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• June 2007
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My name is Ted Guess. A little over a month ago, I managed to procure a dose of promicin serum. I wasn’t looking to take over the world, or to necessarily save it from impending doom. I wasn’t at the end of my rope, seeking escape from a desperate situation. I didn’t have a loved one who needed help beyond the scope of normal human abilities. I wasn’t looking to win friends, influence people or become irresistible to the opposite sex. Yeah, I’ve gone through a fairly nasty divorce, but it’s been years, I’m over it, and I do get out on the occasional cringe-free date. I’m not rich, but I make a decent living, I’ve got a pretty swell apartment in the city and I’m in fairly good shape. I’d consider myself a pretty content and happy person, generally speaking.

When it came to promicin, mostly I was just curious. Who isn’t these days?

All my life, I’ve never settled for other people’s opinions on things — I have to experience them myself. I’ve always believed in trying as many things as possible during the short time we’re given on this Earth, and that all experiences, good or bad, have value in a full, rich life.

When I first heard about promicin being harvested from The 4400 and released to the public, I thought, this is it. I saw a couple of Jordan Collier’s video dispatches floating around the Net and thought he could really be on to something. The ultimate human experience, perhaps. The chance to transcend the limits of our species and commune with the gods, if you will, to reach the next plateau our species has been eyeing for millennia. Compared to this, Prometheus was nothin’ but greasy kid stuff.

I wasn’t completely naïve about the risk, though — after all, Prometheus also endured that nasty eagle with a taste for foie gras d’homme. While I’d participated in a sacred Comanche ceremony in the desert many years ago, knowing and even welcoming the unpleasant risks as a necessary part of the transformative experience, I also was fairly certain that, barring perhaps a rattlesnake bite or fall down a ravine, I wasn’t going to die. I remember wishing I could as I heaved what felt like every molecule of my innards onto the broiling sand, but I knew I’d eventually be okay. Not necessarily so with promicin. And putting aside any philosophical/metaphysical ramblings on the notion of death itself being the ultimate trip, the threshold to the next plateau of our development, I really didn’t want to be dead, at least not sooner than I had to be.

So in much the same way one fantasizes about the possibility of a chance, one-time tryst with a favorite, gorgeous movie star, I decided not to seek promicin out, but if a vial of it fell in my lap, I’d go for it.

Damn this lucky lap of mine.

After I got my hands on the promicin, I put it in my refrigerator for safe keeping, where it sat taunting me for a couple days:

“Inject the solution! Evolution!”

“No, Ted, you’ll be dead!”

(It can get pretty annoying when my conscience rhymes like that.)

I ordered a lot of take-out those couple of days, so I wouldn’t have to open the fridge so much, but I still knew it was there, illuminating my unseen milk and cold cuts with its greenish-yellow glow. After a late dinner on the third day, I decided to take the plunge.

I made a tight fist and rubbed some alcohol on the crook of my left elbow. I took the cap off the syringe, placed the needle against my skin and took a deep breath. Then I re-capped it. While I did get the general idea and was not exactly needle-phobic, I’d never actually stuck a hypo in myself. I usually turned my head the other way whenever I had blood drawn, and it wasn’t like I could just phone my doctor and ask him exactly how to get this non-FDA-approved juice from the syringe into my brain. So I spent 3 hours on the Internet, perusing medical (and a few not-so-medical) websites for the proper method of intravenous injection.

Left arm or right? Back of the hand, perhaps? I seemed to remember hearing good things about the veins between your toes, but that might’ve been one of those “non-medical” web sites, now that I thought about it. Should I swab with the over-the-counter 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol, or opt for the 95% “good stuff” they keep in the pharmacy? Did you know there’s a yeast called Candida albicans that lives all over the surface of your skin? Apparently getting too much of it in your bloodstream, as through an injection, can cause an infection known as “thrush.” Not to mention all the other nasty bugs floating in the air, which could cause full-on septicemia. Then there’s also phlebitis to contend with — a potentially nasty irritation of the vein caused by the needle and liquid itself. (By the way, in case you were wondering, these are the reasons death row inmates are given an alcohol swab before a lethal injection — just in case they get that call from the governor before the plunger goes down, then they can’t sue over a jab-site infection. Wonderful thing, that Internet.)

Of course, yeast infections and sore veins are kind of a moot point if I end up croaking the day after tomorrow. After scrolling to the bottom of what must have been my 653rd search engine hit on “intravenous injection,” I took the promicin out of the fridge and set it on the kitchen counter so it could warm to room temperature.

I ended up going with the median cubital vein in my left arm and the 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol I’ve had under my sink for months, pretty much the same as I was going to do the first time. I wrapped a bungee cord around my bicep, found the vein and pushed in the needle.

I can still take it out…it’s not too late. Yet.

I aspirated a little blood into the syringe to make sure I’d hit the vein, the sight of which made me a bit woozy, I have to admit. Then I pushed the plunger down, slowly. Damn, I’m glad I’ve only got to do this once.

I felt a bit of warmth in the crook of my elbow, but then, I was starting to feel a bit of warmth all over, actually. My ears were burning up. A large drop of sweat trickled down my brow. Was my heart pounding this hard before I put the needle in? I think so, but I can’t be sure.

Deep breath. It’s done. Through the looking glass, no turning back. Now, the waiting. That’s the hardest part, according to one of my favorite old songs, and I was about to discover the truth in those lyrics like never before.