A researcher with nowhere to go

Well now I can’t get back to sleep.

Erik Dasner lives across the hall – he’s the guy who just gave me the news.

Erik is especially nervous because his project at the medical school is getting its funding stripped. As soon as they close the books on the project Erik gets kicked off campus. Now with what is going on will the green zone be abandoned? If so what the hell happens to him? How does a researcher get a job in town?

Erik’s research project ended with a result so boring it doesn’t really shine on his CV, which considering the amount of work that went into the study is a real shame.

After the two biggest murder sprees in 2018 were discovered to have been committed by men who had brain shockers funding poured in for a study about the long term side effects of this treatment. This was the first year that brain shockers were approved for mood disorders and no longer were limited to epileptics and schizophrenics. It was an incredible life improving technology that required only an hour long procedure to implant and optimize. And the idea that this technology could lead to such violent behaviors was quite the story, the media milked it for all its worth and a lot of people who could have been treated with the brain shockers were instead given the same old mildly effective drugs they’d been given for the past few decades. The game changing technology was given a black eye.

So Erik became the lead researcher in the study and after 10 years they discovered that a small percentage of the group did indeed exhibit abnormal behaviors from violent sexual fetishes to self mutilation and anger management issues. In an even larger percentage they noticed cheating, lying, and general anti-social behavior. Basically what they discovered was that the long term effect of brain shockers was that they were just typical humans. The percentage of aberrant behavior in the study group was basically the same as it was in the general population.

By then the technology was off patent, the lawyers had moved on, and the media had long since lost interest. No one publicized the findings. Since it was off patent there was no real money to be made clearing the treatment’s good name. Hopefully at least a few doctors read about the results and then recommend the treatment to their patients.

At least that is what Erik hopes. Otherwise 10 years of his life really was for nothing. And nothing is looming in his future right now either.

And the present just makes him more terrified about what nothing will be like.