Chapter 2

“I can’t do it,” Justin announced as he stared at the vials laid out on the table. There were six of them, all labeled with their initials, making two apiece for each of them.

“You don’t have to drink the water,” Noah retorted. “You fill the water pitcher ... dump in the jizz ... and give everybody a glass full at supper—like normal.”

“Yeah, but my mom and dad and everyone else will drink it!”

“So—it only works on Nina, remember?”

“I’m not doing it!” Justin insisted.

“Well then I’m not!” Noah countered. “You can kiss dreams of having Machelle as your lap dog good buy!”

“Fuck,” Justin growled as he pictured Noah’s younger sister naked and waiting willingly for him. “Maybe,” he said with a big exhale.

“You won’t do it,” Noah declared with a mean look at his friend.

“We’ll do it one by one then,” Pete announced. “We can roll dice to see who goes first—the others will watch as he does it!”

“I don’t want to be first,” Justin announced with arms crossed.

“You fucking started this!” Noah exclaimed.

“I’ll go first if you want,” Pete told them. “Now, which vial is for which girl?”

They all stared at the vials for a moment, realizing suddenly that the girl’s initials weren’t on them, just theirs. A mad scramble then took place as all three grabbed vial after vial, passing them off to each other as they tried to solve this puzzle. Clearly some information was missing.

“I guess we have to give a little to all of them, right?” Pete asked as he glanced around with a confused look on his face.

“No, just two of them, right?” Justin replied as he felt himself starting to sweat.

“I don’t know,” Noah replied skeptically. “I don’t trust these letters ... you can hardly make them out. I think they used the same labels we put on them!”

“Fuck!” Justin said in frustration.

“It’s ok...” Pete insisted, “ ... we’ll give ever girl a drop from all six vials. That will work!”

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Justin sat silently as he watched Pete carefully manipulate members of his family. He had cringed when Pete had put a drop from each of the six vials into the pitcher of juice he had prepared. Noah also was watching this in complete silence, which was saying something as Noah rarely stopped talking.

“Try the juice,” Pete said to his sisters, who were lounging in another room, staring at their cellphones. “It’s good!”

The three looked at each other guiltily as first Sarah came in, followed closely by Lisa, both of whom were younger than Pete. The two poured themselves a small glass and began sipping it as they looked at the three boys curiously for a moment before walking off. As soon as they were gone, Pete moved in to grab the tray and take it with him into the kitchen.

“I think we should wait,” Justin said softly to Noah while Pete was out of the room.

“Yeah, who knows what will happen,” Noah replied with a worried look.

“It supposed to take up to two weeks to kick in,” Justin reminded his friend. “Hope ours don’t die before that.”

“Oh, fuck,” Noah exclaimed softly. “Then we can’t wait!”

Justin leaned back on the couch and ran his fingers through his hair as he began to worry Noah was right. The virus was supposed to be kept cool, according to the website and to be used immediately. The weather hadn’t been too hot since they had ordered the stuff, which made him think they were ok from that standpoint, but to wait longer seemed foolish. They’d been lucky to get this far, which he knew had only happened after they’d gotten a referral code from Wendel. Without it, supposedly they would have found this testing phase of M-V closed to all of them.

“How did Wendel get into phase two?” Justin asked as Pete came walking back.

“Luck he says,” Pete replied. “An exchange student from Russia gave him his referral code.”

“Ha, Russians!” Noah scoffed.

“Who’s going next?” Pete asked excitedly, getting a shrug from both Justin and Noah.

“Soless took it willingly,” Justin said with a guilty look. “I don’t know if I can follow through.”

“Then your next!” Pete announced as he held out a hand to Justin, who reluctantly accepted it, letting Pete pull him to his feet. “You can’t leave me alone in this bro!”

“Yeah,” Justin said with a weak smile as they left Pete’s house. The walk to his house wasn’t far and was made in near silence, giving him way too long to think about the dastardly thing he was about to do. What if it really worked, he kept asking himself. His sister would hate him, wouldn’t she?

“It won’t work ... it’s just for fun!” Noah exclaimed when he apparently saw the look on his friend’s face.

“Yeah, I know,” Justin replied. “Fun though, huh?”

“Fuck yeah!”

Feeling a sense of relief now at convincing himself that M-V wasn’t for real, he began scheming to get his sister Nina to drink something laced with whatever was in the vials. He decided on cream soda and orange juice after he glanced at the liquor cabinet in the kitchen on his way to his bedroom, reminding himself that actual alcohol would kill the virus. Fortunately, his parents weren’t home, but Nina was, and there was orange juice in the refrigerator.