by Amy Ross
There is at least one comforting thing about Jek’s little hobby: it’s all perfectly legal. Well, not perfectly legal... It’s kind of a convenient loophole, actually. The law can only restrict drugs that it knows exist. Since the stuff Jek cooks up in his lab is one of a kind, there are no specific statutes against any of it. Of course, if any one of his creations got popular enough, the authorities would probably crack down, but Jek’s really good at tweaking things, switching them up, so the chemical makeup of the substances is always changing.
Though he’s been doing this for a few years, and sharing recreationally with close friends, it’s only been in the past few months that Jek has set himself to turning a profit, either in London’s innermost druggie circles, or at clubs and concerts in Chicago. Last I knew, it was a pretty small-time operation. But that was some time ago now, and around the time we stopped being close. I wonder how things might’ve changed...if this new trial tonight is just about satisfying scientific curiosity, or creating a new product line.
Jek’s got the usual suspects assembled for this event, plus one or two new faces. I work my way around the room, catching up with friends and acquaintances. One person is noticeably missing, though.
“Where’s Jek?” I ask Lane when I bump into him again.
“He’s dealing with the old man,” says Lane, clearly referring to Tom. “Probably promising we’ll behave ourselves tonight.”
The parental factor at these parties has always been a bit awkward. Puloma’s been pretty open with us about her own psychotropic adventures back in grad school and, while she’d never openly give her blessing for our activities, she, like the other London Chem parents, has quietly instituted a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.
Tom is a different situation. I’m pretty sure he has no idea what Jek gets up to in the lab, but it seems like only a matter of time before he figures it out. And I have a feeling he won’t be so open-minded. Puloma has insisted that Jek is entitled to his privacy, and neither of them are to enter Jek’s apartment without an invitation, but Tom doesn’t exactly approve of that policy. Every time Jek wants to have people over, they have to go through this little appeasement dance.
“What about Hyde?” I ask, trying to keep my tone neutral. “Is he coming?”
“Who?”
“Hyde? Friend of Jek’s? I get the impression they’re pretty tight now.” The fact that Lane hasn’t met him is strange. What kind of friendship could Jek and Hyde have if they only hang out alone together?
“Hyde...” Lane muses. “That his first or last name?”
I have no idea. “I don’t know. Maybe neither? It’s what he goes by.”
Jenny Vasquez has been chatting with Trevor Minkel and Bryce Dalton nearby, but at this, she breaks off from them and nudges her way into our conversation. “Are you talking about Hyde?”
“Yeah,” I say, hoping Jenny has the dirt that I’ve been looking for. “Do you know him?”
“Never met him,” she says, a wicked gleam in her eye, “but I hope he shows tonight. From what I’ve heard, shit gets wild whenever he’s around.”
“Yeah?” says Trevor. “Well, that little shit better watch out, if he does come. He owes me a hundred and fifty bucks. He was taking bets on the football game last week, but he never paid out to the winners.”
“I wouldn’t count on ever seeing that money,” says Bryce, laughing. “I heard Kevin started a fight with him and wound up getting his ass kicked.”
“What?” says Trevor. “No way. Hyde isn’t even that big.”
“Yeah, but he fights dirty. Vicious, I mean. He would have put Kevin in the hospital if someone hadn’t threatened to call the cops on them.”
This is exactly the kind of gossip I’ve been looking for, but before I can follow up on Bryce’s story, Lane’s girlfriend, Hailee, comes over and passes out cups of water.
“If you’re talking about Hyde, I don’t think he’ll be here tonight.”
“Do you know him?” I ask, eager for firsthand information.
She shrugs. “Kind of. But I don’t think drugs are his thing.”
“What is his thing?”
“Everything else, pretty much,” she says with a sly grin. She glances at Lane and the smile drops from her face. “From what I hear. That’s why Jek hired him.”
“What do you mean, hired him?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but that’s my impression. I met him in Chicago, at one of the clubs Jek used to hit. He was selling some of Jek’s stash—I guess Hyde’s been handling Jek’s business for him lately.”
“Really? He has Hyde doing the dealing?”
Suddenly things make more sense, and I’m almost happy to hear it. The business side of Jek’s activities has always made me nervous. He started selling once his experiments got more elaborate and he needed better funding than he got from his mom’s allowance, but I’ve never really understood it—it seems like such a huge risk for someone like him, with so much to lose. Between customers, cops, doormen and other dealers, I’ve always worried that Jek would get into trouble sooner or later. Whatever my feelings about Hyde, I have to admit it’s safer for Jek to leave the drug dealing to him.
My thoughts are interrupted by a repetitive ringing sound, like a fork tapping against a glass. I turn to see it’s actually a pipette being tapped against a beaker.
“Attention, please?”
Jek is standing on his coffee table, an Erlenmeyer flask of unappetizing reddish-brown liquid in his hand.
“Thanks, everyone,” he begins, addressing the small crowd. “Thank you for coming. You know you’re all doing me a huge favor by being my guinea pigs, but I hope you enjoy it a bit, too.” There are a few hoots and cheers. “At this stage of the trial,” Jek continues, “in a more official setting, I would normally make you all sign forms stating that I’ve made you aware of the risks of this study, but since this whole process is totally illegal and breaks most of the Geneva convention rules about use of human subjects...let’s skip that little formality.”
People laugh.
Jek holds up his flask. “This is actually not the final substance,” he explains. “The compound is pretty volatile, so it’s no good leaving it out all afternoon. I learned that the hard way. Best to do the final step—” Jek removes a small baggie of gray-green powder from his pocket, tugs it open with his teeth and pours it into the flask “—immediately before ingestion.”
At first, the powder sinks lifelessly to the bottom of the glass container. Then Jek puts his thumb over the top, gives the flask a little shake and everything changes. The liquid begins to bubble and fume, and the flask swirls with a purplish cloud that slowly turns to a watery green before evening out into a bright yellow that fluoresces under the black light.
“This is the substance we’ll be sampling tonight. Preliminary tests—on me—have produced some extraordinarily vivid phosphenic and photopsial effects. Or, in layman’s terms, bitchin’ visuals. I suspect this will turn out to have some entheogenic qualities as well, but that’s harder to tell when experimenting on a single subject. Especially when that subject is also the experimenter. So that’s where you come in.
“Most of you have participated in my studies before, but we do have a couple of newbies. Just to remind you all of the guidelines here—yes, you get free drugs. In return, you have to write up a report of at least one single-spaced page, and please no more than five single-spaced pages—” Jek pauses and singles out a boy with the five-foot bong “—I’m looking at you, Antonio. I don’t want another fifty-page manifesto on the mushroom people.” A few people giggle, and Antonio looks sheepish. “So, yeah, no more than five single-spaced pages describing your experience. I’ll be messaging you all with some further guidelines for that in the morning. Please turn these in before Monday. Any longer than that and recall weakens exponentially. Fail
ure to do so will result in a severe penalty of—” he pauses dramatically with a frightening look on his face “—not being invited back to play next time. And I’m serious about that. No excuses. This is for science, first and foremost.”
A few kids raise their cups of water and call out, “For science!”
Jek raises his yellow beaker to the light.
“I like to call this little beauty...2bhx14d.” Silence. “Yeah, sorry, I suck at marketing. That’s just what it’s called in my lab notebooks. If you have any better suggestions, let me know! There’s a section for it on the survey.”
Jek hops down off the table and moves toward his workspace, where he has laid out a collection of single sugar cubes on cocktail napkins. Using the pipette, he carefully saturates each cube with the liquid until they, too, are glowing yellow, then he passes them through the crowd.
As people gather around the coffee table to collect their doses, I slip into the bedroom to get my coat, then head for the door. A hand on my arm stops me. “Leaving already?”
I turn back toward Jek guiltily. “Yeah... Sorry, Jek. You know I’m not really into this stuff. Plus I have a lab report to turn in on Monday. I mean, a real one, and I need to do a lot of reading. But you have fun.”
His hand is still at my elbow.
“Lu,” he says softly. “Come on. Don’t run off. We hardly see each other anymore.”
“I know, but—”
“You know you don’t have to take the drug to hang out with me, right? You can just stay and chill.”
“Well, maybe for a—”
“Good, that’s actually for the best, because I need a lab assistant.”
“Ah, no, Jek, I told you I didn’t want to do that again. Playing babysitter to a room full of psychonauts is not my idea of a fun Friday night.”
“Come on...as a favor? You’re the only one I can trust, the only one who isn’t a total idiot who will screw up all my data.”
“Can’t you do it?”
Jek frowns. “Well,” he says, “the thing is, reproducing the experimental conditions on one subject over multiple trials helps ensure consistency of results. And given the precise parameters of this experimental design, any shift in control factors could call the whole analysis into question.”
I roll my eyes. “Meaning you want to have fun and get high, so you need me to be the responsible one. Geez, Jek, is that the only reason you invited me? Because you knew I wouldn’t take the drug and you could wheedle me into doing the boring part for you?”
“Lu...no.” He looks offended. Hurt, even. “I invited you because I wanted to hang out with you. I thought that’s what you wanted, too.”
I sigh inwardly. Of course that’s what I want, though I’d be happier if it was just the two of us. Still, it’s been a while since Jek went out of his way to include me in his life like this, and I’m grateful for the gesture. Besides, even if all he wants right now is a lab assistant, maybe if I play my cards right tonight, I can get us back to how things used to be, before Jek got so caught up in his drugs or his new friends. I take it as a good sign at least that I’m here and Hyde isn’t.
“All right,” I tell him. “What do you need?”
Jek grins and pulls me into a hug. “You’re the best, Lu. You know the drill—keep everyone well hydrated, make sure no one is freaking out and take note of any externally visible effects. Beyond that, check vitals, do a little hand-holding, call the EMTs if, and only if, absolutely necessary.”
With that, Jek hands me a bottle of sedatives he dummied up in his lab, which will put someone right to sleep if they seem to be having a bad time. Luckily, it’s a good night, and none of that is called for. The whole thing starts out pretty slowly, and I can see people getting a little frustrated as they wait for any effects to kick in. I hear some whispering, probably about the time Jek dosed a small group with a complete dud. Some people will simply not let him forget it. I try to make myself useful by putting on music and turning off the most glaring of the lab lights. The substance Jek has created will stand or fall on its own merits, but it can’t hurt to set the mood a little. I even flick on a couple of red-and-orange bulbs that Jek uses when he’s working with photosensitive chemicals. I can’t decide if the effect is more warm and cozy or “Welcome to Hell,” but the partygoers seem to approve.
By the time I’ve finished, I can see that most of the subjects have shifted into a somewhat altered state. I note that people are lounging more bonelessly on the couches and cushions and speaking in softer voices. Sentences trail off into nothing as people become distracted by hallucinations invisible to their conversation partners. So far, pretty typical stuff, at least from the outside. I decide to check in with people and see if anything more interesting or unusual is going on with their subjective experiences.
“Hey,” I say softly, sliding to the floor next to Jenny. “How are you doing?”
She grabs my hand and looks urgently into my face. “Lulu,” she says, “isn’t it amazing?”
“I don’t know,” I remind her gently. “I’m just observing. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Oh, you have to try it sometime,” she enthuses with a blissed-out smile. “The visuals are amazing, but it’s more than that. I can feel everything. Not just touch, but light, music, air...like the whole universe is purring.”
“That sounds awesome,” I tell her, taking out my phone to make a few notes in Jek’s electronic database. I helped him set it up ages ago to keep track of all the data from his experiments. “Anything else?”
Her brow furrows as she focuses very hard. “It’s weird,” she says. “I feel everything, but it’s like I can watch myself feeling at the same time. Like part of me is standing outside myself, or it’s all happening in a movie. Does that make any sense?”
“Absolutely,” I say, selecting the tag for “dissociative properties.” Entertaining enough, and clearly a new experience to Jenny, but pretty standard when it comes to psychoactive drugs. I’m about to move on to extract data from some of the others when I’m caught by something in her eyes. I try to blink it away, sure that it must be my imagination or the light playing tricks on me. I look at the wall, count to ten and look back, but it’s still there, so I make a note in the database and move on to the next subject.
It happens to be Liam Holloway, which is a little awkward because we hooked up at a kegger last year, and I never replied to his texts afterward. But Liam’s not one to hold a grudge, luckily—or at least not when under the influence of Jek’s concoction.
“Lulu,” he intones with a hazy smile, rolling the syllables around in his mouth. “I’m so glad you’re here with me right now.”
“Thanks,” I say, discreetly dodging his hand as it reaches out to stroke my arm. “Me, too. Can you describe what you’re feeling?”
He considers a moment, then laughs. “Not really. I don’t know, my thoughts are going in crazy directions. Like some of them belong to someone else.” He pauses. “Say, do you think I’m psychic?”
“Could be,” I say, humoring him as I make a few quick notes. But what’s really got my attention is not his words but his eyes—if what I’m seeing in him and Jenny is real, it’s definitely the first time I’ve encountered this effect. I glance around for Jek to bring his attention to the phenomenon, but he’s deep in an intense conversation with Lane now, so I make another note in the database and continue my rounds.
Throughout the evening, Jek and I somehow keep missing each other. It’s frustrating, but I tell myself I’ll catch him on his comedown, and try to stay focused on the task at hand. As the night wears on and people seem less chatty and more contemplative, I dim the lights some more and change the music. Some folks are having quiet conversations, while others are stroking the cushions or gazing at the psychedelic-themed wall decorations. I work some people through breathing exercis
es if they seem like they are getting a little anxious, refill water cups, take car keys from anyone who looks like they might be tempted to drive, but by 4:00 a.m., everyone seems to be sorted out, so I check vitals and reflexes and give them the okay to go home.
Once the last person has been ushered out with a reminder to check their messages over the weekend and fill out the response form, I finally allow myself to seek out Jek, only to find him stretched out on his bed with his eyes closed. So much for us hanging out together, I guess. I’ve spent all evening taking care of his dirty work in hopes of spending some meaningful time with him, and he can’t even be bothered to stay up with me. I sigh and curse my weakness for him under my breath as I reach for my coat. And of course, he’s fallen asleep on it.
Working carefully, I try to tug it free without waking him, but he shifts and groans in his sleep. Then he rolls over and his hand closes around my wrist.
“Lu,” he slurs. “Where are you going?”
“Home, Jek. It’s late, and you’re half asleep.”
His eyes stay closed but his voice is a bit clearer. “Stay over.”
I can’t help it—my heart thumps heavily in my chest.
“Stay here? With you?”
“You used to.” His eyelids slip open a little. I smile down at him.
“It’s been a few years.”
“If you go home, you’ll wake your uncle up.” It’s true. Carlos is a light sleeper, and he hates when I come in late. Jek senses my hesitation and tugs a little more firmly on my wrist. “Stay,” he repeats. “Mom’ll make us breakfast.”
I can’t help grinning. “Just like old times.”
“Like old times.” He shuffles to get himself under the covers, then lifts an arm, inviting me to do the same. I text my mom so she knows where I am, then slip out of my shoes and crawl under the blanket with him.