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Andra is a university student studying computer engineering. One day, about four weeks before finals, she realizes her course load is absolutely insane and will overwhelm her before the semester is over. Half-panicked, she hunts down Brant, a guy she knew in high school who knows all about drugs. He hooks her up with a new drug he's discovered called indy. It's kind of like an amphetemine, but in addition to keeping a person awake and speeding them up, it also increases their mental acuity, making it a great study aid. Desperate as she is, Andra gives in and buys a month's supply of indy from the guy. It comes in disposable self-injecting tabs, like they used for morphine in World War II. Brant suggests that she take one tab a day thru finals.
Crazily enough, the drug works. Andra sleeps less, studies harder, and retains more knowledge than ever before. She's pretty thrilled by the results, but doesn't tell anyone, as Brant swore her to secrecy. Apparently the drug isn't exactly easy to get, and he doesn't want everyone asking about it. Unfortunately for Andra, her friends find out she's doing hard drugs to get thru her classes. They freak out, confiscate her supply of indy, and keep her under near 24/7 surveilance to make sure she's not doing anything crazy. It's for her own good, they explain. She's too smart to be a tweaker. Besides, that shit messes up your brain over time. That's all fine and good, however, because the effects don't exactly wear off. Even after weeks without the drug, she's still only sleeping 4 hours a day and studying like a fiend. Finals week finally rolls around. After one of her exams, Andra goes to the library to return a book. She convienently runs into Brant, who asks if the drug helped her any. She says it did, but her friends made her quit after about a week. Brant says he suspected as much. As they talk, he leads her down the deserted book shelves. Suddenly, he turns around, throws her against the shelves, and slaps a mega-dose of indy right into her neck. The drug hits her hard, and she falls to the floor, bleeding from the nose. Brant steps back to a safe distance and waits quietly. As Andra regains coherence, Brant explains what the drug ACTUALLY does. It breaks down the barriers in the mind that prevent humans from reaching their full potential. If everyone was working at 100%, they'd be capable of super-human feats. In some stressful situations, people actually "forget" that they have limitations, and that's how they can lift school buses and know when someone close to them is in trouble and whatnot. Indy permanently breaks the brain's barriers. It allows the user to use their full mental and physical capabilities -- basically, super strength, telepathy, and an extremely high pain tolerance. Usually, it's best to take the drug over time and slowly develop these skills, but in Andra's case, she just wasn't working fast enough. A sudden indy overdose could be deadly, but at this point, Brant figured she'd be able to handle it. Handle it she did. Even bleeding profusely from the nose and reeling from a sudden migrane headache, she manages to leap up and tackle Brant. Angrily, she demands to know why he did this to her. He's confused. Who WOULDN'T want super powers? She gets in his face, telling him it's not his place to hand out super powers -- especially not without asking first. He retorts that he figured she, of all the people he knows, would appreciate them most. She counter-retorts, asking him WHY she would ever need super powers. He says, hell, why NOT? Well, that's the stumper. She lets him go, and he brushes himself off nonchalantly. Noticing that she looks about ready to collapse, he suggests she go lie down and get some sleep. The sudden overdose of indy has probably fucked her system from here to next semester. He wanders off. She stumbles back to the dorms and sleeps. End of chapter. Quick Pre-Emptive FAQ: Why's the drug called "indy"? I'm not really sure. That's the name my brain assigned to it in the dream, so I'm guessing either there was a logical reason or I'm just a nutbar. I came up with a reason, tho. It makes the mind independant of its barriers. And it's spelled like the snowboard/skateboard trick because, uh... the dream spelled it that way. I'm not kidding. That's how detailed my dreams are. Will this be a full comic/story? Probably not. I just want to draw up a few pages as a personal challenge. I figure plotting out a fight scene with heavy dialogue set in a library corridor is gonna be pretty difficult, but if I can do it, I can do just about anything. :b What's with the names? I got 'em off the Baby Name Generator (link pending) by typing in words I thought described the characters and picking names off the suggestion list. How long's it going to take? Don't ask. But keep bugging me about it. The more I get bugged, the more likely I'll actually, you know, FINISH it. Got any pics? Yeah, I've got chara designs for Andra and Brant. |
