Love Potion

The medical community calls the condition: Intermittent Explosive Disorder. People afflicted with it suffer from sudden, uncontrollable bursts of rage. The disorder plays a frequent role in the violent crime rampant in our society.

General Boston psychiatrist Gabriel Schaeffer believes it can be treated by normalizing a brain chemical imbalance. He and his colleague, neuroscientist, Angela Chen, have found just such a treatment, an oxytocin derivative called OX312. Their drug triggers feelings of love and compassion, suppressing violent urges.

To recently incarcerated Aaron Sharpton, head of Boston's most notorious criminal gang, OX312 offers an escape from the violence that has dogged him his entire life.

To the profit-driven pharmaceutical industry, OX312 is a real-life "love potion," to be sold to buyers willing to overlook the ethical issue of chemically manipulating one's most personal and powerful emotions.

As for the CIA, the drug promises a means to pacify terrorists now that water boarding is banned. They send their best and most beautiful agent to deceive Schaeffer into giving up his OX312. Her mission is to get the drug, and if that requires taking his life...well, it's a small price to pay for what the Agency wants.