Boston Blues - BLACKBIRD book 2

5. antagonist

"What's this, Reg?"

Gillian looked up to meet Hank's frown, as his eyes moved over the toxicology report the Crime Lab had sent.

"That's what they found in the blood of the boy that jumped off the dorm roof three days ago. D'you know what it is?"

"Well, it's PCP, but..."

"Angel dust?" asked Fred, handing Gillian a steamy mug.

"Yeah, but not quite. It's been modified."

"Mind to elaborate for us mortals?" said Aldana.

It wasn't their case. Actually, it wasn't even a case, considering there was a video to prove the boy had committed suicide with an ecstatic smile on his face. But as soon as Tanya commented with the others that Gillian was interested in it, they were all at the office early next morning, ready to resume their duties and grateful to have something to do—other than channel-surfing and gaming online. Even Ron tried to join them, but both Laura and Gillian got so mad at him for even suggesting it, that he wisely settled for asking the team to keep him up, not willing to dare both his wife and his boss together.

So now the whole team minus Ron was at the office, and Kurt was so happy to have them around again that he even asked what music they wanted to hear.

Hank opened his mouth to answer Aldana's question and Gillian raised a hand.

"In English," she said.

So Hank waved for them to go to the meeting room. As they all sat around the table, he stood before the board with a marker and drew what pretended to be a neuron with exaggerated dendrites.

"Okay, I'm having nightmares," said Aldana, pointing her mug at the board. "Is that some kind of alien monster?"

Hank smirked. "It's a brain cell, dear, but I don't expect you to know what that is. And these," he added, pointing at the dendrites, "are the wires connecting them to each other. These wires, the dendrites, allow electric sparks to move around, and what allows those sparks to go around is called an NMDA receptor. PCP and all hallucinogenic drugs act like NMDA-receptor antagonists."

"They like to beat the crap outta that NM whatever," explained Fred.

"No need for violence. PCP is subtle," replied Hank, all in all taking their interruptions in the best of moods. "What they do is block the glutamate-binding site—which is like the plug of the brain electric circuits—so the sparks can't jump from neuron to neuron. That's why PCP was first used as an anesthetic. But blocking the NMDA receptors also causes a dissociative state, and that's the effect that PCP users—and abusers—seek: hallucinations and euphoria. The trick is that those effects may bring along their cousin: suicidal tendencies."

"And what's different about the tox screen?" asked Gillian.

"The chemical structure of the drug is slightly modified, tampered, to cause both anesthetic and euphoric effects at the same time. Meaning you feel like there's nothing you wouldn't dare, and at the same time you lose sense of your body. You feel basically like an almighty feather."

"And those were the boy's last words before jumping off the roof," muttered Gillian, nodding.

"T and I've been looking a little into it," said Kurt. "And we've found two more cases this month. One in New York, were a wannabe rockstar launched himself from a ten-story balcony during an all-out bender. The other one was in New Haven, where a girl jumped off her window—and survived, but ended up quadriplegic. She left a note saying it was time for her to fly."

"That's a Reo Speedwagon song," said Gillian.

"And that's pitch black humor," replied Fred.

"In both cases toxicology came positive for PCP," said Kurt.

Aldana summed it up. "So we have three PCP users trying to fly within the last weeks, all of them on the East Coast, from New York up to here."

"Kurt, get those tox screens. Hank, call your DEA buddies to see if they know anything about it. Fred, call Brian Hall in Vice to ask'im too. T, look for any overlap in social contacts of our three birds."

"D'you think there's a connection?" asked Aldana, as they all headed back to the main office.

Gillian shrugged. "I don't know, but we can always take a look."

"How's Connor?" asked Tanya.

Gillian grimaced. "Worried about his friend Mike. Trying to cope with how a seemingly harmless fun can end up going so wrong." She sighed, shaking her head. "Not easy, finding out so soon in life that you may not live forever."