I had never been to the employee party that was held at The Adrenochrome on Sunday nights. Of course, Jacob always went, and he always invited me, and I always said no. As an employee I had an open invitation, so I think Jacob was just being friendly.

Finally, after being with the company for over three months, I decided I would actually go to one of these parties. And it was no small party, I mean the company had several hundred employees. This was not a small company. Employees were allowed to bring their spouses or significant others to the party. You could even bring friends as long as you put them on the guest list ahead of time. After what happened between me a Maggie, I didn’t have a significant other anymore and I didn’t have anyone I could put on the guest list that I didn’t already work with, so I just had to go myself.

Dominic didn’t usually goes of the Sunday parties. He liked to believe that by that point in the weekend he would already have some woman that he was banging. More often than not he did, but either way I wasn’t going to see him tonight. But that was okay. Jaz had agreed to meet up with me and we went to the club together. Compared to Friday nights the Sunday night employee party was a much more subdued affair. There was no DJ, although there was a sound system and people brought their own music. The smaller movable bars were gone and only the main restaurant bar was open to serve drinks.

And Jaz and I arrived I saw a lot of familiar faces, a few of my other coworkers, some of the security that had the day off, but I couldn’t find Jacob or Tammy and there was certainly no Frank.

You know, for a guy who went on about how much he loves this company, I rarely saw Frank at any of these events. Just that one time when he came here looking for me. The rest of the time I don’t know what Frank did since he lives separately someplace downtown. The fact that I had never been to his apartment was not lost on me, but Frank could be weird that way. I don’t think I’d ever been to his apartment when we lived in New York either. Yet somehow, we were good friends. At least I think we were.

Anyways, I was determined to find out just what was going on with this company and here I had the perfect opportunity with nothing but company people at a party where there were drinks. I started off by asking Jaz, but he didn’t seem to have the faintest clue what I was talking about. He had not heard anything about Mexico or Miami. As far as he knew everything was fine. His boss had never mentioned anything. I told him that was the problem. Nobody wanted talk about it.

He asked me how I knew anything about it. I told him, I heard it from Frank. He chalked that up to Frank being a more important person, so he was probably more in the know then the rest of us. Jaz did seem a little concerned by what I was telling him, but I’m not sure if he’s fully believe me. He figured that if something bad was about to happen, he would somehow know about it. How little he understood became acutely apparent. And so I drifted away from him so I could talk to some other people.

I found a group people who were huddled together talking in whispers. I started to ask if anyone knew what was going on, but they drew quiet and nobody wanted to talk. They all acted like they didn’t know what I was talking about. It went on like this for a while. I would talk to various people or groups of people, but most people either knew nothing or pretended like I knew nothing. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone.

Finally, I spotted Sherry. I didn’t think she came to these events. I didn’t see her at the restaurant or the two Friday nights I had been to, and nobody mention that she ever came here. I managed cornered her at the end of the bar. She had bags under her eyes, she looked nervous and she was drinking a double scotch. I ordered the same and slid up next to her.

“What’s going on Sherry?” I asked her point blank. It may have seemed like a friendly opener, but it wasn’t.

“Oh, hey JR!” She replied. She looked like she was about to jump out of her own skin. “Hey, how are you? How you liking the company? Are you enjoying your job?” She spoke rapidly and with a nervous pitch to it.

I ignored her questions. I responded with a question of my own. “What’s going on with Mexico and Miami?”

“Huh? What? Ah… what you mean? Why? Have you heard something?” She spat out another rapid series of questions as her reply. Her words were filled with anxious tension. Her eyes revealing an undercurrent of fear.

“I’ve been talking to Frank,” I explained. “He told me. We lost contact with Mexico weeks ago. And now we’ve lost contact with Miami? Come on now Sherry, you’re not stupid and neither am I. So what’s going on?”

“Well, whatever Frank has told you,” she replied. “I assure you, I don’t know anything more than that.”

“I thought you were someone important around here?” I questioned. She was trying to sell me her ignorance. I wasn’t buying it.

“What? Me?” She replied. She looked around nervously. She kept glancing at the door. “I’m not that important, I’m just spokesperson for the company. I’m not in the loop. I don’t know anything really!”

“Something tells me, that you’re not being wholly truthful about that,” I stated.

“Look, I would love to stay and chat with you, but I just saw someone that I really need to talk to,” she finished her drink and a single gulp and went to talk to a group people who looks surprised to see her.

Sherry was a dead end. She knew something, but I wasn’t going to get it out of her. I circulated around the room until I finally found Jaz. He was talking to Sheila of all people! I had never seen Sheila at one of these events at all. She claimed that her mythical boyfriend was using the restroom. Her and Jaz were standing and chatting over by the artwork. So I joined in. It turned out that Jaz was talking to her about Mexico and Miami.

“Isn’t that the most fucked up thing you’ve ever heard!?” Sheila exclaimed.

“So do you know what’s going on?” I asked her.

“Not really,” she replied honestly. “I only know what you guys know.”

“What?” I questioned. “About the lost contact with Mexico and now Miami?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the same rumors,” she replied but in a more conspiratorial hushed tone. “After Mexico, hardly anyone knew what was going on. But now after Miami, maybe it’s just me, but I’m seeing all kinds of strange shit go down! You know, like people whispering together, like it’s some sort of conspiracy. Like they don’t want the rest of us to know what’s going on! There trying to keep us in the dark JR!”

“Well, it’s working,” I said. Now Jaz was starting to look really worried. I think it was finally sinking in. It took that second person to tell him the same thing that I did before he really started to believe it. Especially when that second person was somebody he really liked, like Sheila.

“Well, I’ll tell you something,” Sheila said. “This is all starting to make me feel really nervous. That’s why came in here tonight. Normally I’m a homebody, you know, I don’t go out very much. But this is starting to spook me and I felt like I needed to get out and talk to people.”

The more she made statements like this, the more alarm Jaz seem to get, at least judging from his facial expressions.

“We need to find out what is going on,” I told them. “I just talked to Sherry. She knows something, but I can’t get it out of her. I thought she was going to jump out a window rather than talk to me!”

“Sherry knows something!?” Sheila questioned is surprise.

“I think she does,” I replied.

Sheila seem to get visibly mad. She squared her jaw and she said. “Well, if she does know what’s going on, that I’m getting it out of her,” Sheila stormed off to find Sherry.

I turned to Jaz and asked. “Have you seen Jacob? He is always asking me to these events, but I never went until now. I figured he must be here, but I haven’t seen him.”

Jaz just shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he’s up on the fifth floor.”

“Fifth floor?” I queried. “What would he be doing up there?”

“I don’t know,” Jaz replied. “I just know that he likes to go up there on Sunday evenings. You will probably find him in the break room.”

What the fuck!? I decided to go up there and see if I could find him.

Turns out Jaz was right. Jacob was on the fifth floor. Security in the lobby let me through without question, even though was a Sunday and we weren’t working. When I came into the break room, I saw Jacob and Tammy sitting together at one of the big round tables that was over by the southern windows. There was a line of tables that flank the windows but there was always one in particular that we always sat at as a group during our lunches and breaks. That was the very table with the two of them were sitting at now.

So, I went over to see what was going on. Jacob had just finished rolling a joint. He had a whole bag weed that was sitting there in front of him. Both of them already looked like they were pretty baked. But he was just sparking it up as I sat down next to him. He didn’t even flinch or look up to see who it might be. He already knew it was me.

“Nice of you to join us,” Jacob said to me. He was calm, cool, collected. He took a deep inhale of the joint he just started smoking and then handed out to me. “Why don’t you give this a try? It’s something new we been working on in the grow room.” He gave a ridiculous titter as he chocked on the exhale.

I thought what the hell, why not? Jacob was always working on something new or something different. A strain of this, a new breed of that, but all the new strains were pretty good. So I took a hit. The next thing I knew, the joint was almost completely gone and I was still holding onto it. And I remember looking at it and thinking what the hell!? This was a full joint just a few seconds ago, wasn’t it!? I looked over at Jacob. He and Tammy were laughing at me. I thought what the hell was so funny!?

“Don’t worry about a man,” Jacob said. He already had another joint rolled in his hand.

“What the fuck just happened!?” I didn’t understand, how could the whole joint be gone!? “I just took a drag of it, I swear!” I exclaimed. It was like the whole world had stuttered or something.

Jacob and Tammy were still both laughing at me. Jacob shook his head. “No man. You smoke the whole thing all right!”

“But all I remember is taking a drag?” I was floored.

“Experiencing some time dilation are we?” Jacob said in a spooky voice and chuckled. “Yeah, this stuff we’ve work on can do that to you. Feel like you have some missing time?”

I nodded.

“That’s just how good it is!” Jacob pointed out.

“What the fuck!?” I said as much to myself as to anybody else the table. I was startled see tracers and trails as if I was on acid. The peripheral world collapsed into a tunnel so that I can only see what I was exactly focusing on. Jacob’s laugh seemed daemonic. His face appeared as though it were melting then reassembling and then melting again, over and over again in an endless cycle. It was so crazy that I started thinking that he laced it was something. Was I on ecstasy again!? I didn’t think so. It didn’t feel quite the same. But I was hallucinating. I didn’t normally do that on pot, no matter how strong it was.

He had done something to it, I thought. He must have. But that all could have just been the paranoia kicking in. Maybe it really was weed, just some new strain that I’ve never experienced before. It felt like the world was spiraling out of control and I needed something to ground me. Then suddenly something did.

I was standing next to the window looking out into the darkness. How the hell did that happen!? I was sitting last I remember. Tammy was standing in front of me and she was holding onto my shoulders, gripping me as if she was keeping me from floating away into the atmosphere. And then she was kissing me. Was a deep passionate kiss and her lips were soft and moist. They were perfect and I sank into them like a drop disappearing into the ocean. We went on like this for God knows how long!

And then suddenly she was taking me by the hand and leading me somewhere. I looked all around, but could not see Jacob anywhere. I remember mirrors and a sink. Were we in the bathroom? I was losing sense of everything. Then suddenly I came rushing back to earth. Suddenly Tammy was down on her knees. She undid my pants. She took out my penis and began licking it with her tongue. She was amazing. It felt so good when she swallow me whole. She seemed to take immense pleasure and it, moaning, licking and swallowing. She purred like a kitten. I could feel it, her whole body was vibrating. Or maybe I was the one vibrating? I had no sense of where I ended and she began. And then there was a long-awaited and tremendous release.

After that I’m not exactly sure what happened. The rest of it was a blank. The next thing I remembered I was stumbling out of the elevator on to my floor. I looked around and fell to my knees. “Mother of God!” I whispered to myself. This can’t be happening!? This simply can’t be happening!? I looked around and the walls had changed color yet again. They had change from a blood red to deep purple and I knew that this was a really bad sign. Either I had completely lost my mind or something really bad was going to happen. Either way I was left lying there on the floor in a sobbing heap.

When I woke up the next day, I was lying in my bed with my clothes still on. My cell phone was going off and when I looked at the display it was Frank calling.

Frank sounded more panic that I’ve ever heard him. I’m coming into the office. Right now. My boss just called me and told me it was urgent.”

I checked my watch. It was seven thirty in the morning. The lab started work at nine, this was way too early. “What the hell is going on!?” I demanded. “Why you coming in to work so early?”

“JR,” Frank said in a serious tone. “We’ve just lost contact with the New York office.”

“Then we’re all fucked,” I stated and hung up. No that was wrong. I only said that in my head. Into the phone I said. “I will meet you in the lobby when you get here.”