Page 23 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Black Pinhole Nanofurnace

Although I was soon to undertake my next job for the
advancement of psychoceramics, it was inevitable that I follow, at a
distance, the progress of Aitkens’ brainchild. He evidently again
raised a veil of secrecy around his workplace; no publicity attended
his reappearance on the scientific scene. But he did make the news
one more time, about a year later, and it brought me a greater
appreciation of our benefactor’s desire to keep himself out of the
limelight and my identity evanescent—Magnus somehow knew I
could be a chameleon without qualm or effort.
Once more, Lalo Aitkens was the subject of mocking reports in
the press. His family, as unearthed in a distant cousin, had been
encouraged to sign commitment papers for the former wunderkind.
To synopsize a series of disjointed articles, I will present the salient
points. The nanofurnace project had been on the point of final proof
of concept when it was shut down—not by Aitkens, but by some
unknown agency of the government. So he claimed, but could not
present any evidence. His laboratory was deserted when reporters
investigated; no mechanism corresponding to his description of a
black pinhole nanofurnace could be found. Exactly, cried the
scientist: first to the police, then to a lawyer, then to anyone who
would listen. After a few weeks of escalating hysteria on the part of
Aitkens, he still wasn’t taken seriously—but they seriously came to
take him, away to a padded cell. His last mistake was to use the sanity
hearing as a podium from which to make an impassioned plea for
restitution and respect. The judge, naturally enough, heard only the
ravings of a madman. His fate was sealed.
His statement, bizarre but eloquent, had been printed with a
slanted commentary linking its author with other geniuses who had
gone off the deep end, sadly ending a promising career—Reich,
Pauling and, most extravagantly, the Unabomber. After explaining
the crucial importance of his discovery and invention to the survival
of the species, difficult for most of his audience to interpret as
anything but megalomania, he proceeded to confirm a diagnosis of
paranoid schizophrenia with severe delusions of persecution by
describing the events leading to his hyperactive outrage and fantastic
accusations.

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