Runner's High
Create a medicine which lets people enjoy vigorous exercise. What could go wrong?
I slammed the brakes as the jogger ran out under the green light. He stared straight ahead, not noticing my screeching tires. I stopped barely clear as he ran past.
My head slammed into the backrest as the next car rear-ended me. I turned the engine off and got out. Burnt rubber attacked my nose. Honks and screeches announced the jogger crossing the other side of the street.
The guy who’d rear-ended me was out of his car, flipping the bird at the jogger. He turned to me. “Sorry about that. You okay, lady?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked at the back of my car. The reinforced bumper I’d had retrofitted a month ago didn’t look any the worse.
“Want my insurance info?”
“Nah, no big deal.”
“Hah! They got him!” he shouted.
I looked across the intersection. A beat cop had taken down the jogger. Even handcuffed he kept pumping his legs until the cop forced the ankle cuffs on.
“I hate this shit,” said the guy. “You know, I miss heroin? At least then they’d OD in their own place, not make us all trip over them. I hope whoever invented it goes to Hell.”
“I’m sure they will,” I answered. I’d decided we were damned years ago.
It was my fault more than anyone’s. I’d made the suggestion at a meeting of my research team.
Management had set us to imitating a competitor’s weight loss drug. That morning the news of lawsuits blaming it for seizures and migraines broke. Now our orders were to come up with something new.
“Can I suggest curing a disease or is that too radical for this crowd?” griped Bertie.
“The company has lots of teams working on that,” I snapped at her. “Somebody has to pay for it. That’s us.” I softened my voice. “Now, if you come up with something profitable, you can transfer to any one of them you like. If it makes enough profit you can even pick your own rare cancer to work on. Until then let’s do our jobs.”
“Sorry, Martha.”
“Let’s look at what works,” said Kevin. “Eat less, exercise more. That’s input and output. Working the input side is fighting our evolution. Time to focus on output.”
An hour of arguing how to safely increase metabolism just produced examples of lawsuits over negative side effects from previous attempts.
“What we really need is some way to make them exercise more,” muttered a scientist.
“A personal trainer in a pill?” said another.
“Some people like exercising.”
I said, “The runner’s high.”
Kevin laughed. “I did a five mile run once. Didn’t feel like any high I’ve ever been on. Hated every minute of it.” He slapped his pot belly. “I hate exercising. We all do.”
People shifted uncomfortably. None of us were as fat as Kevin, but we weren’t skinny either. I’d given up on losing the thirty pounds I’d put on since college. The current goal was to not have to replace any of the fancy outfits I bought when they promoted me to team lead.
“But some people do. The runner’s high is real,” I stated.
“Yes, there’s endorphins producing temporary euphoria. But it’s not a controllable effect,” said Kevin.
“Yet. Let’s get some marathoners, ultramarathoners, and study them until we understand it. Then we try to induce it. A pill that makes people enjoy jogging? We can all write our tickets.” I’d come into the meeting with the fear that a canceled project would ruin my career. Now I had hope again.
“Can we get marathoners to volunteer for this?” asked Bertie.
“Volunteer, hell. I’ll put them on salary. If Management wants a magic pill they can afford to pay for a dozen guinea pigs. Let’s write up a proposal.”
They approved twenty. The directors in the review board practically had dollar signs in their eyes when Kevin and I finished the presentation.
Hiring them was easy. Promising we’d schedule all work time around competitions meant more than the pay. Couldn’t get any of the Third World champions to come on board. Someone spread a rumor we planned to vampire their blood. I suspected it was a couple of the early hires saving spots for their friends but couldn’t prove it.
Two quit because they couldn’t stand the needles. I’d think someone who ran twenty miles in a day wouldn’t mind a pinprick. People are strange.
Treadmills made it harder to produce a high. There were environmental factors. Management coughed up more money for wireless brainwave sensors and vans to follow the runners along rural roads as they practiced.
Made for some amusing conversations with county deputies. Well, talking about it in the bar afterwards was funny.
Eventually we found it. Well, not it, them. A set of neurochemical triggers that would induce a high when the body was stressed. They were linked to different genes. Eighty percent of the population had at least one of them. Our test subjects all had at least four of the five.
We began animal testing. None of the five drug variants affected the lab rats. Since none of the rats died we were approved for higher level test. Some testing found thirty vervet monkeys with one of the trigger genes.
We split them into three groups and equipped their cages with exercise gear. Rope ladders, hamster wheels, treadmills, weighted levers. The dosages were ramped up slowly.
I went down to check on them the day after we upped it to two milligrams a day. Kevin and Bertie were already watching them.
“Looks to be working,” said Bertie. She didn’t sound happy.
“They’re each picking a course and sticking with it,” said Kevin. “Those three are making a train around the ladders.”
I followed the trio through their route. It was a figure eight, one loop on the ladders just under the ceiling, another going down, taking a horizontal ladder above the floor, and back up. “So what’s the problem?”
Neither answered at first.
“They’re not doing anything else,” offered Bertie. “No sleeping, no grooming, no mating. Just moving.”
A vervet in a hamster wheel leapt out, grabbed a fig from a bowl, and ate it in the wheel, running on three paws.
“We’ll see how they adjust,” I said. “The dosage was just upped. If they stay like this we can reduce it.”
We watched the frenetic monkeys some more.
Kevin blurted, “When we start human trials, I’m going to be a subject.”
Bertie and I looked at him.
“As chief scientist, I wouldn’t feel right giving someone a drug I wouldn’t take myself.”
I considered my answer. He knew damn well the FDA wouldn’t consider his experience valid test data. He’d also complained over beers one night that his wife was nagging him about the poor job he was doing of managing his diabetes.
“Not until Phase Two,” I said. “I don’t want you taken out by some nasty effect. I’ll need you to help analyze it if something happens.”
He nodded.
Lowering the dose to 1.5 milligrams gave us well-adjusted monkeys who ate and exercised a lot. The FDA cleared us for human trials. Marketing conducted a series of focus groups on potential names, settling on ‘Marathine.’
Phase One lasted a year. We found more marathoners, joggers, and others doing repetitive exercise. Marathine didn’t do anything to them as far as we could tell. No more of a runner’s high than they’d had before. No annoying side effects. No problems with compliance. They popped their pills, went running, and filled out their questionnaires. The FDA cleared us for Phase Two.
We found a hospital with a morbid obesity treatment program. Their IRB (Institutional Review Board, AKA the people who made sure we weren’t inflicting Mengele-like tortures on their patients) made an extensive series of demands. We complied. Management even sprang for a custom built swimming pool for the test subjects to exercise in. They were monitored 24/7. All diet and activity logged. Despite that we had plenty of volunteers.
The dosages were ramped up slowly. I didn’t want them to have the shock the monkeys did. They all had health issues separate from obesity which had brought them to the hospital. I wanted to be gentle with them. Still, they were exercising more than when the test started, so the drug was working.
The first one we lost was Kevin.
He’d been matching the test subject doses. The day we upped it to 1.2 milligrams I received a call at 10pm.
“Martha, did you call Kevin back into work?” It was Sophia, Kevin’s wife.
I answered, “No, I haven’t seen him since six.”
“He went out for a jog at eight on the dot. He’s been doing that for weeks. Run a mile, back in twenty minutes. Tonight he said he was going to run two miles. It’s been two hours and he’s not back yet. Should I call the police?”
“Yes. And if they don’t take you seriously, call me back.”
They didn’t. Half an hour later I was facing the night shift police sergeant. “A missing person report is no laughing matter, Sergeant Collins.”
The cop waved his hands in an attempt to be soothing. “Ma’am. Look. I didn’t want to say this to his wife but when a guy is jogging after dark it’s usually to go to a bar or a girlfriend. Sometimes they lose track of time.”
“Dr. Kevin Grady is neither an alcoholic nor an adulterer. He is the top scientist in a critical research program. I’m afraid he may have been exposed to experimental pharmaceuticals in the lab today. If I have to tell my managing director his best researcher is missing and no one is looking for him he will be upset. And I know he has the mayor’s home number.”
I don’t know if it was the threat of political pull or the vision of someone stoned on an unknown drug that pushed them into action. The patrol cars found nothing. The surveillance cameras did.
They let me into the control room to confirm it was him. “Yes,” I said. “That lime-green t-shirt is from the company picnic.”
The tech projected the sighting on a map. “He’s southward bound on Memorial Boulevard. This was over an hour ago. He’d been going four miles an hour for seven miles by then. Almost due south.”
Keyboard work brought more cameras onto the display. “If he kept that speed he should—yep. He’s keeping south on Memorial.”
“Where is he now?” I snapped.
“He reached the end of Memorial twenty minutes ago. There’s three cameras covering that intersection. And . . . he went into Lockston Nature Preserve,” said the tech. He froze, useless now that Kevin was in the unmonitored park.
“Send a car after him.”
“I can’t,” said the sergeant. “It’s out of my jurisdiction. That’s a state park. We’ll need to get a park ranger or some state troopers to go look for him. If he doesn’t turn around and come crawling home.”
“Hot pursuit!” I said.
The sergeant shook his head. “Jogging at night isn’t a crime, ma’am.”
“He’s a desk jockey with a brand new pair of running shoes who just ran eleven miles and is still going.”
“I understand your concern, ma’am. But that’s not a police matter. He’s running in a straight line. I’d suggest you follow him into the park and talk to him.”
Sophia met me at the park entrance with the biggest flashlights she could buy. We followed the likeliest paths. At three in the morning I sent her home and took a nap in my car.
The sun woke me. I called Sophia. Kevin hadn’t come home. The park rangers suggested calling for volunteers for a search line. Fifty employees came, including all the marathoners.
We found him a bit after ten. I reached the site just as the coroner’s team was about to bag him. He lay in the stream at the base of a cliff, about fifty feet high.
I looked at my park map and cursed. I’d followed that trail last night. It went straight up the hill then turned left along the cliff. Kevin must have hit the three foot high fence and gone over. I hadn’t looked down.
By the way his body shifted when they turned him over it hadn’t mattered. He must have been dead by the time he reached the water.
Even with the smashed cheekbone the smile on his face was terrifying. I heard Bertie swear. “Did you ever see him look that happy when he was alive?” she asked.
“A few times. Does Sophia know?”
“The Rangers sent someone. Glad I didn’t have to do it.”
The next one was one of the test subjects. I was watching the hospital staffers pull the body out of the pool when the FDA man arrived.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I can give you an initial impression, but this is all speculative until we complete a formal investigation,” I said.
He nodded.
“Subject Fourteen broke into the pharmacy last night. She swallowed nine milligrams of Marathine C, that’s six days of her current dosage. Then she smashed a window to get past the locked door to the pool. After swimming between sixty and ninety minutes she had a fatal heart attack. She’d been under treatment for coronary issues before the study.”
“Damn. How much had she lost?”
“Forty-three pounds. About fifteen percent of her starting body mass.”
“In only two months. Impressive.”
“It would be if, she was alive,” I said.
“Why the ramps?” he asked, waving at each end of the pool. “Is that to make it easier for them to get in?”
“No, they use the ladder on the side. The ramp is to keep them from banging their heads. Just padding the sides wasn’t enough. They’d bang their head on every lap, wind up with headaches and neck strain. Now if they don’t stop in time they slide out of the water.”
“That’s not actually what I came here for.”
“Oh?” I’d assumed the FDA had suborned some staff to slip them news on how the study was going.
“We need a favor. Off-the-record.” The FDA man looked nervous.
“We’re always happy to help out,” I lied.
“We need a thirty day supply of Marathine B. Off the books.”
I laughed. “That sounds like it ends with my lawyer explaining entrapment to the jury.”
“It’s nothing like that.”
He was slimmer than anyone on my team except the marathoners. It’s easier to fit gym time into your schedule working for the government than the private sector.
“It’s not for you,” I said. “Who?”
“I can’t say.”
“Then you can’t have any.”
“Look, it’s important.”
I shrugged.
“Dammit. It’s a senator, okay? We were giving a tour and this study came up. A week later the senator was back wanting some.”
“We’re still adding people to the study,” I offered.
“No good. It has to be secret.”
“If your senator ODs and has a heart attack it’ll be public. We don’t need that kind of grief.”
“I’ll take it directly to the senator’s personal physician. All your directions will be followed. It’ll be safe.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, we already promised we’d provide it. This is someone who could cut a tenth of our budget with a sneeze.”
Which meant it was one of the four senators who regularly showed up in the company lobbying report.
The FDA man continued, “Oh, since Subject Fourteen violated the experimental protocol, none of her data should be included in the study.”
“Which hotel are you staying at?”
“Hilton.”
“I’ll meet you in the bar at seven.”
The reports from the test subjects on what the drug felt like were too confused to be useful. We hadn’t picked them for communication ability. Bertie volunteered to give us a session report.
The company gym had an indoor track. I reserved it for our exclusive use. Bertie arrived with her lunch. I gave her the pill then secured the doors with bicycle locks while she put away two sandwiches.
Some cards helped pass the time while we waited for the Marathine to take effect. When the timer went off Bertie did some stretches then headed around the track at an easy jog.
It took two laps for Bertie to enjoy it. I could see the grin from across the track. She didn’t run off the track, just stayed in the inner lane.
After three hours I felt more tired than Bertie looked. I’d moved a chair to where I could see the whole track. Standing by the track to take a close look as she went by just worried me. Her expression didn’t change.
At four hours I stopped her. “Bertie, time to have a snack.” I took her arm to steer her toward the table.
“Just hand it to me, I’ll eat on the run.” She didn’t resist me, just jogged in place when I wouldn’t keep up with her pace.
“Take a quick break.”
“Okay, one more lap, then I’ll take a break.” She shook her arm, not really trying to break my grip.
“No, break now.”
“All right, all right.” She obediently sat in the chair. Bounced in the chair, really.
“Drink first.” She drained the bottle. “Now eat.” I pushed a sandwich at her.
A second bottle of water followed the sandwich. That was enough sitting to take her out of the high.
“Well, that beats hell out of THC,” Bertie said.
“What’s it like?” I asked.
“It’s not actually euphoria. Worries went away. But I felt a feeling of . . . accomplishment. You know that warm glow you get from an experiment that works, a good write-up, getting everything arranged just right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s that. Every step, every time I forced myself faster, felt like I’d submitted a paper or gotten good data.”
I felt relieved. “Well, good. That doesn’t sound very addictive.”
“I don’t know,” said Bertie. “We get that feeling in the lab. For someone who doesn’t have any other source of it they might want the pill for it.”
My boss dropped by my office with good news. “Kevin Grady’s widow settled out of court. We gave her five percent ownership of all patents resulting from his work.”
“That’s nice.”
“Nice? We should be popping champagne. What’s the matter?”
I paused before answering. “I’m wondering if we should scrap Marathine. The compulsive behavior it induces scares me.”
He sat in the comfy guest chair. “Impossible.”
“I’ve been looking at—”
“No. Yesterday it would have been a really hard sell. Today it’s impossible. We hand over an asset to settle a wrongful death claim then zero the value of the asset? Any jury would see that as proof of malice. We’d all wind up working for Sophia Grady. And she wants it on the market.”
Lots of people wanted it on the market. The FDA was feeling pressure to expedite our approvals faster than we asked for ourselves. The press reported on rumors of the “miracle pill.”
We were cleared on to Phase Three. Two thousand patients were signed up around the country. After losing Kevin, I made sure we had tight controls. Patients weren’t allowed to know where the drug was kept. Doctors needed to record each patient taking the pill. The exercise was in a facility we approved. No letting people run on the street. I was terrified we’d rack up a dozen accidental deaths like Kevin.
In the rigidly controlled environment, everyone did fine. Even Bertie started to think I was being a worrywart. Outsiders were demanding access. We prosecuted low-level employees who smuggled out pills. I kept the senator supplied through the FDA.
A standard Phase Three study is three years. That’s what ours was supposed to be. But politicians started leaning on the FDA. Maybe they’d noticed that Senator in his trim new outfits. The rumors had become solid news reports on our research. That had more people banging on the door. Billionaires were buying chunks of the company then demanding Investor Relations get them into the study.
We received FDA approval nineteen months into the study. We presented the results on the first eighteen months of data. The review committee sent it up for approval. FDA blessed it.
That’s not how they normally do business.
With the human studies wrapped up, Marketing picked out the three best looking test subjects who’d shed over half their weight. Management laid out for personal stylists and new wardrobes. The three went on the talk show circuit. Social media blew up.
The advertising budget was gutted to bolster getting the manufacturing up and running. We already had more demand than we could fill.
I fought for stringent rules for prescribing Marathine. Each pill had to be taken in the presence of a pharmacist, nurse, or doctor. All exercise had to be with a partner or supervisor not on the pill. No more than four hours of exercise a day. The FDA included them in the approval.
The problem was it was too popular.
My boss held up the latest Time magazine as he came in. “Congratulations, you’re famous.”
“Oh, shit,” I said.
He dropped it on the desk. My headshot was mixed in with a dozen actors and actresses under the headline. “THE HOLLYWOOD DRUG: A pill has the stars running and lifting all day.”
“Isn’t it awesome? I bet sales will triple next week.”
“They can’t. We’re not making enough. The full-scale plant is still in safety review.”
Boss looked smug. “Word is that’s going to be expedited.”
“The FDA doesn’t like us that much.”
“There’s a bunch of politicians who want to lose weight for their next campaign. We’ve been telling them, ‘Sorry, the East Coast’s allocation all went to obesity clinics.’ Now they’re building a fire under the FDA.”
“While Hollywood gets all it wants.”
“They pay more.”
The prescription rules weren’t followed. Doctors were making exceptions for favored patients. Users were making promises to comply with the exercise rules and breaking them. The joggers were the worst. Once they were in their high, they ran straight on like Kevin had. Traffic lights, moving cars, safety cones—they ignored everything. The health club types would keep lifting until they blew a blood vessel—hopefully in an arm or leg. Swimmers went until they passed out, then drowned. The bodies were stacking up, and no one cared.
Well, some cared. But no one cared enough.
The press fussed a bit. Enough that Marketing sent me out on a publicity tour to convince people it wasn’t our fault.
I’d do my best. But I couldn’t even convince myself.
“Have you ever watched my show?” asked George as the sound tech tried to attach the microphone to my jacket without getting in the way of the makeup artist.
“I watched a couple episodes after Marketing set this up,” I answered the host.
“That’s fine. I just want you to know what you’re getting into. We play rough but it’s just a show. Don’t be shy, don’t take any of it personally. Have fun.”
“Thanks.” I already regretted letting Marketing talk me into this.
The tech steered me to a seat at the round table. Every direction I looked there was a camera, ready to capture my worst side. Willy and Cindy greeted me like a long-lost friend.
Another tech signed the countdown to airtime.
“Welcome to the Shooting Range, I’m your host George Corso with Willy Tausig on the right and Cindy Miller on the left. Our guest tonight is Dr. Martha Goldman of Neurotechnic Pharmaceuticals, inventor of the exercise drug Marathine. Martha, could you explain Marathine for those in our audience unfamiliar with it?”
I’d pared down the elevator pitch as the media tour went on. “Some joggers feel a ‘runner’s high’ as they do marathon runs. Marathine uses that to make prolonged exercise pleasant instead of torture. All use must—”
“Aren’t you destroying the American character with this drug?” interrupted Willy. “Strengthening willpower is essential to building citizens who can contribute to national greatness. Sports and exercise are the best way to develop that. You’re taking that away and making our nation more corrupt than ever.”
I flinched at the bizarreness of the accusation but shot back. “Everyone can exercise on their own. We’re just offering an option to people who want some help.”
Cindy said, “But you’re not giving it to everyone. Just to the rich. You’re charging outrageous amounts for a pill that costs pennies and limiting it to those who have personal servants to tend them.”
“Any health club has exercise monitors available.” This one I was familiar with. “The cost of the pills has to cover all the research and testing for that drug, and for the ones that fail, and for drugs for rare diseases that won’t pay for themselves.”
“You don’t look like a Marathine user yourself.” It was Willy’s turn again. “Are you afraid of the side effects?”
“No. It just doesn’t work for me. I’m in the twenty percent of the population who don’t have any of the genes for Marathine receptors.”
Cindy lifted a sheet of paper from the table. “So you’re conveniently not at risk of dying like the dozens of Marathine users listed here.”
I grabbed the sheet out of her hand. The names were ones I recognized. “Every one of these people violated the directions for using the medication. Ibuprofen and aspirin kill people even when used properly. No one using Marathine according to directions has died from it. If you dumped out your purse every pill we’d see would be more dangerous than Marathine.”
George winked at me.
Reports to the FDA didn’t end just because the drug was in widespread use. That was “Phase Four.” Deaths from a drug were tracked. If the side effects were more severe than the studies expected, a drug could be withdrawn from the market.
Of course, the FDA looked at heart attacks and strokes as the side effects justifying yanking a drug. Car accidents and drownings were normally unrelated, not tracked. But Marathine was making people die in accidents.
I was doing the math. If it was bad enough, I might be tempted to destroy my career by calling for it to be taken off the market. Hell, given how popular it was I might be risking lynching if I asked for that. So far it looked like we were coming out ahead.
I didn’t know how to explain that to the FDA. All the important side effects were ones which didn’t fit in their models.
My office whiteboard was divided into two sections by a black line down the middle. The left side was headed ‘HEAVEN’ in green ink. Its counterpart was ‘HELL,’ in red. It’s where I was totaling up the impacts of Marathine for this year’s Phase Four report.
The Heaven side led off with the results of a study forecasting massive reductions in deaths from diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, etc. because of so many fewer obese patients. Next to it I’d written the much smaller actual reduction in deaths seen so far. But in fairness to the forecasters, that was something which took time to take effect.
The next line was the impact of canceling the hundreds of thousands of bariatric surgeries every year, with their associated deaths and complications.
Deaths from direct effects of Marathine led the Hell side. Overdoses. A bad reaction, possibly because of a contaminated counterfeit pill. A couple where the coroner had chosen to blame the drug for no reason I could extract from the autopsy report. Still just a single digit.
Below that was the thousands of people who’d died from exercise related accidents. Joggers run over. Weightlifters stroking out. Swimmers who’d passed out and drowned. There was an adjacent number for ‘quality adjusted life years’ lost to lesser incidents. People running until their tibia snapped, torn ligaments, and survivors of car accidents.
I wrote a red ‘500’ below that. It was a rough estimate of how many people had died in accidents when they chose to hit an abutment or another car instead of running over a jogger. I’m not sure they chose the best solution for the Trolley Problem.
There was a study I could put on the ‘Heaven’ side. Peer pressure from Marathine users was pushing other people to work out more, which would improve the health results listed above. It used statistics on gym memberships, running shoe sales, and such to justify the conclusion.
I didn’t add it. There was a rebuttal—not peer reviewed, but I’d read it—that the effect went away if there was more black market Marathine out there than the FDA’s official estimates.
The reduction in deaths from meth and cocaine did go on the Heaven side. Marathine was displacing those drugs, giving people the sense of power and accomplishment they craved. (Heroin and pot usage was unchanged. I guess people were using that for pain relief instead.)
Suicides were down. Not directly because of Marathine. There were users who’d take it for a year, realize it hadn’t solved their problems, and take the permanent way out. Not many, but it was a number I added to the Hell side.
The total suicide reduction seemed to be a tertiary effect of the drug. The demand for exercise monitors was so high it was even pulling the hardest core unemployed, disabled men, off the couch. They’d watch people at the health clubs, chase after joggers on scooters, sit on the side of the pool, and otherwise be there to force someone to stop exercising when necessary. The work was good for their health, mental and physical, which is why they were committing suicide less. I put that number on the Heaven side.
What else could I add? I was damned if I was going to include any impact from aesthetics, no matter how many people went on about it. However poetic they got, it was just a fancy version of that vile pick up artist’s line: “Turning fatties into hotties is worth any number of road pizzas.”
Running the total, I didn’t need to add anything more. Marathine was saving lives on net. Fewer people were dying. Average lifespan was up. We had, statistically, done good.
Would Saint Peter run a statistical total of my sins at the Pearly Gates?
I don’t know.
But I couldn’t justify asking for it to be taken off the market. Not that my views would matter. People wanted it too much. They were prepared to pay the price—and have other people pay the price.
I had my conclusion. It was time to write up the report. But first, lunch.
It was close enough to noon that the food trucks would still be outside. I took the elevator down and went out to the street. Three trucks were waiting. Sandwich? Tacos? Or fish and chips?
While I dithered a jogger ran down the sidewalk. He’d been running a while. His top was soaked with sweat. By the cords standing out in his neck and wrists, he was a regular runner.
“Dammit, Joey, stop!” That was a chubby guy with a long grey beard, pursuing the jogger on an electric scooter. He swerved around the food truck crowd and cut in front of the jogger.
The jogger slammed into his minder, bouncing back. He didn’t have enough mass to knock over the other guy. “Oh, c’mon, one more lap!”
“No. You already got away from me once.” The minder had a pair of handcuffs dangling from his left wrist. He hooked the open end over the jogger’s arm.
“Don’t! Don’t! If I stop, I’ll lose my high!” The jogger writhed, trying to escape.
The minder had a firm grip on the jogger with his other hand. “I know it sucks. But you’ve been running too long. It’s time to stop.”
“Let me go! Let me go!” The jogger started kicking.
I shook my head. A few years ago, people would’ve called the police to report a kidnapping. Now they all knew what was happening. Probably had seen it before.
A hard kick put the minder down on his knees, losing his grip on his client. The jogger was only held by the handcuff. He braced both legs to pull against it. The skinny hand pulled through the metal circle with bloody scrapes.
“I’m free!” The jogger turned and sprinted into the road.
“Joey, no!”
A furniture truck was coming. I closed my eyes. That didn’t keep me from hearing the sound of the impact. Brakes screeched as the truck stopped too late.
I could hear the grief in the minder’s voice as he cried, “You idiot! You God damned idiot!”
Marathine might be a benefit on net. But I was certain I was going to Hell.
More stories by Karl K. Gallagher are on Amazon and Audible.
Oh, that's a brilliantly ugly story. And all too plausible as a story of how such decisions are made.
Great pacing. I was engaged the whole time