Beautiful Disaster

by C. J.

  “No, I agree, but the only one who technically is going to invent this formula is Maggie, so you can put all murderous thoughts out of your head right now.”

  “What, like I would ever do anything to hurt the two most important people in my life? So, do you suppose Maggie has thought this through and reached the same conclusion you have?”

  “Have I come to the same conclusion as what?” Maggie asked as she appeared with an armful of Chinese takeout.

  “Er, that you were going to stop and pick up dinner for us, and you have, and you are lovely and smart and sexy, and I’ve run out of adjectives. Let me help you with the food,” sputtered Danny.

  “Well my, my, my, aren’t we being gallant. You usually wait for me to get everything organized and then ask if you can help.”

  “This is the new and improved me, Maggie. As you can see and please don’t kill us or at least me, we are good together, and one of these days sometime in the near future, I can see us as one big happy family,” Danny said in another gasp while grabbing for a carton of Moo Shu.

  “Oh my God, it’s happened. The side effects have started. It starts with a personality change, and then schizophrenia sets in. Crap, crap, crap!” cried Maggie dropping the remaining cartons of food on the lab table. “And everything was going so well.”

  “No, it’s just moron here babbling on. Oh my, this Kung Po scallop is fantastic. Is this a new place Mags?” asked Kevin through a mouthful of scallops.

  “No, but I think Sku Yu has a new chef and, wait a second, what’s with the ‘don’t kill us,’ and ‘one big happy family thing’ you spat out just a few seconds ago, Danny?” Maggie inquired in her most accusatory voice.

  “Kevin and I were thinking aloud, and it was mostly Kevin.”

  “Wash not” came a muffled reply from Kevin, now chin deep in Kung Po.

  “Well, let’s not point fingers, but you know we watch a lot of movies, and in those movies whenever a group of people comes into money, the group usually diminishes in violent, lead filled ways. As you know, Danny and I can’t claim the formula so, well, you know, our minds naturally turned in a certain direction.”

  “So you think that I would take all the credit and money for myself? That I would throw the years we’ve had together and all the good times we’ve spent and the promise of things to come over for fame and fortune. Is that how little you think of me?”

  No, of course not, we were just talking like we always do. It’s just a lot of bullshit, you know that, baby,” whined Danny.

  “Yes, and you know how full of that he is,” chimed in Kevin.

  “All right, you two are forgiven. Geez, ‘lead-filled ways.’ To think I would shoot anyone. How ridiculous is that? Not to mention messy. It would be much easier to poison your food.”

  Two boxes of Sku Yu’s takeout boxes simultaneously hit the table as Maggie’s laughter filled the air.

  “Mmm, these scallops are fantastic. You’re not going to finish this, Kevin? You don’t mind if I help myself? Thank you. This is quite good. Danny. Not hungry? I’ll just take a little sample of what you have. This is quite good too. Lovely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  MAGGIE HAD TURNED THE formula over to her contact at the manufacturing plant to have the last tests for the FDA done and approved. The date was quickly approaching when she, Danny and Kevin would release their newly discovered formula and then sit back and reap their rewards.

  Back at Lexi Corp., Danny and Kevin had struggled to remember the formula but finally produced the watered down version and presented it to Mr. Millwood and the board. After the first demonstration, the board nearly wet their pants in anticipation of profits to come. Mr. Millwood was so impressed he actually shook Danny and Kevin’s hands. A hint of a smile lit his face, but it disappeared so quickly it could’ve been a trick of the light. Everyone had kept referring to the miraculous formula as “the formula” so it was finally christened The Formula and packaged in a futuristic looking bottle. Kevin took one look at it, and thought it looked like a mashup of the “I Dream of Jeanie” bottle and a Thunderbird rocket.

  Over at Teaberry things were heating up at a much faster rate. While Mr. Millwood was congratulating Kevin and Danny on their hard work, Teaberry was holding a press conference with Martin Tranwrach and the head of Teaberry, Mr. Cornelius Crump Jr. This was Junior’s first big announcement, and he was going make sure the world never forgot this moment. Junior had the head of Research and Development behind him, Gretchen Meadows. Gretchen had told Junior not to have Tranwrach anywhere near the press conference, as he was a walking menace. But Junior refused and told her it was good PR to have a nobody involved in this announcement, “It will give nobodies the world over a good and fuzzy feeling toward Teaberry and their products,” he lectured to her.

  Just as Crump Jr. was demonstrating the new formula, “Phoenix,” to the press and an incredulous audience, over at Lexi Corp., Mr. Millwood’s assistant nearly broke down the conference room door to get to the TV remote.

  “Just what do you think you are doing, Michael?” shouted Mr. Millwood.

  “News conference, Teaberry, formula, our formula stolen!” Michael spurted out and flicked the remote wildly at the TV until a press conference featuring Crump appeared on the screen.

  Teaberry had enormous blow-ups of a “before” and “after” picture behind Crump, who was standing with an individual with flawless, glowing skin. Teaberry’s team had copied the non-watered down version of the formula almost perfectly, right down to the nanotechnology ingredient Maggie had given to Danny. Crump Jr. was describing the technology that went into the formula.

  “With the help of an outside consultant, Mr. Tranwrach, who provided invaluable assistance in bringing Phoenix to fruition, we have developed an amazing facial and body cream that erase flaws, age spots, and wrinkles. You will look years younger in hours. The ingredients are safe and as you can see on the label, all-natural. There are some things, of course, we have to keep to ourselves. Please give a nice welcome to Mr. Tranwrach.”

  Applause greeted Tranwrach, who nearly fainted dead away. He managed to squeak out a “thank you and very honored” before he hyperventilated into the microphone. He was quickly swept away from the press’s view, and Junior returned to the podium and basked in the glow of a multitude of TV cameras and a clamoring press.

  Meanwhile at Lexi Corp., pandemonium broke out in the conference room with the shouts of lawsuits in tandem with angry board members pounding on the conference table, trying to out-shout each other. Mr. Millwood, however, was staring at the monitor completely silent and expressionless.

  “So looks like lunch, hey, Kev,” said Danny pointing to his watch and then the door.

  “My thoughts exactly I rather feel Italian today. How about you?” Kevin asked, eased himself out of his seat, and headed toward the door.

  “Where do you two think you’re going?” boomed a voice out of the chaos.

  “What was that?” asked Kevin.

  “I don’t know, but we can discuss it over lunch.”

  “I agree we should go somewhere quieter, but I think lunch is postponed for the moment,” suggested Mr. Millwood, who seemingly just shot up from the floorboards and was now blocking their exit.

  “Eeeeee, how did you do that?” squeaked Danny.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  A GRUELING HOUR AND a half later, Mr. Millwood released Danny and Kevin from a second conference room. Both were even more dazed and confused than their usual states of being. Shell-shocked, they made their way to their favorite restaurant, Casa Del Chili Pepper. After several minutes of uninterrupted eating, a burp followed by, “Do you think he bought it?” burst out of Danny.

  A softer burp muffled behind several layers of napkins followed. Then Kevin said, “I think so. At least that’s the impression I got when we left. That steely eyed, I know you are lying gleam went out of Mr. Millwood’s eyes about 60 minutes into the interview. I think we wore him down by sticking to t
he story and blaming everything on Suzanne.”

  “Well when I run into Mr. Millwood, I always tend to go dry-mouthed, and my thoughts get stuck up in my head, and a sort of traffic jam ensues with very little actually coming out of my mouth,” Danny said, inhaling another chimichanga.

  Kevin was trying to visualize this metaphor, complete with little flagmen at the top of Danny’s brain and another at the back of his throat waving thoughts into words, and missed what Danny was saying through his mouthful of food.

  “Hello, Kev, come back, come back to earth, Kev!” Danny sprayed more than said to Kevin.

  “What? Oh, I’m sorry, I was just visualizing something. Oh gross, Danny! Keep your big mouth closed when you’re eating, you disgusting pig. Oh, are those canela bunuelos? Mmmmm. Where’s the syrup? What were you saying?” It was Kevin’s turn to spray Danny with the fried, funnel, cake like dessert.

  “I was saying... hey, don’t hog all the syrup, man. I was saying that we should probably try to go internationally with this if possible since Teaberry has somehow beaten us to it. They couldn’t have gotten all the ingredients right, I mean they couldn’t have known the ingredients in that vial Maggie gave me. So we are still ahead of them regarding the super duper effects and most likely the long-term effects as well.”

  “I agree. Let’s talk this over with Maggie since she is the one who is going to discover the formula.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  THEY FOUND MAGGIE AT home, pacing back and forth in the living room. She had the look of death, not hers but someone else’s. Danny and Kevin knew that look and began to slowly back out of the house.

  “Stop. I saw the news. I may have to kill that idiot. The trouble is he probably wouldn’t know he was dead. He would probably run around like a chicken does when its head gets cut off, and there’s no joy in that.” She continued to pace back and forth, clenching and unclenching her hands and muttering to herself. “Maybe I should booby-trap his classroom when he gets back. No, that’s no good. Last time I played a practical joke on him, it took him twenty minutes to realize I had substituted all his students with mannequins.”

  “It’s all right, babe.” This came whooshing out of Danny, since he’d been holding his breath in fear realizing he wasn’t the target of her anger, he finally breathed. “He can’t have the super strong formula. It’s got to be all watered down. Sort of like the one we gave Lexi Corp.”

  “I can’t believe I was so stupid. I had several trials, and I was tinkering with them at the university. I wanted to ask one of our biology professors some questions about the way the ingredients were interacting with each other and left the old trials in my desk. I had completely forgotten about them. Tranwrach must have found them and took them from my office. I don’t know why or how he would think to look in my office, but he did. A while ago he was even weirder around me than usual. In the past, he would just sort of jerk his head and grunt, but right before he left on his personal leave, he would dive into the nearest classroom whether it was occupied or not. He was feeling guilty about something. I bet it was because he took the trials. I just can’t believe he’s smart enough to have done that, and then shop them around. He can’t be that savvy.”

  Maggie had several versions written up in separate folders and charted and graphed with different dates. She had forgotten she had left the older versions in her office, with the unwatered down, soon to be discovered by Maggie version in her secret hidey-hole which was known only to her and far from the university.

  As with all secret formulas, Maggie knew that the key to this formula lay in the vial she had given to Danny, which had tossed into his mixture. Her recipe consisted of all-natural ingredients along with some other ingredients found in the natural world. She had no intention of putting toxic chemicals into something one puts on one’s body. The only un-natural product in the formula was nanotechnology, specifically a nanoemulsion that served as the delivery system to carry the product through the different layers of skin. She still wasn’t sure of the safeness or long-term effects of that nanoemulsion. Of course, the formula’s real key might not have anything to do with that nanoemulsion, but rather with some of her natural ingredients interacting with those in Danny and Kevin’s slapdash formula. This is why she wanted the formula to go through the washing machine, to find what, if anything, changed in any way, “Frankensteined,” so to speak.

  She had tried several different types of natural ingredients before settling on the final version. The strange part was that when combined they produced an odor similar to a smelting factory and pig farm. She couldn’t understand it since most of the ingredients’ were things like fruits and honey. There were, however, those “other” ingredients, of which she’d used only minute doses since they seemed like something Macbeth’s trio of witches might be stirring in that cauldron of theirs. But if the result made one youthful, bring on the stink.

  “So even if he took your trials they are the ones you discarded. They don’t have what we have, the super-formula” said Danny.

  No, but we don’t know what the effects the other ones cause since they’ve never been tested. We can only hope they are crap,” replied Kevin.

  “Yes, hopefully they are crap,” Maggie said, in a not so confident tone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  MAGGIE’S COSMETIC CONTACTS were limited to the U.S., however, Kevin had in the past made vague references to an over-seas connection for his side projects. This contact was now video conferencing Danny, Kevin and Maggie at her place..

  “Are you sure this is safe? Would it be possible for anyone to just hack into our conference?” asked Maggie.

  “Bond and I have done this many times. This system is better than the DOD,” Kevin informed. But at Maggie’s blank look, he explained, slowly, “The Department of Defense.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so in English?” Maggie snapped.

  “Bond, you are positive you can sell this to a company over there?”

  “Bourne, if it does a fraction of what you say, there will be a ferocious bidding war. Believe me, we are all going to be very rich.”

  “Um who is Bourne and how much does Bond get?” Danny asked.

  “For God’s sake try to keep up. I’m Bourne as in Jason Bourne, and he is Bond as in James Bond. We don’t use our real names.” Kevin said

  “Hey, Maggie, I’ll be Duck as in Donald, and you can be Mouse as in Minnie” snickered Danny.

  “You see what I have to put up with?” said Kevin with a dramatic sigh.

  “I know, I I am surrounded by morons myself, and to answer your question, I will only require 5% of the profits. You send me proof that I can show to the major cosmetic companies and we have a deal.”

  “All you have to do is set up a meeting, preferably with some reputable companies and a few employees that could use the formula to make a dramatic impact, and we will show you the proof.”

  “Okay,, I’ll start on it right away. Bond out.”

  “Bourne out.”

  Maggie turned to Danny “I can’t remember, am I duck or mouse?

  “Either way you’re out. Way out in fact.” Kevin casually put his arm around Maggie’s shoulders, and said in a calm, soothing voice, “So do you know any Chinese, Mag’s?”

  “No of course not, why would I know Chinese? I’m lucky if I can order anything from Sku Yu’s menu. I usually just point or say number five. You know that. Why are you asking me if I know Chinese? Wait a minute. Wait one fucking, stinking minute. You want me to go to China and meet with Mr. Geek Bond, don’t you?” Maggie looked for Danny and saw that the chair he had occupied seconds ago was slowly spinning in a circle. She whirled around and saw him by the doorway to her office, holding a plate containing a large chocolate cupcake surrounded by what looked like freshly baked peanut butter cookies. “There you are you coward. Hey wait a second, is that cupcake from Paddy Cake Bakery? And are those peanut butter cookies?”

  At Danny’s grin, Maggie threw up her hands
. “Wait, stop, you two cannot buy me off with baked goods. Let me see if I have this straight. I get to travel all by myself, presumably with a priceless formula, to China where I will probably get Shanghaied and then what? I’m not even that fond of rice. No, no way, no way, Jose, I am not going.”

  Danny, who’d set down the plate, now appeared wheeling in a cart atop which sat a small cash register looking object with beakers alongside the keypad.

  “Is that what I think that is? I've wanted one for ages, but they are ridiculously expensive. How did you get a hold? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  Maggie approached the object on the cart and was gently stroking it. “It’s beautiful. A coulometric KF titrator for determining the water content in liquids, gas, and powders. Oh wow, diss bun can bin ou da sulds doo.” Her last sentence was garbled given she’d had stuffed half a cookie in her mouth. “So you think bribing me with food and equipment and ....stop looking at me like that, Danny. You know what that look does to me and on top of Paddy’s...” Maggie stopped to wipe drool away from her mouth. “ Alright, dammit, if I’m going, I’m going first class, not two more centimeters of leg room business class, but honest to god first class. Both ways. This had better be a roundtrip ticket, or I will hunt both of you down and rearrange your organs. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes ma’am,” said Kevin.

  “Yes love of my life,” said Danny.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  AFTER TWO BUTT-NUMBING trips on a plane to and from China, Maggie was once again back in the picturesque Midwest, at home and describing her trip to the boys.

  “You can’t believe the increase in the service, booze, and food in first-class. Oh my God, the food is actually edible! Oh, and they gave me hot towels and a little goodie bag full of toiletries too. I swiped one for each of you,” beamed Maggie to Danny and Kevin.