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Chapter 3 - Lethal Chemistry

"Tell me what you know about scopolamine," Dr. Vance said twenty minutes later.

The room had been cleared. Nurse Chen had set up a continuous saline IV drip, hung a bag of sodium bicarbonate, and taped an array of fresh telemetry leads across my ribs. My heart rate had climbed slightly, hovering at a fragile forty-eight beats per minute.

"Scopolamine," I said, my voice clearer now as the IV fluids diluted the poison in my veins. "Hyoscine. Tropane alkaloid. Used in transdermal patches for motion sickness in microgram doses. In South America, it’s known as *burundanga*. Used by criminals to incapacitate victims because it causes intense suggestibility, anterograde amnesia, and motor paralysis."

Dr. Vance leaned against the stainless steel sink, holding a blue folder. "That’s the textbook definition. But you didn't ingest pure scopolamine."

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He pulled out a multi-page gas chromatography readout and held it where I could see the sharp, jagged peaks of the molecular breakdown.

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