Dear Robert Farnsworth,

Thank you for participating in the Moletech, Inc. recreational pharmaceutical trial program. Enclosed is a sample capsule containing the most extraordinary substance ever devised by humankind, Methodiethylamide Quad-Phosphate (MDP); our product has already been exhaustively tested and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption. Your input on the effects of our product will help with advertising and product placement.

Please orally ingest the capsule along with an entire 12 oz. glass of drinking water, one hour prior to bedtime. Refer to the enclosed booklet should you have any further questions. Please visit our website at: WWW.Moletech/DreamProgrammers.ORG for a full explanation of biochemical reactions and contents of the product.

Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the experience of a lifetime in the comfort of your own bedä!

Sincerely,

William Sakamura, CEO Moletech, Inc.

 

 

 

Rob couldn’t help himself. His brother George, a bigwig at Moletech, told him of their new drug that was just about to come onto the market. Custom made dreams in a pill, as real as reality, or so he claimed. But the initial sale price was only affordable to about 2% of the people on the planet. Rob was about to write the idea off as yet another thing in life he would be denied for lack of a good job, when George mentioned the advertising research program: Free samples of the pill, and all you have to do is fill out a questionnaire afterward. Rob had George place him at the top of the list, and a month later his free packet from Moletech arrived in the mail, sample pill and instructions enclosed.

 

Being naturally cautious when trying anything new, Rob went to the website, read all of the information about MDP, and even did his own independent search. According to the FDA, it would be on the market in six to eight months, and that it was already approved for over-the-counter sale.

 

Rob couldn’t wait for bedtime. At about 4 pm he closed all of his shutters, dead-bolted his door, and unplugged the telephone. True, this was a sample of the drug and not a custom job, as the literature explained, but the effect was guaranteed to be “indescribably amazing”. He had already taken the pill just shy of an hour before, and was so excited he wondered how on earth he was going to fall asleep.

 

He sat up in his bed, looking over the various framed photographs on his bedroom walls, of his skydiving trips, base jumping from the empire state building, free climbing the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan, and even bearbaiting in Montana (not fun at all). He’d had some pretty vivid dreams in his life, as anybody has, but he couldn’t believe that a dream could compare with all of the crazy things he’d done in reality.

 

Despite his skepticism and his excitement, he soon began to drift. He could feel a blackness descending in waves, blurring his vision with each hit. Lightly at first, and then exponentially stronger, as if the pill contained some sort of sleeping aid, no doubt included for the very reason he thought he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. A black curtain covered his head, and time became imperceptible.

 

As routine an act as falling asleep can be, Rob was aware at every moment of his descent into slumber. The feeling of not feeling was indeed a heady delicacy, if it were possible to distinguish between the colors dancing in his eyes and the amorphous blobs of recognition casually drifting through his body. He knew for a second what was happening, but then forgot that he knew anything, and wondered what he was just thinking about. A century passed without incident.

 

But then he became aware of a bright white dot that had been there the whole time, maybe. It was the only stationary image amidst a cascading plume of colors, and he focused on it. As he stared, he became aware that it was a photograph the size of a pin head. He stared harder, and the surrounding colors were suddenly spooked, retreating into obscurity.

 

The dot suddenly rushed towards him at an inconceivable rate, doubling in size every second, until it was a planet, about to smash straight into him. He stared at it curiously, as it sped ominously towards him. But as swiftly as it began moving, it halted, hovering no more than a foot above his head. Rob realized that the ground had just fallen towards him and stopped just short of smashing through his comparatively miniscule frame, and that it was no scarier than watching the coolest movie he’d ever seen. With a perfect arch, the ground moved around his body, coming to rest under his feet, feeling as solid as Rob had become accustomed to expect from Terra Firma.

 

Rob then noticed that he was standing in the center of a stone dais, with columns encircling the perimeter. It reminded him of drawings he’d seen of the way Stonehenge was supposed to originally look, before the inevitable wear that was included in the package of existence. In between each column was a doorway with impossibly sparkly golden lettering that labeled what kind of dream was contained behind each door. One read: Beach (Not Available In Demo). Another was: Interplanetary Roller Coaster (Not Available In Demo). Damn, that sounded pretty cool. He scanned the various doors, all of which advertised tantalizing options, but were alas unavailable in this demo version of the drug. As he panned over the various doors, his eye was caught by a very powerful word, followed by the same notice of unavailability.

 

That word was Sex. Without thinking, he sprinted giddily for the door. He reached for the handle, but passed right through the portal to the outside of the circle of columns. The sign was serious, after all. No sex in demo mode.

 

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” yelled Rob, as he jumped up and down in adolescent frustration. He knew at that moment that he would have to rob a bank, or become a drug dealer, or better yet work his way up to CEO of Moletech. Whatever it took to get his hands on the full version of this drug, he would do it without hesitation.

 

As it turned out, there was only one door that was available with this version of the pill: Fantasy Hero(ine). After trying the Sex door one more time, he accepted his imaginary fate and proceeded towards the only available door. He twisted the doorknob and the door promptly vanished. A small room with three more doors waited behind it. With the same dazzling golden lettering, each door informed Rob of his choices. Lord Of All Wizards, Super Powered Do-gooder, and Gun-toting Anti-Hero.

 

Anti-hero it is, thought Rob. He entered his chosen door, prepared for some serious ass-kickin’.

 

My name is Robert Farnsworth, and I kill scum. My entire family was murdered before my eyes by the Cortez drug cartel. I swore to avenge them at any cost. After many years of intense physical and mental training, I returned to the filth-ridden city that I lovingly call home. Ya see, the newspapers have dubbed me “The Hammer of God”. I kill any piece of shit I see walking these streets, and there’re plenty to fill my schedule. Home sweet home.

 

After hunting around for awhile, I stumbled upon a snitch by the name of Snitchy. He gave me the lowdown on a big drug importer operating no more than a block from my new secret, mysterious headquarters, in the warehouse district. The operation was entirely too big for these punks not to be working with the Cortez people. I gave Snitchy a napalm enema for his trouble, and then I went home to get some party favors for these dirtbags.

 

My party kit consisted of a butterfly knife, a grenade belt, a Glock 9 on each ankle, two shoulder holsters with an Uzi and a silenced PPK pistol, a sawed-off shotgun slung around one shoulder, and my personal favorite: a Panzerschreck anti-tank RPG, just to get my point across. I suited up and took a look at myself in the mirror. I’ve gotta get more of these pills, for sure.

 

I had no trouble finding the target. I would have definitely found this place on my own, had I more time living in the area. I can smell the scum from across the street, perched here on the roof of the adjacent building. Using my night vision monoculars, I see that something big is about to go down. Five limos just pulled into the warehouse, all waved through by heavily armed guards. I wait for the cars to enter the building and the door to close. Time to take out the trash. The trash being the criminals I’m about to kill. This dream dialogue is pretty cheesy, fuck you.

“Say, Chico, chu know what I love bout bein’ a creemeenal?” said guard-punk #1.

 

“No, man, whatchu love bout bein’ a creemeenal?” said guard-punk #2.

 

“Shooting eennocent people, mayn. ‘Specially weemeen and ol’ people, mayn, thas fun.” Someone should have been fired for writing such shallow dialogue.

 

“Hey, punk!” I exclaimed from the darkness.

 

“Wha’s that, mayn?” said guard-punk #2.

 

“I’ll give you a hint: It’s sharp, illegal in forty-eight states, and it’s flying at your head” I say. Did I really just say that? That was awful. Awfully brilliant, that is. I throw my butterfly knife at the first scumbag and it lands squarely in his forehead. As he stumbles around awkwardly, he shoots his AK-47 off in every direction, hitting his scumbag friend in the head. With a light mist of blood and grey matter, they both go down.

 

“Next time, try to keep your mind on your job.” I say, now fully appreciating the one-liners that are coming to me more easily. I use the panzerschreck to take out the wall of the warehouse. Subtlety is not my forte; nor is not killing scum.

 

“I’m selling the Encyclopedia Bullettanica. Care to subscribe?” I witticise, as I step through the smoking debris all about me. I see a small group of men, all dressed immaculately. It will be a shame to ruin all of those fancy suits.

 

“Who the fuck is you!?” yelled a piece of scum dressed in fine Armani.

 

“I’m the repo man, and it’s time to collect.” Too cool, I think to myself.

 

“Nobody messes with Pimpin’ D. Pimp, the most pimpinest pimp that eva pimped!” exclaims a sharp looking man in a gigantic, fuzzy leopard print hat. Whoever wrote this dialogue should be shot.

Each of the men pulls out some sort of weapon, each more impossible to conceal than the last. One guy runs to the trunk of his limo and straps on a helmet with a missile launcher attached to the top of it. This is gonna be entertaining.

 

They all commence firing. I figure that they’ll expect me to run for cover, so I do the opposite, just to throw them off guard. Instead, I stand in the middle of the room and look mean. I’m a mean guy. I have a scar and everything. Despite the ridiculous barrage of gunfire, nobody manages to hit me, not even with a ricochet. I slowly walk forward, with a smirk on my face. The missile-helmet guy takes his shot, and my half of the building is reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds. The entire place is filled with smoke and debris.

 

In the ensuing calm, I listen to the triumphant yells of the scummy-scummersons across the room.

 

“Yeah, bitch! Now I’ma put yo momma on the street to make me some money!” yelled the Pimpy D. Pimp guy, whatever his name was. Bad move. Nobody talks about my momma. Unfazed by the missile that just exploded two feet away from me, I casually stroll up to him, hidden by the smoke, and pull a grenade off of my belt. I point my Uzi and begin shooting a hole in his chest cavity. Blood splatters in an entirely convenient way, so as not to soil my outfit. I pull the pin and stuff the grenade into his new chest-hole.

 

“WWW.BlownToPieces.You/HaHa” A little technical humor. He explodes into a liquid mass of blood and sinew. Standing directly in front of him, I naturally get none on me, except for a cool looking streak across my face.

 

I dispatch the rest of the punks with little effort, thanks to my trusty sawed-off shotgun. With each kill, I utter an increasingly cool one-liner, until I’m out of scum to kill and one-liners to spout off. Standing in the smoky, body-part ridden aftermath of my reign of terror, I see a form at the end of the room. It slowly walks toward me. It doesn’t look like scum, but I raise my shotgun, just in case I sense scum, and need to….. not not kill ….someone……who is resembling scum…… dammit, I can’t think of a good one-liner this time. The man is wearing a white suit, and has a certain ghostly unnaturalness to him, almost as if he were two-dimensional.

 

“Thank you for volunteering for the Moletech, Inc. recreational pharmaceutical trial program. Your demonstration has ended. Please fill out the questionnaire included in your introductory packet. Tell your friends about the amazing properties of MDP, and remember, “It’s the experience of a lifetime in the comfort of your own bed!”

 

Rob awoke with a start. He couldn’t believe that it was over, and that he had slept through the night. His clock radio read 5:06am. He held his head in his hands for a moment, unable to grasp how truly revolutionary these pills were going to be. He immediately knew that it didn’t matter if the drug contained no habit-forming side effects, as the literature had promised, because he was already hopelessly addicted. Life began and ended with these pills. All he could do was run to the phone and dial his brother, hoping that somehow he would be able to get more of them for Rob.