Possessed By Bored Geeks Ch 05

POSSESSED BY BORED GEEKS FROM ANOTHER WORLD

CHAPTER 5 Reflections on the failure of Phase 1 and 2

Un was an angry man.

He had been a highly respected successful medical scientist dedicated to relieving the suffering of others. He was retiring with a comfortable amount of savings and planning to spend his golden years with the love of his life. Then the Professor approached him. He had been working with the Doctor to find a strategy to relieve the suffering of people with spinal cord injuries.

Un was flattered to be asked to join the prestigious Doctor and Professor in the service of humanity. He practically volunteered his time in this worthwhile venture, promising his wife that he would only delay their retirement a few months.

Outplaced-probes Walking Links- OWL was founded on a simple concept. Pick up the nerve signals from the uninjured area before the break in the spinal cord then relay them past the area of damage sending the signals to their proper destination. A response to the nervous activity would be normally generated. It would follow the loop in the reverse direction over the bridge to carry the response signal back to the brain. A complete loop.

The first prototypes were bulky and clumsy as well as slow and required a large base unit in the vicinity. But the patch worked. There were still a lot of issues but the idea was sound.

Blade should not have been part of their study. He suffered from chronic progressive nerve damage, not something that could just be 'jumped'. Un was impressed with this man who faced debilitation and death with dignity. They also learned a hell of a lot about nerve signals and how they are propagated from him.

They had solved the problems and were a week from launching a report of their victory when another group of scientists announced a cure. They had developed a method of repairing damaged nerves. They would have found it sooner, but they wasted a lot of time with stem cells.

The Doctor and the Professor were philosophical about it. Congratulated the other researchers and bowed out gracefully.

Un was more than a little pissed. He had spent a lot of time and emotional energy on the project and now there was no emotional or professional reward in sight. He knew from the beginning he would not make any money off of it.

One of the experiments they had run before the plan imploded was to link Blade's brain to Un' body. They gave Blade a temporary vacation from disability. Blade made some sort of comment about paying for it gladly if there were a theme park like this. Un was a couch potato and Blade was an exercise junky. Un had him become solid rock in no time. It was a win -- win situation.

Un was putting his reports in order and preparing a final paper for the medical journals. The paper would be one of those odd records of a path of medicine started but not taken. A scientific dead end. Not because it did not lead anywhere but because there was no longer a need to travel any farther.

He looked forward to spending his golden years with his wife. To reconnecting. To building new memories. Their plan was to travel to France and spend three months in Paris. His wife had signed up for some sort of painting class at the Lovre. He was planning to share a genuine French crepe with her in a sidewalk cafe.

Then Du spoiled it all. She brought him promises, golden promises of wealth beyond reckoning. Prestige beyond belief and a permanent entry into the history books of the world. He swallowed her sales spiel hook, line and sinker.

They could get rich using the OWL technology as entertainment. Du could talk for days about the subject. She did not need to though because she had brain washed him as surely as an enchantress from a world of magic. He was under her spell.

Un wanted to use the technology to help people like Blade. Du's target audience was the idle rich, people wanting the unique experience of traveling the world in another person's body. Someday they would have make-a-wish packages, but right now they were going to monetize the research.

They would be completely protected by ironclad contracts and non-disclosure agreements. Un believed everything that came out of Du's mouth. He was seduced by Du as surely as Samson was seduced by Delila. He thought he was a logical scientist and soon discovered he was an arrogant snob easily led astray by golden fantasies and emotion.

The day OWL Entertainment opened he made more money than he had in a lifetime.

He was an instant Rockstar scientist. He started believing his press releases. He thought he was a great guy with everyone's best interests at heart.

And then there was the other issue.

Blade's attractive young wife came to him some time back. Their marriage was suffering because of Blade's illness. They needed his help to restore the physical nature of their bond. There were meetings between Blade, his wife, Un and his soul mate. Conferences where they talked the subject to death until the concept of sex became boring. When it was certain the four of them were in agreement, while everything else on Earth was making him feel like a god, they pulled the trigger and he supported his friend Blade and Blade's childhood sweetheart by helping them re-consummate their marriage.

Blade and his significant other were famous exercise gurus. They had both been world class gymnasts. They had become the mascots for an international chain of gyms and were promoting themselves as martial artists when Blade got sick. Un was taking a clinical approach to their encounter and barely registered the emotional side of the proposed coupling.