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BACK IN THE GARAGE, Maggie’s giggling had petered down to a slight hiccupping. “So have the two of you recovered from each of your private insane moments?”
Danny looked at Maggie and replied, “Yes, hon I believe you snapped me out of it.”
Kevin just glared at Maggie.
“Sweetie, honey, as tempting as it is, I didn’t send it to Youtube. I swear. Here delete it,” and handed her phone to Kevin. While Kevin was deleting his morphing soliloquy, Danny casually glanced at his cell phone. He silently mouthed “got it” to Maggie and blew her a kiss.
After Kevin tossed Maggie’s phone back to her he said, “Unless this is still one big hallucination, I think I’m good too,” and then stared off into space.
Danny looked at Kevin, then at Maggie, and back at Kevin. While snapping his fingers in Kevin’s face, he shouted, “Hey space cadet, I thought you were good.”
“What? Oh, I am. I was just thinking, how many weeks off do you think we will receive after this traumatic event, and will we be entitled to any compensation?”
Danny immediately popped up, grabbed Maggie’s souvenir hockey stick she kept in the lab for disagreement ending purposes, and began marching back and forth hockey stick in hand like a poor imitation of Colonel Klink or a pretty reasonable impression of an insane band leader.
“I would say at least four weeks with pay, of course, and some sort of trauma pay for, well, the trauma.” And we would have to go somewhere and work on the formula undisturbed, somewhere secluded, but well equipped.”
“With top of the line equipment,” chimed in Kevin.
“Yes, yes, of course, that was given,” Danny said waving the stick around and nearly beheading Maggie.
“Watch it, you ass,” she shouted. “By the way, trauma brothers, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“No I don’t think so,” said Danny. “We need time off.” Whack went the stick against the wall of the garage for emphasis. “Money.” Whack “And privacy.” Whack. “Can you think of anything else Kev?”
“I think you about covered it. The location is key. We need a secret hideout with a lot of top quality equipment. I think you know where I’m going with this.”
“Bat cave,” Kevin and Danny sang in unison.
“Alright, alright come back to earth, you idiots,” shouted Maggie, wrestling the stick back from Danny.
“You, morons, have forgotten one tiny little detail. You were not in Lexi’s lab when Susie went nutty.”
“Of course we were. Remember we met you outside, but before that, there was a lot of gunfire and explosions and shouting and crying and screaming. To be fair the crying and screaming were mostly coming from Kevin’s corner, but I may have contributed slightly to the.”
“Idiot! How someone so brilliant can be so dim is beyond me,” Maggie told Danny as she smacked the hockey stick against the nearest table causing both Danny and Kevin to flinch.
“Hah, she called you out, dim! You are as dim as a 20 watt light bulb that has been stuck in a dusty attic for twenty years and now has been inserted into a baboon’s.”
Kevin didn’t get to finish this picturesque thought as he felt a stinging sensation on his rear from Maggie’s let’s get back to the point hockey stick.
“Both of you are idiots. Now sit down and don’t move or speak unless I tell you to. Is that clear?” hissed Maggie, waving the business end of the hockey stick about their heads.
Kevin wrote something on a piece of paper and slid it toward Maggie.
Maggie looked at the note and read aloud, “Now what? How can we answer you if we can’t speak? I also told you not to move, but you wrote the note,” she muttered and raised the stick.
Kevin's face went from smug to terrified. Danny did a sidewise rolling somersault away from Kevin and out the range of the stick, trying for as much distance as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Maggie looked from Kevin’s terror-stricken face to Danny’s flailing, tumbling body and burst out laughing. “OK, OK everyone, let’s get comfy on chairs, and I’ll tell you what idiots you are without the stick.” She put the stick back behind her workstation.
Danny and Kevin found seats at what they thought was a safe distance away from Maggie and gingerly sat down.
“Comfy? OK. Well, first thing, you two were not inside the building, so how could you be traumatized and be given time off? You left when you were supposed to and didn’t do anything sneaky, like stay in the building and use equipment without permission and then take a formula belonging to Lexi Corp., and hide said formula from Lexi Corp. You also didn’t go in and out unauthorized of exits and use fraudulent IDs to gain access again. But then again you were in the building because Mitchell and Roger saw you, but you obviously couldn’t have been because according to your key cards you had already left the building when the pooh hit the fan. If you two had been thinking straight, you would’ve gotten rid of all the witnesses, Suzanne, Roger and Mitchell. Then you would’ve been home free with the formula, which you could’ve either later ‘discovered’ after quitting Lexi, or had someone else ‘discover’ while you continued working at Lexi.”
“What do you mean get rid of the witnesses? Like pushing Roger, Mitchell, and Suzanne into an incinerator or something? Are you nuts? I mean the Tweedles are somewhat annoying, but they and their arsenal really came through for us. I can see getting rid of Suzanne since she was trying to kill us, but still. You are talking to the wrong guys. You know us, Maggie we couldn’t hurt anyone,” said Danny, not meeting her eyes.
“I know, baby, that’s why I love you. That’s one of your strong points, you are a good person. You too, Kevin.”
“Thanks,” Kevin said, looking at his shoes, “But we covered ourselves by going in through the dock doors after putting the formula and notes in the car. That entrance doesn’t need a key card. We will just tell everyone we stayed late to work on Monday’s presentation. That should jive with what the Tweedles tell everyone.”
“Yes!” Danny cried, “I think we are in the clear. We can blame the theft or destruction of the formula on Suzanne and her C4.” He stood up, put his hands to his head, grabbed the little stubs of hair, he had and cried out, “It was horrible! All our notes and samples were destroyed by that evil woman! How does that sound?”
Kevin ignored the Oscar-winning moment. “So we can prove we were there, and get time off for the traumatic event. Sweet.”
“Well, I don’t know, just keep it simple. You were working on the presentation, Suzanne came in, blam, blam, blam. Chaos ensued, and you fled out the dock exit. You have no idea where the formula is, and you are both too rattled to remember the ingredients. Just play dumb well, dumber than usual,” Maggie said and kissed Danny who was still rehearsing his lines with a lot of moaning and hand-wringing. “You boys better get back to your place so Lexi and/or the police can find you. You don’t want to be seen with me too much if I’m going to discover a fantastical formula shortly. Speaking of which where’s this marvelous life changing formula?”
Danny pointed behind Maggie and said, “Everything we snuck out of Lexi is on your worktable.”
“Thanks babe.” Maggie kissed them both goodbye, instantly regretting it as they both had a great deal of ick came on them.