Table of Contents:

Chapter One: He Blinded me with Science

Chapter Two: An Offer you can't Refuse



Chapter Three: Dark Symbols

- - -

Later that same night, after Lefty and his boys had vacated the premises, the President made his way down to the dark plant floor. He was armed with a flashlight, a handful of incriminating documents and a bottle of scotch to celebrate the day's kill.

President Ben Dover: "Don't care about my profits," he says to me. "I'll show you profits!"

The President took another swig of scotch before stumbling over to the main mixer to further adjust the natural to synthetic ratio. Just as he was about to turn the dials, he was suddenly startled by an unexpected noise coming from behind. "What the?", he exclaimed abruptly while spinning around to find the source of the sound. As he turned, he lost his grip on the scotch bottle which was haphazardly wedged between his body and his arm. As if on cue, the bottle fell immediately and shattered on the cold cement below.

"I'm sorry sir, it's just me," cried a familiar sounding tone, as it pierced its way through the silent shroud of darkness.

Ben Dover: "Thomas, is that you?... What the hell are you still doing here?!"

The chief rubber engineer, Thomas I. Tinkle stepped out into the light and quickly explained: "I was just inspecting our most recent shipment and I found something very strange."

Ben Dover: "What are you talking about?"

Thomas: "Here, let me show you."

Thomas raised his right hand to expose a brand new puck bearing a shiny SHL label. "Look at the side of this puck," Thomas blurted out. "There's all these strange symbols that shouldn't be there."

Ben Dover: "Symbols, what symbols?"

Thomas: "I don't know exactly what they are, but there's no way they could have been caused by any of our equipment. I checked the form and it's clean, same goes for the molds."

Ben Dover: "So it must be in the rubber?"

Thomas: "Yeah, but that's the strange part. How can rubber possibly maintain markings after going through the press and being super heated in the kiln? Everything would be lost during the vulcanization process."

Ben Dover: "Look, I don't know, but we're not going to figure this out tonight. So just go home and get some sleep! And take that stupid puck with you!"

Thomas: "All right sir, I'll let myself out. Have a good night."

- - - - - - -

To be continued...

Quote:466 Words