Good stories always revolve around a conflict. Here in Chapter 11, we see the central conflict in
Keep This Secret.
As always, ask yourself how you would handle it.
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You might not enjoy reading what happened next. I imagine you'll enjoy the romantic eroticism at the end, but the beginning is kind of rough. I'll be as brief as possible.
I had a problem, and it was a big one. As I worked to wrap up my research and make plans for what came next, I kept encountering a seemingly impossible conflict. It was great that I could think of almost limitless ways to use the sonic stimulator to help people. I'd thought about freeing addicts from addiction, liberating men and women from sexual dysfunction, healing victims of trauma, accelerating learning, and on and on and on. It took very little effort to conceive of more therapeutic applications of my work. That part was exciting.
But I always came back to the fact that this technology was dangerous. It could be misused. I needed to find safeguards to prevent unscrupulous people from making victims commit murder, rob and steal, rape the innocent, and turn victims into powerless slaves. I realized that if I wanted, I could use the sonic stimulator to go on TV and eventually enslave the entire world. We'd all be speaking German today if Nazi scientists knew what I know.
One morning I had to admit the truth. No safeguard would work. You could declare this technology top secret, and it would make no difference. There is no patent strong enough to keep it contained. If I ever allowed others to use this technology, there would be no way to stop them from misusing it. The temptation was just too great. Look at the way I'd used the technology to punish Mary. The only reason it has not been worse is that I am basically a nice guy. There are plenty of people who aren't nice at all. In their hands, a sonic stimulator would be worse than all the H-bombs, nerve gas, chemical agents, bombs, landmines, and guns in all the arsenals in the world.
I had to keep this secret. From everyone. I couldn't talk about this to anyone ever. I couldn't publish. I had to find a way to cover up every speck of evidence of what I'd been doing with my research grant, ensuring that there were no awkward questions about how I'd used that money.
I was not going to win the Nobel Prize.
I sat down in my chair, put my head on my desk, and cried. And cried and cried and cried. It was the first time I'd cried since I was a kid being bullied by my neighbor. I was in so much pain, so much anguish, that I briefly considered trying to use the sonic stimulator to ease my grief.
Obviously, that was a very bad idea.
I did a lot of thinking over the next few days. I made some important decisions. I'll tell you all about it later. For now, just know that after I dried my eyes I took my dogs for a walk, and I found myself thinking about how nice it would be to make love to Mariana. She was sitting in her office in a building nearby. She was temptingly close, but also impossibly far away. Mariana only had time for me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The rest of her time was devoted to the unrelenting pressure of the loads of work she had to complete in order to be granted tenure. It was a long, slow process that wouldn't end soon.
Or maybe it would.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? To summarize, I called the chairman of the Department of Modern Languages, playing the sonic stimulator in the background. I convinced her that I needed to discuss something vital, and she agreed to meet right then.
"You want to hear something important that I have to tell you about Dr. Mariana Kahlo," I said.
"I want to hear it."
"Dr. Kahlo has been assisting me with some vitally important research in the field of neuroscience. I'm sure you understand that the grant I received from the National Institutes of Health has rules that prevent me from discussing this work until after I publish our results."
"The rules prevent you," she said.
"But I can share this. Dr. Kahlo provided some insights that led to a breakthrough. When we finally get to publish our work, she is going to attract so much attention in academia that it will cast your department in a very favorable light."
"A very favorable light."
"When that happens, it will be better for you and the rest of the department if Dr. Kahlo is listed as a tenured professor. You already know that her performance has been exemplary so far. She has done more than enough to earn tenure already."
"She has been exemplary," she said.
"What you want to do is assemble the members of the tenure committee, and tell them to approve her tenure. Now."
"That's what I want to do."
This conversation actually went on for a lot longer than this. Academic politics is so complicated that I had to spend a lot of time figuring out a way to make this happen without anyone being suspicious.
And I wasn't done. I called every member of Mariana's tenure committee and told them they should vote to recommend tenure be granted to Mariana. Kahlo, I said, was exemplary.
Those were some complicated conversations, but I got through them, thanks to the sonic stimulator.
Nothing much happened for a week. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I'd do next, and I decided that I needed to close down my lab and quit my university job. I'd spent so much time dreaming about living the life of a rich, famous scientist that I couldn't imagine continuing as a normal, ordinary researcher. All my work had been in a field I had to abandon. I'd be forced to start all over, adding years of tedious work to a process that could only lead to me ending up as another unknown, faceless scientist who'd contributed tiny bits of knowledge to mankind's understanding.
I was not going to do that. But I had no idea what I wanted to do instead.
Fast forward to Wednesday of the next week, when I got a telephone call from Mariana. I'd never heard her sound so happy.
"I need to celebrate! Can you help me celebrate?"
"Sure, Senorita. When?"
"Right now would be nice. Can we celebrate right now?"
"Yeah, I guess. I've got a student coming over here in a few minutes to walk my dogs. I need to have a short conversation with her, but I can see you right after that."
"That's exactly what I wanted to hear, Senor," Mariana said. "It's perfect. It will give me just enough time to drive to my place and get ready. Can you meet me at my place?"
"But this is Wednesday. Do you have time for me today? I don't want you to do anything that jeopardizes your work."
"Not to worry," Mariana said. "I have time. Lots and lots of time."
That's when the light bulb turned on. It didn't take a Nobel Prize winner to figure out that Mariana had just gotten the news about her tenure. It made me feel good inside. She'd earned it, certainly, but the reality of academic advancement would ordinarily make her wait much longer. It wasn't fair, but that's the life of a scholar. I'd short-circuited the process in a way that allowed her to get her reward while she was still young enough to enjoy it.
I had a feeling I was going to enjoy celebrating with Mariana.