Trading Secrets
The study was supposed to be simple. I needed the cash, they needed a test subject; it was a simple arrangement. They hook me up to a machine, and I think about different things. Sometimes they let me nap or read a book.
It was easy.
When I joined, there were a lot of forms to sign. A lot of promising not to talk about this with anyone else. Top Secret, the documents reminded me again and again. I didn’t see what the big deal was, but they were paying me well enough that I’d be able to afford rent for a few months until I found a decent job.
My friends had started to notice my increase in wealth. “How come you finally started coming out with us? Did you get a new job?”
I shrugged the first thousand times they asked, but it gets old eventually. “Sort of,” I explained one afternoon, sitting at the bar. “I’m doing a clinical study.” I enjoyed the looks on their faces as they envisioned being poked and prodded, downing strange pills. “Nothing too obscene; I go into a room, I drink a bottle of water, and then they hook up some electrodes to my head and then I just kind of chill for a few hours. Every now and then they ask me questions, but nothing invasive. It pays pretty well, too.”
“Sounds like a sweet deal,” Kennedy observed. I recognized the look of interest (who doesn’t like easy cash?), and I suddenly felt uncomfortable. I wasn’t supposed to be talking about this, but it’s not like I gave out any real details.
I shrugged. “Kind of boring, actually.” I checked my watch. “Anyway, I should be going. Supposed to swing by my mom’s.” I managed to look apologetic for bailing. In truth, I was headed to another session with the Top Secret Team of Scientists. So top secret, I wasn’t even sure what their machines did. Not that it mattered, too much.
As usual, when I got there, they did a thorough search of my person. Searching for wires, or something, I’m sure. Then they insisted I drank a bottle of water, and I they didn’t hook me up until I was all finished. No liquids in the room, they would always explain. The session started off the same as all the others. “Have you told anyone about this experiment.” Yes.
For the first time since starting, I lied. “Nope.” I saw the two men observing the screen exchange a look. I shifted in my seat, and they asked if they were sure. It wasn’t an unusual question, but I still felt nervous. “Positive,” I lied again.
A man I had never met entered the room, then. He looked angry; his brows were furrowed, his round cheeks bright red. “Who did you talk to?” He demanded.
“No one,” but I couldn’t help but replay in my mind the scene at the bar, what exactly I had said.
“Not too much detail,” One of the men watching the screen murmured. I tore my eyes from the angry man, to glance at them. They weren’t paying attention to me, staring intently at the screen.
“She looks familiar, though.” The other man said.
The angry hulking figure glared at me and then stomped over to the other two, shoving them out of the way. He scowled, “You gave information out.” I cowered in the chair; somehow they knew what I had done; I couldn’t think of anything to say to get me out of this. “Worse, you gave information to a competitor.”
Confusion outweighed my fear, briefly. “A competitor? I hardly gave any details, and only to my friends.”
The screen turned to me, and I saw Kennedy looking back at the screen, the same expression of interest painted on her features. The bar was still in the background, and it took me a second to realize that it was my memory of Kennedy at the bar. “She’s not a competitor. She’s a bartender.”
The angry man shook his head, yanking the screen back toward him. I saw the other two men wince at his rough treatment of the machine. “She works for our competitor. She gets paid to weasel information out of unsuspecting employees, and sends it back to her employers so they can get ahead.”
“But... she’s a bartender.”
He snorted, “She’s a corporate spy. What better way to get information than from a bar frequented by members of the scientific community.” He sounded disgusted, and frankly, I felt it. I had known Kennedy since middle school; she was always the most honest person I had ever known. She’d been keeping this secret this whole time? If that was true, what else had she been keeping from me?
“I...” I don’t know what I intended to stay, but the man who was apparently in charge shook his head.
“Get out.” He demanded. “Your study is over.”
“But sir, the research--”
“I said she’s done.”
I started to panic, I needed this money. I still hadn’t found a job, despite how hard I had been looking. I knew this wasn’t going to last forever, but I didn’t think it would end so soon. “No, I won’t talk about it with anyone else.”
“You’ve already broken our trust. Get. Out.”
“Use me.” He paused as he was about to order me once more to leave. “I can give her false information. Tell me what to say, I’ll say it. That way you can complete your experiment and lead her off whatever you’re working on. Please. Clearly, you can check whether or not I actually tell her what you want.”
He paused, still, and seemed to be considering what I had said. When he nodded, I slumped into my chair in relief. “But we are done for today. Leave.” I nodded, and the other two began unhooking the electrodes from my head.
That day is how I began keeping more and more secrets from my best friend. It was the day I lost all trust in her. And it was the day I realized I’d been spilling all my secrets to strangers in a lab.