Twenty-four thousand dollars is a pretty daunting sum. We'd looked at a few little storefronts, and between lease, setup, and setting up our little growth operation, that's what the total looked like. That total that would give us four months living, if we just lived out of the back of the store illegally, to produce a few rounds of flowers, make product, and sell it. Between what Gina had in the bank, what I did, and all our credit, we could pull up about sixteen.
Ray lived on the edge of broke more or less permanently, and Gina told me she wasn't sure she wanted to "lock him in" like that just then. Still, I told her, if we let him know we're out looking to raise eight grand, he'll have some ideas.
Of course, he did. Most of them pretty slow; basically, variations on selling out of the apartment for a few months. And one of them was killer - we could rip off the hospital for supplies, and sell them to a drug manufacturer he knew. One Ambrose Laurent, a complete bastard, but one with money, and known (at least, by Ray) to buy from people like us. I had the access; Ray had the connection.
Gina was fine with the idea of crime. But, as she said herself, it wasn't her career on the line. When I spluttered a little at her being calm about it, she patted me on the arm and asked me just how did I think she'd paid for all that running around the world, anyway?
I told them both I'd think about it; we had time. So we agree to leave it for a few days, see if we could think of anything that would work better. I think that even then, we all knew that we were just pretending that it hadn't been settled, while I came to terms with gambling my career prospects on this insane thing we'd all come rushing into only a few weeks beforehand.
My plans for testing called for four days clean, followed by a half-dose each for our two subjects, one after the other - and then a full dose if that hadn't worked, or another rotation of time off if it had. So, for the next four days, we watered our steadily-growing plants, did actual work, tested and were tested for blood toxicity and side effects.
We sat around tables and talked about memory palaces and front porticoes, each of us with our own pad of sketches. We practiced meditation, and read about lucid dreaming.
Mrs. Krenski, according to Ray, improved significantly. She didn't show any signs of waking up, but it didn't look like she was fading at all.
I healed up fairly quickly, physically, but I was still getting flash impulses to jump up and fight like the imagined Abe Krenski had. On the third day, Katherine of the blonde hair asked what I was doing for dinner, and I reflexively told her I'd be taking my supper with Edith. She gave me the impression that she was more than a little confused by the tone, as she asked me who Edith was. My aunt, I told her, while I wondered just how many interesting habits Mrs.Krenski - Edith Kresnski, that was - had given me by way of her imagined heroic husband.
I did manage to save myself on that front; I had dinner with Katherine on the fourth evening. Pleasant, though a little frustrating - hard to invite a woman home when your living room is an ad-hoc sleep laboratory and your bedroom has slowly changed into being half office, half greenhouse.
When I got home, Gina and Ray were talking about interviewing a research assistant.
"Why do you think we need someone else?" I broke in, after a few minutes.
"We think that we might be getting stronger, better practiced." Ray replied "And if we are, then the results we get off the half-dose will be different from what someone else
would. On the other hand, there's also a decent chance we're getting acclimatized, physically, which swings things the other way - but there's no good way to know how much."
"I know." I returned "The big question we're working right now is long-term function, not necessarily the best introductory dosages."
"For sure, coz. But each time we get someone new involved, we'll also learn a lot more about that introduction. Right? And if I'm going to have a whole lot of customers, coming up soon..." Gina shrugged, slightly. "Can we kick it up a little faster?"
I had every sane reason to say no, to talk about how we were already moving way too fast, taking lunatic risks. How we simply shouldn't be trying to produce, test, and distribute an unknown drug in the first place, let alone at greater speed.
"Sure. It's not a want-to thing. It's mostly that we're running shy on space here, and getting more isn't going to be cheap; we have to produce the stuff faster than we use it up, ultimately. We'll need more room for that if we start adding more people. Although..."
"What?" both of them together.
"Hell with it. I'll take a half-dose tonight. We've got all the control readings we need, anyway, for the time being, and we'll want to contrast my current stuff against someone that's never been lucid at all taking a half-dose, see if your theory on getting stronger has any juice from my angle."
"You sure, coz?" Gina asked, a little concern creeping in on her features. "We thought that after the last trip..."
"Hell with that, too. If you think I'm going to just bunker down, you're kidding yourselves. I'm on deck tommorrow night. And Ray? Call your guy; make a list, set up a meeting, whatever."
