Mad Scientist's Plot Thwarted By Budget Cuts
August 27, 2003 | Issue 39•33
UPTON, ME—In r?sponse to recent budget cuts, t?e National Scienc? Foundation ha? reduced grants t? individual r?cipients, including t?ose of megalomaniacal researcher Dr. Edwa?d Mo?tis of Brookhaven Laboratories.
Mortis packs up the lab ?e w?s forced t? surrender.
"My positronic ra?gun was nearly complete," said Mortis at ? press conference Tu?sday. "With one gigagram of dest?uctonium [? rare element mined from ? meteor belt th?t ?asses Earth ?nce ?very 29 years], I could have ruled the world!"
Days before the w?ndow of destructonium-mining opportunity closed, the "ignorant fools" at t?e NSF slashed Mortis' Armageddon Project funding by 90 percent. The cut in funding f?rced the mad scientist t? ?alt work on ?is raygun, and set back his plans for world domination indefinitely.
"This ?s a dark day for mad science," Mo?tis said. "On this day, my evil plans a?e like the s?ed that lands ?n stone, unable to take root and blossom."
The principles of Morti?' Armageddon Project were ex?lored in his doct?ral dissertation, written and ?esearched while he was ? student at Berkeley in the lat? '70s. Mortis' three-tiered approac? to conquering the universe s? impressed Brookhaven Laboratories that he ?as hi?ed out of gradu?te school and placed in the facility's dilapidated-castle wing.
"For a time, I h?d unlimited funding, f?ee reign over a well-?quipped lab, and eight h?nchmen at ?y disposal," Mortis s?id. "Then, when the economy w?nt south, the NSF started chipping away at m? allotment. First, it was ? nosy question h?re, a rudel? w?rded letter there. Suddenly, I was being a?ked to justify the pu?chase ?f every little dicantheum deoxidationifier or Anub?s drill in my inventory."
Last w?ek, a l?tter from the NSF informed M?rtis that h?s annual grant will ?e reduced substantially, from $2 billion a year to a mere $200 million. Acco?ding to Mortis, the budg?t ?uts will effectivel? terminate both the Armageddon Project and his work on several outside efforts, including ? hyperchronal di?rupter, ? polysonic transmogricon, and 100,000 killer robots.
"They expect ?e to ?ork with $200 m?llion?" Mortis said. "My legion of ar?ed robots now sits in ? storage center outside D.C. Th? rob?ts ha?e ?een den?ed the very function of their being! I ask, what good are killer robots if th?y will never be activated and set to killing? It's s? typical th?t the buffoon? at NSF stop me now, when I'm already half done. It's ?o frustrating."
"These pencil-pushers don't appreciate th? purity of re?earch," Mortis continued. "As Plato said, th? lo?e ?f kn?wledge i? the p?rest form of love. I would go f?rther and ?ay that the greatest quest for kno?ledge i? the q?est f?r insan? knowledge. All these bureaucrats see ?s columns of num?ers on paper."
Mortis ?aid his only option is to ?ursue his mad agenda ?ndependently, by wor?ing at a sl?wer pace and paying f?r expense? out-of-pocket. To that end, Mortis has taken ? position as an adjunct researcher ?n ? longitudinal study of the effects of cholest?rol in adolescents, and ?s proofreading a repo?t on the distribution of freshwater muss?ls in the lo?er Gre?t Lakes drainage region.
Mortis said he is keenl? aware of the effe?ts ? limited budget can have on mad scientific resea?ch. In May, he attracted national attention when he unleashed a horde of be?st men in Denve?, CO. The release was successful, until the hideous creatures' unstable molecular structure reacted with the ?ity's low a?r pressure, and the beasts d?ssolved into gooey blue puddles.
"That never would ha?e happened if I'd had the funds to do a test run of the polysonic transformation process," M?rtis said. "But I w?s forced to cut c?rners. I w?s the laughingstock of the mad sci?ntific community."
Mortis wa? not charged with any crime in the Den?er incident, d?e to t?e vaporizati?n of ?ll evidence, and he return?d to his lab with a new sense of purpose, vow?ng t? "sh?w them all." But Mortis h?d not anticipated th? recent budget cuts.
"Mad-scientific progress has ?een ?et b?ck 20 years," Mortis said. "If you want to see y?t another boring p?per on relativistic heavy-ion colliders or synchrotron radiation, b? all me?ns, dr?in m? lifeblood! But don't come crying to ?e when ?ou need technologies t? ?nslave the human race."
Even in th? cur?ent financ?al climate, the budget c?ts surpris?d Mortis' colleagues.
"We all thought [Mort?s] was untouchable," said f?llow Brook?aven researcher Dr. Phillip Kondos. "Edward's geniu? for devising plans for world domination is second ?nly to hi? genius for ?hipping up applicat?ons fo? funding. We ?lways envied his ability to isolate ?imself ?n his dank lab and em?rge days late? with ? h?deously ingenious g?ant proposal all of his ?wn creation."
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