Two weeks had passed without incident. On the baking afternoon of July 6th, Hector stooped over a frothing brew that smelled of moderately illegal substances. Pale light cascaded over the blank stone floor and walls. He enjoyed the feeling of cool air cascading over his skin- a rare feeling in the arid Mexican desert. The small adobe cube that Hector called home felt as hot as the surface of the sun in the summer, and today was no exception. The basement, filled with the tools of his drug-dealing trade, was the only cool spot in the house.

He moved past a small garden of “aromatic herbs” on the stainless steel counter and went by a weapons rack holding a shotgun and an AK-47 he had snagged off of an Afghan veteran-turned-arms dealer. In one corner of the tumble-down basement, just to the left of the leak in the ceiling and directly above the small television that (miraculously) still worked, he grabbed a small vial off a shelf. In the vial was the fern. The first thing Hector had noticed was the strangely smooth, shiny coating that seemed to envelop the entire plant. Hector knew every subspecies of plant for a hundred miles and had never seen anything like this. A search through the renowned and comprehensive Encyclopedia Psychedelica had been fruitless, and a quick surf on Google had revealed nothing except for a single post on an obscure botany forum. A user called “g0ttaChiHuaHua77” had written ten years ago that they had “found some weird plant in Mexico- pretty sure it’s called the Mexican infinity fern.” The post showed a grainy picture of what might have been the same plant. It had no replies and had apparently been “automatically closed due to lack of activity.” Great. Just peachy. Mexican infinity fern? Never heard of that.

His eyes scanned the sprout in its vial. It would be simple to cultivate and grow… and who knew what it could do? Hector smiled inwardly. A narcotic, perhaps? Hallucinogen? Maybe a stimulant?

Hector emptied the vial into his palm. Grease from the fern’s cobalt sheen rubbed off onto his fingers like warm butter onto fresh Thanksgiving rolls. The edges of the fern’s blade-like leaves seemed to shimmer and glow… No, Hector thought. It must be the lighting. The fern felt… odd. Cold, and dead- well, not quite “dead.” A mixture between dead and alive, perhaps?

Hector sniffed the plant. It smelled like the air just before a thunderstorm.

Preparing the injection medium was a complicated process and could take days. It would be a while until Hector could actually give the plant a “test run,” so to speak. For the time being, he would have to content himself with his other experiments.

Five days later, Hector considered the drug ready for a test run. He had been absorbed in his work of diluting, dissolving, blending, transplanting, growing, and processing in general. Finally, the hard work had paid off. The filmy blue liquid in the syringe he held was exactly the same color as the shiny, greasy plant. It hadn’t taken the whole plant to create the drug- only about a fourth of it. The rest he would cultivate and keep growing. A faint, sickly odor perched on the edge of his senses as he stared at the strange substance.

Hector was not averse to needles. A scar on his arm had been pierced so many times that he no longer felt the slight burst of pain attributed to intravenous chemical injection. As the cobalt fluid permeated his bloodstream, Hector felt an uncommon tingling sensation. An ethereal blue light danced at the edge of his vision.

Strange, he thought.
And then everything went black.

***

Hector awoke to a pounding noise coming from upstairs. He slowly opened his eyes- and then immediately shut them again. From his position on the concrete floor, the room around him seemed to spin and wobble. When he closed his eyes, an electric blue light flashed in his mind. Hector felt like a dirty sock in a washing machine- a dirty sock with extreme nausea and partial blindness. His face grated painfully across the cold stone floor of the basement.

The pounding continued. Indistinct words rushed unwelcome upon his ringing ears from somewhere above.

Staggering to his feet, Hector tripped up the stairs and tried not to look down. His vision warped and his head seemed to be occupying the same point in spacetime as a 75-pound dumbbell. Upstairs, there wasn’t much to speak of- a small kitchen, a bed, and a wooden desk on its last leg (figuratively) were about the only things to see. Sunlight and heat poured through open windows in the solid adobe wall. The door, a sad affair that was three parts rot and one part wood, threatened to cave in from the beating it was being given from someone outside.

“Open up! Hector? Are you in there, amigo?”

Hector recognized the voice as belonging to a good friend, Dante Fernandez. Something must be up for him to come all the way out here in this hot weather, thought Hector.

“Ay, Dante?” he croaked. “W-what do you want? I’m not feeling so well right now,”

“Ah, amigo, you are here!” The voice took on a tone of relief. “I thought you were sick, or dead, or on a business trip. Can I come in, please? Gosh! It is hot out here.”

Hector unbolted the door and swung it open. The sunlight blinded him momentarily. His vision started to warp again. Glancing away quickly, he welcomed his friend into the room. The door slammed and Hector looked up.

Dante Fernandez could best be likened to the long grasses that grew south of Hector’s house. His long, thin, sun-bronzed arms were almost as dark as his jet-black hair. His wardrobe consisted entirely of striped shirts and unintentionally ripped jeans. Apart from Dante, Hector didn’t have any real friends. He smiled apologetically. “Man, it’s really baking out there,” he offered.

Dante nodded. “I have something important to tell you,” he said.

Hector’s eyes widened. “What is it?”

“You know Flores? The drug-lord? Yeah, well, he invited us to his annual party again- it’s in four days. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner- I forgot.”

“Oh, yes, Flores’ party! Good, good. No problem. I can come. Assuming I’m feeling better.”

Dante smiled, proudly displaying his substantial lack of teeth. “Glad to hear it. See you there.”

Hector watched, head still aching, as Dante clambered into his tiny blue pickup truck and drove away. Flores’ party- that is important news indeed. Flores was a high-class drug tycoon, and each year he invited all his drug-dealer business partners to his mansion. Hector had only been there twice before, and each time he had been stunned by the luxurious manor. It was a time of feasting, playing cards, showing off new “creations,” and doing business as usual. Many of the men invited were arms dealers on the side- a very helpful supplement to their profession- and the few first-rate (and the many second-rate) firearms Hector had purchased off of various “businessmen” hung on the basement walls and in weapon racks. The only dangerous incident that he remembered was when one especially influenced guest had tried to shoot his opponent over a game of poker, and that had been quickly… remedied. One didn’t want to get on the bad side of the drug-dealing community. It would inevitably lead to… undesirable results.

Hector hoped he never did anything to displease men like Flores, especially at their own parties.

Hopefully… nothing would happen.