Blonde Joke Chapter Fourteen by Jeffrey M. Mahr   How can you keep a blonde occupied for hours? Give her a card that says, “Turn over,” on each side.

“Where’s Kat? We’re on in ten minutes,” Maggie asked Karen as she leaned in to the dressing room mirror to touch up her stage makeup.

“She got a phone call about five minutes ago and left,” Karen briefly interrupted her application of lip gloss to answer. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“No,” Maggie responded petulantly. “She didn’t, and the stage is set up for a duo act.”

“Well, I guess I could do the duo with you,” Karen offered.

“Not unless we can change into matching outfits in less than five minutes. Then you’ll have another whole five minutes to learn the routine.”

“Oh, well if that’s the way you feel about it, maybe I shouldn’t bother to tell you that she left a note.”

“A note? What note? Where?”

“I don’t think I should tell you.”

“Karen, please. I apologize for being bitchy. I’m sorry. Now where’s the note? It might be important.”

“Oh, I was just pulling your leg, Maggie. There is no note.”

“Ooooooo, now who’s being bitchy?” Maggie huffed and turned to leave. “Now I need to find someone to cover for Kat and my set.”

“Oh, come back. I was joking,” Karen called after her as she picked up the note on her makeup stand and waved it in the air until Maggie grabbed it out of her hand.

Maggie quickly unfolded the note, read it, cursed, and dropped the note as she ran out of the dressing room, stopping only to grab a long coat. Confused, Maggie picked up the note a read it. Then, she too cursed and ran out of the dressing room.

Seeing the guard in the booth at the entry to the Gene Technology Incorporated campus, Maggie drove on past without even a directional signal to indicate she might have had an interest in turning in. Instead, she drove to a nearby shopping plaza with an all night supermarket and drugstore and parked there. It was after ten in the evening and all the other stores were closed, so there were plenty of spaces. Still, she picked a space in the more brightly lit area near the two open stores.

A light breeze tugged at her coat as she slid out of the car and Maggie struggled to keep it closed even if there was no one anyone around to see her costume beneath. Quickly glancing up, she noted that there were no stars. Clouds had begun creeping in to cover the sky as Maggie had driven from school to the Cravat after her afternoon classes. Now, they completely blotted out the moon and stars.

Leaving the car, Maggie began to trek back to GTI, walking toward the back of the plaza where it abutted the lab property. Here shoes made it to the end of the blacktop. The five-inch stiletto heels sunk in as soon as she reached the grass and stuck, tripping her and causing her to fall. It was a miracle that she avoided twisting an ankle or worse, but the grass stains on the coat would probably never completely come out.

Removing the heels, Maggie continued at a slower pace. The tights only lasted half way to the lab, but at least in was a walk in the grass. Coming to a set of double doors on the opposite side of the building from the parking lot, Maggie followed the instructions from the note and knocked on the door. When nothing happened, she knocked a second time, harder. Finally, the door opened showing a long dimly lit hallway with only every third and Harry stood just inside. He and Dick had not been the most helpful witnesses, but they had put a few dents in the positions of Brodsky’s attorneys. More importantly, they had asked Kat a bunch of strange questions and then gone into hiding after their testimony was completed.

“Harry! What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Maggie. It’s a long story. Why don’t you come in and we can explain?”

“We?”

“Uh, yeah…” Before he could continue Dick popped up from behind the door, scaring Maggie and making her jump.

“Hi. I’m the ‘we,’ or at least part of it. Oh, I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t mean to scare you. Why don’t you come in so we can get comfortable and, like Harry said, explain?” Without waiting for an answer, Dick quickly circled around behind Harry and then walked out to Maggie. Taking her hand, he gently placed his other hand behind her back and began to lead her into the building. Maggie was inside and walking down the dimly light hallway with Harry trailing like a puppy dog before she realized he had said, “at least part of it.”

“Who else is here?” Maggie demanded, stopping in her tracks, spreading her feet and placing her hands on her hips to give a clear message that she wasn’t going anywhere until she got some answers. It worked for all of two seconds, until Harry bumped into her and the both fell to the floor.

Apologizing profusely, Harry scrambled to help the young woman back to her feet, almost yanking her off the floor in his eagerness and then brushing at her jacket to attempt to brush off any dust from the floor until Maggie started swatting his exploring hands away. In the process she had been turned around to face back to the entry door, but once she had stopped Harry from “helping” she turned to angrily face Dick, who had been laughing at the entire incident.

“That will be just about enough out of you,” she said with a scowl. “I’m here because I got a note from Kat to come here and talk to you. But unless I start getting some answers, and quickly, I’m gone.”

Maggie waited for about five seconds and then turned back to the door to leave.

“That won’t be necessary, Ms. Isseksen,” came over a loudspeaker. On cue, two huge men carrying guns stepped out of a room between Maggie and the exit. The black one said nothing and just stood still looking menacing. The white one spoke politely and smiled, at least with his mouth, but his eyes were cold and he gestured with his gun to emphasize his words. “Please follow the gentleman. Someone wishes to speak to you.”

It took a few seconds, but Maggie closed her mouth, cutting off the stream of angry words that struggled to escape. With a loud hiss of anger, she slowly followed Dick down the hall, into an elevator and down yet another hall, this time in the basement or sub-basement. After several turns, they finally stopped at a huge door that looked more like an entrance to a bank vault than an office. With a sheepish look, Dick, pushed a speaker button and said, “We’re here, Mr. Brodsky.”

Hearing Brodsky’s name was the final straw. Guns or not, Maggie bolted.

She got two steps before the black man, moving faster than Maggie would have thought possible, lunged and grabbed her arm with a vice-like grip and yanked her back. Before she realized it, he had her over his shoulder in a grip she couldn’t break. Her attempts to kick and hit, limited as they were by his tight grip, had no impact as he carried her into the room and then dropped her unceremoniously onto a bed.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Isseksen,” said a smiling Franklin Brodsky from a lab stool near the center of the room. Dick and Harry, heads down in embarrassment, stood at a lab table behind him. Brodsky nodded to the guards, who left, closing the door behind them. Brodsky seemed to be in no rush to begin the conversation and Maggie was more than happy to just glare at the older man while carefully scanning the room for anything that might serve as an advantage. It was clear to Maggie that nothing good was likely to come from this situation.

Several minutes later, the door opened yet again and two more women entered the room, blonde twins. The first one saw Maggie and rushed over to her, hugging her and whispering how sorry she was to have gotten Maggie into this mess. The second smiled and strode purposefully over to the lab table where she stood behind Brodsky and placed a hand confidently on his shoulder before turning to face the two women by the bed.

“I always wondered whose side you were really on Tommi. I guess we know now, don’t we?” Maggie snarled in disgust. She was so angry her hands kept clenching into claws as she promised herself that she would personally use those nails on Tommi’s face the first chance she got.

“Now that everyone is present,” Brodsky said, ignoring Maggie’s outburst and speaking in a tone of voice more appropriate to commenting on the weather rather than presiding over a dual kidnapping, “we can begin.”

“Begin nothing you son of a bitch. Open that door and let us out this minute,” Maggie demanded.

“Really, Ms. Isseksen, for a person who’s just completing a doctorate in psychology you seem remarkably unable to assess the situation. With a sigh and a roll of the eyes as if to question whatever god he might believe in regarding the quality of recent Ph.D. candidates he continued. To state the obvious, the two of you are locked in a room from which you cannot escape. The only way out is if someone from outside this room opens that door. The people outside the door are loyal to me. In the room you are outnumbered two to one by people loyal to me. Don’t you think it might be prudent to find out what I want?

“Well, when you put it that way,” Maggie replied sweetly, “no! Absolutely not! I’ll see you in hell before I listen to anything that you might have to say. I’ll…”

“Enough!” Brodsky still had not yelled, but the tone of command in his voice was comparable to that of a monarch speaking to an unruly subject and knowing that the subject must, immediately comply. And Maggie did. Biting her tongue in anger, and as much a response to Kat’s gentle hand drawing her back as Brodsky’s order, she sat back, hugging herself and waiting. Her rapidly tapping toe belied her calm exterior.

“I asked you all here to end the acrimony over ViTaGeSeM.”

“But why kidnap us when you could have called our lawyers and made a public settlement offer?”

“This is not the kind of offer that gets presented over a conference table. By the way, through a series of untraceable links, my attorneys have just arranged for the judge to win a one-month, all expense paid vacation that must begin immediately, before he can prepare a decision on our little disagreement. Similarly, your attorneys, employer and partners in this lawsuit have received a message saying you’re going to be out of contact for several weeks on a ski trip to celebrate the end of the trial. They may think you are all being premature, but they won’t bother to look for you until and unless you fail to return.

“So you intend to murder us? To “make us an offer we cannot refuse?” Don’t you think that’s a bit melodramatic?”

“Maybe. Why don’t you hear me out and decide for yourself?”

“As if you’ve given us a choice,” Maggie harrumphed.

“Exactly,” Brodsky said with a smile and a gesture to Dick and Harry, still standing behind him.

“While I was disappointed by their decision to assist your team with the trial, it seems I am still able to do business with them. These two have been most invaluable. On the table behind me are several injectors full of ViTaGeSeM. Each has been carefully modified to include the DNA of various people. Two contain the DNA of a pair of oriental twin prostitutes slated for deportation You and your sister can be those two deportees.” He paused for effect. Maggie just snarled.

“Two contain remarkably tiny ampoules with a small electronically controlled valve containing the same combination of DNA and ViTaGeSeM, designed not to open until I fail to send a routine signal to them for more than twenty-four hours.

“The next two are to permit Dick and Harry to obtain new identities. I believe Harry has chosen to be you Maggie while Dick has agreed to be Katrina.”

While horrified by the insanity of the scheme so far laid out, Maggie was actually shocked to hear the last. Glancing at the two men for confirmation, Dick just continued to look down, but Harry looked back at Maggie, staring her in the eye with… What? Was that a knowing look; pride, or some other secret message? Maggie was just too rattled by the thought of one of them becoming her to feel confident of what she was reading in the man’s eyes.

“The last injector is for Tommi here. We’ve spoken at great length since his transformation and we’ve come up with a solution that should please us both. It seems my son,” there was an undercurrent of ridicule in the word and he repeated himself. “My son has decided that, like the song, he ‘enjoys being a girl.’ As such he will have no value as the executive to run the family business after I eventually retire. I, on the other hand, tire of my current situation and have decided to settle down again. We both miss my darling wife and Tommi’s mother. The upshot of this is that she shall soon be my new wife and his mother.”

“You disgusting perverts! How could you?”

“Tut-tut! I expected better from someone trained to understand people. Remember ViTaGeSeM completely rewrites the genetic code. She will be a different person. Bedsides, this way she still inherits the family fortune. As Tommi, she is more your sister than my offspring and probate will be hard enough without adding to the problems. And you don’t really think I would give you an option to wrest control of Brodsky Enterprises from me or mine, do you?”

Speechless, Maggie just sat there with Kat hugging her and stared in disbelief at the mad man before her. Finally, she regained sufficient control to ask, “Why? Why go through all this? Our case wasn’t that good. You might have won. Probably could have won if you have your hooks in the judge trying the case. Why?”

“The simple answer is ‘because I can,” Brodsky answered smugly. “But you’ve been a worthy opponent and I am not completely heartless and like most movie villains–I have no doubt you paint me into that role regardless of its truth–there is a certain enjoyment derived from seeing the recognition of one’s victory on the face of your opponent. You deserve a better answer. I said I had been able to arrange for an unexpected vacation for the Judge, not that I had been able to place him in my pocket. I did, however, obtain the services of his law clerk. That fine, upstanding young man informs me that the Judge has decided that law and precedent favors you. As a result, you will win this case and the time needed to have the fool’s decision reversed in a higher court is long enough that any business advantage that comes from the discovery will be lost. I have arranged for the law clerk to delay preparation of the decision, but that is the best I have been able to do.
Brodsky got a far away look in his eye and he continued, speaking more to himself than to the others. “Maybe I should have allowed a jury trial, but no, there is no way a large, cold corporation could have swayed the average juror when the choice was to side with a bunch of pretty young faces.”

Shaking himself, Brodsky steeled his jaw and muttered, “I’m getting too soft for this. I need a vacation once this is over.” Then turning back to the two women on the bed, he continued as if nothing had happened. “So, now it is time for your decisions Doctors. Will you remain as you are and work for me, or shall we move directly to the Oriental whores?”

Maggie’s response was a stream of curses.

“I expected that answer,” Brodsky said with a sigh. “It’s what I would have said. Believe it or not, I had hoped for a different outcome. It will be a shame to waste two brilliant minds like yours.” Brodsky turned to Dick and Harry and nodded. “Would you please do the honors, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Walton?”

With shaking hands, as if walking to the gallows rather than toward two people they had called friends for the past several months, Dick and Harry approached the two young women.

“I suppose you’ll call in those two gorillas if we struggle?” Kat asked.

Brodsky just nodded.

“Then give that injector to me. These two klutzes will miss our arms and hit our jugulars they’re shaking so much.” Kat held out her hand. When Harry failed to respond, she gently took the injector out of his hand. Examining it carefully, she asked Harry, “Are you sure these are the right one’s?”

Harry nodded. Brodsky just said, “I don’t care who gives the injections, just get on with it.”

“Kat! What do you think you’re doing?” Maggie asked in wonderment. Why are you helping that unspeakable bastard?”

“It’s okay, Maggie. Trust me. It will be okay,” she offered soothingly and gave the shot. Taking the second injector from Dick, she examined it carefully and then injected herself.

“Well, that went easier than I expected. Thank you." Brodsky waved a hand at the guards to open the door and they did.

Kat was suddenly feeling extremely groggy. It was had to see as everything seemed to be blurring, but she thought she saw Brodsky’s executive secretary standing in the doorway. As her eyes forced themselves shut, did she hear Brodsky say, “Mrs. Smalling, what are you doing here?” Did she stick an injector into his arm?