The Last D Suppository

The neon sign of the 24-hour pharmacy flickered like a dying heartbeat. Sarah checked her watch again—3:17 AM. She'd been running on fumes and corporate anxiety for three days straight, ever since the drop.

She wasn't a spy in the glamorous, martini-sipping sense. She was a 34-year-old data analyst for NaturePure Corp, tasked with infiltrating their competitor's supply chain. Her job: find out how Vitality Solutions was underselling them on the new vitamin D3 supplements. What she'd found instead was something that made her stomach turn.

The authentication app on her phone buzzed. Two-factor approval required. Her thumb hovered over the screen. The file she'd downloaded—labeled "VitaminD_Formulation_Final.xlsx"—contained something far more damning than competitive pricing. It was a ledger. Batch numbers, fake certificates of analysis, raw material sourced from unregulated facilities in Southeast Asia.

Old people were taking these. Cancer patients. People who trusted that little seal of quality on the bottle.

Sarah's phone buzzed again. Mark, her handler, probably wondering why she hadn't checked in. Six months ago, she would've called him immediately. Six months ago, she still believed this was just business—that corporate espionage was victimless, that everyone played dirty and nobody got hurt.

Then her mother started taking vitamin D supplements for osteoporosis.

The pharmacy door chimed. A teenager behind the counter looked half-asleep. Sarah approached slowly, the USB drive burning in her pocket like a coal. She could still forward the file to Mark. She'd get her bonus, maybe that promotion to Senior Analyst. She could finally afford the apartment in Logan Circle.

"Can I help you?" the teenager asked.

Sarah looked at the display behind him—rows of vitamins, supplements, protein powders. All of it packaged in bright, trustworthy colors. How many of these bottles were lies?

She pulled the drive from her pocket and placed it on the counter. Then she took out her phone, opened the secure messaging app, and typed three words:

I'm burning it.

Outside, she snapped the drive in half and dropped both pieces into a sewer grate. The morning was coming—she could see the sky shifting from black to that particular shade of gray that makes everything look like a photograph from the 1970s. She started walking toward the Metro, not knowing where she was going, only knowing she wasn't going back.