He turned and saw Mike, a friend he hadn’t seen in a few weeks. they went to the university together but rarely saw each other anymore. Mike had been calling his name, and he had recognized the voice "Hey!" ken replied.
"do you need the money too?" Ken asked
"oh yeah" Mike replied.
Ken got up out of his seat and walked past the three other guys in the room. Then he noticed them. One guy looked Hispanic and about the same age. Another guy, who was Caucasian, looked older, maybe in his thirties. And the third guy was a young kid, or at least Ken thought he was a kid, probably in his mid teens. 'no women' he thought... 'That’s a little odd'.
Ken sat down in a chair next to Mike. They started talking and Ken’s was distracted for a long while. He felt a little queasy sitting there, maybe a little light headed.
Soon after they had just started chatting the nurse at the main desk called them all up. She asked they all go into different rooms. She handed each guy a cup of water. "just wait in your rooms, the doctors will be out soon" she said.
Ken and Mike waved and went there separate ways. Ken got into the completely white medical room and hopped up on the high table in the middle of the room. Two doors on each side. Both solid wooden doors. The room was plain. Absolutely plain. There was nothing to interesting at all. A few dark cabinets and a sink on one side. And everything else painted white. It looked as sterile as any professional medical facility.
He waited for a few minutes without hearing a sound. Then the doorknob on the opposite door moved, and in walked the doctor. He was wearing a white lab coat. "Good good, nice to see you this morning" He said in a friendly tone.
"how old are you?"
"uh, 21" replied Ken
"weight?"
"one seventy two"
"ok... height?"
"five eleven"
"good, name?"
"Kenneth Byers"
"ok Kenneth, we are doing a little experiment today, and for your participation i need you to sigh on this line"
He pulled out a pen and Ken began to sign.
"Good, and here" Ken signed in a second line. 'I wonder if I should read this' he said to himself. So he did. It said nothing much. It seemed to say that he agrees to the testing and that he knew that is was experimental and that if he did not fulfil his own part, he would not get the money, and that he can file suit if there is any serious health problems as a result. "This looks good" he said.
"Indeed" Said the doctor, and then took the clipboard and put it on the counter.
"Ok, so today we are going to give you a small injection of PR 332" You will not told what this substance does, if it does anything at all. We expect to hear back from you in one week.
The doctor pulled out a needle "this will take just one second" And Ken winced as the needle went into his left shoulder. Then it was over... "Ok now I have just one more thing to give you" The doctor said. "Drink this, i know its strong, and that’s why you have the water. You don’t need to drink it all at once" The doctor handed him a cup with a dark liquid in it. Ken took his first sip.
It tasted awful, like the worse medicine imaginable. It was beyond bitter, but Kenneth decided to be quick about it and downed more than half of it in his first sip. Then he quickly gulped down some water to try and wash out the horrible flavor. Then again back to the dark medicine, he finished it off quickly, and then finished off the water too. He was glad the medicine was in a small amount, and he had water.
"Damn!" exclaimed Ken, "its awful!"
"don’t worry, the taste will go away soon enough" said the doctor. "ok, off you go now, report back here in one week. see you then" and the doctor was off.
Ken didn’t know what to say, so he walked out of the building, got in his car and left.
When Ken got back to his dorm he sat down in front of the TV. He was hungry. His shoulder was a little sore.
He soon warmed up some leftovers and inhaled them. He then felt very tired, and while watching TV, he managed to fall right to sleep...