World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Research [Complete]

[William Rose]

August 18th

I hate this stuff. It's not that I'm just a dumb jock, but book learning has always come only with great effort on my part. It just wasn't one of my talents. And yet here I am in the school library scanning through newspapers and trying my damnedest to not fall asleep.

Topic of the day: Crimson. I've been making photocopies of every news story I could find on the drug. There was a vial that I was pretty sure had contained some of the stuff, buried in the ground under my dorm room window in a Ziplock bag. A week ago something just plain wrong had lead me to it. Of course that night had been weirder than that but I not here to rehash my crazy night life. I'm here to see if I can't figure out what the hell this drug is and where it comes from.

And so here I am making copies and printing out stuff from the interweb. It's slow going but the pile is growing. I know it'll take me the next few days to read it all and actually understand anything useful within. Hopefully when I meet Adrian at the gun club on Friday I'll have something more than an empty vial and a horror story for him. And maybe, hopefully, he'll have something for me as well. I still don't know if I like the idea of working with a vampire, but given that I had a date with a chick who also happens to be a werewolf two days ago I guess I should cut him some slack.

Life is too damn weird sometimes...

[William Rose]

I sit and stare at the massive pile of photocopies and print outs on my little desk. Its got to be like eight inches high and somehow I've not only read it all but managed to take away some useful information. Of course I've spent every bit of my spare time after class, homework, and practice working on this. Crimson, it's driven me to distraction simply by being a factor to that thing from last week. I hope my gut is wrong, I hope it is nothing more than coincidence. Classes have just begun, which I was glad for, that means less homework for the first couple of weeks and also an excuse to be seen in the library and to lock myself in my room. People think all jocks are dumb and don't care about school. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I try my damnedest to make sure that I keep my scholarship the legitimate way. I know how quickly an injury could end my career and I don’t intend to have nothing to fall back on.

I sigh and swivel my eyes from the stack of research to my notebook of conclusions. There’s less than half a page looking back at me. Some of it is good information, stuff I didn’t know and some is obvious. I pick it up and review it point by point. I need to know more, and this will not cut it. Again I think forward, maybe I can call Adrian and meet with him, he might know more, or he might not. I’ll be able to find out if I can trust him though. Maybe Amber too, she doesn’t strike me as the research type but she might know something and I can’t find out unless I ask. Besides, I’m starting to like her, so it’ll give me an excuse to see her again and figure out my feelings.

I reread the list. Point one: Crimson is deep red. Like “red flavor” Kool-Aid, the name clearly comes from that. It comes in a vial with an eye dropper to use for dosing. Most people take a drop or two under the tongue. It can be absorbed quickly from there I guess. I recall being a kid and taking some medicine the same way. It was awful, tasting like the worst parts of Robitussin distilled down into something that shouldn’t ever have been put in a child’s mouth.

Bullet two: Crimson erases the subject’s inhibitions and amplifies their sensory input. It also alters brain chemistry or something such that all sensation is perceived as pleasure. The police have compared it to a hopped up ecstasy. The sense amplification is so great that some people cannot handle it and actually die of sensory overload. Others die because everything feels good, even stuff that shouldn’t. I try not to think about what that could mean, it’s probably nothing I want to even know about.

Bullet three: It’s crazy addictive. Part of it’s effect is to stimulate production of adrenaline. The adrenaline itself is addictive (I didn’t know that but that explains some of those crazy thrill seeker types) and as such it also amps up the person’s strength and raises their pain tolerance. The drug combined with adrenaline basically mean that the user doesn’t feel pain at all and can take and give out one hell of a beating. The end result is that Crimson is almost 100% addictive after a single dose. Swell, instant junkies, just what the world needs.

Bullet four: Scientists still have not figured out how the drug works to pump up adrenaline levels. They know the “what” but not the “how.” I can’t even being to think about what that means but it triggers my “something is not normal” sense.

Bullet five: The police have raided multiple labs but the crimson found each time was incomplete, it was lacking in whatever active ingredient makes it red. I’m not even sure why this is relevant but it implies to me that there are many manufacturers of the drug but maybe only one or two places were the finishing touches are put on. That means that maybe this is still a fairly small time operation, and that is good news, I hope.

[William Rose]

Antoine looked at the cell phone and pushed the little green button. Putting the phone to his ear he waited for the vampire to pick up on the other end. After three rings Adrian did pick up. "Adrian, it's Antoine. I need to talk to you about something ... abnormal. Can you meet me Friday night?" OOC: Continues in Night Shooting

*****

A short time later Antoine sighed and stared at the phone. He was trying to decide what to say. Hi Amber, I've been thinking, you're too hot and too willing to pass up so lets grab some beer and a box of condoms and ... yeah, no. She'd appreciate the forwardness but...no. He shook his head, it was tough to relate to her at times. They had such different upbringings and only now were their lives converging toward each other in a way that made him able to make sense of her. Still not sure if she gets me but I almost wonder if that even matters to her.

He let out and exasperated breath and grabbed the phone punching up her number and hitting send before he could convince himself to stop. She answered on the first ring and Antoine was not allowed off the hook. "Hi, Amber, it's Antoine. I was wondering if you were free next week? To discuss some stuff, maybe over dinner? How's Wednesday, the, uhh, 27th?"

Amber replied quickly, "Sure, how's 7:30 sound?"

"That sounds fine, I know a great steakhouse, Serious Steak. They're fancy without being overpriced. I'll pick you up at your place?"

Antoine could imagine the look on Amber's face at the mention of steak, I bet there's no such thing as a werewolf vegan! On the other end a momentary pause was followed by, "I'll meet you there, 7:30 next Wednesday. It's a date."

"OK great, I've got a bunch of stuff to discuss. See you then." She said goodbye and Antoine put the phone down. Yeah, a date ...

OOC: Continues in Serious Steak