God is Dead

Uber Magnitude

Chapter 2- Uber magnitude

Police Inspector Hektor Ghenes rushed in the lab with two junior officers behind him. He stopped by at a busy chemist sitting at the corner table near the centrifuge.

"Where's Dr. Dimayuga?" asked the inspector with his hands on his waist.

The masked chemist quickly picked up the name from the inspector's badge, dropped the test tube and pipette then pointed at the glass door behind them. "Must be urgent, sir? There's the doctor."

Ghenes turned about and easily sighted the busy doctor scribbling on her clipboard and working with several chemists and interns. Racks among racks of multi-colored test tubes were lined up on her table by her computer. Fortunately, she had the time to look up and caught Ghenes by sight through the lab logo etched glass.

"Thanks." uttered Ghenes at the chemist and went through the door. The staff at the lab were working suicidal shifts to catch up at finishing drug sample tests from police department from different branches. They couldn't even recognize their beds anymore, neither would they remember what day it was.

"Any progress, Lyn?" asked Ghenes.

Dr. Dimayuga peeled her purple latex gloves off and handed over the clipboard to the inspector with a sigh.

"It's our 3rd week. This is the 452nd case with similar chemical structure compared to sample results from our affiliated drug labs, hospitals and police stations all over the city including your branch, sir.

Ghenes squinted and drew the clipboard closer to his face with a sign of confusion.

"Pardon me, doc. uhh.. These figures, I don't seem to.. Mind to explain it to me in less scientific terms?"

The doc wore her glasses on and helped the poor inspector be enlightened at the paper.

"This percentage figure shows the similarity of the chemical compounds from the different samples. This table breaks down the chemical ratios by their compounds and basic elements. While in this page, this graph depicts the cases tally of patients confirmed positive of "Uberflak" submitted by different branches of labs."

"Uberflak?!" repeated Ghenes with a raspy voice.

"That's what the people call it. It's a modified cathonine type of drug. It's very much similar to a-pvp, but altered. I mean, there has been several alterations in a-pvp, that made it even deadlier to the user or anyone who came contact to it even with minute amount of it."

"Can you please dumb it down a little more? I'm struggling to catch up to the chemistry jargon."

"It's bath salt on steroids, sir. Samples from the recent blast sites were also confirmed positive with high concentrations of this thing."

"Bath salts? You mean flakka? How in the hell would that end up in this place? I thought we're battling methamphetamines and cocaine only."

"I really have no idea how it got here, sir. But this is by far the worst drug I have encountered with. This has done nasty burns in the respiratory tracts, large rashes all over the limbs and torso, abnormal fluctuations of blood pressure, body temp up to fatal levels, increased muscular hyperactivity, and delirium among patients. The behavioral changes are mostly violent and suicidal. Some reported severe paranoia. But here's what's far worse, cellular decay from the chemical modification. The human cells lose protection, slowly "decays" and then exposed to infection."

"All of them are this violent? So you're telling me the people exposed to this drug can potentially become a "zombie?" How in the hell do we cure them?"

"Not all, sir. But most of them. The drug reacts to the dominant emotional or psychological state of the patient. The current rehab centers holding uberflak patients have no idea of time frame for their recovery. But long term trauma, nerve damages, and severe psychosis caused by the post-detoxification side effects of this drug seems evident."