The Beam: Season Two by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant Page B

noting how everything in the universe really did repeat itself across different scales. But as far as existential thoughts went, it was rather disappointing, and Leo was forced to remember that his toe was tapping because he was jonesing.  
    Your body doesn’t need dust, he mentally whispered to his toe.  
    With effort, the tapping stilled. It was easy enough to stop once Leo’s mind remembered that the foot was within its control. The problem was that as with most drugs, Lunis was as psychologically addictive as it was physically addictive, and that while Leo was finding most of the physical symptoms of withdrawal to be controllable (despite the widespread belief that they should be killing him), the psychological ones were harder to wrestle. And still, the worst was yet to come.  
    Leo had been slowly weaning himself for a week, but seven days with less dust than his body wanted was just getting started. For now, his strategy was to wait a bit longer each time he got jittery then give himself less. He’d also experimented with taking small, regularly timed doses that kept him just below the edge of comfortable — never having enough in his blood for a true high, but never going cold enough to panic. In the end, the two approaches had worked out the same, so he’d avoided the approach requiring small regular doses because it was a pain in the ass. Leo was an old man. He had better things to do than be his own pharmacist.  
    His toe tapped back into movement. Leo made it stop. He had five minutes left, and then he could dose. In five minutes, he could relax. His willpower was growing stronger each day as his physical need steadily dimmed — progressing painfully, but progressing nonetheless. He had no idea how long it would take until he was totally clean, but he was determined to find out. He’d had a series of epiphanies and setbacks lately that had moved his sometimes-doubt about Lunis to the top of his to-do list. The Organa, he’d been forced to admit, were as dependent on the larger society as anyone as long as they nursed their unending need for dust. The problems and delays with Dominic and Omar had proved just how imprisoned the group was by the drug. The emergency shipment (delivered by a man Leo felt sure was an undercover NAU Protective Service agent) had put that particular statement in bold type. Then Dominic’s arrest had added capital letters, underlined it twice, surrounded it with a big red circle, and drawn a bunch of exclamation points. Despite pretending to live as isolationists, it turned out that Organa was like an appliance with a cord that could be unplugged at any moment. No matter how far outside of society they tried to remain, they would always be at someone else’s mercy as long as they needed a drug they couldn’t grow themselves.
    There was a knock at the door.  
    Leo didn’t answer immediately. His foot had become far too interesting. On the table across from him was a wind-up clock, equally awe-inspiring. It had a magic hand that circled one time each minute. Leo was eagerly anticipating another three loops. When that happened, he’d get to dose, and would finally feel so much better.  
    The knock repeated.  
    “Leo?”  
    “Hang on.” The clock’s magic hand circled. Watching required intense concentration. Whoever was at the door would have to wait.
    “Let me in, Leo.”  
    Who was that? Scooter?  
    Leo didn’t care enough to spend much thought on it. He held a tiny bag of moon rocks in his right hand and kept rolling the ball of his thumb across the plastic’s tiny protrusions. Soon, he’d get to set them under his tongue, and that simple ritual had become much more fascinating and less mundane than it had been two weeks ago. Now it was an event to be anticipated.  
    As he watched the clock and grew excited about his upcoming fix, part of Leo’s mind wondered if he was making things worse — if he was training himself to look forward to his highs as rewards