Sainsbury Laboratory Escape Room
I hope it works…
My name is Jannick Mark and I am a professor at Cambridge University. Last few years of my life I dedicated to studying the orchid Epipogium aphyllum. I figured out how to propagate this rare plant in hopes of helping its conservation efforts. And then, one night… I was abducted by aliens. Even now, while experiencing this, I can hardly believe it myself. The “contact” was not at all how one would imagine – they did not want to be taken to our leader or share their knowledge of universe with “lesser species/galactic neighbours”. They simply wanted to profit. Our two species have a lot in common when seven deadly sins are concerned…
The humble orchid I dedicated all my life studying turned out to be a source of a highly addictive, potent hallucinogenic drugs for the aliens. It has such a powerful effect on them in its raw extract that the aliens go into a bliss-filled coma even at the smallest whiff of the orchid. There was an added complication that they could not cultivate it to mass-produce the drugs, so procuring the orchid remained an extremely dangerous and not quite profitable enough enterprise.
Until they abducted me that is… I am barely more than a slave, using my protocol to propagate the orchid for them and handle the raw extract. So far, I have been indispensable for them, but I fear they will soon replace me with robots. I managed to patch into their communications system and used it to break through CSCS security (apologies if this disrupts your work!) to upload this message. I do not know where in the Universe I am and I am well aware that even if I knew my location, our technology is not anywhere near sophisticated enough to attempt a rescue mission. The only thing I hope for is that now that these space junkies have the means to mass-produce their drugs, they will leave the Earth alone.
