Lysergically Yours | Page 2

cops.
He had never ended up needing it for that purpose. But now he drew
out a dime bag containing a torn and crumpled square of blotter, maybe

five hits worth. The gunfire was growing more sporadic, time was
running out. Quickly, so as not to allow himself time to reconsider, he
shoved the acid under his tongue.
-=two=-
Three weeks earlier, Johnny poured himself another drink. He had
worked his way through the four beers in the fridge over the course of
an hour and had started in on the pure ethanol he and Lyle used as a
solvent. You couldn't drink it straight of course, unless you wanted to
dissolve your taste buds, but it went nicely with orange juice.
When Johnny drank, he had something of a nasty tendency to do so
alone. This tendency was nasty only in a social sense, of course.
Johnny was by no means an alcoholic, nor was he a violent or
melancholy drunk. It just so happened that in early twenty-first century
North America, the entire society was fostering the illusion that ethanol
was not a drug. Johnny however had no delusions concerning his status
as a user of drugs.
As it happened Johnny wasn't truly drinking alone that night. Well, he
was alone in drinking, but not in the apartment. A mere four metres
away Johnny's roommate and business partner, Lyle, was going
through the following emotional states in rapid succession: confusion,
concern, fear, anger.
"Johnny!"
"Hmm?"
"JOHNNY!"
"Yeah? I'm listening, whaddya want?"
"Johhny! Look at me!"
"Dude! I'm watching a fucking movie."
At this point Lyle stepped in front of Johnny and turned the TV off.

"What the fuck?"
"Johnny, where did the acid that was on my dresser go?"
"I sold it. Isn't that the fucking point? Maybe I've been wrong about this
whole process from the start, but aren't we trying to make money here?
If you want me to stop selling the fucking drugs, you should tell me
now so I can go back to watching my fucking movie."
Johnny and Lyle were actually very good friends and usually interacted
with one another in only the most polite and cordial manner. Johnny
however, was more than a little drunk; and Lyle-- Well, Lyle knew
something of great import that Johnny did not. But that was about to
change.
"Johnny, listen to me. Listen very carefully. There was a vial of acid
sitting on my dresser, about three hundred hits. It had a label on it. That
label said LA-26f. Did you sell that acid? That specific acid?"
"I don't know, maybe... No, wait, yes. Yes, I put it on blotter and I
pushed it at the school."
"Which school?"
"Central Tech."
"To who?"
"Holy fuck, Lyle! I don't know, the usual people. Lucas and Jesse each
took about a hundred hits to turn around and then I five and tenned
most of what was left to random people. Why all the fucking
questions?"
"Johnny, do you have any of it left?"
"Yeah, I had ten or fifteen hits left when I was done. I tried to find a
taker for a few minutes, then I just said, 'fuck it, I'm gonna go home,
have a few drinks and watch Doctor Strangelove', which I'd like to get
back to if you don't mind. What's left is over there on the table if you

want it."
Lyle followed Johnny's nod to the table, and picked up the slightly
battered sheet of blotter. It was perforated like a sheet of stamps, but
broken up into far smaller squares. Only the corner remained of what
had once been a larger sheet. He recognized the art. Johnny's
ex-girlfriend had designed it. On the sheet Lyle held was the bottom
left corner of the Illuminatus eye-in-the-pyramid rendered in a garish
purple with tiny black angels reminiscent of fruit flies circling it. Ivan,
a friend of Johnny's printed all the paper for them; it was easier that
way. Lyle gripped the sheet tightly in his hand.
"Come into the kitchen."
-=three=-
Lyle and Johnny had met in Intro to Psych. Neither of them completed
the course. Johnny was taking it because he was in first year and still
believed that University life was about becoming an educated person
rather than about getting in, getting out and getting paid. As such he
had signed up for Intro to Psych and Intro to Advanced Physics as the
two first year electives in his Computer Science Degree rather than the
much more traditional Intro to Logic (which anyone who knows the
difference between if and iff can ace) and Science and Society (which
gets you your humanities requirement without having to actually take a
humanities courses). Lyle's reasons for being in the course were much
more mysterious. Johnny noticed