Launch: Chapter 27

  “So you feel guilty.   Right?  I mean that is what we’re talking about?”

  From Hugh’s home, the three had piled into a roadpod at the base of his building and had it drive them to one of the entertainment towers a short distance away.  After their roadpod docked into the tower’s main lobby they made their way into the elevators and up to the forty second floor.

  “I guess so…”  Markus hadn’t really thought about it in such blunt terms but it was true.  “I mean… I could certainly provide some moral support for Brakus with the company, but as far as business sense and knowing how to maintain it, let alone growing it… I can’t see how I would be able to do anything but get in the way.  When I worked with Mom after Dad died, I had every instinct wrong.  If it had been left to me to run instead of Brakus I would have driven it directly into the ground, and very quickly I suspect.”

  Markus was sitting in a royal blue chair which was very typical of the Cheshire Cat Lounge, which was to say, atypical.  The room was decorated with purple and pink irregular stripes along the walls, ceilings, floors and furnishings.  All of the walls and furniture were plush and felt velvety to the touch.  There were strange decorations as well, like the large stone face looking down on everyone from the ceiling, and the aerial war plane battle frozen in time, suspended from the ceiling with crafts included from every era of flight, even fictional space and air ships.  It was a rolling battle that went over their heads, from one end of the room to another.  As for Hugh and Lavinia, they was sitting on a couch that was made to look rather like an orca whale.

  Despite the superficial eccentricity of this particular establishment, it was in a larger sense typical of a certain kind of niche establishment which had emerged after the end of drug prohibition in Canada, and later throughout the whole New Commonwealth.  There were a number of substances which were strongly discouraged, but none were illegal.   When the market was opened up and false propaganda was no longer deemed necessary, it was found that given the choice, people tended to gravitate towards the safer substances, and away from the more dangerous ones.  Under prohibition, if people wanted to get intoxicated they would use whatever substances they could get, as opposed to making an informed decision about the most appropriate ones for them to use, and with the security of knowing exactly and precisely what products they were purchasing and ingesting.

  It was found that most of the worst problems associated with substance use, were due more to their illegality than anything to do with the substances themselves like improper manufacturing and dangerously imprecise dosing.  Between the Global Baseline, the end of drug prohibition, and a robust well-funded mental health system, problematic substance use became the exception.   It certainly still occurred, but the damage done was muted by earlier intervention and harm reduction strategies.

  Upon arriving, the three were presented with a purple and pink striped menu.  Available was a full food and drink menu, as well as an extensive list of intoxicants available with a description of their effects, potential side effects, length of effect, and what they do and don’t mix well with.  A number of the food items were prepared with certain substances included, while some other substances could be added to most of the normal food on the menu.  The people working in the bar had to be licensed by the New Commonwealth to ensure that they were appropriately versed in the dangers of the substances they were serving as well as the right questions to ask would be users beforehand, and these licenses were something which could be revoked for violations.

  Establishments like the Cheshire Cat Lounge were the product of an evolution of regulation.  After ending prohibition there were indeed problems, but each time one was identified a new prudent regulation was introduced to remedy that particular harmful effect.  One such was the requirement for security personnel in case of a physical incident, and somebody on duty with first aid training just in case.  The product of this evolution of regulation was a space where people could come to take substances safely while ensuring their own personal safety, as well as ensuring the safety of everyone else in the process.

  They were all greeted with large glasses of water as they sat down and when the server first came around Hugh had requested a particular cigar off their list after watching Lavinia light her first cigarette once they’d sat down.  When it arrived, he lit it and inhaled deeply, enjoying the flavour and the nicotine rush.  He knew from his genetic profiling and extensive experimentation, that he had virtually no predispositions to addiction at all.  As a result he was practically immune to nicotine addiction and this cigar was something he was able to indulge in only once or twice a year.  

  “Would it matter,” Hugh asked, “if staying could somehow help your mother’s condition?  I mean, your brother will figure out replacing her at the company.   No offence, but you’re not much help to him as far as running things goes… I mean you’ve certainly never really been the business type!  Besides… the harsh reality is that whether or not you stay… either way it can’t change your mother’s prognosis,” he grimly pointed out.  “I mean, obviously there’s no way you could help her medically.  I think what I’m getting at is that moral support… more specifically in-person moral support, as valuable as that may be compared to you know, moral support by laser comm, seems to be all that you could really provide to your brother and mother if you stayed… compared to leaving.”

  “You’re right of course… I mean that staying or going doesn’t change the ultimate outcome of anything… but isn’t that always true?  In every decision we ever make?  I mean if we’re going to talk about ultimate outcomes…  Yes she dies whether I stay or go… we all die in the end no matter what choices we make… but my staying would mean a lot to her in the time she has left.”

  “Of course.  Of course it would.” Hugh acknowledged.  Their server came back to ask if they’d had a chance to look at the menu.  The young man was thin, brown skinned, and friendly.   Servers like him at clubs like the Cheshire Cat Lounge were modern day shamans, extensively informed about every drug they offered in both physiological and subjective effects, as well as their toxicity and safe dosage.  They were also expected to have a certain degree of clinical psychology training since often times when people felt the need for an intoxication it was for all the wrong reasons, and what they really needed was just someone to talk to and help them figure out solutions to the challenges they were facing in their life.   When appropriate, their training also allowed them to help their patrons engage in modern day vision quests where they took heavy psychedelics under their server’s close supervision and guiding influence.

   “I don’t need to look,” Lavinia declared.  “I want the THC lollipop.”

  “Of course, and what flavour madam?”

  “Cherry.”

  “Wonderful.  And you sirs?”

  “Beer please, I’ll have the um… Okanagan Springs 1516 please,” Markus ordered.

  “The same for me please,” Hugh asked, “a beer as well.”

  “Perfect.  I’ll be right back and with some more water for you as well.”

  “What happened to you two?” Lavinia said to them with a feigned look of disgust.  “I remember you in your heyday!”  She was just trying to lighten the mood.

   

  While there was a plethora of synthetic intoxicants available (each with their appropriate time and place for an enthusiast), alcohol and cannabis remained the far and away favourite intoxicants of society.  There was something special about substances like alcohol, which humans had been perfecting for more than six thousand years, much like how modern cannabis was the product of many centuries of selective breeding.

  Human cultures have spent centuries refining these substances to maximize their desired effects, and minimize the harmful ones.  Yes there were many synthetic intoxicants available in the Cheshire Cat Lounge, but most of the time for Markus and the wide majority of other people, the traditional intoxicants remained the most popular.  This preference didn’t exist out of any particular bias towards the semi-natural versus the synthetic, but was instead due almost exclusively to these substances’ prevalence in the culture due to tradition and heavy advertising.   Synthetic intoxicants were used primarily for specific boutique effects which were different from those possible with alcohol or cannabis.

  The end of the era of substance prohibition also had profound impacts in the psychiatric fields, and a new era in psychopharmacology was realized.  Since no substances were explicitly illegal anymore, this opened up the field to experimental use of certain formerly illicit drugs for psychological treatment applications.  For example, on several occasions when Markus was in the throes of a particularly pernicious bout of depression, his psychiatrist had suggested that he try in a controlled way, a substance known as MDMA.

  It certainly didn’t solve his depression by itself or in any permanent way, but in using it as clinically directed, it allowed him to more openly pursue social interactions, to be more emotionally receptive, and to build up his sense of social connectedness.   This helped bring him out of his depressed state because his depression was wrapped up in feelings of loneliness and unloveability, which made him pull away from all social interactions in a downward spiral.  Appropriate use of the drug allowed him in a sense to jump start his sociability.

  Likewise Hugh had benefitted greatly from the use of psychedelics in guided therapy when coming to terms with his family’s abandonment.  It was very important to him being able to successfully excavate the psychological substructure of his religious indoctrination.  The increased suggestibility of the state he was put in allowed him to tackle painful elements of his psyche which his normally functioning brain would so effectively and efficiently forbid him from addressing.  The places he could go under the influence of psychadelics and with the guidance of his psychiatrist, were places that his normal mind would avoid like trying to push together two magnet ends of the same polarity.

  “I’m sorry about your mother Markus…” Lavinia continued, “but I’m with Hugh here.  I suggest you let your rational side make this choice.  Emotion will just cloud the issue.  Give yourself license to be honest with yourself about the reality of your situation… you should embrace the fact that nothing of consequence can be changed by giving in to your guilt and staying behind.  You’ve said it yourself, your rational brain knows better than your emotional brain, especially if it takes what that emotional brain is telling it into consideration.”

  The server returned with their order as well as fresh water for all of them.  They thanked him and he disappeared again into the ether.   Lavinia unwrapped her spherical red lollipop and popped it in her mouth.  Markus took an initial sip of his beer while Hugh puffed at his cigar.

  “So do you think that guilt should always be ignored then?”   Markus asked thoughtfully.

  “Oh certainly not!” she cried, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth.  She then used it like a wand to illustrate her points in the air.   “Emotions are… valuable indicators of what matters to us.  To ignore altogether what our emotions tell us would be foolhardy at best.  You just have to appreciate where they come from and that they can only provide simple messages.  I merely suggest that no deeper mysterious meanings should be ascribed to them.”   She put the lollipop back in her mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully for a few moments before continuing.  “Whatever emotional state you find yourself in, it is important to recognize and understand what created that state within you in order to react to it wisely.  Clearly you have some sort of problem, some… conflict which demands address.   Wisdom is in part about being able to welcome all sources of insight both emotional and rational, and the ability to be honest with yourself in weighing the two against each other.

  “Likewise,” she continued, “in your situation it is important to understand the genesis of your guilt so that you can appreciate that it is in this particular case not informative since you can’t change the outcome either way.  Your mammalian brain may not be smart enough to know it, but your sapient brain is.  If you were about to leave, but staying could somehow buy your mother another… ten or twenty years, well then it would be a more accurate response.  Then it would certainly be irrational to ignore those feelings.  But that’s not the case here, is it?”

  The three absorbed these words for a while as Markus sipped his beer, Hugh puffed at his cigar, and Lavinia worked on her lollipop.  Pretty soon she’d have to put it down to light a fresh cigarette though.   Fortunately ventilation wasn’t a problem; the entire lounge was constructed in such a way that the air in the lounge was continually being replaced with fresh air.  It was a gentle enough current that it was hardly noticeable, but it was strong enough that no smoke had any chance to linger.

  “You’re right.  If that were the case, I’d probably have to stay…”