The morning in the lab turned out to be fairly uncomfortable. The technicians drew blood, ran him through a grueling set of physical tests, all while monitoring different responses, and finally made him sit still for close an hour inside an MRI. He’d had one once before, and it did not take nearly this long.
By the time it was over, he was exhausted, sweaty, and not looking forward to returning like that to his desk job. They’d not warned him to bring a change of clothes. “Is this going to happen every time?” he asked grouchily to the technicians. “Just for the next couple of days,” one answered, unsympathetically.
A couple of days became a couple of weeks. Jonathan had disappeared and was never in his office when Henry went to see him. He grew frustrated, and considered asking his supervisor to go back to his normal job.
Then his paycheck arrived. Now, every two weeks, he was making an additional $300! He gasped when he saw it. Jonah, who happened to be walking by, stopped at the noise. “Everything alright?” he asked.
Henry smiled. “Very!” he exclaimed.
“They treating you alright over in R&D?” Jonah asked. He’d been trying to get more out of Henry since he started working, but so far Henry had managed to avoid answering anything overtly. “Quite well,” Henry answered. “Like a king, in fact.”
The next week Henry arrived in his new sporty two seater. He showed up extra early but parked in his usual space so that people could see his new car. With his trade in, he could afford to lease this car, and in four years trade in for a new one. He could also start eating out on a weekly basis. He fantasized about driving the cute weather girl from the TV around in his two seater, taking her to that nice Mexican food place Jonathan had taken him.
The grueling lab tests also stopped. For the time being they made him wear a couple of straps around his wrist and arms to monitor certain vital signs.
“This,” he mumbled to himself. “This is the good life.”
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