Francisco didn’t understand the pretense of the old, green liquor bottle. Since he had agreed to this trial, Pete had behaved like he was Morpheus from the Matrix, administering some kind of epiphany from the milky green bottle. When Pete told him that he couldn’t do the drug trial himself because of company policy, Francisco had thought Pete’s explanation reasonable. Now he wondered if Pete had other reasons for not doing the trial himself. Why the strange meeting places to get the drug? Why the green bottle instead of the pharmaceutical bottle it must come in? Did Pete’s dad know there were potentially harmful side effects? Is that why he hadn’t allowed Pete to do the trial? And why the hell did he have to try the drug in different environments. Francisco knew there could be reasons. Maybe it was all part of a control group. He thought about trials where participants had been given placebos. What if the blackouts he experienced were an illness totally unrelated to the drug?

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