“So…this is going to hurt, I heard?”

“A little. A sharp sting, and then the pain just melts away. For ever.”

That was the promise, anyway. The lure of this new drug, this designer high. The latest thing in Biopharmacuticals. Tuned to the users’ DNA , Bliss could outdo any drug, any experience, any lover.

Ben needed something better than all three. That brought him to the doctor’s clinic, such as it was.

The clinic wasn’t exactly in the slums. Dark and looming, the shadows a little thicker than they had a right to be, but it wasn’t poor or desolate. It was somewhere inbetween the gutter and the light, the end of the road and the way out.

There was the nagging sensation, the familiar warning that everyone gets and few pay attention to. The clinic was too easy to find, the doctor too welcoming, the drug too tempting.

“What if I don’t like it,” Ben asked, the tension building in his voice.

“They all like it, my boy, that’s the point.”

He thought of her, and the doubt was gone.

“Fuck it. Let’s go then.”