Martin Greenberg - The Future We Wish We Had

“Frivolous,” Dr. Pretentious declared.

“Impractical,” chimed in Dr. Beta.

“Demeaning,” finished Dr. Shallow.

“Is biophysics even a recognized discipline at other universities?” Dr. Pretentious asked rhetorically.

And that was the crux of the matter for the TC. Never making a decision until they knew it would be applauded by other universities, never hiring anyone who didn’t have at least two other offers, denying tenure to any but the most staid and conservative candidates.

“Tenure denied.” If Dr. Pretentious had a gavel, the old fart would have pounded it. Instead he gathered up his thick file on Wallace Beebee and retreated.

Wallace hit the play button on the remote. Pictures of Max, fresh from the bath and still stinking of wet dog fur, filled the television screen. He wiggled and yipped and farted, then dropped a big dump right in front of the camera programmed to pickup every hydrocarbon in the air.

“Well, I never!” Dr. Shallow declared. She held a lace-edged hanky to her nose and literally ran out of the room.

“Hmm, Max got into the garbage again. He smells a little like coffee grounds and egg shells.”

Wallace stayed on at VDGU for another year. His applications to other universities were rejected or stalled in committee. He didn’t have enough publication credits. He didn’t have enough experience in academia. His work was too controversial.

He didn’t apply for tenure again at VDGU. He and Evelyn made do with their meager salaries and postponed having children once again. She was denied tenure in medieval history because of her association with Wallace.

They postponed having children once again.

Secretly Wallace worked on his invention in the garage at home. Honing, refining, miniaturizing. Paying for every part out of his own pocket. Then, at last, he had what he needed: a commercially viable version ready to roll off the assembly line.

If he could just sell it. He had to sell it. Evelyn was pregnant despite their precautions. They desperately needed the money.

Strange, he’d detected a change in her body chemistry before she even suspected her pregnancy. Working with his invention every day, testing, honing, had sensitized his own nose almost as much as it had the gadget.

Sixty query letters to various electronics companies resulted in exactly one invitation.

He took most of his savings and bought a roundtrip ticket to Kansas City, Missouri, the corporate headquarters of a major televangelist, Dr. John Baptiste Feelwell. (Wallace suspected the man’s PhD in applied religions was as fake as his toupee.) A dozen suited executives and ad men filled the smallest of their conference rooms. Wallace’s entire house could have fit inside it and still had room left over.

Wallace caught a whiff of musky cologne that attempted to mask a man’s body smell. Wallace almost gagged on the intensity. He’d given up all fragrances himself and grown a beard so he wouldn’t have to use aftershave. He’d gotten to the point where he could identify each individual component of artificial fragrances.

He also knew the man had had eggs Benedict for breakfast and sex within the last hour, probably with the buxom secretary who sat in the corner. Heat suffused his face. These morons were no better than the tenure committee. Angry words coiled on the tip of his tongue.

“Out! I demanded no external fragrances. All of you out until you’ve rid yourself of that… that… stink.”

“What’s he talking about?” One of the ad men smoothed his freshly barbered hair with a manicured hand. His charcoal suit molded his lanky frame as if custom tailored. He made Wallace look frumpy and slovenly in his off-the-rack navy blue pinstripe suit.

“How can we appreciate a new dimension to life when all our noses are clogged with your artificial cologne?” Wallace loomed over the man and pierced him with the same gaze he used on stupid freshman who questioned his authority in the classroom.

The ad man squirmed in his chair.

“You might as well leave, Leland,” Dr. Feelwell intoned from his place at the head of the table. “I haven’t got all day and clearly Dr. Beebee will not continue until you do leave.”

“But… but the account is supposed to be mine! How can I apply a new invention to your telecasts if I don’t see it tested?” Leland protested.

“Seeing is not enough. My invention goes beyond the limited sense of sight. You must use your nose, and yours is tainted by your overpowering aftershave. You will have no part in my invention,” Wallace decided on the spot.

He looked around the room at the carefully neutral yet attractive faces. No ugly people polluted Dr. Feelwell’s staff-almost as if he conveyed the impression that giving money to his crusade made one beautiful.

“She will manage my invention.” Wallace pointed to a small woman who’d scrubbed her face and hair free of cosmetics. Her soft dress looked freshly laundered as well. Wallace had seen her before, a lame child miraculously healed before ten million television viewers. “She respects my conditions for presenting this important innovation to the public.”

Immediately, Wallace’s emotions swung to guilt. He’d ruined his chances here. He’d never sell Beebevision now.

Leland eventually slunk out, but not until he’d protested and argued seniority and several other points. Wallace had to begin disconnecting his device before Dr. Feelwell put his foot down and threatened to fire Leland if he did not leave.

Once more the television screen brightened gradually. The logo of a lily of the valley with lines radiating outward opened before them. The voice, Evelyn’s beautiful, sexy voice, which could enthrall an auditorium filled with bored freshman. Then the three scenes Wallace had carefully chosen to evoke pleasant emotions.

A grandmother in a kitchen wearing an apron and removing a freshly baked apple pie from the oven. Smiles broke out around the room as noses filled with cinnamon.

A scantily clad woman dancing in the moonlight with sexy pheromones wafting through the room. Two men, including Dr. Feelwell, shifted uneasily in their seats, as if their trousers no longer fit properly.

A cityscape with lightly falling snow and bright holiday lights accompanied the scent of cut fir trees and bayberry candles. The scrubbed woman sighed blissfully with childhood memories.

Pleasant smells, pleasant memories, pleasant endorphins coursing through the bloodstream.

“How does it work?”

“What will it cost?”

“How fast can we get this up and running?”

Wallace smiled and answered each of the questions with pleasure.

“A pherometric ionizer analyzes the components of each scent and embeds that analysis into the digital code of the video. It is integrated into the digital camera. A mass spectrometer modified to my specifications interprets the extra code in the DVD and recreates those molecules based upon their magnetic charge and hydrocarbon content.”

“I want to see how it works before we commit.”

“It’s patented. No one sees the circuitry without a contract.”

“What will it cost us to produce?”

“Less than one hundred dollars per unit if built into a television. Considerably more for a less sensitive unit attached separately.” He grinned. “So of course every homeowner with a television more than two years old will dash out for a new unit.”

Looking around the room, smelling the greed and the cunning among these people, he wondered yet again if he needed to find a way to filter the scents. All or nothing went through the pherometric ionizer and the mass spectrometer reproduced it all faithfully.

The frontmen kept at him with more and more detailed questions. But Wallace retreated behind a barrier of “patented secrets revealed only when the contract is signed and royalties agreed upon.”