Wherein there are rumors most amusing and secrets most dangerous.
There are a few pervasive rumors about the UT Campus. Three in particular come to mind.
First, there is a small population of albino squirrels around the campus. This part is not rumor, that’s fact. The rumor or folklore is that if you see one of these rare but twitchily cute beasties right before an exam, you will get an A. This rumor is more wishful thinking than anything else, but when stressed and freaked about an upcoming exam, you too might find yourself crouching by some bushes with some bread crusts from your sandwich making cooing noises for the rarest of all squirrels.
The second rumor is that there is a catacomb of steam tunnels running under and connecting the entire campus. At first hearing, this doesn’t sound unreasonable. Most large facilities have steam tunnels running under them which may connect two adjacent buildings so they can share boilers, waste channels, etc. However, upon the realization that the UT Austin campus is 423 acres large, this moves from “obviously likely” to the “maybe plausible” category.
The third rumor was always an odd one for me. According to this piece of folklore shopped around parties and side conversations as truth, there is a secret nuclear reactor under the RLM building. The Robert Lee Memorial building was always one of the strangest buildings on campus. Home to all the hardcore full frontal science courses, it was a tall behemoth, rising above any other building at that time. A veritable tower of science, it was the place of indentured servitude for science students and a confusing maze of boredom for other students. The first few floors of the building had escalators which you had to take to get up them. The higher floors required an elevator that did not stop on the earlier floors. The building went up to the sky and deep into the ground. With the foreboding sciency way the building looked and the wily, laconic nature of most professors who had offices within, the idea that there was a secret nuclear reactor below wasn’t that much of a stress. Why they kept it in the heart of a populous city made no sense, though.
These are all the rumors that many UT students learn. Whether we accept them or not is up to us. None of them are really verifiable nor do they really affect your UT career (unless you have a phobia of nuclear meltdown, in which case, sorry, they already have your tuition check). But they were always around and always made you wonder. What was happening on this particular night was that I was learning some rumors that not every UT student hears.
“So, like, you guys might not know this unless you’re really in with a prof or go to grad school, but the departments are all at war with each other. All their secret projects are in competition with each other. Of course, the nature of the projects just might get us all killed.”
It was a strange way to start a new conversation. It was a strange confession. But if we put it into the context of someone seeking attention, it wasn’t quite strange. Either way, I was glad the conversation happened.
It was Rachel that was telling us all this. Rachel was the dark-haired girl that Zero met downtown. She was a few years older than us, so she knew more of what went on around campus. Since our trip downtown, she had been upgraded from girl-hooked-up-with to girlfriend. She and Zero were joined at the hip. Whether we liked her or not, we were stuck with her if we wanted to see Zero. She was actually pretty smart, and Zero was… well, he was cute and girls liked that. I guess he was the trophy boyfriend.
We were at someone’s apartment. I can’t remember whose, but we were all hanging out, having a few beers. The apartment owner and a few others retreated to a bedroom to smoke weed, but the rest of us alcohol-only folks had stayed in the living room to shoot the shit. Trent was aimlessly plucking on his guitar as we talked. Rachel was regaling us with her privileged knowledge. Some of it was a little hard to swallow.
“What do you mean it could get us killed?” asked Other Mike.
“Well, just the nature of the projects,” said Rachel. “Physics is building a death ray. Electrical Engineering is building robots. I think Philosophy is working on like these weird mind powers. But with violent application.”
“Like in Scanners?” asked Becky.
“Exactly like in Scanners,” said Rachel, “but no one’s head has exploded.” Her face turned thoughtful. “Yet. I think.”
“Why are they building such things?” I asked.
“Supposedly it’s some new competition or edict from the Dean. Or that’s what I heard,” said Rachel.
“What, is our Dean some sort of super villain?” I asked.
“It sure sounds like it,” said Becky. “But if so, I hope he uses those projects for some grand scheme to steal something valuable and lower our tuition.”
“Unless he’s stealing directly from the budget,” said Mike.
“Petty embezzlement is beneath a proper super villain,” said Becky, causing Mike to shrug.
“So do all departments have one of these secret projects?” asked Other Mike.
“Most,” said Rachel, pausing to ask Zero to get her a beer. “There are a lot of them, in various stages. But they all are trying to do something related to their department’s specialty.”
“What’s Classics doing?” asked Trent as he idly strummed. The Classics department specialized in dead languages, Latin, Greek, Egyptian.
“I hear conflicting reports,” said Rachel. “Classics is being much more secretive. One person said they’re researching Pythagorian equations to change the nature of reality. Another said they have a mummy.”
“Wouldn’t a mummy be more archaeology?” asked Other Mike.
“I know, I thought that too!” said Rachel. “But that’s what I heard.” She accepted her beer as Zero sat back down.
“So Biology is doing some sort of plague, right?” asked Becky. “That would seem to be the most dangerous to us.”
“I would still say death ray as most dangerous,” said Other Mike.
“Biology is a strange department for this competition,” said Rachel. “They’ve made it clear that the entire department must work on the same thing, no exceptions. So the department party line is that they’re working on chimeras. But I know from a friend that Professor Nemerson is purposely violating this to work on his own project.”
“What are chimeras?” asked Mike.
“A chimera is a monster from Greek mythology,” answered Trent. “It is the combination of a lion, a snake, and a goat.”
“In modern biology, a chimera is a creature that is formed from combining the genetics of two others,” said Rachel.
“So abominations against God and Man?” suggested Other Mike.
“Exactly!” said Rachel with a laugh.
“But what’s this rebel Professor Nimrod doing?” asked Becky.
“Professor Nemerson,” corrected Rachel. “He’s conducting even more secret experiments. I hear it’s the reanimation of dead tissue. But…”
“But what?” asked Mike.
“But that’s really just a stereotype,” she continued. “’Someone in biology doing something weird? Oh no! Let’s toss the Frankenstein stereotype on them!’ You see what I mean? I have no idea if it’s true.”
“I could see that,” I said.
“So what other strange projects are there?” asked Other Mike.
“Hmm, let me think,” said Rachel, now obviously a little tipsy. “God, what can I remember. Oh! Folklore!”
“Folklore? Like fairy tales and shit?” said Becky.
“That and the social groups and practices associated with them,” said Rachel. “But yeah, fairy tales. It’s a small department, but Professor Lichtenstein has one of the farthest along projects of the University.”
“What’s he doing?” asked Other Mike.
“It’s some sort of ritual magic,” said Rachel. “I’m not really sure on the details, but I know his grad students have been setting up all sorts of things on Jester Dorm. I think something big is going down with his project at Jester on Halloween. Ritual sacrifice? Summoning? Fuck if I know. Sucks for Jester inhabitants, though.” She finished with a laugh and took a long drink from her beer.
There was a chilled silence as we all looked at each other, except for Rachel, who was a little drunk and still quite amused.
“But,” I said almost meekly, speaking words to what everyone else thought, “we all live in Jester…”
Add A Comment