FRIEDRICH WOULD HAVE BEEN PLEASED WITH THE PROGRESS his adopted son had made. Coming up with a formula that would change human behavior had been the old man’s idea, but the delivery method had been Damon’s inspiration. The handful of scientists that had come over from the Institute and worked on his secret project were in the final phase of testing. If Damon had followed the letter of the law, then the formula would still be in the lab being tested on animals. But he had never been bound by laws and so their test was a true test. A field test in a live population. It had been in trials for twenty years now, its earliest subjects Institute students who had no one waiting for them on the outside, no one to notice when they never came back from their training. Some of their subjects’ brains had been permanently damaged, meaning they couldn’t be placed safely back into society. Now that the large field tests were occurring, Damon could barely contain his excitement. He had alerted Brody Hamilton that it was ready, and in turn, Hamilton had set the wheels in motion for Damon’s coup de grace.
It was fascinating how much of human behavior was actually caused by chemicals in the brain. People thought they held the power of choice in their weak wills, but Damon knew better. So much of what drove them was chemical and then, beyond that, the subconscious. There were factors at play of which they had no inkling. His recent training in hypnosis had borne that out. But what he found even more fascinating was the effect that serotonin had on the brain.
His new concoction, which he’d named Ravage, was a cocktail of methamphetamine and ecstasy, combined with an accelerator his scientists had designed, that caused a particularly rabid methamphetamine-associated psychosis. An autopsy would just show the meth and ecstasy and everyone would assume that their dear departed mother, sister, brother, or whomever was a closet drug addict. And in the meantime, their atrocious acts of violence combined with their newly discovered secret habit would make everyone look at them in a new light.
Damon knew that Jack Logan was on the trail, and the exposure in the media would only help his case. That was why he’d made sure that his news conglomerate had given it very scant coverage. It wouldn’t be long before these unconnected incidents would draw national attention from all the news sources, not just the ones Damon controlled through UBC. Once word of the autopsy results leaked out, it would look like another national drug crisis. That’s when he’d make sure it hit all the news channels, with the spin that the recent focus on opioids as the biggest threat had made lawmakers less vigilant about monitoring the purchase of over-the-counter antihistamines commonly used to cook up meth. The authorities would assume there were tainted street drugs and would put all their attention on trying to find the source. Damon made sure to isolate the exposure to the Eastern Seaboard, so it would be believable that a particular batch had been tainted. They would never figure out the truth.
Just as in war, the best way to destroy troops is to take down their leader. When Pastor Pearson had gone crazy on television, his followers had been shocked, unmoored. They’d felt betrayed—the one preaching to them from the pulpit was in actuality a degenerate who indulged in the pleasures of the flesh. They hadn’t thought to show him the same compassion or grace that he’d shown them when they first came to church. No, they had their judgment hats on and crucified him. Many would turn from their faith completely, utterly destroyed, as it called everything they believed into question.
Damon remembered the first lesson his esteemed adoptive father had taught him about the easily manipulated nature of human beings. If you wanted to ruin someone, you didn’t go after them directly. You didn’t call their convictions into question. You distracted them and made them want something else more than they wanted what was good for them. At its core, it was the same reason the diet industry was a billion-dollar business. Humans were unable to withstand temptation for any length of time. Their bad habits were their undoing, and everyone had an addiction of one type or another.
Another driver of people’s behavior was herd mentality, Friedrich said, their lemminglike tendencies to follow the crowd. That was the secret weapon used by advertisers, influencers, and marketers for years. Politicians and world leaders understood it, too. After all, if everyone is doing it, it must be right.
“Mass hysteria is easy to accomplish,” Friedrich told him. Every day after school when Damon would go to his house, his real education would commence. The older man taught him psychology, sociology, philosophy, and history, brilliantly explaining how they all intersected. “It need only start with one or two people whispering about something terrible afoot. Look at those foolish Puritans. They had no proof, but they put people to death over mere rumors of witchcraft. It happens over and over. And one need only look at the Communist scare here just a few decades ago. People were convinced that their neighbors or even relatives were a threat to the security of the country.”
“Surely not everyone is susceptible to groupthink,” Damon had replied, wanting to impress Friedrich with his contrarian pushback.
Friedrich shook his finger at him. “Only the extraordinary rise above and can see things for what they are. Those people are the leaders, the ones who use this human failing to their advantage.”
Damon had never forgotten that lesson and had seen the phenomenon over and over in business. Need to sell more flu vaccines? Run a news story about people dying of the flu and everyone will clamor for it. Manufactured too many of a certain toy? Make people believe there’s a shortage because it’s so popular and see droves of customers in search of it. It was almost too easy. The success of all his commercial enterprises had depended on this knowledge. Now, years after he’d learned the foundation he’d used for so many experiments, it would be just a few more weeks until his plan would be complete. That’s when the fun would really start.