He got back...

He got back to his room a few minutes later, his mind preoccupied with finding a way to get the information he needed. It ran through dozens of different ideas but each one came up short. His frustration as he entered the room was evident on his face. He shut the door harder than he needed to, the loud noise jolting him out of his storm of thoughts.

He found Alex, his lifelong best friend and roommate, staring at him with concern on his face. He had the phone up to his ear.

"I gotta go," Alex said to whoever he was on the phone with. He hung up and then turned to Darius. "Everything all right? You look pretty pissed off right now."

"Don't worry about it. Just got a lot on my mind." He sat down at his desk, his mind far away.

"Sounds serious. Did something happen with Anna? She she..." He stopped himself from saying the words "break up with you."

"No and quit bugging me. I said don't worry about it. I'll handle it on my own," he replied, practically growling with irritation. He gave Alex a sharp look which meant drop the subject. "If I need your help, I'll ask for it."

"Fine, fine." Alex held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help. You know, if you needed someone to talk to about it."

"No," Darius told him flatly, his voice edged with anger. "Like I said, if I need your help, I'll ask for it."

"Understood." Alex got out of his chair and hopped onto his bed. He eyed Darius casually, his face set into a mask of calm and patience.

Darius grew annoyed after a few minutes because Alex wouldn't stop staring at him with that irritating look on his face. Finally, he let out a frustrated sigh.

"Something else?" He asked the question even though he knew he was going to regret it. Alex was the oversharing type.

"As a matter of fact, there is." He abruptly dropped the joking-around attitude he'd had and his face got serious. "I just found out I've got my own problems and since you don't want to talk about yours, maybe you can help me with mine?"

"This can't wait? I've had a really shitty day." Darius wasn't sure why he asked that question. He already knew the answer. Alex was the sort to gladly let other people solve his problems for him.

"Not really. Unless you want me to drop out of college my senior year and die as a bum on the streets. If you do, then it can totally wait."

Alex was also overdramatic.

"Fine. What is it?" Darius rubbed the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache forming there. "And this better be as important as you seem to think it is."

"That was my mom on the phone," he started. "She lost her job. They laid her off and she can't find any work. Now she can't afford what she usually pays on my tuition. She was going to try anyways, but I told her not to. Apparently, last semester nearly bankrupted her. Now I have to find a way to come up with the rest or I don't graduate and the last four years have been for nothing."

"How much do you need?" Darius sat up when he heard this news, actually concerned. Alex had worked hard over the years to earn his degree and this wrinkle could prove disastrous for his friend's life goals.

"Well, since she already paid for this semester, I only have two left," Alex said. "I still need just under twenty grand for them, minus the money I get from my Pell Grants and loans."

He stared at Darius, hoping his friend had some brilliant insight into his predicament.

"Any extra jobs you can get?" Darius tried.

"Not unless I want to flunk out instead," Alex explained. "It's hard enough working two jobs and trying to maintain passing grades. If I tried to take on a third job, I might as well just call it quits."

"I'll call my parents," Darius told him, but Alex was already shaking his head no. Vigorously.

"Why not? They're loaded, they can afford it," Darius noted.

"Remember the last time I borrowed money from them?" Alex asked.

Darius smiled despite himself as he remembered what his parents made Alex do to pay them back.

"I had to clean every room in your house for a week, including all the bathrooms. Even yours, which, by the way, still gives me nightmares. I'm not putting myself in that position a second time. So thanks, but no thanks," Alex said with a slight shudder.

Darius let out a snort of laughter.

Alex tried to throw a book at him but missed.

They spent the next several moments trying to think of a way to get Alex the money he needed. They thought of several possible solutions, only to have each one be rejected for one reason or another. There was just no way they could come up with that kind of money in that short a time period. Alex was constantly running his hands through his hair, fighting the urge to pull it out in frustrated anger. He was about to give up when he spotted a simple white flyer on his desk with his other mail. It's design was very plain. All it had on it was a small paragraph followed by a single line in bold type. It read:

Looking for candidates for drug trial testing

Must be between the ages of 18-25

Male or female

You do not need a clean health record

If interested, contact Dr. Emil Tiberius at:

369-852-0147

Large Cash Payout:

$10,000 per candidate

"Well, this sounds promising." Alex re-read the flyer. "If I did this experimental testing thing then I'll have a little more than half the tuition I owe paid off in one shot. What do you think?"

He handed the flyer to Darius, who snatched it and started to read it for himself. After a moment, he looked up at Alex. He had an expression on his face that said, quite clearly, Alex was stupid for even considering an experimental drug test as a solution.

"Are you screwed up in the head?" He threw the flyer in the trash can beneath his desk. "You'd let some crackpot give you an untested drug that does God only knows what to you instead of cleaning my parents' house? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of."

"I have my pride, okay?" Alex reached into the trash can to pull the flyer back out. "If I do this and get the money, I can still have the same amount of time to devote to studying. If I have to get a new job then I won't be able to get good grades. If I don't get good grades, I won't be able to get a good job when I graduate. It's a balancing act. If one side gets too heavy, the whole thing falls apart."

"You're an idiot," Darius replied but Alex waved the comment aside as if it didn't matter. "What if you end up with some kind of weird rash? Or you grow a third hand? Or you come back and you're missing a kidney? I can keep going."

"Then I'll buy ointment, put the third hand to use, and I have two kidneys, so what if the second gets cut out of me. I'll live." Alex clearly wasn't backing down. "I know it's not a perfect solution but it's the best option at the moment. Besides, it's Dr. Tiberius. He's probably the world's smartest dude. Remember when he invented that plant food that made them grow to three times their size, three times as quickly. He's not your ordinary crackpot. The guy's a certified genius."

"Whatever, Alex." Darius sat down at his desk and started doing some homework. "Leave me out of this. I'm not taking part in this idiotic scheme of yours. Hope you survive it."

"You're always so negative," Alex retorted as he dialed the number on the paper. In a moment he was speaking with Dr. Tiberius himself. He took down Alex's information: his height, weight, ethnicity, sex, and other pertinent facts.

"You call me negative, I call myself realistic," Darius responded. He turned his back on Alex and focused again on his homework.

"I'm twenty-one." Alex answered the last question Dr. Tiberius asked.

He looked over at Darius before leaning forward a bit. He hunched over the phone and whispered, "Do you have room for one more test subject?"