Excerpt: Plunge

Oscar shook as he stared at the vials clutched in his jittery palm. Rage, hatred, love, lust, happiness… all held so firmly within his hand. One vial was enough. One vial was all you needed. Into the bloodstream it goes, as simple as a pinprick, and you were on your way.

Breathing heavily, he dropped behind a battered crate to rest. From the other side of the high stone wall, he could faintly make out the cries of seagulls over the crashing of waves. It did little to calm the dread put in him by the ancient clunking and whirring from the city’s machinery. The evil sounds sent their seismic reminders for miles around, thumping through his heart. They’d be after him. They’d find him. They’d kill him. A moan, wrought from the depths of the man-made monstrosity of the machinery brought him back to reality. The blood froze in his veins as he heard the heavy clomping of boots as the goons swarmed around him from all sides. It was only a matter of time before they found him now.

“Desperate times… Desperate fucking times…” Pocketing all but one of the vials, he twirled it between his fingers and stared deeply into the liquid. The outside of the vial, thinner than a pencil and a third the length, was etched in pictures. Comical in another setting, they were eerily frightening to him now. Three designs upon the surface. Three designs to market the product. An arm, a vial, and a screaming face. Sliding his shirtsleeve up, he took one last look at his clean, unscarred skin. All too readily, images of Ash appeared in his mind.

“One click, that’s all it takes! One push of the button and ZING! Your life has gone down the fuckin’ shitter, man. Have you ever seen the Users? Really seen them? Everyone looks at them, sure. But have you SEEN them? Nut jobs, the lot of them! Twittering around on their god damned happy clouds, or their hate in a bottle. Why in God’s name would anyone want to feel instant hatred? Or even sadness, for that matter? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? The last thing I want to see when I walk down the street is a perfectly capable, otherwise normal person weeping at my feet and demanding I kill them. KILL them! I’d do it, if I didn’t pity them so damn much. Not that their lives are anything but worthless blips anymore, though.”

Oscar stared at the vial in his hand, his heart thumping and his ears full of the sound of approaching men. None of that registered, though. His mind was still full of memories.
“You know, word on the street is that gangs get their hands on these… abominations. They use them on innocent people. How fucked up is that? How would you like to have the ultimate, instant, most unbearable depression injected into your veins without your consent? Hell, the mere thought of it almost makes me wanna go concrete diving, just like so many of these sad little fucks do…”
Shaking his head, Oscar cleared his mind of the memories. Those were thoughts for another time. Pushing back the twinge of pain that shot through his heart at the thought of Ash, he took one last look at the vial and its happy green button. Frowning, he focused on his decision. “Gotta make sure I never come across a blue one then, eh?” He saw the men turn the corner and spot him. As they ran towards him their electro-rods sizzled in the air. Looking down at his arm, he took a deep breath and plunged the needle into his vein. With a press of the button, a little poof of compressed air was the only mark of the potentially disastrous road he’d just taken himself down. There was no turning back. The deed was done. Doubled over in pain as every muscle in his body convulsed, he shook and started to sweat. Looking up, his eyes barely focused enough to show the men standing before him. And then, then the world went red.