EJ was the most dangerous drug that had ever been synthesized. In its first iteration, it was just a combination of the most pleasurable drugs. Later on, someone synthesized an actual molecule that accomplished all those things and more.

  It was a large molecule, so large that only a chemist tinker could have devised the original design and chemical process. But that one molecule was designed to cause pleasure in every part of the body.

  It wasn't addictive, at least not physically.

  But people who had tried the drug once could never live without it ever again. They found themselves constantly craving it, even without any physiological reactions.

  It was often described as the ultimate pleasure. It wasn't the best feeling humans could naturally achieve, it was beyond that. There were many chemicals within the human body that could cause pleasure, but none of them could be compared to EJ. It contained compounds that would cause unnatural pleasure, unachievable without the substance.

  You would feel fulfilled emotionally. You would feel like you'd achieve Nirvana. You would feel like everyone in the world loved you. You would feel like your whole body was orgasming. The feeling was entirely inexpressible. Every other pleasure in life, no matter how great, felt like suffering compared to EJ.

  It lived up to its namesake, Eternal Joy, taken straight from the Biblical description of Heaven.

  Most people who had a taste of EJ were prone to suicide if they couldn't get more. You'd hear news stories of the kindest individuals having had a taste and abandoning everyone they loved and everything they had just to get more of it. There were cults that were based around the drug. Some people believed that the drug was heaven and that everyone should be on it constantly.

  There was one singular treatment for the substance, but it was costly and dangerous. It was called Hell Juice, and it was the exact antithesis of EJ.

  The name was colloquial but fitting. Even in professional settings we called it Hell Juice.

  It was designed to prevent the subject from dying of shock while also firing every possible pain receptor within the human body and enhancing the experience as much as possible.

  That was why I shoved the syringe full of hell juice into the screaming man. The next several seconds were horrible. I had done this before, and I always did it with their consent, but how could you consent to this?

  How could you consent to torment, to horrible pain? You couldn't scream when you were on hell juice. It hurt too much. Existing hurt too much.

  I could see his brain patterns on the monitor. It always spiked. It looked like the whole mind was just blossoming with activity.

  On one hand, a part of me couldn't help but be amazed at modern medicine. The level of brain activity I was witnessing would make a seizure look like a calm nap. Everything was firing and not just in the mind but in the spinal cord, in the hands, and in the organs, everything was firing.

  He should have died due to shock. This should have effectively fried his nervous system, but it didn't. It should have caused some level of memory loss, but it wouldn't. Hell Juice, just like EJ, was designed to be a treatment. It prevented almost all of the negative physiological side effects that this much pain would normally cause. But I knew the man would remember, and when he woke up, he would be an entirely different person than when he went to sleep.

  It was effectively the worst kind of torture anyone could go through. A lot of hospitals didn't offer this treatment just because of the ethical dilemma this would bring. But this man had gone through every stage of treatment to get here, and who was I to tell him no?

  I looked over to the monitor watching his heartbeat faster and faster and faster and then watch it slow down as the compounds relaxed his pulse.

  The effect would only last about ninety seconds. One minute and thirty seconds of pain, and he would be better.

  It sounded almost minuscule.

  But the idea was to create so much pain and suffering that the regular act of living would be bearable again. It was a hard reset to the hedonic treadmill.

  Eventually, the man moved. It was just a flinch, then the tears came. Then the screaming. Multiple orderlies held the man down. He wasn't in pain anymore, at least not physically. The compound was designed to clear out almost immediately.

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  It was specially prepared right before consumption and would only last for about a hundred seconds.

  But the man screamed.

  There was something about hearing a grown man scream. There were no words, no pleading, just a primal, animalistic scream.

  It didn't even sound human.

  I knew from experience that his vocal cords would be messed up for about three weeks after this. I knew that he would scream until he couldn't and that he'd be fighting off the orderlies for at least half an hour.

  I knew he might go catatonic for a while, from a day to a week. I knew he would have to be monitored for suicidal activities for the duration of his stay and set up for psych evals after.

  And yet I knew he was better.

  That was a sacrifice for this job.

  EJ didn't create a physiological scar. While that might seem like a good thing, it was actually the opposite. We could cure addictions with physiological causes. Reliance on a single substance and a physical chemical dependency could be treated.

  Hell, I could treat that by myself with no equipment. I could rearrange his body and fix him in a matter of minutes. But I'd seen this before, and I knew that there was nothing I could do.

  But EJ was all in the head.

  There was no template for how the mind should be. There was no genetic code for consciousness. I couldn't reconstruct him into the person he used to be. I could only break down the person he was now so that he might grow to be something else.

  “Dr Parlow, should we give him the relaxers now?” One of the residents asked.

  He was new to the actual practice but talented enough.

  “No, it's too early. We have to give time for the memory to settle in, otherwise, there's a chance it won't have the desired effect.”

  I hated how cold my voice sounded. I sometimes wished I could cry and mourn. I had seen this a hundred times before and I'd probably see it another hundred more, and each time it was awful.

  But feelings were useless now. The only thing that was actually useful was logic. You learned that pretty early on in this field. I had once seen someone give relaxers too soon. The patient then went on to relapse on EJ and became unwilling to engage in treatment.

  With EJ, the trauma was the cure. And nobody would ever drink Hell Juice, fully knowing what it was.

  After a certain amount of time, we applied the relaxers. Then, after about an hour, I left the room. This wing specifically was reserved for EJ treatment, and every patient was either screaming in horror or silent for days on end.

  You'd pass by a room with a patient staring out into the distance, eyes dead, barely remembering to blink. Then you would pass by a room with a person screaming in horrible gibberish.

  Sometimes, you'd see them talking, eating, and walking if they were near the end of their stay. But you would never see them smiling.

  They would be set up for regular psych evals for the next six months and be put on hard antidepressants, and they would eventually get to baseline, but it was a long journey to recovery.

  I walked faster. That was my last patient of the day, after an hour or so of paperwork I went to my locker, gathered my stuff and drove home.

  Being a doctor was my day job. It paid well enough but that wasn't the reason I did it. Days like this almost made me forget why I did it. But everyone was trained on EJ treatment and regardless of your specialization you were bound to work a few shifts there one way or another.

  It was part of my obligations, at least in this hospital.

  I put on my AR glasses and opened up my blackline. I had numerous messages coming through, about thirty different responses. Some of them were from heroes but most of them came from vigilantes and villains.

  I sighed and started sorting through them. Of the villains, there were about five I was willing to heal. Of the vigilantes, there were about seven.

  Being a biomancer had its perks. If I had signed up with the Union or capitalized on my skills in the private sector, I could easily be making millions a year. But that wasn't why I did this.

  In a way it was a numbers game, just not with money. I wanted to fix as many people as I could. And the best access to that would be in a general hospital. Someone would come in for neck pain, and I would sense a tumorous mass in the leg and tell it to die before they even knew what hit them.

  I could ease pain and free people from chronic illnesses, and it lined up with my power’s requirements. You couldn't just go commanding flesh to do whatever you wanted. You had to know how it was supposed to work and only then could you control it in a way to induce healing.

  I was just about to close the black line account when one new request popped in.

  The Crow: Damaged nerve in left leg. No genetics or blood drawn, can you heal for $50,000?

  That was cheap. Many wishers avoid regular hospitals to prevent giving away their genetic material. If you lost any blood someone could look you up in the database and probably find your identity, if not your relatives. So healers who could fix somebody without drawing any blood were in high demand.

  And that was what I did.

  I looked him up real quick. It took me about three minutes to actually find an article that mentioned him, and even then they weren't sure if he was an actual vig or a made up story.

  But he wasn't involved in anything shady from what I could find, so I decided to add him to the list.

  Sure. I will set a specific time and location. Leave a window clear for Tuesday next week from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.