The idea for this chapter came from two sources. One was the U.K. government banning fizzy drinks in school. The other was a brilliant story called Addiction of the mind by Dranzer Volcano. This story now seems to have vanished, which is a pity as it's where I got my idea about Anza from. Nice reviews make me update quicker.

Chapter 3

"Cola's a class A banned substances." Julia said, placing the file on the table, facing a kid with hair almost the same colour of her sash. "But then you'd know all about that wouldn't you Pickles?"

"I'm not my brother." He said. "And he's clean."

"We know that Dill." Alex said, sinking down, playing the classic good cop, bad cop. They played it like pros; Fillmore had to give them that.

"And we want to help you. So tell us where you got the stuff?"

"I didn't. I don't how it got in my bag."

"Like we've never heard that one before!" Julia observed. She glanced at Alex,

"What do you say? We let this pork chop stew for a while?"

"Sure thing." Alex said, getting to his feet. They weren't going far. Rules with Cola were you had to leave them, but you watched in case of overdose.

"What do you think?" asked Julia, pouring coca into mugs and passing them out. "He telling the truth?"

Alex shrugged. "Got none of the classic signs, shaking hands, sticky, irritability,"
"some of the hard cases don't show though." Julia observed, sighing. She took a sip of her coca, as Tommy came through the door.

"Hey," he said, "here to pay Dill's fine."

Fillmore's eyes rose as Julia replied, "'fraid I can't do that, Tommy."
"Oh come on Julie, I know my brother's got a rap sheet like the Anglo Saxon chronicle, but still..."

"He's the kid we busted brother?" asked Ingrid, regarding the dark haired spikes of Tommy, compared with the ginger cork screws of Dill.

"The name didn't give you a clue?" asked Alex.

"It's not a fine this time Tommy," Julia asked. At the same time, Tommy seemed to notice Alex for the first time. He was fastening labels with strings on to the bottles.

"No!" he said. "No way."

"They fell out of Dill's bag." Julia said gently. "I'm sorry Tommy."
Tommy was shaking,

"NO FREAKING WAY!" Tommy screamed. Before Julia could stop him, he had pushed back her into the interview room.

"What The Fuck Did You Think You Were Doing?" he bellowed.

"I didn't do anything." Dill replied calmly.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT STUFF CAN DO TO YOU?"

"Of course I do." Dill said, his eyes blazing. "You forget, I saw it firsthand."
"HOW COULD YOU BE SO FUCKING STUPID?"

"I wasn't." Dill said. "I'm not you!"

Tommy's hand went up and...

"Tommy!" Vallejo and Bernada were there, framed in the doorway. They stood for a moment, frozen in a strange tableau.

"Get out of here Pickles." She said, "Before I have to suspend you!"

Tommy turned and walked out.

Tommy stormed through the corridors, his heart pounding in his ears. His breathing came in gasps. He kept walking, until suddenly he hit a corridor as far away as possible from the Safety patrol. He balled his fist and punched the wall. He hit and hit again.

"Don't project your anger on to others," a voice made him turn. It was the black haired kid, he recognised from intros. Ana, Anxa, something like that. "Or in this case on to walls." He smiled and held out a cup of coca. "Relax its De-caf."

"Don't take it anyway." Tommy said, but he took the cup anyway.

The kid smiled.
"Joseph Anza."
"Tommy Pickles." Tommy said. "You a survivor too?"
Joseph nodded. "3 years clean. You?"
"1 year." He shrugged.

"What happened?"

"My parents were getting divorced, and I was a wreck. Turned to Cola to help." He shook his head. "I was sinking fast."
"So what happen?" Joseph asked. Tommy shrugged, pushing his spikes out of his eyes.

"I O.D.ed got found by my brother, passed out. 0.22 in my blood stream."
Joseph raised his eyebrows. Considering that 0.30 was fatal, that was high.

Tommy nodded. "What gave me the strength to get clean, was coming round in the shower and seeing Dill gazing at me, like I'd hit him? Poor kid needed me to be there for him and I was a wreck." He lifted his head, eyes full of determination. "I went to the nurse, attending the meetings and stayed clean." He sighed, "Which is why it'll kill me if Dill goes the same path."

Joseph nodded. "I've got a younger brother too. Know what it would do to me to see him there."

"So what happened to you?"
Joseph shrugged. "Similar. Parents getting a divorce, my brothers and me caught in the middle. Got the stage where I was getting though two bottles a day. I was on the patrol at the time.
"Pulling double shifts and reliant on the stuff to get though?" Tommy asked. Noticing Joseph's surprise, he added, "We used to see a lot of it at Y"

"Yeah." Joseph agreed. "I was up in New York then. Kept it up when we moved down here."
"So what got you clean?" Tommy asked, curious. Patroller's were notorious for been the most reluctant to quit.

"Bout a month after I got here, I was chasing a kid, suspect in a comic book ring. Chased him into the boy's bathroom and knocked him to the ground. It was as I was yanking him up to bring him in, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror." He shrugged. "Didn't like what I saw, so changed it."

They stood for a few seconds, fellow survivors of the pit gazing at each other in comradely.

It was about two seconds later that the screams began.

TBC