Project Oxygen

foreword

EPIGRAPH

"Our ability to selectively engage and disengage our moral standards . . . helps explain how people can be barbarically cruel in one moment and compassionate the next."

Albert Bandura

"However, even psychologists are people, subject to the same dynamic processes at a personal level that they study at a professional level."

Philip Zimbardo

"There is a certain discomfort in not knowing who the boss is, and subjects sometimes frantically sought to determine this."

Stanley Milgram

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SYNOPSIS

          This is how it begins: your job's a joke, you're broke and you're a college student, meaning you could use every extra bit of cash you can possibly get, as it's not easy for anyone, especially when you've just got disowned. Thus, when the Psychology Department of your University starts hanging flyers, offering you twenty dollars per hour if you accept to take part in an experiment, you take that opportunity.

          That doesn't necessarily mean you were expecting to run face first into the reason why you got disowned—better yet, the person who turned your life upside down, without a single phone-call. It wasn't written in the contract you signed that you had to spend too much time with people you wouldn't have gotten along with under different circumstances. They also didn't tell you all of you had to live together, like in a sophisticated reality show.

          They call the experiment Project Oxygen. You call it the thing that's going to save you from bankruptcy.

          Rhiannon Ford got caught in the eye of the hurricane when she showed up for that interview, never once thinking of the possibility of being pulled into an intricate mystery plot surrounding the experiment, when all she wanted was to find some stability as everything around her turned into rubble.

          This is how it ends: you can't remember what the hell you did on January 14 or why there's a dead body in your living room.

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DEDICATION

To Ann, who got me into writing (and reading) mystery books. I love you.

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CAST

viola davis as beatrice northrop

julian morris as jude sargent

blanca padilla as rhiannon ford

zayn malik as roman cooke

camila mendes as isla guerreiro

avan jogia as connor duncan

bridget satterlee as zelda berry

reece king as dimitri bonheur

paulina singer as brooklyn bach

adonis bosso as matteo di stefano

naomi scott as laura palmer

hayley kiyoko as sutton cooper

cara delevingne as gabriella brighton

liana liberato as hailey hobbes

d.j. cotrona as frances mccall

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CONTENTS

this book and 'counterfactual' are linked and share characters, frequently referencing each other, but can be read as standalones

canadians

too much caffeine

character deaths

pop culture references

references to zimbardo's stanford prison experiment because i'm a psych major

all chapters are named after a psychological term—be it of neuropsychological nature, or other. the term descriptions at the beginning of the chapters don't belong to me; they come from google dictionary or psychology dictionaries

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COPYRIGHT & DISCLAIMER

          DISCLAIMER: my characters' opinions don't necessarily reflect mine. 

          This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, corporations, establishments and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

          COPYRIGHT © 2017 CATERINA GEORGE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

          No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. Feel free to quote it, but give me the proper credit.