Table of Contents * * * * * * * * * *
A string of curse words shattered the morning silence.
Phillip threw the empty syringe across the Costmart back alley, letting it ricochet against an aging brick wall. He ran his hands over his face and pulled his hair into his fists. His supply was gone.
How had he run out so quickly? His body trembled as his mind rebelled against the reality of going without the artificial stimulation. He wanted to go into his meeting with Mrs. Church at his mental best, but without the drug, that would be impossible.
Phillip tried to remember how often he had shot up on Mentamide 5 in the past couple of days, but couldn’t seem to recall. Clearly he was making his way through his stash fairly quickly; the previous batch had lasted twice as long. It wasn’t easy for him to palm the ingredients for the synthetic stuff as he made his way delivering letters and packages to his company’s lab technicians. He couldn’t keep that up for very long without getting caught.
He looked at his watch, noting the time. If this meeting went well, he wouldn’t have to worry about making the fake stuff anymore.
Synthetic Mentamide 5 was okay, but it just wasn’t the same as the real thing. Phillip remembered the power of the drug he had experienced three years earlier. It had caused his heart to race with excitement as it allowed him to think with razor-sharp focus. It had confirmed how much smarter he was than everyone around him and gave him a sense of superiority. It had taken away the loneliness of his little life and had exposed him to the world. But most of all, it had just made everything so easy.
Coming down off the Smart Stuff had been hard. The drug had caused a physical dependency; he and his friends had spent several days supporting each other as they shook off their addiction. But the emotional dependency had been much worse. No one had wanted to go from being smart to dumb.
In the end, the drug apparently hadn’t caused any permanent damage to their bodies. But Phillip had to admit its influence had lingered in him much longer than in the others. Aymee, Dudley, and Karen had gotten past their addiction and had moved on with their lives. But Phillip was constantly craving the intoxicating feeling he had sampled a month before his thirteenth birthday.
Over the past three years, he had tried to recapture some of that feeling through the use of poor substitutes. Cigarettes had been his first choice: easily available for free by bumming a smoke from some of the Beckworth hard cases. But that had done nothing for him, and he had moved on to weed, also available from the school’s older crowd. He had sampled the occasional harder drug here and there, but nothing had ever taken him to the heights of Mentamide 5.
So when he had stumbled upon the treasured formula in the shredding pile at Star Labs, he had viewed it as a light at the end of his tunnel. There was no question for him as to whether he should make his own drug; the only question was how long it would take. But the idea of recapturing that missing piece to his life could not be held in check, and it had only taken a few days for Phillip to acquire the items he needed and to sneak into an unused lab to whip up his creation.
The first hit was like water to a man dying of thirst. It pumped through his veins, poured through his body, enveloped his mind. It took away all pain and left pleasure in its place.
Ultimately, however, the Semi-Smart Stuff hadn’t had the same kick as the real thing. Sure, it was better than anything else he had tried in its place, but there had been something missing. He wasn’t quite as smart; things weren’t quite as easy. And the crash as he came off his high kept coming far too quickly, leaving him desperately jonesing for more. With each high and low, Phillip’s appetite for the real stuff had consumed him.
Glancing around the corner, Phillip saw the front doors of the downtown Costmart open. He left the alleyway, entered the building, dodged the warehouse shoppers, and made his way to the back of the store, where a security guard recognized him and let him into the private elevator. Phillip shifted nervously from one foot to the other as he descended, wary of the dangerous person in whom he was placing his future. But he felt he had no choice; letting go of the drug was not an option.
The elevator opened and a guard led him into Mindy Church’s private office. “Wow, you don’t waste a minute, do you?” she said.
“You said you’d have it today.” Phillip tried to appear in control.
“Yeah.” Mindy’s lilting voice toyed with him.
“So, do you have it or not?”
“Of course I do!” Mindy opened a drawer, pulling out a vial and hypodermic needle. She moved to the front of her desk and sat lightly on the edge, letting her short skirt rise dangerously high. Then she dangled the drug just out of his reach and taunted, “Remember, I can get anything I want.”
Phillip made a slight move to retrieve the items, but Mindy’s hand made contact with his chest and pushed him lightly into a chair.
“So, I’ve got what you want. Where’s your part of the bargain?”
“I need the drug first. I can’t create the plan without it.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that.” Mindy leaned back slightly and pressed a button, signaling several armed security guards to enter the room. “So I guess I’ll give you a little taste and lock the rest up here nice and safe. You bring me my stuff and you’ll get the rest.”
“Deal.” Phillip tried to squash the thrill that rose in him. He was so close.
Mindy loaded the syringe as Phillip rolled up a sleeve. “I was a nurse before, so I know how to do this. Don’t worry, honey, it won’t hurt a bit.” Phillip couldn’t help gritting his teeth at her fake, cheery bedside manner.
She took his arm, checked for a vein, and swiftly injected the drug.
The rapid click of a room full of weapons cocking into position echoed off the walls. The innocent look was erased from Mrs. Church’s face, replaced by cold steel. “Now think!”
Phillip rolled his eyes back into his head and let sweet pleasure flood his body. The genuine Smart Stuff was intoxicating, stimulating his senses, filling him with a sense of belonging. Like coming home to family during the holidays, he embraced the sensations that had been lost to him for three long years.
The synthetic version was nothing. His job at Star Labs was nothing. His so-called friends were nothing. Intergang’s safety deposit box problem was nothing.
---&-&-&---
“Dudley, what happened to your face?”
Dudley noted Aymee’s concern as he and Karen approached her. They had arranged to meet on the front step of their high school after the last period of the day. Aymee had met with Lois Lane and Clark Kent the day before. The reporters had already arrived and were waiting to discuss their plan for helping Phillip.
Dudley cocked half a smile as his hand touched the corner of his mouth. “Karen convinced me to try and talk to Phillip about what’s going on with him. I cornered him in the bathroom this morning and asked him if he was getting high again. He told me to shut up. I started to tell him that he could talk to me about whatever was going on, but he swung around and punched me in the face before he took off.” He tried to make a joke. “I guess Phillip’s not a morning person.”
“You can say that again,” Karen said.
Ms. Lane stepped forward to greet them and extended her hand. “Hi, kids. Thanks for meeting with us.”
Mr. Kent joined his wife, also offering a handshake. “Sorry it’s been so long.”
“Not a problem. I’m sure you’ve been really busy.” Dudley looked straight into Clark Kent’s poker face. ‘Does he know that I know he’s Superman?’ he wondered to himself.
Aymee interrupted his train of thought. “So, I think everyone agrees Phillip is in some sort of trouble. What do you think we can do about it?”
Karen gave him a stern look, reminding him of their discussion last night. “Yeah, Phillip’s definitely hooked on something. We need to get him into rehab.”
Lois Lane chimed in. “Clark and I have been doing some research and found a clinic that’s willing to take him into a four week in-patient program.”
“We’d have to arrange things with the officials at Beckworth, but I think they’ll cooperate when they see it’s in Phillip’s best interest,” Clark Kent added. “After that, he could transition into outpatient therapy for as long as it takes for him to get well.”
“It will take time,” Ms. Lane continued, “but Phillip can work through this. He just has to be willing to admit that he has a problem.”
Aymee breathed a sigh of relief as Dudley watched an invisible weight lift off her shoulders. It was too obvious how much Aymee cared about Phillip. He hoped that things would eventually work out between the two of them, but knew that curing Phillip’s drug addiction was the first priority. After that, maybe there would be a chance.
“So how are we going to get Phillip to go into rehab?” Karen asked.
Lois offered her opinion. “I think it would be best if you all confronted him together. He needs to see that people care about him and want him to do the right thing.”
“Well, we have to find him first,” Karen said.
“I think I can help with that.” Dudley pulled a small metal box out of his pocket, extending an antenna and adjusting a knob. “I thought we might want to keep track of him, so I slipped a small device into his wallet before he got up this morning.” A soft beep pulsed rhythmically as he smiled. “I wasn’t the electronics expert for nothing.”
“That’s my baby!” Karen enthusiastically wrapped her boyfriend in a hug as Aymee rolled her eyes.
Dudley saw a silent conversation pass between Lois and Clark. He guessed that Clark was already trying to zero in on the sound from the tracking device, though Superman made no move that might betray his secret.
He decided to have a little fun with the superhero. Addressing the reporters, he said, “Maybe you two should be in charge of hunting him down. Just remember to let us know when you catch him. I’m going to turn around now and won’t be able to see you leave, so you get on finding Phillip super quick.”
Dudley stifled a small laugh when he heard Clark issue a quiet groan. ‘Oh yeah, he knows that I know.’
----&-&-&---
“Like taking candy from a baby.”
Phillip wore an arrogant smile on his face and waved the black velvet pouches in front of Mindy Church. The authentic Mentamide 5 had worked the same as it had three years ago, expanding his mind to see keys to other people’s locked doors. With his enhanced abilities, he had been able to see flaws in the security system of the downtown branch of the Bank of Metropolis. Some electronics work, a bit of forgery, and a little misdirection had allowed him to exploit those flaws and take what Mrs. Church’s idiot henchmen could not.
This is what his life should be like: unlimited freedom to do whatever he pleased. Beckworth was in the past; the world was his future. Once he secured the rest of the supply Mrs. Church had promised, he could use the drug to help him acquire all the money he needed to build his own endless supply of the Smart Stuff. He would be unstoppable.
Mindy Church curled her graceful hand outward, waiting for her prize to be delivered. As Phillip released the stolen property, Mindy smiled cautiously. “Let’s just make sure you got what I wanted.”
It occurred to Phillip that he didn’t actually know what Mindy was after. He had been too caught up in the puzzle, the dare of committing the crime, the details of the plan. He hadn’t bothered to even open the pouches once he had retrieved them from the specified safety deposit box. Now, though, he was curious to see what the head of Intergang had gone to such pains to acquire.
Mrs. Church swept the middle of her desk clean, then carefully opened the first velvet bag and gently shook its contents onto the mahogany. Phillip looked closely, and then cocked an eyebrow at Mindy to ask if she was serious. Her face betrayed no outrage and he felt compelled to take a piece into his hands. She made no move to stop him.
He didn’t need a loupe to know the truth. “Costume jewelry? You had me steal a bunch of fake crap?”
An odd grin took over her face as Mindy ran her fingers over the outside of the second pouch, judging the contents within. “Let me tell you a little story,” she began. “I’m a really important person, you know, and I’m rich and stuff, so everybody invites me to their parties. Well, I like parties, so I go to the fun ones. But my Billy always said that I have to go the boring ones too. You know, the ones with the stuffy old people that want my money for some stupid charity.”
Phillip thought his head would explode if he had to listen to Mindy’s fake bimbo voice one more time, but he tried to be patient.
“So anyway, I went to one a few weeks back to help people that have some sort of disease or something. But there was nobody fun to talk to, so I was wandering around until this woman accidentally bumped into me. And so I looked at her and could not believe what this poor lady was wearing! She had blue eye shadow all the way up to her eyebrows and no mascara and red rouge like she wiped it on with a paintbrush. But even more tragic was the hideous flower print muumuu that was hiding her probably okay figure paired with some of the ugliest jewelry you’ve ever seen!”
Phillip glared. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Oh, I wish I was kidding, but the evidence is right here. I mean, come on, have you ever seen such cheap looking faux earrings in your life? Really, how did this woman even get invited to this party? There’s no way she had any money to give if she was willing to be seen in public like this.”
Phillip desperately tried to hold on to his sanity and keep his fury in check long enough to get what he had come here for.
“But then, suddenly, I got a good look at her necklace.” Mindy’s grin got brighter as she opened the second velvet pouch and tipped the jewelry into her hand. She snapped the gold chain quickly around her neck and ran her fingers possessively down to the radiant green crystal dangling in the pendant setting.
Kryptonite. Nothing else on Earth glowed like that.
Mindy dropped all trace of her vacuous persona. “I found out her name was Jessica Trask. Her husband worked for some government agency that tried to kill Superman a few years ago. She said her husband liked to shower her with trinkets. Anyway, a couple of days before he passed away, Jason gave her this necklace and told her that she’d always be safe with it around her neck. That moron didn’t even know what she had!” She smiled triumphantly. “Thanks to you, she doesn’t have it anymore.”
A tingling of the emotion Phillip had once identified as guilt tugged at him, but his drug-induced apathy won the war. “It looks beautiful on you. Congratulations. Now, can I get my stuff and get out of here?”
“Hmmm,” Mindy seemingly pondered the question as three armed security guards entered the room. “I don’t know. I kind of don’t think I need you anymore. So maybe I’ll just keep the stuff for myself. Who knows, maybe I’ll want to be smart someday.” She set the syringe down on her desk and nodded to her guards as they brought up their weapons. “Take care of him, boys.”
“Wait!”
He couldn’t let the drug slip away from him again. A distant voice within his head called to him, warning Phillip of his oppressive addiction. But that voice didn’t matter. Mentamide 5 was everything.
Superman’s secret was nothing.
* * * * * * * * * *
