The government says you can’t run a clinical trial with a bunch of sick junkies. Seems like an accurate representation of the population, but I guess not. That wasn’t as big a problem for me, as while I was definitely a sick junkie, I had a few tricks up my sleeve. I wouldn’t pass shit if they really went looking but maybe I could squeeze things by with a little prestidigitation (and outright lying).

The best way to pass a drug test is to know what they might find. In my case, it would undoubtedly be cocaine, but unfortunately probably some other shit too. Probably shit I don’t even know about if I am being honest. I can’t use my heroin trick for cocaine, but neat fact from my old job – coke’s mostly out of your urine in two days. We had to use hair a lot to get good measurements on cocaine, so that meant as long as I could stay clean for two days, I had a reasonable shot at passing this test and getting into this trial and getting a shitload of money then of course just going right back to my beautiful binary existence. A less neat fact – it stays in your hair for months. Years even probably with the way I was going at it. Would they test my hair? No point in risking it. I used some of my last bits of money on some scissors and a razor. I shaved my head to the bone. I drank a shitload of niacin I stole from a store and pounded water nonstop until the appointment, just hoping that any of the old anecdotal tales I heard at my last job held water.

Modestly lucid for the first time in months, I donned my least smelly items and began the long slow march towards whatever bullshit super conglomeration was about to make me rich. The information on the sheet Pearl handed to me was in my front pocket and now seemed like a good time to read it.

The paper said some company called Bioimmunomeditechtronics or some such shit was performing a novel clinical trial on proprietary high-risk substances and was looking for volunteers. From there on it read like a casting sheet for Hollywood extras. 18-69 year old (28 - check), male or female (check), in good health (uhhh – sure, check), with no prior drug use (fuck), no evidence of concurrent disease (haven’t seen the doctor in a bit...), including STDs (honestly, I had been scratching at my dick a lot recently), and no concurrent diagnosed psychological issues (‘diagnosed’ – check). So, I met most of the list and the rest I’d hope I scrape by. Cs were good enough for High School, seems like they should pass here too.

I walked into the building, and it said BIMMTT everywhere. That made a lot of sense as the actual name was basically unpronounceable by regular people. I heard people saying “BIMPT” like blimp with a T at the end and no L at the start a lot and mentally noted it as BIMPT.

The receptionist was…apprehensive I was where I belonged.

"Sir, this is a private facility. Do you need someone to show you out?” This was corporate dickhead speak for ‘get out of my building.’ We had the same sort of training at my old Company. ‘Can I see your badge?’ and ‘To which Department do you belong?’ Like anyone is desperate to be crawling around any of these places to begin with.

“I am here for…” I looked my piece of paper that Pearl had given me. My hands were shaking from the withdrawal, so I found it difficult to read.

The receptionist stole the piece of paper from my hands and began typing. Mentally I noted she was grabby and rude. Shortly though, I realized that I probably looked like a skinhead junkie, and that she probably dealt with a lot of those, and that she was very, very tired of that. I mentally forgave her and tried to smile when she looked up. I contorted my face as best as I could to mimick the human emotion of "happy" and the human act of "smiling", but it clearly missed the mark as she simply scowled at me when she finally looked up.

"I am going to ask you a series of questions. You must answer these questions honestly. Please turn off your cell phones for the entirety of your time here. If we later find that you fail any blood work, or have used your phone to release company secrets, you will not receive any compensation, and you will be referred to law enforcement, do you understand?”

“Do you have any of the following conditions?” She showed me a chart and I said no reflexively without reading it.

“Sir you have not even looked, would you like to look at the chart?”

I stared blankly at a piece of paper with words I couldn’t pronounce before I announced loudly, “No.”

“Are you currently in any other clinical trials for any other compounds?”

“No.”

“Have you previously been in other clinical trials in which you were forced to exit due to side effects.”

“No.”

“Do you take any illicit drugs?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you HIV positive or have any other condition that our staff should know about?” she asked.

“No.”

“Next of kin’s name?”

“Uhh…none.”

“You don’t have a next of kin?”

“No.”

“Occupation?” she asked.

“None.”

“Address?” she asked.

I gave them my old address. I was worried this was starting to get a bit suspicious. If they sent the check there it might get a bit difficult, but maybe I could use it to get my old place back.

“Sign here,” she said pointing at the bottom of the paper. I did as asked.

She motioned me towards the waiting area. I waited a while. I watched some of the folks from Pearl’s group enter the back area. I didn’t know any of them, although a few looked familiar. There were three sets of doors and slowly the group that had convened in the park filed through one door or the other. When it came my turn, I followed a woman in scrubs into the back. I guess she was a nurse? She was nice. I called her Nice Nurse. She performed a bunch of medical procedure type stuff, blood pressure, height, weight etc… and then started in on a spiel.

“Mr. Brunsen, I have exciting news! You are an excellent candidate for another trial going on right now. It pays double what the one you had signed up for does. I can enroll you now if you are willing. It requires no other information. You just need to read this pamphlet and sign the back stating you consent. Interested?”

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“Why double?” I asked.

“Honestly, it pays more because we have trouble recruiting to it as it requires a very special type of person. But you fit the bill!” she said.

“That’s exciting. Ok. Where do I sign?” I said.

“Before you sign, you must read the forms in their entirety first. I will return in a few minutes.” Nice Nurse left a pen on the table aside the pamphlet.

I turned to the back page and signed. 100K was good but 200K was better. The next thing I remember was the door opening. I had fallen asleep.

“Thank you, now that we have completed the introductory forms and attained informed consent, we have made the transfer of funds into your account, and we can answer any questions you might have” she said.

“I got the money? I did it? Fuck yea! What am I testing? Like new heart meds or something?” The last thing I needed was to explode my heart during the binge I was going on the second I was out of this joint.

“This is a Phase I trial for a new compound. It’s a preventative treatment for what we call XB-01 induced epithelial apoptosis. As we mentioned before, the only thing you will be exposed to is our drug.”

“Sounds good. What is Xp1 induced epitalalal atpose or whatever you said.”

“We aren’t quite sure,” she said.

“Well what the fuck do…er….What does that mean?” I said. She jotted at her forms and then began looking at my pamphlet. “Yo, hey, what is this thing you are treating for? I don’t got that. Maybe I don’t belong here. Yo lady!”

“The colloquial term you may be more familiar with is Grey Plague. The drug we are administering we are only testing for safety sir, you have nothing to fear,” she said flatly.

Fuck.

“Okay…so, I’m out. Nope to the fucking… just nope. See ya. Nope.” I got up from my chair and started to leave.

Nurse Nice now stood in front of at her full height. She wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t small and she certainly wasn’t fucking around. “Mr. Brunsen, in accordance with the recently passed FDA Abolishment Act if you leave without completing your contractual duties you will be immediately arrested and fined the entire cost of your participation. This is all spelled out in the documents I insisted that you read. Our cameras noted you signed the form in the incorrect spot, scratched that out, and then signed it appropriately and then fell asleep. Unfortunately sir, once signed this document is binding. If you leave this room, you will be escorted to the local police station, against your will if necessary.”

I liked Nice Nurse a lot less.

“Great, I lose the money, I get a misdemeanor or whatever. Better than dead. Open the door.”

“The period of incarceration is no less than 10 years sir.” Her face was clear, this wasn’t a joke. “Please sit down.”

Nice Nurse you traitorous bitch.

"So what, I’m like your fucking guinea pig now? You just get to do whatever you want to me? This isn’t legal.”

“BIMPT lawyers have worked with the US government and have made a joint determination that according to current legal standings, signing the aforementioned document is tantamount to gambling with your life, which is legally equivalent to attempted suicide, which is punishable by law. As such, you have now committed a crime. The government agrees not to prosecute you if you are complicit in our trial. It was all in the papers sir. You signed your name and agreed to this.”

Corporate lawyers at their very best, backed by your old pal the US government. God dammit.

“So, my choices are a long prison sentence or I let you inject me with some antidote to liquid death?”

“We believe the compound might be safe sir. It’s all in the document.” Nice Nurse, now known to me as Traitorous Demon Nurse spoke plainly and bluntly. I didn’t have much choice.

They were paying you. They were the client. You forgot the rule. It’s a business. You learn everything you need to know the first day. A little know corollary - unless you forget to the read the pamphlet explaining how you signed your life away. Then you’re just fucked.

“Do it,” I said.

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Everything after that moment was very medical for a while. I was taken to a room that was very much like your standard doctor’s office. They made me wear one of those assless patient outfits. I set in a hard metal chair until a different nurse, let’s call her Nurse Needles, stuck me in the arm and left it there. She called it a central line. It hurt. They wheeled in a small cart that contained a murky solution in a black bag hooked up to a computer system. They connected my bag to the line, but it never seemed to move. Everyone left the room for a long time. Eventually Nurse Needles returned and logged back into the system. Had I just looked away, probably none of this would’ve happened. Old habits die hard though. Username SNickles. Password: Ol1v1aMylove. I memorized it.

The nurse left the room, and I heard some whirring and clicking from the computer/bag apparatus. The bag held a small amount of liquid and I watched it go down, knowing it was going into my body. I convinced myself it was poison; I was convinced it was going to kill me. When the whirring and clicking stopped, nothing happened for a long time. I got bored and then boreder if that is a word. Finally, curiosity got the best of me. I was probably on camera, but what could really go wrong at this point. Dead man walking. I typed in the Nurse’s username and password and a non-standard operating system popped up. Without knowing what anything was I just randomly started clicking around. What was I looking for? What would help me? Medical records were always a gold mine. Could this be another business idea? How to get the data out of here?

What struck my eye instead was “patient camera access”. I clicked on it and sure enough, I could see a view of all ten patient rooms including myself. Most were empty, but a few of them had some of the people I had seen with Pearl when I dispensed my salt-water substitute. I waved to myself in the camera for a chuckle. I was sure security would be by any minute to tell me to knock it off. Maybe I could just say she left it open? No harm no foul at this point?

Which room was Pearl in? I guess I had no idea. It would be nice to see her. I looked around the rooms on screen, but she wasn’t there. One girl in particular seemed upset, so I clicked her room. It expanded to fill the screen. I could see the bag in her room slowly gurgling away, pumping whatever crap they had just stuck in me into her. She was crying. I understood that. It was scary. I wanted to her know she'd be fine. I'd done it no problem.

Then she stopped crying.

Then I saw her try to scream.

Have you ever seen someone burned alive? Probably not. I hadn't at this point. This was my first time seeing something like that though. The first time's the hardest.

The injection site turned grey and then I watched a liquified glob of her needle marked brown skin fall to the ground. The apparatus fell out of the spot her forearm used to be. Her screaming had stopped. The putrefaction of her skin had already spread throughout her body. As fast as her blood could carry it, the poison melted whatever it touched. The skin around her jaw fell off her face in smoldering clumps. The scream became just a sound. Her lungs contracted, trying to make a noise, but there was nothing to hone the sound against, to give the sound meaning. The noises were hard hisses. I saw the fat from her ass fall into a helpless lump on the floor, plopping abruptly like someone dropped mashed potatoes. Without any skin to hold her together, she fell backward with her head smashing against the concrete floor. The resulting pile became little more than a skeleton and a liquified mush that used to be human.

In all the patient access cameras, I watched that same thing happen. Over and over again. Four more times. Humanity thrown into a chemical blender leaving behind nothing but shit soup and a partial skeleton. It took maybe two minutes. I couldn’t turn the monitors off and I couldn’t look away.

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“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” it said.

“So, what’s your deal?” I asked.

“Things are going badly,” it said.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I know. They never do,” it said.

“Did we do something wrong?” I said.

“No, not really, things just didn’t go like they were supposed to go,” it said.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“This happens a lot. The system isn’t perfect. We can fix it. You can help,” it said.

“So, what do I do?” I said

“Just be you. You’ll figure it out,” it said.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

“Of course,” it said.