K - Is for Ketamine

Chapter Five - 'K' is for Ketamine.

At the entrance to Dominion's open plan, totally modernised and state
of the art office, an exciting place to work and play, Brad
Bowles-Prentice is flicking through his wallet and looking for his
swipe-card to get in. Fifteen minutes late already, he's trying to
conceal his presence as he doesn't want his line manager to spot him
coming in.

He finds it and within a few seconds he's in, attempting what's almost
a run to the systems testing area and so he can log on to his machine
before he's accosted. Sitting by him is Neil, looking somewhat worse
for wear, making his way through his fourth cup of coffee in as many
minutes. Kevin Dooley is on the other side of the room in and in
startling contrast to the two is looking particularly sharp this
morning.

"Mr. Bowles-Prentice, late I see. So unlike you to be late, isn't it?"
Neil grins at him then carries on, "Kev, have you ever heard of such a
thing as Brad here being late for work?"

Kev looks up from his screen and laughs. Totally immersed in his work
though he's soon back concentrating on the system test results making
copious notes on its latest performance figures.

Work being the anathema it is to Neil though is sneakily looking busy,
as he surfs the Internet. Now he's completing one of those silly tests
downloaded from the Guardian that poses the question, 'Are You an
Addict?' He quickly ticks all the relevant boxes and then waits for the
results to come back.
The screen changes - the answer to the question being a resounding yes!
He reads the results, which advises him that he should book his place
in the Betty Ford clinic with the greatest alacrity. He guffaws
slightly to himself, before he decides to look up more drugs
information from Google's search engine. A listing comes up for
something called the A-Z of Drugs, it looks crap he thinks but clicks
on it anyway, anything to kill the time.

A menu comes up listing all the major drugs of abuse in alphabetical
order. Distractedly he miss hits his mouse button on the letter 'K.'
The screen rolls open like a scroll and a huge letter 'K' comes up as
the flashwear software kicks in. He looks at the entry 'K - K is for
Ketamine' then quite absent-mindedly clicks it. Now there's one drug I
haven't tried as yet he thinks to himself as the screen is refreshed
with yet more information.

KETAMINE -(2-chlorophenyl1)-(methylamino)-cyclohexanone hydrochloride,
C13H16ClNO (mol. wt. 237)

A host of scientific information flowed in front of him, everything and
anything to do with the advanced chemistry of the drug, to molecular
diagrams and pictures of it's various shapes and forms.

This is no good Neil thought, it's like reading a bloody chemistry
textbook. He clicked on more links and started to read more basic
medical information on the drug.

KETAMINE - A general anaesthetic marketed as Ketalar Hydrochloride and
produced by Parke-Davies Pharmaceuticals. It also has strong analgesic
properties and is particularly useful as an anaesthetic when treating
the very young and elderly, as it is much less likely associated with
producing respiratory depression.

He clicked on though until he came to something that interested him,
something that struck a chord -

It was the one quote in particular taken from Jay Stevens, "Storming
Heaven: LSD and the American Dream" that resounded with him - the
influencing factor.

"Ecstasy hinted at how powerful the mind could be, and once first gear
was mastered, there was a second gear, and a third. Compared to MDMA,
Vitamin K was tenth gear."

That sounded more like it, I could do with some of that, tenth gear eh?
The foundations of his resolve to experiment with this drug had been
laid - Vitamin K, Kit-Kat, Special K or whatever else they called it,
something new, and something mad, it was an opportunity not to be
missed. His mind was now unfurling, as he pictured himself taking some
there and then. He'd have to get hold of some, a smile blossomed on his
face as he thought, 'I know just the man who can help me out with that,
I'll have to pay a visit to Andre,' or 'The Mule' as they called him.
Yes, Ketamine sounds like a great new toy, he thought until he was
snapped out abruptly from his daydream by a tap on the shoulder.

"Hmmmm, Neil - that really looks like a really interesting work related
topic your browsing," it was Fran Hutchens who was now glaring at him,
trying her hand at sarcasm, but miserably failing, "now, if you can get
back to what your supposed to be doing, please!"
She had already accosted Brad for being late and who was grating his
teeth and cursing her under his breath as she made her way over to
Kevin.

"Look over here you two retrobates. Mr. Dooley should be an example to
you all - he's got through twelve test reports already and has
organised his workload for the next week with great efficiency. Well
done Kev!" - Kevin thanked her but rolled his eyes as she turned her
back, she was trying her hand at wit again, "Brad and Neil I must tell
you if you don't buck your ideas up and soon, I'll get Trev to take you
off the project all together. How would you like a nice position in the
new call centre Brad? Or for you Mr. Alanis I hear that there is a
vacancy in the Data Entry team coming up. I'm sure they'd be suitable
positions for someone of your ilk - would you like that?"

Brad was muttering obscenities under his breath, the fucking bitch he
thought - I'm going to make sure I set her up for a fall. Neil just
tried to look as sorry as he could to humour her.

"Sorry, Fran. I'm really grateful for this opportunity to work on this
project and have been working really hard recently, as I think that
getting this right is so essential for Dominion. If I don't complete my
quota of test reports for the day by five, I'll stay over," he lied
would do anything to get her off his back at that moment.

"Thanks Neil. That's more the attitude I want to hear, " she turned and
went as Brad stuck his fingers down his throat at both her and
Neil.

"You absolute browned nosed weasel," he directed at Neil, "I don't know
how you can stand how she talks to you. That woman - she's got a bloody
fifty foot pole right up her ass...She needs to be brought down a peg
or two...and I for one know exactly how we can do it." He slides over
to Neil and then whispers in his ear something. Neil guffaws, "Oh fuck!
That's great, shall we get Kev in on it as well?"
"Of course, you cretin...as they say revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
We shall bide our time and then we'll take out 'Miss Corporate
Cock-sucker', you'll see." Brad could certainly be a nasty piece of
work when he wanted to be.
"OK, then I'm up for it."
"Now let's get on with our work - we can't let Kev get all the
accolades. The roll-out of ICD 11.0 is due this afternoon, hopefully
we'll have a meeting up at Brook Road and so can slack off then."

Kevin's overheard some of the conversation and butts in, "What are you
two deviants planning now?"

"All in good time, Kev. All in good time."

So Neil Alanis the DJ, Neil Alanis the self-styled drug explorer has
got the idea into his head to get some Ketamine. But does he know about
the K-Hole? I don't think so, not yet and neither has he heard of
Ketamine entities. These days, these dreadful days of such short
attention spans he'd failed to notice the other 120,302 entries on the
site that related to such matters indeed, when the screen opened up
like a scroll. A glance would have listed all kinds of references, all
kinds of anomalies, freak shows - for instance how about
? the Ketamine Konundrum - A guide to this odd and intriguing
entheogen

? Alien Landscapes - An intense, elegant description

? What You Ought to Know - A warning to potential K users

? The Big, Big Ride - A first peek through the K-hole

? Sex with the Universe - 2C-B and Ketamine

My own personal favourite accounts of the Ketamine experience of
course

? The Gods Created Insects in Their Own Image - Flooded with insectoid
imagery (K administered rectally)

And

? Surf Those K Waves! - A wild report about the K-zone

But let's not forget those now seminal tracts on the Ketamine
experience,

? Holed out in Ohio - The K-Hole exists! Honest! An account of a
dreamlike experience

And of course ? World Wide Telepathy - Back from the cuckoo land.

Interesting reading? Well, I suppose if you're brain already resembles
cottage cheese. If Neil had spent the time to read them do you think it
would have put him off? Well I know for one - not one iota! He was used
to hearing this type of thing from the idiots that he sometimes found
himself latched on to by at parties, especially if they were buying
pills and stuff from him.

I don't blame him though, I mean after all he wants to read about that
type of thing, the fantastic, the ridiculous, and the frantic? The
K-Hole will wait for another day for Neil, he won't need to read about
it as he'll experience it direct, he can make up this mind for himself
when the time comes. So am I disappointed, no not at all - I mean he
could have spent some time reading about Dr. John Lilly - the renowned
California neuroscientist - who I knew very well for a short time - but
not all that rubbish. Who would credit the fact that there is such
thing as a Ketamine Entity? You'd have to be out of your mind. Out of
your mind - yes, I'll wait until the time is right, brain
neurotransmitters fitting and sparking before I'll make contact, make
my entrance.....................I can wait......................but for
now we're back to Dominion and to the Interactive Customer
Database.

Kevin looks up from his work as the hum of the air-conditioning system
kicks in. Christ it's hot in here; it must be the hottest summer we've
had for an age he thinks. Flashbacks to the weekend run riot through
his headspace, it feels like everything's changed now - new beginnings,
a new sun rising on fresh horizons. That Sunday in the aftermath still
of the Friday night and Saturday morning, a few regrets began to linger
in his mind. He pulled out a few old magazines and read any of the
articles on E he could find. What was concerned him most was that being
not really one-hundred percent over his depression, the pill could
trigger it off all over again - not enough was known about the long
term effects of such a drug, perhaps it was illegal after all for good
reason. He phoned up a friend he'd known from college who'd always
given him sound advice in the past and told her of his concerns - she
was now a drugs counsellor. It would be no good talking to Brad, Sophie
or Neil, as they couldn't really discuss it with any objectivity.
She listened attentively with empathy and understanding, but at the end
of it she surprised him by telling him that she'd been taking ecstasy
regularly now for over five years and didn't seem to have any problems.
She warned him about overdoing it, drinking too much alcohol on top and
making sure there was always a good couple of weeks inbetween sessions,
but her ultimate advice was that if taken with responsibility and due
care she couldn't foresee any major problems. "You might get a bit of a
crash midweek, if you have a really big session," she told him, but
that was about it. Problem drug users she'd said were the sad cases
that really couldn't get their act together, or something or other had
meant that their lives lost any meaning whatsoever outside the world of
drugs.
"Ecstasy, is a tool Kevin and one must use it wisely," she'd summed up
with. As he had put down the phone, he felt surprise and relief yet
again he was probably just worrying unnecessarily. In fact he felt
better than he'd better in ages, better than well? No not quite like
that. The malingering dark clouds that had haunted him had seemed to
disappear entirely though since he'd taken the pill. Had his inner
conflicts been resolved? Well he wouldn't go that far - but it felt
like some irreversible change was occurring and that was he on the
precipice of a new era? Again, he couldn't honestly say, but a
discernable psychic shift had taken place, even if he couldn't put his
finger on exactly on what or how.
He focused back on his work, he was pleased with himself, having
completed far more than he was supposed to have done this morning. Time
for a quick fag he mused, get out in the sunshine, at least he could
relax for a while now, he deserved it. Not that he was a true slacker
in the mould of a Brad or a Neil, work was there to be done and if he
spent all day playing solitaire or surfing the net, he'd only feel that
he'd wasted his own time, let alone anyone else's. Getting things done
gave him some satisfaction and a sense of achievement, in light of the
fact that only a month or two ago he couldn't even be bothered to
shave, when the depression was at it's apex.
He picked up his pack of Camel Lights and made his way out of the
complex, remembering first of all to pass the coffee machine near the
entrance to grab another cup. He takes a sip and fires up his fag when
he gets to the garden, the 'Garden of Eden' as Neil calls it laughing
to himself as he realises he's been infected by Neil's drug addled
phrases. It was nice though, in a corporate type of way, ornamental
ponds, fountains, Rhododendrons and ethnic statues conjured images from
the Orient. The award winning 'Garden' had been commissioned to provide
a space for relaxation and reflection in the perfect work place
environment - by one of the faceless gurus The sun splinters out from
the glass frontage of Dominions office, impressive to say the least -
when it was designed at the cost of millions it was heralded as a
shining example of the 'architecture of the next millennium' by some
pretentious magazine or other - Kevin wipes his brow and squints up
looking at the mid-window. It was Sophie! The one and only Sophie
Sapphire, who was frantically waving to him from above. He raised his
hand in acknowledgement all smiles now, so she was real after all and
not a fantasy of drug delirium - he joked with himself.
He put out his fag taking care not to drop it in the garden arena,
dropping litter here was one of the few instances where instant
dismissal would apply - and rightly so Kevin thought. He sat down on
one of the benches for a moment, gathering his thoughts, he felt happy,
reborn. The beautiful simplicity of being outside on this glorious
summers day struck him. Had the Ecstasy opened his eyes to this? Or was
this just a spontaneous reaction occurring in rebound to the
depression? As he thought more, he caught a glimpse of Karen sitting
over the other side of the garden walls, her head drooped - she looked
awful. For the first time he felt sorry for her, her thwarted ambitions
to get on, her arrogance perhaps only a self-defence mechanism he
considered. For a moment he wanted to go and talk to her to tell her
that he had forgiven her, but then he realised that she'd probably take
it the wrong way, let things lie, don't stir up things from the past a
voice told him. He choked for a moment, it had almost seemed that the
voice had been an external presence, a force from outside. Calming
himself he told himself not to worry - his counsellor friend told him
there could be some strange effects from taking 'E.' Not even that
though, it was like his mind had been switched back on as he was
getting better - he read somewhere that a degree of over activity in
the synapses was normal as brain chemistry returned to
equilibrium.
He made his way back in to open plan office, through one of the
walkways that met at a central point or 'the eye' as it so called, the
planners and architects must have been heavily influenced by the
utilitarian ethics of Jeremy Bentham, Kevin thought back to his Oxford
days. If only such care and attention had been put into the design of
the ICD system - he cursed as another pile of error reports had emerged
on his desk.
"Kevin," Brad called over to him, "sorry but I've just had to put the
most horrendous pile of system fault reports on your desk, ICD 11.0 is
the most flawed and bug-riddled yet! It's just been rolled out to us
about two minutes ago. Look at that new screen - horrible isn't it. If
those idiot coders spent less time changing colours and putting those
stupid new icons all over the place - they might even produce something
that works properly. Anyway, I'm on a roll now, got loads done, I'll
show that bitch Fran."
Lazy, laconic but loveable Brad - he did possess some skills Kevin
thought, remembering how much he'd disliked him before they had been
put on the project. His eye for detail and for logging faults and error
reports was undeniable. What Kev admired most though was his powers of
charms, which could work wonders when he used them. For instance he'd
persuaded IT to shut down the ICD servers at three thirty this
afternoon for an hour because he felt ICD 11.0 needed such attention
before testing tomorrow, it couldn't have been easy to do that!
That afternoon went quickly all three of them working as hard as they
could. Occasionally Kev noticed Brad and Neil bursting into laughter,
smaning sardonically at something.
"Hey, you two! What on earth is all that fuss about? You're up to no
good I'll bet - come on tell me what it's all about? You can't just sit
there laughing like lizards and not let me in, I'm getting para about
it!"
"Mr. Dooley, fear not - as I said earlier all will be revealed in due
course. Get on with your work, someone is giving a presentation this
afternoon and Trev says we're invited if we complete enough tests in
time," Brad reprimanded him. Not like Brad to come over all officious
like, even stranger for him to actually want to go to one of those
crass presentations Kevin thought. He was interrupted though by Neil
who was now having some kind of giggling fit. He looked over at him
frowning and then all of a sudden, Neil started all over again, this
time managing to spit coffee all over his PC screen.
"I better go and clean up this mess before someone notices," he
says.
"Can't take him anywhere, can you?" Brad looks at Kev in disgust, "Yep,
go on Neil, clean it up..."
Time went quickly, printers whirred, faxes faxed and all the necessary
phone calls were made, the three were racing away their work until
stopped by the arrival of Trevor. He mooched around the desks, looking
at what had been done with deliberation. He then stroked his chin
before looking up at the project members - "I'm very pleased with you
all. You've done a lot here and I must say I'm surprised after what
Fran told me about you this morning - Kevin excepted. If you make your
way over to the training room in the next five or so minutes, you can
join us for the presentation - see you there!"
The office restrooms had been taken over by guests and VIP's from the
far quarters of the Dominion empire. As the fetched more coffees,
global capitalism is in full stride Kevin thought as he heard
trans-Atlantic twangs, Japanese whisperings along with all kinds of
European accents - it seemed that all the big players had come for the
performance.
Brad neatly filed away the paperwork on his desk; he was looking
extraordinarily pleased with himself.
"Come on fella's over to the training room we go. Don't want to miss
this presentation now do we?" he uttered, ushering them down the
aisles.
The training room was packed, the seating arranged in a half-oval
around the
huge overhead screen set up for PowerPoint presentations and a clique
of PC workstations. A screensaver scrolled across the screens with the
words, 'Dominion - Innovation, Endevour and Excellence' in bold red.
Brad and Neil cringed discreetly. As they slinked to their seats Kev,
noticed Sophie, Samantha Morley and Beth sitting in the front row,
Sophie winked at him and he winked back as best he could blinded by
light seeping from the open shutters. Thankfully one of the girls who
was sitting at one of the front workstations, ran over to close
them.
Brad rubbed his hands together and then looked to Kevin, "Someone tells
me our enlightened goddess of a manager, Fran is doing something -
something on ICD - I can't wait." Kevin concentrated trying to detect
irony in his voice, but there was none.
When everyone who was anyone in the hierarchy had arrived, the lights
were lowered and Duncan Sumner, customer service director made his
entrance at the front to the sound of 'We are the Champions' by Queen.
This is absolutely revolting Kevin thought, why on earth did they
invite us three along? Duncan Sumner overly tanned and wearing a
double-breasted monstrosity began his speech, rambling on and on his
speech littered with the vocabulary of corporate cheese. Sound bites
and spin abounded as his performance got into full swing.
Neil whispered in Kev's ear, "He's got to be on crack. He's got a
makeshift Coke can for a pipe and he's been sat smoking in the disabled
toilets wiring himself up like gibbon before coming on here." He
ignored him, as he was trying to make sense of the psuedo-profounities
Duncan was making but failing.
Duncan ambled on before summing up, "What makes us at Dominion so
special, so unique is our true commitment to delivering outstanding
customer service. As director in this field, believe you me it is not a
task we take lightly. In achieving this though, we ensure we have the
best trained staff, each and everyone a specialist in their fields. Bob
Ferris, our training manager will elucidate further - after of course
Fran Healey has demonstrated our state of the art Interactive Customer
Database. This demonstrates our competences as a leading edge player in
our fields," to cheers from the office clones.
A couple of other speakers came on praising Dominion, the
groundbreaking work they were doing in the field of IT and human
resources and how they had outstripped the rest of the market by far. A
short break followed as some truly awful ambient 'whale music' emanated
from the speakers. Now the screens were scrolling with the words - "ICD
- Interactive Customer Database - Dominion at the very forefront of
IT."
Fran Healey now wearing a dreadful white suit, obviously with the
intent of power dressing had been waiting keenly in the wings now came
to the front. With her were two of the biggest brown-nosers in the
whole of the office, Craig Smith and Bernard Martyn. Kev detested them
they were real - 'you say Jump? How high?' boys.
She began; it was a really savoury moment for her - doing this
presentation, a cherry on the icing of her success. Her preparation for
it had been meticulous, even to the extent of ignoring minor duties,
she'd even forgotten to check her emails that afternoon, but it was the
matter in hand that was all-important, this took precedence.
After her introduction, she got her two assistants to begin a basic
functionality demonstration of ICD on one of the workstations, the
results clearly displayed to all on the overhead. Kevin was quite
frankly annoyed, what they were doing was just entirely for
presentation purposes. So that's what all the changes to the screen had
been about on ICD 11.0. None of the problems had been discussed or the
hard work mentioned that him and the others were doing on the project.
He glanced at his Timex, now considering leaving - but then he realised
something - it was 3.26pm. Shit! - He'd better do something, hadn't
anybody told Fran that the whole of ICD server network was being shut
down for repair in....he looked at his watch again... three
minutes!
"Brad - Brad, is it right that there's going to be total server
shut-down at half three? Is it going to happen during Fran's..."
Brad was really smiling now and calmly, calculatedly he replied "Dear
me, Kevin. I'd almost forgotten myself. You'd have think she'd have had
the sense to call off the shutdown, see I sent her twelve Lotus-notes
asking her to confirm if shut-down was OK. Now, Neil tells me she
hasn't been logging onto her workstation to check her mail for a while
and as its not technically her responsibility for IT decisions, I
presume no one in IT has told her either. Now, if you don't please if
we can get back to................" The warning bleeps are now coming
from the workstation. On the overhead a message flashes up, 'Please
log-out of ICD shutdown is imminent. 1 minute and counting - Please
log-out.'
Craig panics and looks at Fran, under her breath she swears, and then
tells him to carry on with the demonstration. People are now muttering,
losing their concentration - Trevor Morley is glaring at Fran
now.
Neil spots this and comes in ", Look at Trev - Brad. He's looking like
George Bush did went the twin towers went down."
Brads unfazed he's relishing every second he can. Craig is trying to
carry on but nothing is happening now, as more messages urgently
stating the need to log-out flash all over the screens.
'SHUTDOWN IMMINENT - PLEASE LOG-OUT OF ICD" - Ten seconds and
counting.

The room is in uproar; Fran's face is like a beetroot as some of the
staff start laughing. She's speechless - how could this have happened,
who had authorised the shut down and not told her?
"It's like HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey," Neil adds, trying to fight
tears of laughter. Now even Brad chuckles, his act of innocence
faltering. As the PC screens change to a mesh of sickly blue and green,
characters all over the place displaying random gobbledygook. Trev
calls a break, holding back his rage, "Due to a technical
oversight....................."
Brad looks at both Neil and Kev before saying, "Gentlemen, I think we
all deserve a well earned fag. Don't you? Sterling work Alanis couldn't
have done it without your help! To the Garden of Eden, my
friends."
They make their way out, Kev's glad to get away, as everything's gone
chaotic in the training room. He couldn't believe what Brad had done,
it had obviously taken some planning though, he must have known about
the presentation all along.

Sometime at the end of a century, Neil, Brad and Kevin all laughing
like fish, sitting down in the gardens of corporate bliss. Neil
Alanis's mind is now turning to other things now, things a million
miles away from the office - he's thinking about drugs and who he can
score some Ketamine from.