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He paused.

“They should just call it Guinea Pig. It’s anyone’s guess what’s in it, and what it’s going to do. So every time a user takes it, they’re turning themselves into a guinea pig. I heard someone, not exactly kindly, call them a new kind of reverse eugenics.”

She shook her head.

“Darwin’s survival of the fittest.”

He nodded, then added, “Cruel, but in many cases not entirely wrong. Their life expectancy is tragically short. I got lucky I got clean.”

“Where do they get these?”

“The better question might be, ‘Where can you not get these?’ They’re everywhere, because they’re legal. China, and increasingly Pakistan—they’re creating ones so fast that there’s not a scientific name for them.

“The DEA says there are more than a hundred and fifty thousand of these chemical manufacturing facilities in China alone. They also admit we’re not going to arrest or legislate our way out of this.”

Piper Ann was silent a long moment.

“Surreal,” she finally said.

“Yeah, surreal and worse. And so we have the free clinic. Like I said, one person one day at a time.”

—

Piper Ann Harrison reached over and turned off the radio in her Prius, and sighed heavily again. She had been listening to the news on WHYY, the public radio FM station, then pushed the button for the

University of Pennsylvania’s WXPN.

They were playing a music program of classic jazz. Coming from her speakers was the sound of John Coltrane on the saxophone. The horn was soothing, especially compared to the news that WHYY had been broadcasting about the rally in Strawberry Mansion.

The WHYY reporter had hesitated to call it a riot, but from her description of burning cars and mayhem, not to mention the shaky tone of the reporter’s voice, a riot was what it sounded like to Piper Ann. It all had made her very nervous, and gave her all the more reason to hurry and get the delivery of the sandwiches behind her.

Because of that disturbance, she had had to go out of her way to avoid that part of town. Every other time she had made the drive to Needle Park, she had gone down Lancaster Avenue, then taken Girard Avenue across the Schuylkill River and all the way into Fishtown, then cut up to Front Street to reach the park in Kensington.

But that route took her right past North Twenty-ninth Street.

Taking the expressway now had been frustrating—she really had hoped to already have been there and back—but decided the inconvenience was worth it to avoid the problems in Strawberry Mansion.

Piper Ann turned up the volume on the radio. John Coltrane’s horn, playing “My Favorite Things,” was almost hypnotizing. She dug in her purse and produced a cigarette and lighter.

After her first puff, she pushed the button that opened her sunroof. She could feel the bitter cold air, and tilted her head back to exhale the smoke out the opening.

Sooner I get this done, the sooner I can get home.

And the sooner I’ll be enjoying the warm Caribbean sun in Cuba.

She pressed harder on the accelerator, and the hum of the electric motor grew slightly louder as the seventy-four-horsepower gasoline engine kicked in with extra power.

Ten minutes later, she approached McPherson Park.

She saw that, despite the winter weather, the park was busy as usual, with many people milling around its center, near the Free Library.

Well, I feel better now that I came.

I can just leave the boxes of food up at the library, then take the empty thermos and head home.

Speeding up to make it through the changing traffic light at F Street, she suddenly heard through her open sunroof the sound of a male screaming.

She quickly turned off the radio.