After a month of scoping out the bushes outside Falter Cage on an unrelated drug mule scoop, NICE reporters observed that a fifth-floor window of the under-construction quarantine facility was always covered. After a brief investigation last week, NICE solved the mystery of Chard Vernon’s whereabouts.
In September, the first-year arts student arrived on campus from Sacramento for his mandatory two-week quarantine in Cage.
Seven months later, Vernon was still in there.
We interviewed Vernon to break the news that he’s free to start his life on campus, and to find out how management seemingly forgot about an entire person.
Hi Chard, how’s it going?
Heyyy. I’m alright, I mean, it’s been a long two weeks.
Chard... this may be difficult to believe, but you’ve been in this room for seven months.
Whoa. That’s fucked up.
It is. What happened? How much were you aware of the time passing?
Umm... [coughs] sorry, you’ve gotta be the first person I’ve talked to since POLI 100 on Monday, the day after I got here. I got pretty geeked Tuesday and slept through most of my classes last week... Sorry, did you say seven months?
Well, yeah. We’ve all been there, but what exactly do you mean by “pretty geeked”?
I stashed some shrooms from home in my socks, right? And then, have you heard of macrodosing?
Macrodosing?
It’s like microdosing, but you take the whole thing. Anyway, when those ran out around... day three? I just started Boordashing them.
Boordash brought you shrooms on the UBC campus?
Yeah, it’s their new pilot program — Sporedash.
We may have found our drug mule.
What?
Nothing. Chard… I’m sorry that you had to go through this for some reason, and I hope you can recover and enjoy the rest of your first year at UBC. Also, would you mind giving us your Sporedash contact?
The investigation
When NICE went to trace Sporedash, we found it led not to Boordash headquarters in San Francisco but just a half mile away: the UBC department of psychology.
In a third-floor lab, psychology grad student Julie Myers was frantically typing up a final report.
Her research question was “How does a dietary regimen of placebo psilocybin supplements affect the psychology of a prospective international relations student in complete confinement and isolation?”
When NICE confronted her about the reason for the patently unethical experiment, Myers said, “We just wanted to see what would happen.”
Myers is currently under review by the UBC Ethics Board.
Vernon, meanwhile, has finally moved into a dorm. Reportedly, he is adjusting remarkably well and is considering switching to Sauder.
“I’m planning on investing $100,000 to get Sporedash off the ground, for real.” ☺
This article is part of The Ubyssey’s 2021 spoof issue, NICE Magazine.
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