Within a darkened lab, a lone scientist stood alone, hovering over his latest experiment. A grouping of gel electropheis trays were laid out in front of him, and all were showing the same image.
By God, had he done it? It sure looked that way. He had actually found it. No, no, it wasn't possible. When the pulled his funding, that's what they told him. He was a madman, insane to even attempt it; they had all said.
Oh but now, this lone, shaking scientist had in fact done it. Alexander P. Shaw had done it. He had created the ultimate control device.
His hands still shaking, he numbly walked over to his old-fashioned black landline phone. Automatically he dialed the number he knew all too well.
The other end rang once. Twice. It was halfway through the third ring when it was picked up. "Hello?" One of the secretaries asked.
"This…This is Dr. Shaw." He stuttered.
The secretary paused. "Did you do it?" She whispered.
In his state of shock, Alexander nodded his response.
"Dr. Shaw?" The secretary questioned after the moment of no audible response.
"Yes, I did." He stated, praying that somehow he hadn't made any mistakes.
"I'll tell the President, Sir. I'm sure he's going to be very pleased with this." The secretary said before hanging up.
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"Sir!" a female voice called from behind him. McIntosh turned around, and waited expectantly as a young, raven haired secretary came running towards him, carrying a piece of paper. When she reached him, she handed it to him. "It's an emergency, Sir." She said between breaths.
McIntosh nodded thanks, and excused the secretary with a wave of his hand. Curious, he looked over the paper she had handed him. It was a computer print out, made up of a series of codes and abbreviations. His eyes scanned through the miscellaneous text until he spied what he was looking for. Deeply encoded in the second half of the sheet was a short statement.
'SER128 … FIN…SHAW…LAB…SHIPPED…'
The corners of McIntosh's mouth curled into a smile as he turned around and headed back towards his office.
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Once in his office, McIntosh immediately withdrew his cell phone. He had slowly learned that even the walls had ears around the White House. There was surely a plenty underling willing to plant a bug, or listen from a distance, that was for sure. This is why he had his office checked for bugs to or three times daily. You could never be too careful.
He waited with much impatience as the phone on the other end rang once. Twice. Then finally, someone answered.
The anxious voice of the familiar Dr. Shaw quickly asked who was calling.
"It's me, Alex," McIntosh said with trace of sarcasm. "Who else ever calls you?" HE added.
Shaw ignored his associates comment. "Sir, It's ready. I had it shipped over to Base One hours ago. They can begin test…" He was cut off by the yelling of McIntosh.
"No! No, testing!"
"But, Sir!" Shaw protested.
"Don't 'But sir', me, you incompetent fool! You will receive you payment by the morning. Good day, Dr. Shaw." McIntosh snapped with a quiet fury before hanging up. Things were going perfectly. He would announce this new development during that evening's newscast.
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"How much of this stuff is it supposed to get?" One of the caregivers questioned his partner. His partner shrugged.
This first man carefully examined the label on the bottle. It didn't say. "Tommy, Look," He said pointing to the label. "This stuff is marked for experimental use only, not actual this."
His partner, Tommy, waved his hand. "We got direct orders from the big Mac himself to use it. Said there was some mistake by the bottling company." With that, he took the bottle from his partner's hand and withdrew a syringe from the pushcart. He filled it up all the way, then leaned over the patient and drove the syringe down into a vein. He made sure to get every drop into the prisoner's blood stream, then backed away.
"C'mon, we got another few hundred of these to do," He said, replacing all their materials on to the pushcart.
"Okay," came the reply, as the man gave on last look at the patient who lay unconscious and bound down to the table. He then left, letting the heavy door swing shut on it's own.
Several minutes later, when the silence and near darkness had returned to the room, something changed.
The constant pulsing beat of the heart monitor began to speed up, and the neon green line project on the screen became irregular in its movements until finally, with one last quick spurt, the line died. With a flat beep, the line went straight as the low beep continued. The computer flashed a warning, but unfortunately, no one was there to see.
Outside, the merry couple continued to make their rounds dispersing the miracle Serum 128.
