The Drug - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

The start of a new story commission for Mashugana. This will probably be a short one, likely only another chapter or two.

"And where do you think you're going?"

Veronica gritted her teeth, forcing a smile as she turned around. The woman must have been watching her like a hawk... Either that, or she just happened to step out of her office right as Veronica got up from her desk. If it had happened once, perhaps Veronica might have believed that latter, but, since it seemed to happen quite often, Veronica suspected that wasn't the case.

"I'm just heading off to lunch!" she said, as cheerfully as she could manage. "I have the phone set to..."

"Did you finish preparing those documents for me?" Henrietta asked.

She didn't need to; not only were they still sitting out on Veronica's desk, she'd only given them to her secretary a little while ago, nowhere near enough time for her to be done with all of them. "Not yet, Ms. White," Veronica held back an annoyed sigh. Her boss insisted Veronica not call her by her first name, even though most of the other bigwigs at the company, including those above her, didn't mind, and a lot of them encouraged it.

Not that it was a huge deal... Nor a huge surprise that Henrietta considered herself more important than any of them. She definitely saw herself as more important than Veronica, although, since she was her boss, that part was probably actually true. "I told you I wanted you to make that a priority, didn't I?" the woman sighed.

"I have been," Veronica said. "And I'll go back to that once I'm done with lunch, but..."

"No!" Ms. White snapped. "No buts, except yours, sitting there, doing as you were told!" She pointed as Veronica's desk chair, shaking her head. "Honestly, young lady... Sometimes I think I might as well have hired an actual child to do your job... They might be more focused than you! You always have something else to do, don't you... How many 'bathroom' breaks have you taken this morning? Maybe I ought to make you wear diapers so you'll stay at your desk long enough to get things done!"

Veronica blushed, certain she felt the eyes of the rest of the office turning towards her at the outburst, which made her all the more determined not to let the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes escape, to show her boss how much she was getting to her. That was what she wanted, after all; that was why she'd been sure to call her 'young lady'. She knew Veronica hated that, since she really wasn't that much older than her.

"I am allowed to take a lunch break," Veronica informed her. "You can't..."

"Yes, you are," Ms. White agreed. "I don't have to let you take it for another hour, though, and since you haven't finished your work, that may well be when it happens."

"But..." Veronica pouted, barely stopping herself from stomping her foot, feeling like a little child, trying to argue with a parent, or babysitter, one who was convinced they were right, and would just bat down any argument she put up, no matter how good it was. "My friends are eating now...." she said finally, knowing how lame it sounded.

"You are not here to socialize," Ms. White rolled her eyes. "You are here to work, and I expect you to get to it, right now."

"Fine!" Veronica huffed, sitting back at her desk with a sulk more befitting a teenager than the woman in her twenties she really was... Although, since that was how she was being treated, why not embrace it a little?

"When you're done, ring me so I can make sure your work is acceptable before you run off," Ms. White ordered, vanishing back into her office, as if this wasn't something Veronica had done for her in the past, on many occasions. There were times when Veronica wondered if the woman hated her, specifically, or didn't trust her for some reason; then, she heard stories of the secretaries Ms. White had before her, who hadn't lasted even as long as she had, and she realized Ms. White either didn't trust, or hated, everyone.

Veronica would have been lying to claim she hadn't envisioned herself finding some way to get revenge, to make Henrietta feel just as small and useless as she made her workers feel... But finding a way to do that, without immediately losing her job afterwards, was rather difficult, and she couldn't afford to lose this paycheck. As much as she hated Ms. White, the money was far better than any other secretary's position she was qualified for... Probably because of all those women who had quit before her, who had likely been attracted to the job for the same reason. She'd hung on so far, although there were days, like this one, when she wondered how much longer she could take it.

She did get to take her lunch break, eventually, but, of course, all her office friends were back at work by the time she got to the lunch room. There really wasn't anyone in there she recognized at all... She felt like she was back in high school, unsure of where to sit on the days when her lunch period didn't line up with the rest of her little cliques'.

Finally, she did what she'd done back then, and found herself a small, empty table where she could sit by herself and lament over how lonely she was. She nearly left the sad, little lunch she'd packed in the company fridge to go out and grab some fast food, but managed to talk herself out of that, digging through her purse for her earbuds so she could listen to a podcast while she gnawed on her salad.

"I mean, if that's what they want, that's what they want," one of the nerdy looking men at the table near hers was saying. "It isn't really our business why, or how they're going to use it."

"It just seems... strange," the other shrugged. "I don't know what practical purpose it would have for any of their ongoing projects."

Veronica resisted the urge to turn and look at them, afraid they'd sense her watching and stop talking. She assumed, by their labcoats, they were from the R&D department, and she'd always been intrigued as to what sort of things they got up to down there... Since they worked on different floors, she rarely ran into anyone from there, since she was usually spending her breaks with her friends from her own department. She slipped the earbuds into place, but didn't turn on her podcast, or any music, just kept listening.

"I don't think they went in looking to create it," the first one said. "I heard from Nathan they only discovered it when they mixed project 86-B with 39-A by accident."

"They could have just let it end there, though," his companion replied. "How are they even going to test it? Do they think they're going to get someone to volunteer for that? I don't think we can really use lab rats for this, not if we want accurate results... And they're already paying Lily a ludicrous amount of money... I doubt they're going to want to offer that to anyone else."

Veronica's ears perked up at that; she assumed whatever they were talking about wouldn't be worth going through... But she was definitely interested. Maybe it wasn't that bad... There were a lot of things she'd rather turned herself into a guinea pig for, instead of having to put up with Henrietta.

"Well, they'd at least know what they were in for, so I doubt the company would offer as much," the first pointed out. "But you're probably right... I don't think they'll find many volunteers. They're probably just going to study it, see if they can find out why it had that effect on her, then stick it in the vault."

"I'm glad we're not working on it," the other shuddered. "I know she wound up ingesting it, but I wouldn't want to be around it at all, even in the suits. Did you see her coming back in to get her stuff? I didn't realize they made diapers that big."

It was the second time that day Veronica had heard the word 'diapers', one she probably hadn't encountered for years before then; she couldn't imagine why she would have, since she had no kids, and most of her friends were here, at work, and too focused on their jobs to want them, yet, either. It was a weird coincidence, having them come up twice in such quick succession... It also soured her fantasy of letting the R&D nerds run a few tests on her and send her home with a nice, big payout, not if that was a possible outcome.

"It's too bad," one said. "She's brilliant, but I guess I can't blame her for leaving. It's a pity seeing her like that... I just hope she's able to get it all back."

"Can you imagine that? Someone like her having to go through potty training again? And not even knowing if it will actually work?"

That did, indeed, sound like a pretty dire fate... Although, it was one Veronica couldn't stop thinking about, once they'd mentioned it. After what Ms. White had said that morning, it almost wouldn't have surprised her if the woman gave her whatever they were working on; that way, she couldn't claim she had to go to the bathroom, because she wouldn't know better. She'd just have to sit there at her desk, peeing her pants, not realizing until she was good and soggy...

It was a disturbing thought, and, while she didn't really believe Ms. White was having R&D work on this so she could do that - she doubted the woman had any idea about it, since she had nothing to do with the R&D department, either - the fact Veronica was able to so easily see her doing it still spoke volumes about her.

Veronica was back at her desk, back to work, and gotten yelled at by Henrietta again for taking a couple extra minutes on her lunch break, before she began to think of it another way. Yes, she could imagine Ms. White using it on her... But what if she used it on Ms. White? It would be awfully hard to be so high and mighty when you couldn't even control your bladder...

It started out as an idle fantasy, one that made it difficult to stop from smiling whenever Henrietta called her into the office to tell her how she'd done something wrong, or assign her another task; she wouldn't actually do anything like that. That would be stooping to the imaginary Ms. White's level... Although, after so long, being mistreated by her, didn't she kind of deserve it? Besides, they'd said it was possible potty training would work... Since she had no experience with kids, she didn't really know how long it took to do that, but it couldn't be that long, right? Especially if the person doing it was a fully grown adult?

And there was always the chance of other, unknown, side effects popping up... It would be dangerous, and stupid, to do that to anyone without knowing all the potential consequences... If Lily was well enough to come back to work to pick up her things, and smart enough to take the money and leave, though, she was probably pretty all right... And they hadn't mentioned anything else weird...

It didn't take long - although she was meant to be using that time to prepare a handout for a presentation Ms. White was giving the next day - to find this Lily in the company directory, since, as she'd suspected, the network people hadn't gotten around to take her off there yet. She couldn't get any information from that, but she did know what hospital the company would send employees to, if anything went wrong while they were on the clock, after going there with a friend after they'd had an allergic reaction once.

Equipped with Lily's full name, she called up the hospital. "I'm calling from her place of employment," Veronica lied, hoping Lily wouldn't have mentioned she'd quit, though that probably wouldn't have shown up on her file, anyway. "I was just wanting to check and make sure everything was all right... She claims she's fine, but we do worry about her, after what happened..."

"We can't really release..." the nurse who had answered the phone said.

"No, no, I don't need any specifics," Veronica cut her off. "Just... Is there anything we should be concerned about? I'm sure you know how she is... We want to be certain she's okay to come back to work already."

Veronica had no idea if that was how Lily was, but she was willing to bet the nurse didn't, either... She probably had no clue, going simply on the name, which patient Lily had been, and there was a very good chance she wouldn't after checking her file; she likely hadn't helped her when she was there, since it was a big hospital, with lots of workers.

"It isn't my place to say whether she should be working again or not..." the nurse hesitated. 

Veronica could tell she was cracking. "It's nothing official," she promised. "It just takes so long to hear anything back from the insurance people, you know? And I'd hate to think she's overworking herself when she should be resting..."

"Hang on..." Veronica could hear the clacking of a keyboard, and knew she'd won. After a couple moments, the nurse told her, "In my unofficial opinion, she looks perfectly healthy... Other than the obvious, of course."

"Great!" Veronica smiled. "Thanks so much!"

That didn't prove there were no other consequences, or that something else might not pop up later on... Or that it would have the same effect on Henrietta... But it didn't seem nearly as scary as it had before. And, after Ms. White made her stay late, for the second time that week, Veronica barely gave a second thought to hitting the button for the R&D department's floor on the elevator on her way out.

She'd expected the floor to be empty by then, and, mostly, it was, but there was still a security officer sitting at a desk in front of the elevator. "Are you on the right floor?" he asked as she stepped out. 

She kept herself from feeling too offended at the implication she didn't look smart enough to belong there by thinking of how lost her expression had probably been, seeing that floor for the first time. "Yeah," she nodded. "I'm bringing something to..." she froze, mind racing, trying to think if she'd heard either of the nerds from lunch call the other by their name. She wasn't sure if that was where she'd gotten it, or if she'd picked it up somewhere else, but she tried, "Mike," as confidently as she could manage.

"I'm not sure he's still here," the guard told her. "Let me..." Before he could finish the sentence, someone in a lab coat stepped out of one of the doors, calling the man over. Veronica watched them for a moment, then stepped a bit closer to the guard's desk, keeping an eye on the two men to ensure neither was watching her. Fortunately, what she was hoping for was there, waiting for her.

She leaned over the desk, barely able to make it on her tiptoes, and reached into the pile of lost ID badge, grabbing the second one, in case the guard remembered which picture was on the top one. Hopefully, they hadn't been deactivated yet... She stood up straight, slipping the badge into her pocket, retreating back away from the desk after taking a peek down the hall to catch a glimpse of some of the names of the rooms there.

"Sorry about that," the guard said, returning to his post. "Who were you looking for?"

"Don't worry," she smiled. "He just texted me and told me he was still here. He's going to meet me at Lab 3... He'll open the door."

"Well, all right," he shrugged. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked towards the door marked Lab 3, praying the badge she'd taken would actually open it. With one hand, she slipped it back out of her pocket, positioning herself so she'd be blocking the guard from seeing her scan the card, while, with her other hand, she knocked, loudly announcing, "I'm right here! You can let me in!"

Thankfully, a green light flashed, and she was able to push the door open just enough to step in. "I don't know why you didn't come out," she asked the empty room, in case the guard was still listening. "Ms. White wanted me to go over all this with you, to make sure..."

The door shut, and she went silent, other than a nervous sigh as she looked around. She really didn't know what she was looking for... She'd hopefully bought herself a little time, however. She didn't spy anything that seemed like it would be what she wanted, so, after peeking out the window to be certain the guard was no longer watching, she slipped out of the room and further down the hall, looking in windows to see if anyone was still left in the rooms beyond, working, before scanning the badge and going in to investigate.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, when she was on the verge of giving up, admitting to herself she had no idea what she was doing, she came across a small refrigerator in one of the rooms with a glass door, holding row after row of vials, each with a different liquid, labelled with a long series of numbers. That definitely felt right, like what she needed... But which of them did she want? None of them said, 'Potty Training Reversal' on them, after all, despite how convenient that would have been for her...

She thought back, replaying the conversation she'd eavesdropped on again, as best she could, hoping they'd spouted off a number. They'd changed the subject pretty quickly, however, and, as far as she could recall, hadn't given an exact number for what they'd been talking about, certainly nothing that had approached as lengthy a combination of numbers as she saw on the vials.

Was there a handy key somewhere, that told her what each was? There didn't seem to be... They probably didn't need it, since they'd know exactly which one they were working on at any given time... And, as far as she knew, there could be more than one of these fridges, in other labs, that might be what she actually wanted... 

This was all getting to be too much; maybe it was a sign she needed to call this off, or take a different approach. Perhaps she could take her lunch late again tomorrow, see if those same guys were there, try and strike up a conversation with them... She wouldn't lead with convincing them to give her some of the drug, but if she got to know them a little, she could get a sense of whether one of them might be willing to do that, and start letting them know how bad Ms. White was, and why she deserved it, for when she did ask...

As she headed back towards the door, however, she spotted the guard through the window, poking his head into one of the rooms further up the hall. She cursed to herself, sure she'd taken too long, that he'd caught on... She backed away from the window, mind racing... And, suddenly, it came back to her. They had mentioned a number... Two, in fact. There was probably a different number for the mixture of the two, but she didn't know what that was.

She hurried back to the fridge, repeating the numbers to herself silently. 86-B and 39-A... She was positive that was what they were. The numbers on the tubes were far longer than those, but if she looked at the ends of them, there were some that had letters at the end... And, after a few long, tense moments, she spotted one that ended with 39-A.

It was possible, with so many other digits in front, that there could be more than one '39-A' being worked on, and that 86-B would be in a different room altogether... She might still not be able to pull this off... But she didn't see anything else with that ending, as she scanned the vials, and, right when she was about to give up, she spotted her second target.

Maybe it was a sign... She knew this whole thing was dangerous, and probably stupid, yet finding them both like that felt right, as if it meant she was doing the right thing. She even found a tiny, empty tube to pour a bit of each liquid into, mixing them together, then putting them back where she'd found them, slipping the mixture into her bra, leaving the badge behind on the counter as she went back towards the door, stepping through it right before the guard got to it.

"No, it's no problem," she said, keeping the door open just slightly. "I'm happy I could help!" She pushed it shut, stepping in front of the window to smile at the guard. "I'm so glad you're here!" she told him. "I'm not sure I remember my way out of here on my own... He had to run back here to take care of something..."

The guard frowned, clearly not entirely buying it as he led her back towards the elevator. Her heart was thumping loudly as she reached out to push the button and call it, thinking she'd surely gotten away with it, when he said, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I have to search you."

"What?" she looked at him, feigning innocence, and as much calm as she could, while starting to sweat. "I was with Mike the whole time... I couldn't have even gotten in anywhere without one of those fancy card things..."

"I know," he told her. "It's just a precaution. They work on some very top secret things in here... I don't even know what most of them are."

"I mean, if you have to..." she sighed, handing over her purse, turning her pockets inside out. "I doubt I'd understand what any of it was, anyway! I was just delivering some paperwork...."

He didn't find anything - she was glad she'd ditched the badge, just in case - and, while his gaze did linger on her chest for a moment, she was pretty sure it wasn't because he suspected she'd hidden something there. "Sorry," he shrugged. "Part of the job."

"No, no, I get it," she nodded. "You gotta do what you gotta do, right?"

That was the same thing she told herself the next morning, staring down at Ms. White's cup of coffee, vial clutched in her shaking hand. So far that day, Henrietta had been fairly calm, and reasonable, and almost nice... But that didn't mean anything. It didn't erase all the things she'd done to Veronica, and all her previous secretaries, in the past, or mean she would do them again in the future... She needed to be taught a lesson, and Veronica couldn't imagine a better one than what this drug would do.

"All right," she told herself quietly, psyching herself up as she unscrewing the lid of the vial. "You gotta do what you gotta do..." And, with that, she dumped it into the coffee, following it up with a container of cream, smiling to herself as she stirred it up.

"What are you doing?!" Veronica turned in surprise to see the woman standing behind her, arms crossed. Had she seen?! 

"I-I was..." she stammered.

"Honestly!" Ms. White rolled her eyes, storming in and snatching the cup away from her. "I asked for this ten minutes ago so I could be done with it in time for the meeting! You are absolutely worthless at times, you know that?"

"I-I don't think it was that lon..." Veronica started to protest.

"Do you think I don't know how to tell time?" the woman demanded. "Come on, we'd better get going... Sometimes I wonder why I keep you around."

Veronica watched as her boss took a sip of her coffee, all of her doubts about whether she was doing the right thing or not gone as she followed the woman to the conference room, almost giddy at the thought of what she knew would be coming next.