychedelic with two strange men make you feel somewhat…”
“Terrified?!” she yelled. Then looking around, much quieter: “Yes, obviously. Since Halloween, I know all the best spots on campus to secretly cry. I used to draw every single day, since I was eleven, and the only work I’ve done since Halloween is this silly comic book. I’m in therapy, and I need more, but I had a good experience with EMDR—eye movement de-sensitization and reprocessing—and—”
“Maybe contact your therapist then first?” offered David.
“We both know what she’ll say,” Haley said. “This is my call, not anyone else’s. I’m in control of this decision. I’m not going to leave campus or let that evil shithead and all the other shitheads win. He gets to leave and be scared for the rest of his life. Not me.” Her voice began to crack but she breathed through it. “So I’m building my mask, right? My superhero mask, day by day, and part of that is maybe going toe to toe with your nefarious mind demons in a way that’ll make my human demons seem less scary. And part of it is allying myself with people I feel like I can trust. Call me crazy: I think I can trust you two.”
“Why?” asked Mathias. “I mean, thanks, but why?”
“Truth? This guy”—pointing at David—“was hooking up with me back in high school and I was on painkillers and felt myself passing out, and you know what he did?”
Oh god, David thought.
“He fucking stopped. Okay? He stopped and he even put my goddamn clothes back on me. He thinks I don’t remember that, but I do. And it means he’s not a complete and total disaster of a person. So I’m experimenting with saying this out loud: I trust you, David.”
David stared at the diamond-patterned carpet—his way of accepting this compliment.
“And you?” she whispered, looking to Mathias. “I’m not totally kosher with you just yet. But you did me a solid in identifying my attacker, and there’s something spiritually interesting about you and you’ve got a sweet fucking house, and besides”—she pointed back to David—“this numbnuts told me to film your little Forbes spectacle. Which I did. And it was probably really illegal in a dozen ways, so as an insurance policy I’ve loaded the footage on to Facebook, tagged you both, added the address of The Egg, and scheduled it to post about four hours from now. So! We’re going to find a nice, safe space in this hospital, shoot me into hyperspace, and you guys are going to take extra great care of me so that I can be sure to cancel that post before it goes live and you all go to prison.”
She took a deep, powerful inhale.
“I really, really like her,” said Mathias to David.
He bolted from the waiting room chair, and before David could argue he was following Haley and Mathias down the bright white corridors of Capital Health. Mathias tugged a few locked doors, with signs that read ELECTRICAL ROOM, JANITOR, 00237, but nothing opened and also nothing felt right. Some of the rooms
were unlocked and empty, but they felt too risky. Someone would surely come in right at the height of things. It was clear, they needed better access.
“Idea!” said David. He grabbed an abandoned wheelchair near an elevator bank.
“Idea!” said Haley. She sat down in it and stuffed her duffel bag under her shirt, forming it into a false pregnant belly-mound. “Nobody fucks with a pregnant woman,” she said.
They wheeled Haley around the floor, every turn around every corner pushing deeper into a maze of sterile linoleum. And then they turned one corner and Mathias stopped. He was staring at a directory, a way-finding list of departments and divisions. His finger shot to one particular line that read: AQUATIC THERAPY & REHABILITATION BIONICS: FLOOR BB.
Getting access to the subbasement was easier than expected. After wheeling Haley into a crowded elevator, they simply asked a nurse standing next to the buttons, “Can you hit BB, please?” She didn’t even glance at them. Just swiped her card across the scanner and hit BB.
“B-B,” mouthed Haley. “Big. Bang.”
Together, they reached the hospital’s subbasement. They navigated down a quiet hallway to the aquatic therapy door, which was unlocked and open. Inside, a still swimming pool, maybe twenty feet wide by forty feet long. Aside from the therapeutic chair lift at one end, probably meant for lowering paraplegics and other disabled folks into the water, the pool reminded David of a Holiday Inn. Basic, with that ubiquitous over-chlorinated waft. The deck sported a trio of brown benches and artificial potted palms. A single blue-and-white racing rope traversed the length of the pool on one side, and on the other sat a staircase with metal handrails, providing entry into the shallow end. The entirety of the pool was marked as only four feet deep.
“Does water help?” Haley asked, rising from her wheelchair and shedding the duffel bag from beneath her black long-sleeved T-shirt.
“I’ve always felt buoyancy as a positive,” said Mathias. “But I’m kinda Neptune-y like that.”
She removed her puffy blue jacket and began pulling off her boots but announced, “I’m not taking my clothes off, obviously.” She pulled off her socks and wiggled her toes.