A Perilous Plan

… "But then – something happened!"Dawson exclaimed. Basil nodded, and put some more tobacco into his pipe, of which he then drew a deep puff of fresh smoke. He continued,

"One late afternoon, about a year later, I was in the lab working on an experiment. I suddenly realized that an important tool I needed to complete it was not there, so I figured it must be somewhere in Ratigan's office. I went upstairs and found his door open, though he was absent, which astonished me, for the man usually never forgot simple things such as locking the door before he went out. Nevertheless, I decided it would be without consequences if I simply went in and looked for the device. There could only be one place where it was, and since I had spent much time in his office in his presence, I didn't think it a crime to quickly take something and then proceed with my work, even though he was not there.

"As I searched for the tool in his drawers, I coincidentally came across a few still unfinished papers of his. Judging by their titles, they seemed interesting, so I skimmed them quickly, curious as I always was. And at that point, it happened – one particular paper, which was, in contrast to the other typewritten manuscripts, mainly a handwritten abstract, especially caught my attention. However, unlike the Professor's other works, which always, without exceptions, managed to enthral me somehow, reading more and more of this one caused me to shudder. As I saw that Ratigan had not yet returned, and I couldn't hear anyone else walking outside the open office door, I decided to inspect this piece of writing more closely. Luckily, the man had an exceptionally neat, in fact even often flamboyantly flourished hand, so it was of no difficulty for me to decipher. The pitch-black ink seemed not to have dried properly on some places, for several words on the final page were, judging by their appearance, definitely unintentionally obliterated somewhat. This combined with the fact that there existed no typewritten copy of solely this paper led me to assume that the manuscript was still quite fresh, and that the writer – undoubtedly the Professor himself, for I knew his writing from his classes – had most assuredly finished it in great haste; at least he had had no time to let the ink dry properly, and what is more, the last few paragraphs seemed to have been written in a hurry, for they lacked the extravagant embellishments of the preceding passages, and the writer had misspelt a few words, which he then had thickly crossed out and rewritten correctly. I therefore came to the conclusion that he was indeed in a hurry while writing the last paragraphs, for it seemed likely that he was going to be interrupted by someone entering his office – and, judging by the most sinister content of the work, it is very likely that he did not want it to be seen by anybody on any account. So, he had quickly finished the last sentences, not let the ink dry anymore, and had speedily hidden the paper between the other, typewritten ones, shutting the drawer in which he kept them, but not locking it – presumably, again due to the time pressure he was in. Since he evidently had not rearranged everything after the fact, I assumed that the paper was hardly older than about three days – it was a Monday, as I remember, when I found it, so the weekend when he was not in his office is a plausible explanation for this – there simply had been no more opportunity for him to conceal the paper.

"I did wonder, of course, if he had played with such ideas as those presented in his paper, why he was apparently unmindful enough to leave his office door unlocked; but later, it occurred to me that perhaps he had actually wanted me to see the abstract – curious to see my reaction to it. It is quite possible that he had left the tool I needed in one of his drawers on purpose, because he knew I would go looking for it there. Still, the circumstances were all so strange and nebulous to me, that even today I am not certain what this was all exactly about."

"But, pray, what in Heaven's name were the contents of this paper?" Dawson asked, visibly impassioned.

"I shall tell you. I think I have not mentioned yet, that the projects Ratigan was working on, involved producing industrial and other chemicals which were primarily intended to facilitate and aid the population's everyday life. Brilliant creations, which gradually led to products which- from the moment of their selling – instantly became household names. Anyway – while great and beautiful things can be done with chemistry, there is at least as much, if not more, evil that can be achieved with a vast knowledge of it. As everything, the science of chemistry, too, has a dark side to it. So this is what Ratigan's sinister paper was about: he had contrived an elaborate concept of a most diabolical nature. You see, there exist chemicals, such as methylphenidate and amphetamine, which, if taken in in certain doses, can enhance one's cognitive abilities; they are called nootropics, and were widely unknown to chemists at that time. They improve one's attention and memory, and are now, almost two decades later, generally used to cure diseases, for example, insomnia, dementia, or hyperactivity to name a few. Naturally, if they are taken in by healthy people, they do not lose their effect – quite the contrary. Since virtually anyone in this world would give anything to be more reasonable, more alert, and more productive in their everyday life, the Professor, who by nature possessed the cognitive abilities to forgo the aid of any such chemicals, had devised a plan to admix those drugs into a product-to-be he referred to as Cogito – a pill, designed for oral use. Aware that it would sell extremely well, he knew that soon, the whole of London would be taking it… Anyway, the devilish thing was not that, somehow ironically, Ratigan desired to increase people's intellectual capacities – this was merely the argument he had for selling the product to the masses – but his real intention was to, so to speak, destroy their brains. The thing was this: small doses of these drugs are indeed beneficial; but higher doses are toxic, and inevitably cause considerable, irreversible damage to the brain. Ratigan's intention was to make Cogito easily, and for a cheap price, available to the masses, and to include an instruction booklet in its packaging which stated that one should first start with one pill and then, after about three weeks, increase the dose to two, and then more pills daily. An overdose would cause one's dopamine level to decrease extremely, which would lead to being able to only focus on one single activity at a time, and behaving like a robot – one feels disconnected from one's own perception and emotions, becomes passive and depressive, loses complete interest in interacting with others, and, worst of all, suffers from cognitive deficits – which is the exact opposite of what small doses of the drugs achieve. Actually, the hazards are similar to those of cocaine; the only thing is that cocaine is not available to the masses in average drug stores, but only at the chemist's, and at quite a high price. Cocaine is, I would say, more a kind of chic drug used by more affluent people, whereas Cogito was designed to be affordable for everyone who had some money.

"Now just imagine the situation if everybody would be taking these drugs. Initially, people think it is harmless, because it works – after all, as I said, taking low doses, one pill a day, they immediately shows signs of having improved cognitive abilities, especially if their intelligence is average or below that. Then they gradually increase the amount of pills they take, and because they increase it slowly, they are not immediately aware of the negative effects. In the end, they lose whatever average intelligence they had, and become alienated from themselves, emotionless, and above all, easily manipulated because of their lack of judgment. They cease to be curious, do not wish to learn anything new, desire no relationships of any kind, and lose any kind of creativity. Therefore, Professor Ratigan's intentions were to send London's inhabitants into their own doom; once their brains were damaged by an overdose of the product, there was no more remedy; they would be void of an own free will and could be easily controlled by someone who did have the ability, and desire, to do so. Someone who wanted power over millions – someone who wanted to create a world that would serve him, and only him. Someone who had no conscience, no feelings of guilt or remorse whatsoever. Someone filled with hatred towards all of mousedom."