The sun rose high into the sky the next day and I headed over to see Paul, I wanted to see how much work he had gotten done on the drug. As I walked to his house, I looked up, thinking about how much I loved this place. Maybe it was because I wasn’t all that fond of the sun and the town was in the Shadow of the sides of the volcano for most of the day. On the other hand, it could be how the people were always looking for new interesting things to study and learn just like I was.
My mind wandered back to what I was doing as I reached Paul’s doorway. “Hey Paul you in there? I hope I’m not bugging you too much I just wanted to see if you looked at the sample I gave you yet. I know it’s only been a few days so it’s no big deal if you haven’t.” I said from outside the door, then waited for an answer. After a few minutes, I figured he must not be home. Oh well, I will come back later. Then, as I walked away from the door, I heard Paul’s voice. “I’m coming, I’m coming don’t leave.”
I turned back and he opened the door to let me in, he was wearing a plastic apron and had a mask on that was pulled down around his neck. “I was actually looking at the sample you left me it’s amazing. Has it really been days since you left it with me? Feels like I’ve been looking at it only a few hours.” He said as I walked into the house, I noticed he was wearing the same thing he was the night when I came to see him. “Have you been looking at that since I gave it to you?” I asked him in shock. He looked at me, smiled and pulled the mask up. “Well, yes I mean at first I just wanted to see if it was just the bottle or if it drug was actually glowing but then I got carried away. You have no idea how complex this formula is it’s amazing.” He said to me from behind the mask as he walked away, he walked through the house and into his lab as I followed him.
There were pieces of paper all over the floor and desks in the room he used as his home lab. “So have you found a counter agent to it yet, or have you found out how it works?” I asked, hoping for a yes, but he just looked at me with a weird smile and then turn back to the microscope as he started to speak. “Well, no I haven’t, well not yet anyway. I have figured out a few things about how it works though. It’s amazing to say the least just simply amazing. The drug affects every part of a person, it enhances their muscle, gives a person greater focus, even increases the amount of oxygen a person’s body takes into their blood with each breath of air they take… I’m sorry, but honestly, it will take me months to figure out how to make a counter agent that is safe for someone to take with this. However, I am almost at the point where I can copy the formula and make it a little less powerful.” It was better news that I had thought I was going to get so I was happy with what he said.
“What do you mean by less powerful anyway, do you mean taking away some of what it can do?” I asked him, wondering how it could be less powerful, I mean it only did one thing really so it must mean he was making it have less of an effect. “It’s simple really, the drug affects the body, and it affects the atoms that your body is made of separately. Seeing that I have figured out how it affects the body, but not anything else I can lessen that part of it.” He answered me, leaving me even more confused than I was before asking the question. “Well, you see the drug is useless unless you can actually focus enough to active it. By lessening the potency of the part of the drug that affects your body functions I can lessen how long a person can actually use it for also I should be able to remove the withdrawal side effects, well that is eventually anyway. Though it will take me about a month to come up with a formula that will have that effect.” He explained to me, this time I understood what he was saying.
“Ok well you can take your time on finding a counter agent if you can do that. But I have one more favor to ask you.” I said as I looked around the room with a big smile on my face. “Yes, what do you want to ask me to do?” Paul answered me looking up from the microscope. “I want you to teach me, I want to be able to help heal others not just protect them.” I answered him, he looked shocked by the words I had just said, and bit speechless. “Well well what brought this on? You use to be all about exploring and seeing the world, now you want to be a healer and a protector. What’s with the whole life change?” He said as he pulled up a chair.
“Well, it’s nothing really just that I feel as though I’ve been running from who I am and after my journey looking for my father and finding him, I’m starting to realize I’ve been wasting my life. There are so much more important things I could be doing with my life other than just seeing the world.” I said to him with a serious look on my face.
“Well then it’s time we get you started then. The first thing we will be doing to start your training off as a doctor will be to start understanding this drug seeing that you have such an interest in it.” He said to me while showing me to the telescope. “Though I can tell you everything in here I can’t for the life of me figure out how they came up with this mixture it’s just an amazing feat or pure dumb luck.” He continued to talk about what was in the drug most of which went over my head when he used technical terms, but I did manage to understand how the parts of it affected the person that took it.
The drug functioned in four stages, the first of which gets the body ready. At this stage, the drug begins to flow through the person’s bloodstream, getting into the organs and cells. Enhancing their functionality. The muscles of the body would be lined with the drug forming an agent that strengthen the muscle fibers as it mixed with the natural chemicals given off by functioning muscles. As it entered the lungs and mixed with the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the lungs. The compound it created causes oxygen atoms to bond to each other and repel carbon. Causing the amount of oxygen in the lungs to jump along the lining of where oxygen was absorbed. As the carbon dioxide waste got split down, pushing the carbon to the center of the lung and at the same time the oxygen was pushed into the oxygen absorbing tissue at the sides of the lungs, causing high concentrations of oxygen at the sides without any movement of the lungs.
Then finally at the end of the first stage as the drug hits the heart and brain. It coats the heart, allowing it to beat faster without rupturing and caused the brain to send signals to the heart to speed it up. Stage two is much less complex, the radiation given off by the drug as it breaks down, caused the atoms in matter to vibrate at a higher rate. This effectively slows time down for that individual; this is not a huge speed difference only adding about ten seconds to every minute. However, it is just enough to give the drug the boost it needs in stage three.
This stage is the stage where it really happens, up until now the body has only been prepared for the actual speed this stage is what gives the mind the boost it needs. In the third stage the drug changes as it decays in stage two to give off radiation. Changing the drug from a general enhancer that is triggered based on where in the body it is, to a specialized one that is focused on nerves. The drug becomes magnetized to the nerve cells in the body attaching to all of them throughout the body. Then it pushes them into overdrive. The drug not only coats and strengths the nerves, but it also increases the rate at which the signals are sent by over two hundred times. It does this by filling in any gaps a nerve has in it and the gaps in between them with a specialized coating fixing any damage the nerves have in that process. Then, as the chemicals bound to the cells they increase the rate at which the electric signals that flow threw them travel, by over six hundred times.
Once this effect hits the brain the person’s mental abilities increase exponentially, allowing the person to think fast enough to move at an accelerated rate and still stay in control of their body. Combine with the first two stages the person is fully ready to use the phantom style. In stage four the stage in which the phantom style is used. The final part of the drug is released into the blood, this part forces the person’s mind to be clear of all but one thought at a time. This allows them to have the focus needed to use the phantom style. This final part of the drug also has a time-release agent to break down all the parts of the drug leaving behind O8C2, a substance that cannot be created naturally and has a highly addictive effect on the body as it causes the nerve cells to break down and misfire. Causing extreme pain, problems moving, and varying twitches as the nerve cells return to the state they were in before the drug was taken. Along with the small amounts of damage the O8C2 does to every cell in the body as it breaks down the drug around it or within it.
This was something that I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully understand anytime soon. Not only that, but from what I understood of what Paul was explaining, in order to find a counter agent that would counteract the drug safely, we would have to make a drug just as complex. Which I knew wasn’t going to be an easy task from how Paul marveled at it as if it were something so amazing and out of this world that it couldn’t be from this planet.
As I left him that day, I made a vow to myself, to work on finding a way to stop this drug no matter how long it would take me, or what I would have to endure in order to find it.
Continues in Chapter 23 or go to previous Chapter 21
Share to help us grow and keep the stories coming.