Fredric Stern - The Endorphin Conspiracy

“Geoffrey, Geoffrey, so good to see you again. I heard you were in the hospital, so I thought I’d pay you a visit,” Balassi said. “You and I have been through so much together lately. “Balassi approached the bedside, stood directly over Geoff, casting a shadow on his face. “Roles are reversed this time, aren’t they?”

Geoff tried to muster whatever strength he had. He shifted his position, attempted to roll out of bed to his right, but a searing pain shot from his right leg and jolted his spine. Then he realized why. His leg was tethered to the frame above the bed. He was dead in the water, trapped. This couldn’t be happening, not here, not now after all he’d been through. He hadn’t survived so much for it to end this way.

Fear transformed to hatred. “Asshole,” he mumbled hoarsely.

“I see illness hasn’t changed you, Geoff. Here let me help you out,” he said as he released the wire holding up Geoff’s leg, sending the cast crashing to the bed. Geoff let out a scream and was momentarily blinded by the excruciating pain.

Balassi smiled and continued, ignoring Geoff’s writhing. “Often major life events—illness, injury, a death in the family will do that to someone. Change them, that is. It’s true. Really it is. But there are other ways to change a person, Geoff. You know what I mean. Really change them, their personalities, their intellect, their abilities. I gave you a chance, an opportunity of a lifetime, Geoff, to be a part of this great discovery, and you turned me down.

“You tried to destroy me. You didn’t understand this discovery is greater than either of us. It will live on, Geoff, be picked up by others, the project passed from one generation to the next as it has been. The seed that was planted forty years ago as Project MK Ultra has blossomed and become the Sigma Project. Under our care it will be carried to fruition.”

Balassi’s piercing brown eyes danced wildly. “I had no choice but to do what I did, Geoff. I am the agent of mankind’s next great leap in evolution: neurochemical evolution. As the guardian of this historical advance, I simply could not let you get in the way.”

“There is someone else who knows, someone who can stop you.” Geoff coughed out the words.

Balassi laughed derisively. “You mean your detective friend, O’Malley? The one you went to all that trouble to get the information to? You must be kidding.”

“You can kill me, but he knows everything. They’ll be coming for you Balassi. You’re insane.”

Balassi continued to laugh. “Detective O’Malley won’t be coming after me or anyone else, Geoff. The ignorant fool came to see me in my office earlier this evening, played me a recording of the conversation you and I had in my apartment. That was good, Geoff, very good! He threatened to take me down to the stationhouse. Can you believe it?” Balassi snickered. “Let’s just say your detective friend is tied up with other business right now.”

Geoff’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You’re lying.”

“I’m so sorry, I really am. I know he was your only hope and without hope the human spirit withers away, dies a slow death, Geoff, but it’s true. See.” Balassi held up O’Malley’s badge and I.D.

“So, where do we go from here, hum? I’d still like to give you a chance, a chance to be part of this. I think there’s still a way we can work together.” He reached into his pocket and held up a syringe filled with an amber solution.

“This syringe, Geoff, contains the most powerful sigma endorphin known to man. Oh, we thought that of the other sigma analogs we developed, but the compounds were unpredictable. Their half-lives either too long or too short, their structures unstable, short-circuiting the brain’s neurochemical pathways. Like early LSD, far too crude.”

Balassi rolled the syringe between his thumb and index finger and held it in front of Geoff’s face. Geoff sank back into the pillow, tried to push himself away. Beads of sweat formed on his brow.

“I’ve honed it down, Geoff. I’ve finally identified the exact location of the receptor imbalance that causes schizophrenia. Your patient Smithers helped me with that. Of course he didn’t know it at the time. Do you understand what this means? The elimination of this crippling mental illness from the human race, vaccinating against it like polio or small pox, eliminating it entirely! This is only the beginning, and I have chosen you to play a major role.”

“You’re mad,” gasped Geoff.

“Not as mad as you will be shortly.” Balassi unsheathed the needle and leaned over, holding it in front of Geoff. He squirted out a few drops of the endorphin, the drops landing on Geoff’s lower lip. Instinctively Geoff spit, his saliva and the endorphin catching Balassi in the eye.

“Really, Geoff,” he said with disgust. “You needn’t be so crude and ungrateful.” He wiped his face with a handkerchief. “It’s far better than dying, you know. They’ll take good care of you in the institution. You’ll get visits from your friends on the weekends, care packages from the family. It won’t be so bad.”

Balassi laughed loudly, then became deadly serious. “Enough nonsense. It’s time. Congratulations, my friend. You’ll go down in history.”

Slowly, Balassi reached over the top of Geoff’s head and grabbed the tubing that connected to his head bolt. He found the injection site, pierced it with the needle. Geoff felt the pop as the needle was inserted into the transducer. Balassi pinched off the tubing with his thumb.

Geoff looked up at Balassi’s hand on the syringe. Sweat poured down Geoff’s face. His heart was racing, his breathing labored. He could handle the pain, even the thought of death, but the notion of insanity brought unbridled terror. He closed his eyes and prepared for the dazzling lightshow as his brain’s receptors became saturated with the endorphin. Would he know what was happening? Would it be instantaneous, or would he have to live like a human time bomb, insanity ticking away slowly, unpredictably, inside him. That alone might be enough to make him go mad.

A voice jumped out of the darkness from across the room. “Hold it right there, Balassi. The party’s over!” The voice was commanding, reassuringly familiar.

Geoff opened his eyes. Standing between the bed and the nursing station, a service revolver aimed directly at Balassi, was Detective Donald O’Malley.

“Take your hand off that syringe and put both your hands on your head. Now!”

Josef Balassi’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “Well, Detective O’Malley, nice of you to come to visit Geoff.”

“Better know how to tie knots, next time, Balassi. You’ll have time to learn, where you’re going.

“I’m not fucking around anymore. Now put your hands up and walk towards me. Slowly!”

Balassi laughed derisively. “You must be kidding. I have connections in higher places than you think, detective. Take me in, and your career will be finished.”

“Who said anything about taking you in, Balassi?” O’Malley smirked, cocked the hammer on the revolver. “Your connections have been severed, Balassi. Your endorphin conspiracy, the Sigma Project, is finished. CIA Director Bennington is back, the group that infiltrated the CIA, Lancaster included, your phony PETronics Corporation—everyone’s been busted. They’re all gone. No one cares what happens to you now, except me and the good doc, here.”

Balassi’s pupils dilated. He took his left hand off the syringe and slowly reached down into his lab coat pocket with his right hand. “Now, now, detective, no need to do anything rash. Maybe we can work something out, a deal or—”

“You mean like the deal you had worked out for Doc Davis, here?” O’Malley glanced at Geoff, back to Balassi, grinned. “I don’t think so. Now move it!”