Covert Operations at The Department of Behavioral Psychology

  I awoke this day, invigorated, all set to embark on my new endeavor at the university in pursuit of my degree, and the excitement of attending the schools and college where I was well on my way to attaining a doctorate in my new career. All was not 100% though, as I still had many questions yet to be answered, foremost of which was, “what exactly was the degree I was pursuing?” I figured it would be in my best interest to first take up my inquiries with the patron of my new academic career, my attorney, “Double-Double” Medjuck, at his legal offices downtown. My lawyer would be sure to answer all my questions, and then I could proceed to the colleges and resume my studies with confidence and a clear mind.

  I arrived to find my legal counsel hastily loading a moving van with boxes of books and office supplies. He jumped when he saw me, startled, and looked at me like he had seen a ghost.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here” he stated, almost a question, “I thought, for sure, when I saw the news…” He continued to stare in disbelief.

  “I did everything you told me to boss.” I reassured, “I’m now enrolled at the university, and all systems are go!” He didn’t seem quite as thrilled as me about this development. “I’m attending both the college of neuropsychology, AND behavioral sciences in pursuit of a double degree, and I’m already familiar with several of the schools of medicine there.”

  I thought my lawyer would be pleased, but instead he seemed rather disappointed, and addressed me with not a small degree of anger. “Well, I suppose, since you managed to survive, we can still put you to some use.” He slammed the rear doors of the fully loaded moving van shut, darted to the driver side and hastily climbed in. “Go back to the university, and carry on. I want you to interview the head of the department there. You need to find out as much as you can, get as much information regarding the situation with my brother, the good doctor, and report back to me as soon as you hear anything. We need ammunition if we are to successfully bring about this litigation against the college. Do whatever you have to do, legal or not, and report back to me, right here, so we can prepare our case and begin legal proceedings.” With that he fired up the engine and threw the van into reverse, burning rubber as he backed out of the alley-way. “Meet me here at my legal offices, next week…No; make that TWO weeks from now. Right HERE!” he shouted at me over the roar of his idling engine. He gave me one last withering look before rolling up the window, shaking his head and flooring it out of sight in a cloud of dust and diesel. After the conflagration had settled, I looked up to notice his office was completely empty and a “for rent” sign hanging in the window.

Offices For Rent

 Despite my misgivings, I did as I was told and headed straight to the campus of the university, and made my way through the various schools and colleges to the department of neuropsychology and behavioral science, my mission, a personal interview with the professor in charge; one Doctor Joszef Skinner, PhD., a career academic, and holder of doctorate in so many different disciplines that I simply do not have space here to list them all. Let’s just say he was pretty much a “doctor of everything”. If I couldn’t find out what I was looking for from him, I wouldn’t find it anywhere.

  I located Doctor Skinner in one of the many labs contained within the sprawling colleges, busily checking on his many experiments, noting statistics on clip-boards, issuing orders to the various doctorate candidates constantly surrounding him, checking on a dozen things at once. He’s a busy man, but willing to talk to me none the less. I introduce myself, and he straightens his glasses, saying, “Oh yes, of course…” meaning he actually had no clue who I was or what I wanted. A true academic, he never once dropped his pose of all-knowing infallibility, and simply forged ahead anyway. “I am a very busy man,” he informed me. ”We can talk, but you must come with me on my rounds.” He was looking at a computer print-out spewing from a machine that had wires leading to a cage, and directly into the exposed brain of a monkey who sat despondently inside. He looked at the primate briefly, scribbled on his clip-board, and told the lab-coated student beside him to increase the animal’s dosage by 700%. Then, just as quickly, he was rushing off again, me, at his heels, in hot pursuit. There were dozens of similar cages in this room, and he checked them all, making notes and issuing orders, he was such a big man at the university, this doctor, and in charge of so many things in several of the schools and colleges, that he could hardly stop for even a moment, and was perpetually surrounded by half a dozen doctorate candidates, ready to jump at his steady stream of orders and commands. He never seemed to stop moving.

Frontiers of Behavioral Science

 

  We made our way through several labs, each larger and more cluttered than the last, and through it all I did not once get the opportunity to ask him even one question. The caged monkeys were his only focus, and there were hundreds to visit. Some were strapped into barbaric looking devices, others rocked back and forth in empty, dirty pens. There was aisle after aisle, of row upon row, of caged simians, all involved in one form of experiment or another. We walked past a large cage that housed four Rhesus macaques playing cards and smoking cigarettes, others who stood atop electrified plates and danced in time to “Hello My Baby” as current was passed through.

Dance, Monkey! Dance!

  Next, he showed me a room full of monkeys who, when given the opportunity to choose between food, and playing “Minecraft”, inevitably chose the latter, and starved themselves to death in favor of building virtual banana farms and pixilated looking tree-forts. We eventually arrived at small, dirty cage housing a lone, solitary ape, who was busily hammering away at a typewriter. Here the doctor paused, became thoughtful for a moment, and then turned to address me. 

  “Here is a fine example of the work we are doing here, the type of thing that makes this university the envy of all the colleges and schools doing similar work in this field.” He looks proudly at his subject. “We have managed to isolate the one out of one million specimens that is actually capable of typing the complete works of Shakespeare, and eliminated the other 999 999 useless ones. He's already completed Shakespeare, Proust, and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Now, we have him writing new episodes of “Suite Life of Zack and Cody” “ The doctor stops for a moment, very thoughtful, “Not only have we slashed our budget by 100 000% but apparently, over at Disney, the ratings have gone through the roof, and they’ve signed him on to an unprecedented six season contract.” He smiled proudly, then just as quick, spun on his heels half a degree and hurried onwards.

Magnum Opus

  I was a little overwhelmed by what I was seeing, could it even be legal? Do these sorts of atrocities go on at all colleges and schools, or was it a specific peculiarity of this university here? Was this the “information” my attorney was seeking in preparation to launch his litigation? I decided I had better cut to the chase, and finding myself alone for a moment with Doctor Skinner, I set right in.

  “What can you tell me of Doctor Klienholz Medjuck? I understand he received his doctorate from these very colleges here, and his theories were groundbreaking, to say the least. Maybe a tad controversial, wouldn't you say? Is this a continuation of the work he had started? And why was he removed from the university anyways?”

  For the first time today, I have the full and complete attention of Doctor Skinner; in fact, my words have frozen him stiff. He glares at me with disbelief. “That person has NOTHING to do with the work we do here, in fact, after all the damage he did to this department we are lucky to have survived at all. The inhumanity of his diabolical experimentation and his total lack of ethics were Olympic! He is not to be associated with this university in any way shape or form, his degree has been rescinded and his doctorate invalidated. The colleges of behavioral sciences and neuropsychology have stricken his name from all records, and have gone to great lengths to expunge his legacy from all records for good! His name is NEVER to be mentioned here, not ever again!”

  The Prof is still fuming; he keeps adjusting his spectacles neurotically, sweating and turning all shades of red. Now it is he that has the questions, and he leans in on me with his inquisition. “How exactly do you know of Medjuck? We have erased that man from history! You can’t even search him on Google anymore. Why do you know who he is?” His rage is turning to paranoia. He raises a finger at me, pauses, looks back at me for a moment, and then slowly reaches behind his back to depress a small button on the intercom on his desk. He is silent and motionless as the door to his office busts open and four burly grad students jump me and one of them jabs my ass with a needle, this being the last thing I remember…

  When I had awoken, who knows how many hours later, I find myself alone, in a tiny pen. There is nothing inside save for two buttons, one red, and one green. There is also no way out. Suddenly a small slot slides open to the side, and a pair of eyes looks through, studying me intently. I look back at the buttons, then the eyes again. They silently implore me, and with no other option at hand I try to judge whether I should try one of the buttons to see what it might do. Red or Green? Finally I choose green and, with no small degree of trepidation, I give it a stab. A little trap door opens below and a slice of apple falls out. I guess that’s dinner. At least I didn’t get the 50 000 volts, thinking, that’s gotta be the red button. There’s nothing else I can do really, so I go and sit myself down in the corner, and begin to eat my piece of fruit, thinking; “This is going to be a looooong semester.”

"Dormitory Life"