The Fugitive Chemist — a user’s manual showing the reasons why:
- Some corporate offices require bulletproof windows.
- Some chemistries are deadly after four centuries.
- High-level nepotism is dangerous.
When a disaffected chemist flees his employer with research on hallucinogenic agents buried for four centuries, Preston Charles must formulate a countering Reality-Check before the fugitive ignites a world war. Street people begin witnessing dragons and unicorns and European powers see illusions propelling them to the brink of nuclear conflict.
Preston is bedeviled by a ghost and a live assassin from his past. Airline pilots are afraid to fly. Truck drivers don’t deliver groceries to the stores. The world slows and stops. The White House erects a barricad and the local mayor demands Preston be jailed for inaction.
Preston’s sanity is rescued from the illusions by McCall, a bickering pelican only he can see. McCall has other virtues, however — he takes Preston on a journey to a place no man ever sees, his heart. Preston gains an outside chance of growing enough character to warrant a love-life.
Preston invents the needed Reality-Check. He is the first to test the cure and his creation blocks all illusions. But now he sees the world in black and white, truth or false, now or never. His new lady friend tries it with him. Can any love survive the truth?
Preston confronts the runaway chemist in a showdown where his allies consist of a five-time bank robber, a recently paroled roller derby queen, and his quarrelsome pelican.
