Chapter 27: The Scent of Disaster (Part III)

“The hijack is possibly more subtle than that,” Elaine said.  “Here, we can do an experiment with what we have with us. It’ll be inconclusive, but if my hypothesis is correct, we can demonstrate it at least once.” She gestured to Howie, who reluctantly disengaged himself from Frog’s personal space to move the two feet to stand near Elaine. “You’re Howie, right?”

“That’s me,” he said, glancing momentarily at Roger.

“Here’s one of your fliers.” Elaine passed him the unfolded paper from Frog’s pocket. As she did so, she hoped that it hadn’t lost too much of its smell to pocket lint and or picked up too much of Frog’s own personal pocket smell as that would undoubtedly corrupt the experiment. “Could you sniff it for me? Just inhale from the paper, a few deep breaths should do it.”

“Okay,” Howie said. He motioned the paper to his nose with self-conscious motions and breathed in the paper with over-loud sniffing sounds. After the whole dramatic affair ended, he let his hand fall and looked at her questioningly. “Yeah, it smells like candy.”

“How did Emily Early change your life? Have you met her?”

“Have I ever!” His voice set afire, cheeks flushing, Howie gestured grandly. “She’s only the best thing to hit this campus since last tuition freeze. I got to shake her hand only a few days ago, being in the inner circle does have some perks. You could get them too if you’ll vote for her in the upcoming election. As for changing my life, well, look at me: out here today, getting a job done. That’s a change.”

When Howie finished his spiel, Elaine looked around. Andrew shifted uncomfortably to her side, managing a hybrid look of boredom and eye rolling sarcasm. Frog smiled smugly, as if she knew exactly what Elaine had in mind for the next part of the experiment. Roger seemed to have descended into a profound shock, his mouth slightly open he stared at his friend openly stunned by what he’d just heard.

“Now,” Elaine said. “Howie, stand still; Frog come and embrace him. I need you to trigger as many Limbic responses as possible.”

The chuckle emitted by Frog on a better day would have been described as playful, but in the given context sounded almost gleefully sinister as she stalked over to Howie—whose expression couldn’t choose between bemusement and delight. “Come here, loverboy,” she said, pulling her arms around him. “Who’da thought we’d be getting this close so soon? Hey now, watch the hands.” She caught one of his wrists and held it up to her shoulder as if they were about to slow dance.

“I could get used to this,” Howie said.

Elaine waited for Frog to nod to her after a few heartbeats. “Howie,” she said. “Please tell me about meeting Emily Early and could you elaborate on how that experience changed your life?”

“Well, I just told you—.” he started to speak then paused. The flush in his cheek vanished, replaced by a mild confusion of forehead wrinkles and lowered eyebrows. “I told you—but that’s not right. I haven’t met Emily. I’ve only seen her at a distance. And, as for changing my life… She hasn’t. Sure, she’s, uh, got it going on in all the right places…but she’s not really my type. You know. She’s probably just as stuck up as every other rich girl who refuses to slum it with us inner city types.”

“Thanks, Frog,” Elaine said. “You can let him go now.”

Howie graciously allowed himself to be disentangled from Frog’s embrace and even though she pushed him to arms length, she finished with a wink. Without skipping a beat, Elaine addressed the group, thinking out loud.

“The nam-shub simply rides on the smell and uses that deep brain connection to give it authority. The nam-shub inserts the idea into the person’s head—subliminally. They smell the licorice, this reminds them of the subliminal idea, and then they think it’s their idea. It’s also why we see indoctrinated persons gathering together, it increases the saturation levels. Brilliant! It’s self-organizing and reinforcing. Very clever.”

Roger didn’t sound very convinced. “But can we stop it?”

The road between Best dormitory and the few buildings remained clear of viehicle traffic as the group piled across. Disrupting the groundwork of the nam-shub’s network would probably take more than just taking out the sever with Zane (central directive control) they would also have to undermine the individuals involved. Its function seemed extremely well composted. The concert would put a great deal of the un-indoctrinated amidst those that were, increasing the concentration of the Limbic hijack for the nam-shub to effect. The gremlins and the sound equipment would probably do the rest—since the speakers themselves were also giant magnets which would be able to broadcast the nam-shub over the crowd. A great deal of work to put into rigging an election.

Elaine turned to Frog. “Do you have any perfume that works on females the way the one your wearing does on males?”

“No,” she said. “Why would I make something like that?”

“Alright, one gender will have to do. I need you to take everyone and get the rest of your stock. I need you to dose yourselves with it and infiltrate the concert crowd. Where is it?”

“In your room. What? I figured that I could keep some of my experiments in your fridge. Not like you use it for anything other than storing mountains of Coke.”

“Okay, we’ll get the perfume and contact Hadaly.” Elaine glanced at her phone again. Zane seemed to be able to contact her, why hadn’t the AI gotten in touch with her yet? If he could overcome the RF jamming, Hadaly should have been able to do it way before him. Something else must have been going on. At least Elaine would be able to directly connect to her cognitive functions in the dorm room. “You guys will have to move ahead with the perfume plan while I’m setting up… What the?”

Keys already in hand, she stopped short of reaching for the front door of the dormitory when a large, uniformed shadow stepped into her path. An expressionless face glared down at her and the rest of the group and she detected the sharp undertone of black licorice and ozone surrounding the intruder.

“Elaine,” Zach said. Moving to block the entrance. “I know what you’ve been investigating and I can’t let you do what you’re about to do.”