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“SO WHAT’S THE STATUS of TOTH?”
“Well, Boss, apparently nature has intervened or rather the formula has done quite a bit of TOTH for us” Joe replied. “I’ve been monitoring the chatter from the CDC, and it appears at this time that only those who used the formula in large doses have been affected. Basically, if you bathed in it, you are screwed.”
“So no big plan on our end? I was sort of hoping to get our hands dirty. Kind of looking forward to pushing the big red button, so to speak,” Boss said as he pushed an imaginary button on his desk.
“At this time, no. We don’t have to annihilate a large segment of the population, sir. For now, people are weaning themselves off the formula or are going cold turkey thanks to fear. Most likely the formula’s effects will cease, and users will start to age again and slowly return to their usual, average ugly selves again.”
“We still have a problem; the world is in a bad place now.” Boss leaned forward in his chair and pointed his tented fingers at Joe. “The world needs someone to blame. They certainly aren’t going to blame themselves for the mess they got into. No one ever takes responsibility for their own actions. People usually started blaming the government first.” He rose and paced back and forth, waving his arms in front of him as if deflecting the onslaught of the public’s outrage. “Big cover-up, secret testing, etc. they’ll moan. No, we need a scapegoat or several scapegoats. I did some digging and found some old friends of mine. Here are the names and faces of our scapegoats, he said, handing Joe a copy of his list.
“Yes sir, excellent sir.”
“Oh, and Joe, you will also need someone who can recognize the original formula. That may come in handy at some point. Do we have any intel on that?”
“Yes, sir, I believe I can entice someone to come with me.” On that note, Joe exited the office quickly before the Boss thought to make him one of the scapegoats.
Boston looked at the names on his copy of the list and thought, I had a sweet cushy job in the world of academia, and you took it all away from me. I was only setting aside some money for my retirement and you made it sound dirty and criminal. Yes, technically it was a felony, but damn it, I was never charged. I knew this chance would come. Just like the proverbial bad penny that you are. Oh dear, I’ve made a horrible pun. You and your chemist boyfriend will be publicly humiliated like I was and then bang! Gone!
Boston slammed his fist on top of his desk, which caused everything atop it to skip briefly across the desk’s surface to its edge, teeter there momentarily, and then tumble onto the floor.