Phantosmia Generica

Wednesday afternoon

Bill knew he couldn’t be having a stroke, as he did not smell burning toast. His face was numb, and he couldn’t pick up his left arm, but no toast. He was looking right at Marie Dempsey, the lab director, and he could hear her making noises that sounded like a cat’s pre-yack meow.

But no toast. Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a bit.

Bill wakes in an off-white exam room with a confusing stream of people coming in and out, doing inexplicable things, and ignoring him while doing things to him. Too confusing to be worth the effort. He knows that he knows how to close his eyes, and he does.

Friday morning

Bill jolts upright in a hospital bed. He brings his left arm up to his face. OK. He moves his face around in a set of ridiculous squinches. Seems fine. He says ‘what is happening’, and understands what he said to himself. Seems good to go. A nurse walks in.

‘Glad to have you with us Dr. Peterson. How do you feel?’

Bill thinks he understands that, and responds ‘Feel? I feel …normal’

The nurse smiles lightly while adjusting various technologies attached to Bill, and then pushes back gently on his chest. ‘The attending will be in this morning to talk to you. Do you need anything?’ and before Bill can use his new-found powers of comprehension to formulate a response, she continues ‘Please stay in bed.’ And heads out the door.

Bill really, really needs to pee. But he follows the instructions.

Friday afternoon

The attending physician, Dr. Jain, enters Bill’s room, with a small claque of residents in tow. ‘Dr. Peterson, quite an honor to be helping you out. Your paper on neurological response rate mediation by sodium inhibitors is required reading in our program’.

Bill believes he understood every word, and mumbles a humble ‘thank you’.

A resident begins a physical evaluation, and quickly notices the bladder leak. She buzzes for a nurse. Dr. Jain notes the accident with a slight puzzlement. ‘Let’s see how you’re doing’. The attending and his resident team run through a quick battery of physical tests, while consulting imaging results and lab work.

Dr. Jain finally addresses Bill. ‘You appear to have recovered full function. I don’t think you actually had a stroke. We don’t see any damage on your MRI. Your lab-work is normal, except for an anomalous spike near the sodium spectral peak. You haven’t been working on mediating your neurological response rate, have you?’. Dr. Jain smiles and looks to his residents, who respond with an appropriate level of chuckle.

 ‘I have not been working on mediating my neurological response rate’, Bill responds, surprising himself, as in fact he has been working on exactly that.

Dr. Jain looks through the chart again, ‘We can dig deeper on this sodium spike. Can you tell me what you have been working on?’

Bill considers the question for longer than one might expect. ‘It is proprietary’.

Dr. Jain presses, ‘I don’t know if we can help you without more information’.

Bill looks at Dr. Jain without responding.

Dr. Jain prepares to wrap up, and as he is leaving says ‘I’d really like you to tell me what you were working on, bu…’

Bill interrupts and begins to tell Dr. Jain everything, repeating verbatim the presentation he gave to the Lab Director the week before. Dr. Jain and his residents stop, listen intently, and begin to register various degrees of shock, depending on their own level of neurological acumen.

When Bill pauses to take a breath, Dr. Jain interrupts. ‘Stop talking’. Bill stops talking immediately. Dr. Jain directs the lead resident to continue rounds, shushing them and herding them out. After the residents leave Bill’s room, Jain closes the door and pulls out his phone. He dials. ‘Yes, yes, thanks. Another time, I’m in a hurry. Fifty thousand in puts on ExaGen at 50% of today’s close. 30 days. …I understand. …I understand. …I am on a recorded line and acting against your advice. OK? Just do it.’

Dr. Jain turns back to Bill. ‘Please continue, Dr. Peterson.’

Bill returns to his presentation.

Late Friday night

Bill is lying in bed, thinking about everything that has happened in the past days and wondering if he can get up to pee. He thinks that he cannot.

The door opens and Dr. Dempsey enters quietly. ‘Bill.’

Bill smiles through the grimace of holding in his pee. Dempsey recognizes the discomfort and says ‘You can get up to go to the bathroom, Bill’.

Bill leaps from bed and rushes into the bathroom, gown flapping. The sound of a long, loud stream issues from the bathroom.

‘Wash your hands when you finish, Bill’. Bill does so. He stands in front of the sink.

Dempsey is waiting, and then realizes her mistake. ‘Tiresome. Come back in and sit down, Bill’.

Bill does so.

Dempsey says to Bill ‘Tell me everything that’s happened since Wednesday afternoon’.

A look of wild panic crosses Bill’s face, and he begins to rapidly spew a mind-numbingly detailed account of everything that he has observed. ‘Stop’, Dempsey commands. She considers how to phrase her command. ‘Tell me what the doctors said to you, and anything you have said to anyone outside the company’.

Bill relaxes, and begins.

Saturday morning

A nurse enters Bill’s room to find the fully-functioning monitor suite hooked up to some unlabeled black box, and the bed empty.

Friday afternoon, three weeks later

Dr. Jain is in his home office, scrolling through the financial news blogs and then flipping back to his own portfolio. It was an impulsive decision, a fifty thousand dollar bet based on the words of a stroke victim, but he was so sure. It all made sense. Peterson and ExaGen had been working on some new drug, maybe Alzheimer’s, and it not only did not work, it induced some type of suggestibility in the subject. More than suggestibility. Control. The FDA would never approve it. They would likely shut down the whole ExaGen research program. No possible way ExaGen had Ethical Review Board approval to begin human trials. It should destroy the stock.

The problem was that none of his anonymous tips had been picked up by the big talkers. A few low-level blogs, some low follower count users on X. He couldn’t even get NoHedge to bite.

It was an even bigger risk, a huge risk, but he was going to have to release the video. Video or it never happened, as the kids say. But not from his home of course. Burner phone in an internet café, with the video to an anonymous ClikClak account. 

Sunday evening

Dr. Jain surfed the net with joy. The video had not gotten much traction on ClikClak, as it was not quite down to the usual levels of ClikClak idiocy, but a social media reporter (a person paid to wade through that morass) saw it and cross-posted it to X. There the video exploded, going viral within minutes and tanking the ExaGen stock in after-hours trading. Dr. Jain was in the money, in a lot of money, and already had his order in to sell the puts. As soon as trading opened, he’d be out of this. And never again. He did not have the nerves for this.

But it was a lot of money.

Monday morning, before the market open

Drs. Peterson and Dempsey are in front of a microphone stand at a hastily assembled news conference outside of ExaGen headquarters. The huge press contingent, corporate and new media, shout questions and jostle for position. Dr. Dempsey steps up to the microphones.

‘Good morning. My name is Dr. Maria Dempsey, D-E-M-P-S-E-Y, Neuro Lab Director at ExaGen. You no doubt have seen the alleged video of Dr. Peterson speaking last month, telling a wild tale of mind-control drugs developed by an evil corporation. In this age of deep-fakes, it seems all of you have forgotten that it's no longer the case that unless you have the video, it did not happen. Video proves nothing anymore.’

The crowd subdues, and begins to reformulate their questions. Dr. Dempsey continues.

‘In this specific case, however, the video is 100% authentic. Every word Dr. Peterson spoke was true.’

The crowd re-erupts in a spasm of shouted questions. Dr. Dempsey waits for the mob to settle.

‘Dr. Peterson was in that control state voluntarily. We developed the drug without the knowledge of ExaGen, and he took the drug on my command’.

The babble increases in volume and sharpness.

‘I introduced myself as Dr. Maria Dempsey. To those who know me well, to those who serve me, I am referred to as Mistress Dema. And this is my slave, Bill. ’

The crowd absolutely erupts in confusion and shouted questions.

‘Sit, Bill’

And Dr. William Peterson goes down to all fours at the feet of his master.