Breeder Reaction
Page 2
ducking her head.
The damage was done. You don't get ahead in this game by admittingmistakes, and the production department was already packaging andlabelling samples of Atummyc Bath Powder to send out to thedistributors.
* * * * *
I had to carve the $25,000 out of my lipstick budget and keep my mouthshut. When the ad copy came over from my firm I looked it over,shuddered at the quickie treatment they had given it and turned itloose. Things were beginning to develop fast in my lipstickdepartment, and I didn't have time to chase the powder thing like Ishould have--since it was my name on the whole damned project.
So I wrote off the money and turned to other things.
We were just hitting the market with Madame Elaine Templeton's"Kissmet" when the first smell of smoke came my way. The pixie cameinto my office one morning and congratulated me.
"You're a genius!" she said.
"Like the Kissmet campaign, do you?" I said pleased.
"It stinks," she said holding her nose. "But Atummyc Bath Powder willpull you out of the hole."
"Oh, that," I said. "When does it go to market?"
"Done went--a month ago."
"What? Why you haven't had time to get it out of the lab yet. Using aforeign substance, you should have had an exhaustive series of allergyskin tests on a thousand women before--"
"I've been using it for two months myself," she said. "And look at me!See any rashes?"
I focussed my eyes for the first time, and what I saw made me wonderif I were losing my memory. The pixie had been a pretty little Frenchpastry from the first, but now she positively glowed. Her skin evenhad that "radiant atomic look", right out of our corny, low-budget adcopy.
"What--have you done to yourself, fallen in love?"
"With Atummyc After Bath Powder," she said smugly. "And so have theladies. The distributors are all reordering."
Well, these drug sundries houses have some sharp salesmen out, and Ifigured the bath powder must have caught them needing something topromote. It was a break. If we got the $25,000 back it wouldn't hurtmy alibi a bit, in case the Kissmet production failed to click.
Three days later the old man called me from the New York branch of ouragency. "Big distributor here is hollering about the low budget we'vegiven to this Atummyc Bath Powder thing," he said. "He tells me hismen have punched it hard and he thinks it's catching on pretty big.Maybe you better talk the Madame out of a few extra dollars."
"The Old Hag's in Europe," I told him, "and I'm damned if I'll rob theKissmet Lipstick deal any more. It's mostly spent anyway."
The old man didn't like it. When you get the distributors on your sideit pays to back them up, but I was too nervous about the wobbly firstreturns we were getting on the Kissmet campaign to consider takingaway any of the unspent budget and throwing it into the bath powderdeal.
The next day I stared at an order from a west coast wholesaler andbegan to sweat. The pixie fluttered it under my nose. "Two morecarloads of Atummyc Bath Powder," she gloated.
"Two more _carloads_?"
"Certainly. All the orders are reading _carloads_," she said. "Thisthing has busted wide open."
And it had. Everybody, like I said earlier, lost their head. Thebath-powder plant was running three shifts and had back-orders chinhigh. The general manager, a joker name of Jennings, got excited,cabled Madame Elaine to get back here pronto, which she did, and thenthe panic was on.
The miracle ingredient was this Atummion, and if Atummion sold bathpowder why wouldn't it sell face-cream, rouge, mud-packs, shampoos,finger-nail polish and eye-shadow?
For that matter, the Old Hag wanted to know, why wouldn't it sellKissmet Lipstick?
The answer was, of course, that the magic legend "Contains theExclusive New Beauty Aid, Atummion" _did_ sell these other products.Everything began going out in carload lots as soon as we had the newlabels printed, and to be truthful, I breathed a wondrous sigh ofrelief, because up to that moment my Kissmet campaign had promised tofall flat on its lying, crimson face.
* * * * *
The staggering truth about Atummion seeped in slowly. Item one:Although we put only a pinch of it in a whole barrel of talcum powder,_it did give the female users a terrific_ complexion! Pimples,black-heads, warts, freckles and even minor scars disappeared after afew weeks, and from the very first application users mailed ustestimonials swearing to that "atomic feeling of loveliness".
Item two: About one grain of Atummion to the pound of lipstick broughtout the natural color of a woman's lips and maintained it there _evenafter the lipstick was removed_.
Item three: There never was such a shampoo. For once the adcopywriters failed to exceed the merits of their product.Atummion-tinted hair took on a sparkling look, a soft texture and a_natural-appearing wave_ that set beauty-operators screaming forprotection.
These beauticians timed their complaint nicely. It got results on themorning that the whole thing began to fall to pieces.
About ten A. M. Jennings called a meeting of all people concerned inthe Atummyc Powder project, and they included me as well as the pixieand her brother, the assistant chemist.
Everyone was too flushed with success to take Jennings' opening remarktoo seriously. "It looks like we've got a winner that's about to loseus our shirts," he said.
He shuffled some papers and found the one he wanted to hit us withfirst. "The beauticians claim we are dispensing a dangerous drugwithout prescription. They have brought suits to restrain our use."
Madame Elaine in her mannishly tailored suit was standing by a windowstaring out. She said, "The beauticians never gave us any break,anyway. Hell with them! What's next?"
Jennings lifted another paper. "I agree, but they sicked the Pure Foodand Drug people on us. They tend to concur."
"Let them prove it first," the Old Hag said turning to the pixie'sbrother. "Eh, Bob!"
"It's harmless!" he protested, but I noticed that the pixie herself,for all her radiance, had a troubled look on her face.
The general manager lifted another paper. "Well, there seems to beenough doubt to have caused trouble. The Pure Food and Drug labs haveby-passed the courts and put in a word to the Atomic EnergyCommission. The AEC has cut off our supply of the fission salts thatgo into Atummion, pending tests."
That brought us all to our feet. Madame Elaine stalked back to thehuge conference table and stared at Bob, the chemist. "How much of thegunk do we have on hand?"
"About a week's supply at present production rates." He was pale, andhe swallowed his adam's apple three times.
The worst was yet to come. The pixie looked around the tablepeculiarly unchanged by the news. She had trouble in her face but ithad been there from the start of the conference. "I wasn't going tobring this up just yet," she said, "but since we're here to have agood cry I might as well let you kick this one around at the sametime. Maybe you won't mind shutting down production after all."
The way she said it froze all of us except the Madame.
The Madame said, "Well, speak up! What is it?"
"I've been to twelve different doctors, including eight specialists.I've thought and thought until I'm half crazy, and there just isn'tany other answer," the pixie said.
She stared at us and clenched her fists and beat on the shiny table."You've got to believe me! There just isn't _any_ other answer.Atummion is responsible for my condition, and all twelve doctorsagreed on my condition."
Still standing, Madame Elaine Templeton grabbed the back of her chairuntil her knuckles turned white. "Don't tell me the stuff brings onhives or something!"
The pixie threw back her head and a near-hysterical laugh throbbedfrom her lovely throat. "Hives, hell. I'm pregnant!"
* * * * *
Well, we were all very sorry for her, because she was unmarried, andthat sort of thing is always clumsy. At that moment, however, none ofus believed the connection between her condition and Atummion.
Being a distant relative of the Madame, she was humored to the extentthat we had the lab get some guinea pigs and douse them with ElaineTempleton's After Bath Powder, and they even professed to make a dailycheck on them.
Meanwhile, production ground to a halt on all Atummion-labelledproducts, which was everything, I think, but the eyebrow pencils.
With every drug-store and department store in the country screaming tohave their orders filled, it was a delicate matter and took a lot ofstring-pulling to keep the thing off the front-pages. It wasn't thebeautician's open charges that bothered us, because everyone knew theywere just disgruntled. But if it