Volume 4: Metaphase

Issue 7: Old Allies

Jannette Adrian Churchwell

By Nova

I stared upwards at the flickering light that was above my bed. My phone said it was 8:32 PM… Wherever the Dynacrew was going, they’d probably already gotten there by now, had a few drinks, and forgotten about me.

I could probably still text them, figure out where they were, and meet them there. So what if I couldn’t get drunk, it wasn’t like it made me a buzzkill at parties or clubs or bars or… anywhere people went to get drunk.

Right?

And even if it did, Dynacrew didn’t care about that. They wanted to hear more about my experience… About the battles I won, the people I saved. They wouldn’t care that I couldn’t keep up with their energy… That I’d just sit there while they told inside jokes and played drunken games…

Right?

I shuddered. I tried to tell myself that what they were doing didn’t matter, we were just… coworkers, really. Same with Ripple, or Linda, or whatever… Who cares that she was probably hanging at the Pink Alexander… Maybe with Mr. Mystery or someone else who could actually get drunk and have fun. They were just coworkers, not friends, coworkers.

Right?

I rolled over on my bed, wrapping myself into a blanket burrito. Back in high school, making friends hadn’t been easy… but it wasn’t like everything rotated around drinks, drinking, and getting drunk like once I got into college. All I had to do was break out my Icons deck at lunch and someone would want to play with me. In college, no one in my dorm played and I didn’t have time to join the club. Making friends became more complicated…

A part of me wanted to call the Dynacrew, tell them that I changed my mind, that I wanted in. But I knew I wouldn’t have any fun, that I’d just end up on the sideline again… I couldn’t fit in, couldn’t get drunk to cut loose. My powers would just destroy the ethanol before it could affect me, like any other toxin.

Like it did the sarin…

But it didn’t immediately purge my system. I had, what, a minute before it could do anything? There was just too much sarin in the air, too much in my body, for my power to eliminate quickly.

I couldn’t die, but it wasn’t like I was immune to toxins… at least not in high concentrations.

I sat up in my bed and strode toward the window. I’d never really tried to test how far my regeneration went. I knew that I could shake off bullets, explosions, and even serious brain injuries. Toxins were also neutralized quickly… but did I really recover as fast as I did from more physical injuries?

Could I… trick my body into getting drunk? Overload my regeneration?

At least for a little bit.

I shivered a little. I’d need a lot of toxins. Ideally ones that didn’t make me feel like shit. Simple drinks at the bar wouldn’t cut it… Where the hell could I get enough to overload me? I gazed out of my window.

I could see, in the distance, the glittering spire of Titan Tower. It looked like a cigar, rising above the San Jose skyline alongside some premier coastal real estate. It wasn’t far or, at least, not that far. It’s relative proximity to my home was what led me to consider joining the Titans in the first place… But that wasn’t really relevant… What mattered was that I did know someone who could get me more than enough “toxins” to counteract my powers.

***

“Wasabi!” I shouted as soon as I arrived in the Titan’s penthouse. It was a huge, golden thing that almost seemed to glitter in its opulence. I was in the “common” room, which had a remarkable view of the bay from its huge, panoramic windows. The room was almost silent, though a slight, pounding beat could be heard resounding from Wasabi’s room.

I banged on his door. “Wasabi!” I shouted again. “Open up!” I was slightly taken aback by the boldness of my voice; the anger in it. The Titans were buoyed by a huge bureaucracy downstairs that made sneaking in almost impossible. The only thing that kept me from getting noticed, and from ending up on the first page of PowerWatch, was Wasabi’s old backdoor code… which he still hadn’t changed in four years.

But I was angry at him too. The one time that Wasabi could be useful to me was the time he had to have his shitty dubstep cranked up to eleven.

“Wasa-” I shouted, but the door swung open. Horribly loud music blared from the room as Wasabi appeared in the doorway, looking more confused than I’d ever seen him. He stunk of pot, but I was certain he had something stronger in his system by the way he squinted at me.

“S-Stitch?” he muttered, as if he didn’t believe his eyes. He wasn’t wearing his “costume,” though that really only meant that he didn’t have that small raggedy mask around his eyes.

“Yep,” I said simply enough. Despite my better judgment, I wore my costume to this meeting—to make sure Wasabi would play along. After all, he owed me for the multiple times I had brought him back from the brink of an overdose.

“What the hell…” he started, still in disbelief. I could barely hear him over the sound of his music.

“It’s me, alright?” I said, I tapped my foot, impatiently. “Look, you know I’m not-”

“Like… are you here to join the Titans?” Wasabi asked.

“Oh my God,” I muttered. “No, I’m not here for the Titans. I’m here for…” I sighed, “your help.”

Wasabi looked even more confused at this. “So you, like, wanna fuck shit up with me?” he asked. “‘Cause we can do that, but you gotta let me get ready first.”

I shook my head. “No, I need…” I hesitated for a moment, “drugs.”

Wasabi looked terrified for a moment. “D-drugs? Don’t know what you’re talking about, been clean for, like, years, man.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Don’t try to bullshit me,” I growled. “I can feel it in your system and, plus, I’m not here to get you in trouble.”

Wasabi let out a deep, almost exaggerated, sigh of relief. “Oh, so you aren’t gonna take ‘em?”

“I… need them,” I muttered. “I need a lot of drugs… and you owe me.”

Wasabi was stone faced for a moment, before his face broke into a wry smile. “Been waitin’ to hear that for a long time,” he said. He returned to his room, and—through the music—I heard the sound of heavy things being moved, of the creaking of doors and shuffling of boxes. After a few minutes, Wasabi ferried out a series of large cardboard boxes and set them upon a large, silver coffee table near the center of the common room.

“Most of this shit I got from… busts,” he said.

“So it’s, what, evidence?” I asked.

“Nah, contraband. Can’t have this shit on the streets you know? I, uh, liberated it.”

“Keeping out of kid’s noses? Cop’s noses too? How selfless,” I said.

Wasabi cracked a smile. “Yep, you know me, just doin’ what I can to help out.” He dumped the contents of one of the boxes on the table. Bags full of white powder hit the silver with dull thuds.

“What’s this?” I asked. I cautiously approached the table and poked the bags, as if to make sure they wouldn’t jump up and bite me.

“Coke,” Wasabi said with a shrug. He slapped a few darker baggies on the table next to the white ones. “These are horse.”

“Heroin…” I muttered.

Wasabi slapped a few more white bags on the table. “These are K…” he said. He unloaded a few bags of white crystals, “Crystal,” he said. Finally, he poured out bags full of what looked like little candies. “Molly,” he said, sounding satisfied.

“This everything?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “This shit is worth, like, at least a million on the street,” he said. “It’s more than everything.”

I didn’t know drugs well enough to see whether or not he was accurate, but I knew enough to understand that if the cops found out about this stockpile Wasabi wouldn’t see the light of day for… well, ever.

Of course OhmTech would just slow the whole case down, pay bail, and maybe bribe a judge or two to keep Wasabi’s—and, more importantly, the Titan’s—reputation intact. Everyone knew him as the “fun party guy,” not the coked-out-of-his-brain, barely functional druggie. It… behooved OhmTech to keep it that way.

Either way, it would be enough. Probably, at least. I had no idea how any of these could keep a high in me…

But I had to find out.

I gingerly picked up one of the white bags. Wasabi had said this one was full of coke. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked. “You trying to trick some newbie like Bōsō into a deal in front of the cops?”

“No,” I said. “I’m taking it.”

Wasabi chuckled. “I know, but where?” he said. “I can help move it, you know.”

“No, I’m taking it,” I said, more firmly this time. “I need to get… intoxicated.”

Wasabi didn’t say anything, just blinked at me. “You…”

“Yeah?” There was a note of warning in my voice, but he ignored it.

“You… wanna get high?” He broke out laughing. “Shit, bitch, why didn’t you say so?”

I sighed. “Look, it’s… it’s not really your business.”

He leaned up against the wall and locked eyes with me. “I’m a good listener.” He shrugged, but he spoke with an earnestness that took me aback.

“W-why do you care, you don’t give a shit,” I muttered.

“Yeah, not really,” he admitted. “But if you’re gonna waltz off with half my stash I’d at least like to know what you’re gonna do with it.”

I glared at him, but he continued, “Plus, you’ve saved my life, like, a billion times, so I don’t want you to get yourself killed doing something stupid.”

My glare softened. “I was only a part of the Titans for a few weeks,” I muttered.

Wasabi shrugged. “Must have broke the OD record with you around.”

“Whatever,” I said. I glanced up at the ceiling, then back at Wasabi. He was still looking at me, expectantly. “If you have to know… I’m trying to get high, to… break down my boundaries.” I took a deep breath… telling someone, even him, made it all feel more… manageable, somehow.

“To stop being such an uptight bitch?” Wasabi chuckled. “About time.”

Oh, nevermind. “Fuck off,” I said.

Wasabi waltzed back toward the table. “Alright, you got enough shit to kill a moose… You just gonna crash here? Vortex and the rest aren’t gonna be back till next week.”

I nearly laughed. “God no. I nee-” I cut myself off. “I want to try going to a regular bar or club or whatever… try to fit in with the rest of the crowd.”

Wasabi raised an eyebrow. “Uh, you serious?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“If you go to a… regular club or ‘whatever,’ they’ll throw you out if they see you doing this shit,” he said.

“I’ve seen people doing drugs in clubs,” I muttered.

Wasabi laughed. “Oh Jesus, that was adorable,” he said. “No, you’ve seen people doing lines of coke, or sneakin’ some crystal in the cushions. I don’t know how…” he waved at me, “all this works, but I guess you’re gonna need to snort a shitload of horse every few minutes to keep a high. Do that anywhere respectable and they’ll kick you out to keep the cops from getting nosy.”

I was secretly relieved. I didn’t want to try out “high Jannette” at the Pink Alexander anyways, but it was still a… complication. “Where am I supposed to go then?” I asked.

Wasabi grinned. “Somewhere un-respectable,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a word.”

He shrugged. “Whatever, point is you can’t go waltzing around just any club with what you got on you.”

I sighed. “Do you have a suggestion then?”

Again, he grinned. “Sure, Shimizu. They don’t care what you bring in.”

“I… don’t know where that is.”

Wasabi’s grin broadened. “I can take you.”

I took a careful step back from him. The thought of going anywhere with Wasabi—especially some seedy underground club—terrified and repulsed me. Wasabi was just a means to an end, not a friend. And whatever place he frequented enough to know their… policy on illegal drug use was probably bad news.

Dangerous news, even.

But…

But it’s not like I needed to worry about my safety. After all, the only thing a bullet to the brain did to me was give me a headache. All I needed was to get to the club with Wasabi, then find my own corner to… experiment. To cut loose. No one I knew would be there to see me; it’d be nice and anonymous.

Surrounded by strangers, ready to judge me for my behavior…

I glanced down at the open brick of heroin. In one swift motion I grabbed a small handful of the brownish powder and stuffed it into my mouth. Wasabi yelped slightly in surprise, but I forced it down my throat, trying to ignore its bitter, acidic taste. My power reported a surge of toxins dropping into my stomach, but I tried to suppress it, to let the chemicals do their work.

It didn’t work, but there was only so much my powers could do against the sheer mass of heroin I ingested. Meanwhile, Wasabi looked at me expectantly. “You… feel anything yet?” he almost sounded amused.

“No,” I said—a slight note of disappointment creeping into my voice.

“Well, you took it ‘bout the worst way possible,” he said. “Here,” he said, proffering a pinch of it in front of my nose.

I raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath through my nose. I reeled almost instantly as a strong stinging hit my nasal cavity. For some reason I gagged and coughed, but in a few moments I managed to rally and returned to face Wasabi. “W-well?” I gagged, my attempt to sound tough dampened by my own inexperience.

“Give it a sec,” he said. So I did. My power got to work on the new heroin pretty quickly, but its attention was divided and its response… slower, somehow.

Was it because I was trying to suppress it? Either way, in a few minutes I felt a… strangely pleasant sensation sweep over me. “W-whoa,” I said, giggling slightly despite myself.

“There we go,” Wasabi said.

The sensation didn’t last long. In a few moments, my body purged the last of the toxins from my system—but it was still there, I still felt it.

My theory held water.

“Alright,” Wasabi said. “To Shimizu?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “To Shimizu.”