Drax looked in the online search system, scrolling past
the first 30
pages of sponsored ads for a reasonably honest product
materials
analyst who wasn’t bribed off by the food and candy
industry to
break down what was in the evidence he had collected, a
cigarette
and some “bath salts.”
Honest materials analysts were
hard to find;
ever since the Liberty Revolution had eliminated the
listing of
ingredients as a regulatory requirement, manufacturers,
confectioners, soda companies, major food
corporations, tobacco
product makers, party drug sellers, and the bath salts
industries had
desperately wanted to keep their product secrets from
getting out to
anyone, especially not private death investigators like
Drax, and
especially not the public. Knowledge like that would
certainly cause
a lawsuit and a black eye if an enemy business interest,
say, the
exercise equipment industry, were to find out. Drax
tried another
type of search: ‘medical biochemistry device services.’
Paydirt.
‘Roland’s biochemistry and etc. service. All components
revealed.’
Roland’s shop front was a greasy hole in the wall in the
sub-
basement district of Anaheim. It was only the back
room in which
he kept his unlicensed black market NMR machine that
was
reasonably sterile to keep out false positives for random
ingredients.
Only Roland, in his sterile suit, went in that room.
Drax put the cigarette into the machine’s sample tray,
and passed it
through the bulletproof window lazy Susan to the shop
owner and
chemist. Roland plucked up the sample tray and
deposited it into
his NMR machine’s core, and then disappeared into the
side room
where the readout computer sat.
Drax turned on the flatscreen while he waited. “Net
connection’s
down. Sorry, you’ll have to settle for whatever the kids
DVR’d.”
Drax flipped through the recording titles: there were the
usual
popular cartoons, “The Adventures of Joe the Camel,”
“Barbie and
Her 50 Sold Separately Friends, “ and some old Charlton
Heston
religious flick. He settled on the latter. Something was
taking too
long. He got as far as Pilate asking “Truth? What is
truth?” when
Roland opened the door carrying the paper readout.
“Obviously, Cellulose, saliva, the usual burnt plant
fibrous carbon
bits, tar, arsenic, a huge spike of nicotine, off the chart
of what I’ve
ever seen before, DDT, cadmium, a bonkers amount of
ammonia, and
diacetylmorphine. Jesus this brand went hardcore in
wanting to
increase sales.”
“Dia-...?”
“Diacetylmorphine. Basically heroin.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yep. Reran it three times, even ran a reference
solution just to
make sure the instrument was clean. Smoke that with
whatever was
in those bath salts and my guess is you’ve got an o.d.
from hell.”
“Speaking of...”
“Yeah hold on.” Roland wandered back in and spun the
lazy-susan
around again so Drax could put the bath salt package
remnant in.
The huge magnetic analyzer whirred again, dimming the
lights for a
few blocks.
Drax went back to watching Jesus get whipped.
“Mephadrone. Potent shit. I thought the industry had
set a deadline
to stop selling that years ago.”
“Yeah, well, you know how that works. They set a
deadline, then it
becomes a ‘future goal,’ then it passes by, then some
manufacturer
goes behind everyone’s back and reintroduces it, and
soon they all
do, without ever informing anyone at the Standards
Organization.”
“Don’t ask what’s in Coca-cola these days.”
“Something like the original recipe, I suppose?”
“Something like it.”
“I presume you’ll be wanting to be paid in something
other than
bitcredits.”
“Right. Nothing traceable. Keeps me out of the
crosshairs. You’d
better keep a low profile as well. Whoever is selling
these doesn’t
want to play by any old Producer’s Code of Honor.”
Fortunately Drax was used to this. In his line having an
industry trail
or two was par for the course. He pulled out a wad of
yuan-notes.