It's a hell of a drug

The work-day world had been taken by storm in the year 2170, when the first emotional-redirector meds were prescribed. By this point, biomedical technologies had progressed to the point where we not only understood how brain chemicals and receptors functioned, but how to manipulate and modify them, how to alter their trajectories to land in different parts of the brain. Once, we were powerless to the whims of our emotions. Now, with the proper dosage, sadness could become happiness. More than simply making a person produce the happy chemicals on command, a person would become happy because they were crying. The needed neural release, the flushing of the system, without the resulting emotional minefield.

Soon, other such pills entered the medical field. The most popular by a long-shot was initially conceived as a treatment for attention deficit disorder and executive dysfunction. In layman's terms, the pills would intercept feelings of annoyance, anger, rage, and redirect them to the behavioral and pleasure centers of the brain. A patient under the effects of the drug would be more greatly motivated to take action when presented with things that made them angry, at last bridging the neural gap and enabling them to be good-and-properly Productive.

It was not long before these drugs leaked into the open market. As miraculous as they were for productivity, they were so much more powerful to those who were already productive. Authorities speculated that, by 2180, the vast majority of executives, stock traders, and other such folk were "heavy users" of the drug. The leak was isolated to Special Production Y-Tellurium, but by the time investigators had evidence to back their claims, the formula had already reached rival pharmaceutical companies and designer fabs alike.

Users admitted to toxicology wards all described the sensations the same way. They had become so motivated and liberated by the effects of the drug, that they found that they were only truly productive when they had found something to be mad at. They only truly found the desire to do the things that they wanted to do, when circumstances had angered them so much that leaving it alone would be more painful than getting it done. One patient described it as almost superhuman. Maybe not to the extent of a performance-enhancer, but for a person who would otherwise have spent their day sitting in a chair, matching gems on their screen, it might as well have been.

The Sentinel Branch, by the late 2180s, had declared that the issue of widespread, unsanctioned production and sale of the drug was now so widespread as to be endemic. Rare was the night that they had not booked a user. The patterns had eventually become clear, across the thousands of perpetrators a week. The drug itself was habit-forming, but worse than that, the behavior was, too. Because the motivating effects required an emotional catalyst, long-term users would eventually find that they would not feel the effects as strongly unless they actively sought out sources of anger. Some said they tuned in to 24-hour news channels. Others found their rage through social media. Soon, those things weren't enough anymore. Users began seeking street fight clubs, wandering into shareholder meetings. In one particularly infamous instance, a user bypassed capitol security to walk in on a congressional hearing, just to feel enough fury to spark their motivation again. By this point, the drug had earned its street name: SPYTe.

And SPYTe, it turned out, was a hell of a drug.