The tenure committee clamped their mouths shut and refused to acknowledge Wallace when they encountered him on campus or at faculty gatherings.
The much-maligned president won a second term of office by a landslide. Few people remembered to criticize him for anything.
Wallace bought Evelyn the largest diamond ring he could find. It barely made a dent in his bank account as the royalties poured in. He also gave her the funds to produce her own documentary on life in a medieval village. She adored the project and thanked him properly.
She conceived a second child that night.
He had to have the housekeeper buy baby powder and baby soap at the health food stores to get away from artificial fragrances. All of their groceries came from there as well, so he wouldn’t have to smell and taste chemical fertilizers and preservatives. He spent more and more time in the sterilized lab as body odors, deodorants, and cosmetics overwhelmed him to the point of nausea.
The day before the Evelyn premiered her movie, the tenure committee summoned Wallace before their august presences.
At last!
He dressed in his best suit, a new custom-tailored one in charcoal grey, with a subdued tie and blindingly white shirt with French cuffs and eighteen carat gold cufflinks with a tiny diamond set in the center.
He paused outside the door to the conference room to gather himself and settle his shoulders. Out of habit he sniffed, assessing his surroundings.
The acrid scent of a predator on the hunt stung his nostrils.
Where?
A surge of defensive adrenaline coursed through his system, sharpening all of his senses. His muscles bunched, ready to flee or fight. He sniffed again.
The scent was strongest at the closed doorway.
He took three long deep breaths, calming himself, forcing his mind to take over his instincts.
Yes, inside. The TC had become predatory. Life or death committee. And glad about it. They wanted to take something very precious from him. That’s what predators did.
If not his life, then what? They’d already denied him tenure.
Suspicion crowded out his fear.
He flipped out his cellphone and speed-dialed his stockbroker. “They can’t take the money if they can’t find it.”
With a few terse orders he sold all of his stock in Sensaroma and other diversified industries and laundered the money through the Cayman Islands.
The dumping of a large amount of the stock might create a slump in the stock market. But soon the numbers would rally as investors rushed to buy a piece of the most amazing innovation to come on the market in decades.
Then he dialed his contact at Homeland Security. Time for some interesting facts to go into the background checks of key members of the university administration and the TC.
Time to cash in some favors for their confiscation of the filtering unit.
With renewed confidence and armored against his enemies, Wallace entered the conference room as if he owned the university.
“Our lawyers inform us that since you developed Sensaroma while in our employ as a biophysicist, the patents belong to the university,” Dr. Pretentious informed Wallace without preamble.
“We will expect the signed patent transfer documents within twenty-four hours,” Dr. Beta continued. “Along with royalty statements and a check for the entire amount paid to you.”
“You will of course be rewarded with a small bonus for bringing such a valuable commodity to Vasco da Gama University,” Dr. Shallow concluded.
“Does tenure come with that bonus?” Wallace snarled at them. His temper boiled, but he kept it under control. He had the upper hand at the moment.
“Of course you’ll get tenure. Once all of the legalities are completed and there is an opening for a tenured position in your department,” Dr. Pretentious said graciously.
“If I’d known I could have bought tenure, I’d have taken out a loan years ago. My lawyers will contact your lawyers.” Wallace stalked out of the conference room. “And I bet my lawyers are smarter and more powerful than yours.”
At the close of business that day, instead of patent transfer documents, the TC received a counter lawsuit. The TC had rejected the invention when offered to them; therefore, Wallace was free to market it elsewhere. He tendered his resignation in a separate envelope. Something he should have done when he received the first royalty check for six times his annual salary. But his need for revenge had outweighed his good judgment.
No more. He had other plans. Like founding his own university in the Cayman Islands.
The next day, Wallace left the baby with the nanny to attend the premier of Evelyn’s movie. He slipped unnoticed into the back of an auditorium filled with two hundred history majors. He wore small filter plugs in his nose, the only way he could tolerate crowds of people anymore.
He took them out the moment the projection screen came to life. The camera panned across an ocean that pounded a rocky shore. Wallace smelled salt and fish and seaweed on the cold wind. The ragged coastline became the ragged ramparts of a castle. New scents assailed the audience. Mud in an enclosed courtyard. Mold on damp stone.
People clad in ancient peasant garb strolled across the scene. Their unwashed bodies, the sweat of hard labor and anxiety over daily trials and tribulations replaced the sharp, clean aroma of the open sea.
To Wallace’s sensitized nose, the combination smelled like fear. He realized that for the average peasant, even in Third-World countries today, life represented fear.
No wonder so many less modern societies revolved around their faith. People needed to pray daily for survival and thank the heavens for each day they came through unscathed.
A different way of life. A different way of thinking.
He sat forward fascinated, more interested in history than ever before. This was how his invention needed to be used. His love for Evelyn increased as he began to understand her passion.
Unfortunately, her students took a different view. The sound of gagging accompanied the movie as the camera followed a woman with a child at her breast into a tiny, dark hut. The students vacated the auditorium in droves. Mud, pigs, disease, rotting food, and open sewers made them ill.
The smell of vomit, closer and more real than provided by the movie, added its own distinct aroma.
But they were natural scents, not chemical. Wallace reveled in them.
Humanity had become so detached from reality, scrubbed it clean and sterilized it, that they could no longer use their noses as they were designed to work. People didn’t trust their noses like they did their eyes and ears.
And so they could be manipulated by their noses. Or they felt abused when presented by reality.
They were embarrassed by the stink of life.
“I hope total reality does not become a trend in the movies,” he mused when he tried to talk to Evelyn that night about the disaster with her students.
His mind began working on how to get the filter back from the government.
“I don’t care about movies. I care about helping my students relive history, to get an honest feel for life in times past so they can better understand the people and therefore the politics of the day and great historical events.” She dashed into the master bathroom and locked the door. The sound of her sobs continued long into the night. Max scratched and whined solicitously at the door at frequent intervals and at last crept into his basket around dawn.
For once Wallace was almost glad that he had not become a household name.
Homeland Security did their work. The TC exploded in a scandal of bribes, sex for favors, and classroom ethics. The university chancellor himself granted Wallace tenure. A week later, Wallace accepted the position of Dean of Research and Graduate Studies along with a seat on the newly revised tenure committee.
The next night on the national news, a reporter in the field employed Sensaroma to their coverage of the latest war involving US troops. Amongst the scenes of horror showing the wounded and dying, listening to their screams of pain and the mourning wails of the survivors, came the full array of vile odors. Blood, excrement, vomit, the sweat of fear.