"Sean McMullen - Alone in His Chariot" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

amounts of TEFG. The less drug that you use, the less side effects."
For a moment Vuner considered intercranial administration for himself, but there was the problem of
having a hole bored in his skull. He wondered if an artery in the neck would be as good. "So what's it
they're mainlining into their heads?" he asked, then cursed his choice of words.
Warming to her specialty, Cottak missed the expression. "They've had Trophic Enhancement Factor,
Group 7. It's a type of memory enhancement and brain repair drug that affects the way neural pathways
make new connections. Earlier today two control rats ran this maze in a minute. The rats here were given
leupeptin, which degrades the activity of calpain in the neurons. A bit like amnesia."
"They're very slow," Vuner observed.
"But not as slow as the two rats in the maze on your left. They were given only leupeptin, no TEFG. After
nine minutes they are still only three levels from the start, and will probably never make it. The two here
are getting TEFG as well as the leupeptin, and they are right near the end - there goes one now. Nine
minutes and fifty seconds. Almost ten times longer than the controls, but it should not have been able to
get through at all."
Vuner helped as she clamped off the pipes and wrote down the times and dosages for each rat.
"Er, is TEFG-7 poisonous or anything?" he asked.
"Not any more than asprin. People could take it."
"What's it like to take?"
Cottak laughed. "The rats have said nothing, but if it feels good someone will ban it," she joked. Vuner
was very curious.
"You mean they get a bit high on it?" he ventured, unable to find more innocent words yet too interested
to waste the opportunity.
"Once again, how do you ask a rat? If a rat has TEFG by itself it becomes less active, it 'ponders', as we
call it. The level of brain activity is very high when they do that, so perhaps TEFG does give a pleasant
feeling as a side effect."
She disconnected the feed tubes from the rats, then took the bottles down. Vuner was careful to help,
and she gave him the tubes to wash while she took the bottles off to lock in the safe. With practiced
sleight of hand he drained the TEFG into a sample phial while pretending to wash the tubes.
That evening Vuner lay on his bed turning over the phial of TEFG in his fingers. Normally he only used
the laboratory facilities to make drugs for sale and to do his own experiments, yet here was a research
drug that was tested and safe. There was so little of it that he would have to mix it with a sterile base to
get a usable volume for his syringe. He thought about the rats with needles inserted directly to their
brains, then felt for the carotid artery in his neck. The idea repelled him, yet it seemed the only way to get
an effective dose. It hurt less than he had thought.
Vuner fancied himself as an explorer, and treated his trips on recreational drugs as exciting odysseys. He
was careful not to let himself become addicted to anything, and always forced himself to dry out, no
matter how bad the withdrawal symptoms were.
Minutes passed, then half an hour. Nothing seemed to have happened. He got up and went to the
window. Wisps of cloud glowed scarlet in the light of the setting sun. A feeling of nostalgia caressed him
like a puff of warm air. Sunset. Friends going out. Mum wants him to stay home and study. Become a
doctor. She'll show her husband she can bring up kids. Run off, will he? Sunset. Time to go out to the
cinema, not study! That's what sunset is all about. He put on a jacket and walked outside to the bus
stop.
The sound of a diesel engine approaching, diesel fumes as he boarded, counting out the right change,
flimsy scrap of ticket, roll it up tight and clean your fingernails with it. Lurch as the bus starts, swing down
into a seat using a handrail.
Big git in the seat behind. Know him. He'll be leaving school this year, thank God. Vuner had always
been shorter than average, and very thin. Always got bullied. Glad to leave school. Choose your own
company then. No more bullies crowding you. Sting, sharp and shocking as finger flicks earlobe from
behind. Inevitable. Again.