Wine, Anyone?

 Prompt: A substance which generates ideas, a spy, 1 minute.

There were few things that irritated the spy more than uninvited guests. For the purposes of this story, let’s call them Vin. Living undercover alone meant that they needed to interact with civilians and regular folks to avoid attracting unwanted attention. However, like most experienced spies, they have few authentic connections with the real world and tend to forget that people are often unpredictable. Their tech supplier had provided them with an inconspicuous-looking bottle of wine that did not contain wine at all. Well, it tasted somewhat like a white wine on the sour side but was in fact the most recently developed FX Serum which allegedly stimulated the frontal cortex to encourage creativity—hence the name. The spy’s job was to test the serum and report back, but as they were about to open the bottle, the doorbell had rung.

The next-door neighbours were now sitting in Vin’s living room, and the man, Hugo, was reaching for the bottle of FX nonchalantly and piped, “Don’t mind if we join you? I don’t think I’ve tried this wine before!”. Previous versions of the serum had proven fatal to untrained civilians and the last thing Vin wanted was an unplanned death while they were on a case. They pasted on a wide smile and leaned over, attempting to grab the bottle, “Let me get this opened in the kitchen, then.” Hugo’s wife, Mila, held up a bottle opener triumphantly, “This was right on the coffee table! Now, be a sweetheart and get us some glasses.” FX, if it was effective, would be quite useful right this moment for Vin. They headed to the kitchen, with little time to think of something to prevent the nosey couple from potentially dying under their roof. The best way to do this without arousing any suspicion would be to accidentally drop the bottle, which would make the research team’s efforts go in vain, but there were surely more samples stored at the lab.

Walking back to the living room armed with wine glasses, Vin stopped dead in their tracks when they realized there was already a glass on the coffee table. The glass was full of liquid and Mila was currently sipping it.

“I hope you don’t mind, it looked so exotic and delicious!”

Vin strode over and sat on the sofa woodenly. They delicately asked, without putting down the glasses, “How is it?”

“Oh! Wonderful. Though I think the alcohol content in this wine might be higher than the label says. I feel so warm in the face already!”

At this point, Mila began sweating profusely and dabbing at her face and neck with a handkerchief, though she had only drunk a small amount of the serum. Her reaction lasted exactly one minute. Then, she straightened up and, straight-faced, stated, “Thank you. Goodbye.”

Hugo and Vin looked at each other, puzzled, but went along with it thinking she must be embarrassed. Vin opted to not try out the serum after the events that had just transpired and sent the sample back to the lab with a report. A few months later, walking past a bookstore, Vin noticed a series of books under the bestseller label in the window along with the author’s photo and a flyer for a book-signing event. Looks like I need to write another report.