"You know, I did this on a hunch, but I gotta say— this is working better than I expected."
"Please, sir, I want to see my kids again…"
"Yap, yap, yap. You agree to this and sign the papers. Be joyful! Your kids will go to college, your wife won't have to work in a garden anymore."
I watched as the man in front of me bit his lips and shook his head in a defeated nod.
I watched from my chair, notebook open, pen resting against the margin. His vitals had been steady when the compound entered his system, but now they were spiking.
That was good data.
His skin began to distort almost immediately.
The surface lifted in small waves, rolling under the flesh like heat was trapped inside. I wrote that down. Temperature must have climbed rapidly—sweat would've made sense, but what formed on his skin wasn't sweat. It was thick, oily, clinging to him like resin.
Every few seconds, a new bubble rose and collapsed, then came back larger.
I checked the timer.
