Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
I don’t know what to say. This really isn’t my department. I don’t even understand why we’re drinking the first batch, to be honest. I mean, I know they tell us it’s for health reasons. That some of the treatments we were ordered to take while we were under contract with the military had some bad side effects and one of our men even died from them several years back. But other than that, I have no idea what they did to us or why it warrants a weekly delivery of a mandatory frozen fruit drink. I’ve never gotten sick from anything they did to me in the military. Just that one guy who worked on the team for about a year.
Nash stands up and starts opening the cooler. We all lean in as he presses in his security code to pop the lock and then opens the lid. A mist of dry ice vapor floats up and he waves it off, then grabs a set of tongs from his desk and reaches in, pulling out one of the canisters.
The stainless-steel canisters that get delivered every Monday come with a green ring around the top, but this ring here is orange.
We all look at each other.
Ryan is the first to speak. “Nope. You guys do what you want, but I’m not drinking that shit. I am not drinking that shit.” He huffs, looking at me. “We’ve had enough. Right, Amon?”
Raleigh, his name was. The one that died. Nice guy. Kinda quiet, but in a dangerous kind of way. Which is how most men here at Edge present, so it was all fine.
Collin and I were discharged from the marines after two years of training. I spent that first two years learning how to produce military-grade K-9’s and Collin spent it perfecting the finer points of counterintelligence. In other words, he did spy shit.
So, after the discharge he and I weren’t required to take any more government mandated ‘treatments’ and we opted out.
Nash and Ryan didn’t join up with us for another year or so. Which means they took a few more of these injections than we did. Raleigh came along five years into this whole thing. He and I were never really friends, so how many injections he took, I’ve got no idea. Doesn’t matter at this point because he’s dead now and, according to Charlie, it was an injection that did this. That’s when Charlie told us that we needed the fruit drinks to counteract any deleterious side effects from previous treatments.
It felt like a reasonable ask at the time. I mean, Raleigh did just die. But that was… hell, six years ago now. And none of us have ever gotten sick. So I’m kinda with Ryan on this one.
This whole time I’ve been thinking back, Collin has been silent. But he lets out a long breath now. “All right. We won’t drink them and I’ll try and get more information. But you all know how this works. They’re not gonna tell me.”
“They’re lying.” Nash walks around to the other side of his desk and takes a seat, then looks Collin dead in the eyes. “Maybe the one we’ve been drinking is a treatment to prevent something worse. But then again, maybe it isn’t. I say we stop them all. Because they lied to us back then, Col. And once a liar, always a liar.”
“None of us have gotten sick though,” I say. “I mean, we’ve been drinking these for years now.”
“We don’t even know if they’re the same protocol, Amon.” Ryan’s still pissed. He’s always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist and we all kinda taunt him about it on occasion. But he’s been right about a lot of shit when you look back. “They could’ve been changing the formula every week and we’d never know the difference.”
Collin puts up his hands. “Fine. Let’s stop.”
I raise an eyebrow, surprised. “Really?” Because Collin likes to follow rules. It’s a weird trait considering who he is and what he’s done. But he likes certainty, and rules and regulations bring that. That don’t mean he’s a blind follower—he’s bucked his share of the system over the last decade—it’s just the drink protocol hasn’t ever been part of that.
He really believes that there’s something wrong with us and these drinks fix it.
Or, at the very least, he’s never been willing to find out if he was wrong.
Until now, I guess.
“All right,” Ryan agrees, obviously feeling better about things because he lets out a long breath. “Good. I’m glad. I’ve been ready to ditch those drinks for years.”
Ryan is about to leave, convinced the matter has been settled, but Collin puts up a hand. “On one condition, Ryan.”
Ryan turns. “What’s that?”
“That we report in every night with how we’re feeling. Starting Monday, of course. Since we already took this week’s dose.”