Adriana took a large swig of her first coffee of the morning as she opened Will's email. It was 7:30 a.m. and she had woken up before her alarm. She was excited to dig into this project. She was expecting a straightforward email or document from him with a few main points, but what she got instead was an intricate breakdown of the project that left her body pumping with passion and adrenaline. She reviewed the elements again: virtual reality therapy, designed to help individuals overcome prolonged heartbreak and obsessive thoughts. Microdosing psilocybin to create a soft reset for the brain, paired with a dopaminergic stimulant to keep them focused and functioning while creating new paths. Fuck, Adriana wanted to marry this idea. It was bold, progressive, creative, and it aimed to help reduce pain for so many. It was the reason she loved neuroscience.
Adriana nodded to herself as she read through the details a few more times. For Adriana, it was crucial that she nail this. This potential breakthrough in holistic therapeutic treatments for mental health was the kind of thing that could change the world, and maybe Adriana had found where she could be a game changing piece for something better in the world.
She immediately felt the pressure. Will seemed to trust her before even getting to know her, and that immediate trust had meant so much to her. He wanted a knockout communication strategy for his pitch, so Adriana needed to find something that not only made sense but also captivated a room of potential scientists. This had to impress the board, make them see the potential. No, it had to make them fall in love with it.
The next few days were a blur. Adriana worked from dawn until well after midnight, her desk buried under scribbled notes and half-empty coffee mugs.
Adriana sat at her desk, staring at the empty slides on her screen. Well, not completely empty. Each one had a title, a placeholder image, and a few bullet points that didn't say much. It was the skeleton of a proposal, but the flesh and the heart of it were missing.
She groaned and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. Will's project deserved so much more than this half-baked attempt. This wasn't just some random VR therapy. She was supposed to be showcasing a revolutionary treatment that could change how people talked about human heartbreak and recovery. But how was she supposed to convey that when all she had was a series of blank slides and vague ideas?
Adriana picked up her phone and texted Cara:Can I borrow your help? I'm about to throw my laptop out the window.
Fifteen minutes later, Cara arrived with two iced coffees and her usual energy.
"So, what am I looking at?" Cara asked, pulling up a chair next to Adriana and setting the coffees down.
Adriana sighed and gestured to her screen. "This… is supposed to be the proposal that impresses the board and makes them fall in love with Will Lockwood's project. But right now, it's just a bunch of titles and no substance."
Cara leaned in, squinting at the screen. She clicked through the slides, raising an eyebrow at one that had nothing but the words "VR Therapy Overview" and a stock photo of a woman wearing a headset.
"Wow," Cara said. "Riveting stuff."
"Stop it," Adriana groaned. "I know it's bad. I'm trying to figure out how to make it work."
Cara shrugged and started dragging random shapes into the slides. She added a smiley face here, a random arrow there. "Maybe if you throw in enough of these, they'll get distracted and just approve it without reading."
Adriana snorted. "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going for. Actually, the boomers might eat those up."
"Judge, I'm not a cat" Cara murmured aloud as she drew a crude cat with the pen tool continued to mess around, letting her own brain percolate for ideas. She dropped in two circles from the shapes menu, then drew a line of chain links to connect them. "Here: these could be handcuffs that represent the way the stuffy old board members keep oppressing great people and great ideas. You know, a little rebellion against the system." She added a few more details to her image, then pasted in a few eggplant emojis.
Adriana glanced at the screen and rolled her eyes.
Cara muttered, "Sex sells, Adriana. I'm telling you. And didn't you say Will did sexy biology or something?"
Adriana, only half-listening, corrected her absently. "Neurobiology of sex."
And then, like a lightbulb turning on, Adriana sat up straight. "That's it."
Cara perked up, eyes widening. "Wait, for real?"
Adriana waved her off, ignoring her look of disappointment. "No, not the cuffs. But… prisons. People are stuck in prisons. Not literal ones, but mental prisons. Our society isn't optimized for how humans really function. The prisons are false ideas and beliefs, unhelpful behaviours that come from poor modeling, poor coping mechanisms, and the inability to handle stress."
Cara watched as Adriana's eyes lit up with inspiration.
"Think about it," Adriana continued, her excitement building. "People suffering from anything—grief, anger, obsession, loss—they're trapped in these mental prisons, stuck in their own misery. Most of all, they're isolated. Lonely. But that's where this therapy comes in."
Adriana slid the keyboard over, nudging Cara out of the way as she began typing ideas quickly. "The hallucinogen microdosing is what breaks those mental prison walls open. The virtual reality training shines a light into those dark corners of the mind, showing them a way out. And the stimulant? That's the guiding hand, the thing that helps pull them out of that darkness into a world that's actually worth living in, and keeps them on that path to wellness."
Cara blinked, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Okay, that's actually brilliant… like a prison break from the mental ruts they've been stuck in for years. Bish, look at you go."
Adriana nodded, her fingers still flying as she refined the idea. This was going to be some of her best work.
A few days later, Adriana sat at her desk, leaning back and looking at what she'd created. This was it. This proposal would make the board and the public see Will's vision in a whole new light.
Cara wandered into the room and peered over her shoulder, nodding in approval. "Now that's what I'm talking about. You nailed it."
Adriana grinned. "Yeah, I think I did. Thanks for the handcuffs, even though they didn't make the final cut."
"Hey, they served their purpose," Cara replied with a playful shrug. "Gotta start somewhere, right?"
Feeling lighter than she had in days, Adriana saved the file and prepped her email. She attached the presentation, gave it one last glance, and hit send. A wave of relief washed over her. It was done.
As she closed her laptop, Adriana couldn't shake the good feeling that lingered. This was it: the work that would push Will Lockwood's project forward. She stretched, feeling the tension of the week finally starting to ease, blissfully unaware that the file she'd just sent wasn't the finished proposal but the rough skeleton draft. The one with the placeholders, scattered thoughts, and Cara's emoji contributions and overtly sexual suggestions.
For now, though, she celebrated this moment of peace, confident in what she believed was her best work.