Pressure
“James!” Professor Dixon prompts, realising James has become lost in his thoughts.
“Sorry Professor,” James apologises. “Tell the board I’ll explain my work at the meeting. If that’s what it’s going to take to sustain my funding, I’ll have to indulge them, but you must insist they accept it is imperative my work remains a guarded secret until I say. I can’t risk outside influence interfering with my progress.”
He shakes his head in disbelief and looks at Professor Dixon. “I’ll bet if it were a weapon, people would happily throw money at me.”
“Is it?” Professor Dixon asks again.
“No!” James replies. “It’s far more complex and powerful than a weapon. In fact, it has the potential to eliminate the need for weapons altogether. If I succeed, we will possess the ability to ensure humanity develops in a way we have often dreamt about but never considered possible.”
Professor Dixon looks puzzled for a moment, then his expression changes from bewilderment to amazement. “The only way I can imagine that being possible would be through time travel… Are you telling me you’re developing a time machine?”
“I’ll explain it all at the meeting next week,” James says, opening the door for Professor Dixon to leave. “Now, I really must get on.”
Professor Dixon tries to stall. He wants to know more, but James waves insistently for him to leave. So, knowing there is no point in persisting, Professor Dixon walks through the door, hearing it close behind him.
James locks the door and sits back at his desk. Now he’s done it. But he had no choice. He can only hope he’s done the right thing. He may be clever, but he is no strategist.
Leaning back in his seat, he wonders why things have to become so complicated, and he worries about how he might conduct the now imminent negotiations. People skills have always been far from his greatest strength.
Over the next few days, James’s worst nightmare begins to unfold – rumours about his work are spreading throughout the university like wildfire. Obviously, finding himself in possession of such meaty and controversial gossip, Professor Dixon has not been able to keep his speculations to himself, and his attempts to confine the snippet of information to a small group of privileged people have failed. He should have known that no one would manage to keep the secret, and it now seems as though virtually everyone has heard the latest gossip.
Needless to say, James is furious. Previously, people were happy to pass him without acknowledgement – now it is as if James has suddenly grown a second head. Everyone wants to speak to him, or at best, to point and whisper.
Standing in his small flat, James dials the number for Professor Dixon. “What the hell have you done?” James almost screams down the phone.
“I’m sorry, James… I only told a few people who I thought might help me influence the board in your favour, but you know how people talk…”
James is seething. “You’ve probably ruined everything for me.”
He is right; Professor Dixon has made a big mistake, and he knows it. For years, James has fanatically kept his work a closely guarded secret, convinced that sharing his ideas would only lead to distraction. Now, the first time he has risked exposing a glimpse, the whole situation has exploded into a carnival of assumption and speculation.
James is now under pressure, and he is already dealing with it badly. To make matters worse, the nearest thing he has to a friend is the cause of all his newfound problems, which leaves him with precisely no one to turn to for support and advice.
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