EMR

Londoner Adam Jones is stuck in a dead end job; lives alone with his cat and spends his free time obsessing over the latest conspiracy theories on the Internet. Taking an experimental drug for his epilepsy, manufactured by the Pfenal corporation, Adam begins suffering from seizures, black outs and terrifying visions. When he wakes up in a hotel room in Mexico missing a kidney, Adam becomes convinced that he's unwittingly stumbled into the middle of a conspiracy. Drugged by mysterious paramedics, Adam finds himself back in his London flat. Just as he assumes it's just been a bad dream, the pain of a scar on his back serves to convince him that something dark and disturbing is indeed happening. Worse still, Adam's one friend at work, Tracey, informs him that he's been missing from work for a week and as a result he's been fired. He turns to his doctor, but she seems to be overly zealous in prescribing the drug company's medication. His only confidant is his beautiful and mysterious Internet correspondent, whom he knows by her screen name CyberBunnyLily and who lives in San Francisco. With his reality becoming more and more fractured, and unable to trust anyone - let alone himself - Adam sets about trying to uncover the truth about the mysterious drug company Pfenal. The transatlantic connection seems ever more prominent in solving the mystery. Will he escape his torment and be united with his beloved Lily, and if so, at what cost? Just as he finally feels that he is able to rid himself of the ordeal of his medication, Adam finds himself confronted by two of the drug company's agents. And the reality of his situation turns out to be worse than his wildest conspiratorial nightmares. EMR weaves together a host of urban myths: from kidney-stealing, and alien-abduction, to manipulative drug corporations, this is a paranoiac's wonderland that winds its way, Rubik's cube-like, to its climax.

Gateway | February 24, 2008

Tags:. .londoner. .begins. .result. .independent. .dream