Do-gooders.
Then there was this book which I read sometime ago.
It was about a couple of men who decided that the world would be a better place should it be rid of ‘druggies’, as the author so elegantly put it. One man was a preacher, the other an atypical underground-mob-boss-who-runs-a-perfectly-respectable-business-as-a-façade, the kind prominently featured in cheap Westerns and countless Hong Kong dramas. How the two of them got together is somewhat important for character development, but since you will never know the protagonist, dear reader, it is unnecessary to elaborate. Unless you happen to read the book, that is, but by then you’d know already anyway. But I digress. It must be noted, though, that our mobster-businessman is doing this for quite a laudable sum of money – sponsored by the preacher, of course.
Who obtained the money through thoroughly respectable means, but that isn’t important either. Just thought you’d like to know.
Anyway. Our mobsterman – whom we shall henceforth refer to as M for posterity – used some of the appropriated cash to purchase large amounts of toxins from a certain scientist. That he killed the scientist afterwards and took back the money isn’t important. Besides, the scientist wasn’t an angel either. And it wasn’t any old rat poison – the toxin was odorless, flavorless and…er…textureless. Which killed after 24 hours. No cure.
So M, who turns out to be some sort of chemist, incorporates the toxin into his drug ring, and sends his dealers out into the brave, bright world. And being an exceptionally good chemist, he analyses the toxin and manages to synthesize it by himself, thus ensuring the continuity of this little fiasco.
The results were as to be expected. But the magnitude! Imagine celebrities dropping dead at press conferences. Imagine track athletes, unable to complete what would turn out to be their final lap. Imagine people from every walk of life – donut sellers, your obsessive-compulsive boss, neighbours* collapsing in throes of agony. Entire discotheques vacated, having lost most, if not all, of their best customers. Imagine the government having to ban the adoption of pets from shelters because people were buying them for the sole purpose of using the animals as test subjects for the drugs. And of course, imagine dead drug addicts and their respective dealers.
Had this continued, the purging of America from designer drugs seemed imminent. But our protagonist put a halt to it all when he killed the bad people.
Did he save the day, I wonder?
The book is a terrifically good read, and I only wish I could remember the title.
* Of course, the plot was based in America. The Ankh-Morpork of Roundworld, as Mr. Pratchett would have put it. Here, I can more or less assure you that the donut seller is not a drug addict.
It was about a couple of men who decided that the world would be a better place should it be rid of ‘druggies’, as the author so elegantly put it. One man was a preacher, the other an atypical underground-mob-boss-who-runs-a-perfectly-respectable-business-as-a-façade, the kind prominently featured in cheap Westerns and countless Hong Kong dramas. How the two of them got together is somewhat important for character development, but since you will never know the protagonist, dear reader, it is unnecessary to elaborate. Unless you happen to read the book, that is, but by then you’d know already anyway. But I digress. It must be noted, though, that our mobster-businessman is doing this for quite a laudable sum of money – sponsored by the preacher, of course.
Who obtained the money through thoroughly respectable means, but that isn’t important either. Just thought you’d like to know.
Anyway. Our mobsterman – whom we shall henceforth refer to as M for posterity – used some of the appropriated cash to purchase large amounts of toxins from a certain scientist. That he killed the scientist afterwards and took back the money isn’t important. Besides, the scientist wasn’t an angel either. And it wasn’t any old rat poison – the toxin was odorless, flavorless and…er…textureless. Which killed after 24 hours. No cure.
So M, who turns out to be some sort of chemist, incorporates the toxin into his drug ring, and sends his dealers out into the brave, bright world. And being an exceptionally good chemist, he analyses the toxin and manages to synthesize it by himself, thus ensuring the continuity of this little fiasco.
The results were as to be expected. But the magnitude! Imagine celebrities dropping dead at press conferences. Imagine track athletes, unable to complete what would turn out to be their final lap. Imagine people from every walk of life – donut sellers, your obsessive-compulsive boss, neighbours* collapsing in throes of agony. Entire discotheques vacated, having lost most, if not all, of their best customers. Imagine the government having to ban the adoption of pets from shelters because people were buying them for the sole purpose of using the animals as test subjects for the drugs. And of course, imagine dead drug addicts and their respective dealers.
Had this continued, the purging of America from designer drugs seemed imminent. But our protagonist put a halt to it all when he killed the bad people.
Did he save the day, I wonder?
The book is a terrifically good read, and I only wish I could remember the title.
* Of course, the plot was based in America. The Ankh-Morpork of Roundworld, as Mr. Pratchett would have put it. Here, I can more or less assure you that the donut seller is not a drug addict.
posted by Jokken at
7:37 PM
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