Population Control at a Premium

The threat of the government burning her down to the ground in desperate attempts to solve the ever-growing problem, was terrorizing her mind.  They were going to examine her home sooner or later.  She was sure that they would test her to verify the lie she had told, about not consuming the product.  There wouldn’t be any way to hide it.  Her only safety was to find a solution for herself before it was too late. It was back to the lab, as if she had never retired.

Stephanie’s lab was in the back of the house.  She had removed her guest furniture in the spare room and decided to get back to work immediately.  “Everything had a solution”, it was what she had remembered from her school days.  She just needed to find it.

“Fock!”  She yelled to herself.  Three days had gone by without finding a solution.  She tried everything; methods for preventing multiplicity, methods for preventing miniature productions, and methods for preventing procreation of the seeds.  It was the very problem that the seeds had.  It was producing like people produced; recreating versions of itself.

“Damn it!  I am the best.”  She said.  It was what she did to push herself to do better.  The constant appreciation that no one gave her for her work, she had to give to herself, that’s why she became successful and was able to retire early. Her days, though, had become days of an old lady talking to herself in the loneliness of her house.  Her husband had long left her from a car crash and she had not bothered to attempt to find a suitable person, declaring that she was too old to even try.

“What is it about these seeds? They multiply.  They produce outputs in greater quantity than it should normally.  There is something there.  What is it that makes their output greater than normal?”  Stephanie was thinking out loud, trying to solve a puzzle that she thought was impossible for the average person.

“Splitting?  Were they splitting its eggs, so to speak?  No, no, no.  I’ve tried that.  But they were splitting something.  But what?” She paced back and forth in her lab before walking outside onto her deck.  Her natural plants were still there.    The miracle seeds had not infected them, simply grew around them. The results of the miracle seeds appeared to be close to natural as possible, no signs of any foreign agents.  She walked off her deck to get a closer look at her flower garden and then at the vegetable garden that she had grown miraculously.  She then realized she needed to compare apples with apples. She needed to buy potted vegetables where she can examine the details better.  Then process and research it online.  Her slow thinking made her aware that she had become rusty with her methods.

After the purchase, she placed the controlled natural plants on a table in her bedroom.  She took a piece of the carrot leaves and went to the lab to compare the two.  There were significant differences in the structure of the leaves.  At first glance and not paying attention, they appeared to be the same; but looking further the miracle carrots had coarser leaves and more branching than the natural ones.   It was as if there were pockets within the leaves, storing the miniature ones; that’s when Stephanie realized that the entire miracle plants harbored the seeds.

“Shit!  The entire thing are filled with seeds.  It was finding storage from anywhere within the plant. Wholly shit!”  Stephanie ran back into her lab.  She needed better equipment, but there was no way she was going to get it there.  She needed a better lab to work from.

“Crap!”  Then she realized she did have a better lab.  There was a nearby college which she could work from, if she could convince them.

****

A year in since the seeds and no government workers came to visit.  It was a small blessing of hers that she had hung onto.  It was the only blessing she had.  Still no solution to the problem, as it became widespread. What the government wasn’t letting the people know was the fact that it was a pass through, but Stephanie found out about it when she started gaining weight.  She tested her blood and her fat cells and saw that her cells were indeed multiplying in the same fashion by storing itself. Exercising didn’t help, it made things worse.  The heat generated, through exercise, had increased the ability for the seeds to multiply.

“Freeze and destroy. That’s it!  I’ll freeze the damn thing and then burn it. If I can isolate it, extract it, then destroy it; I’ll win.  I’ll have to create something which attracts to it and then destroy it.” Stephanie smiled for the first time in months.

Days of dead-end results were finally over.  Her freeze and kill method worked.  It wasn’t as simple as it sounded, but it was the same ideology.  She had a break through, her new pill had helped her shed some pounds.  Her best strategy worked.  She was going to make it in a liquid form.  “The government wasn’t as good as her”, she thought.

Stephanie started selling her pill online as a diet remedy for anyone exposed to the miracle.  It was her way of alerting the government of her success, that she now owned exclusive rights to.  As expected she received a knock on her door.

“How can I help you?” Stephanie grinned.  “I was expecting you a year ago.  I have no idea why you are showing up now.”  She said.

Agent Jones glazed at her, “I’m sure you have an idea.  You’ve become an instant success.”  He paused. “And I see you packing.”

“Yes, I’m treating myself to an upgrade.  I’m dumping this house for something more modern and upscale.”  Stephanie secured the tape on a box as she tried to ignore him.

“You never informed us you were working on this problem.  We would have more than provided assistance.”  Jones said.

“I work alone.  I know what kind of assistance the government gives. I do all the work and you guys take the credit. Well, I’ve decided to eliminate the middle man.  That’s you Mr. Government.”  She gloated with thrill.

“You do realize there is a national emergency.  We can just take it from you and…”  Jones said.

“And you’re lying.  I own exclusive rights and I’m not sharing my formula.  But if you want to buy it, then we can speak.  Otherwise, there’s the door.”  Stephanie grinned.

“I was opening the door to an opportunity for you and the government, that is, I was trying to be in good graces.  I see we need to take another approach with you.  How much longer do you think that you can go selling your product without regulations to restrict it?” Jones said.

Stephanie laughed, “on what grounds? My product is successful.  It’s doing exactly what it promises.  No side effects.”

“That you know of, but the government has been getting complaints.” He said.

“This sounds more like a shake down to me.  But I won’t be owned by Uncle Sam.  If you want my product you can buy it like everyone else.  You come after me or try to force me, there’s no promise I will deliver what you want and that I would adhere to regulations.”  Stephanie grinned.

“Do I need to remind you there’s a national emergency?  We are in a crisis.” He said.

“Yeah, so you may want to buy it on sale because the price is about to go up, especially the liquid version, for people who doesn’t want to take pills.  Moreover, I already have a version for the weeds.  It will stop the overproduction.  I’ve already had my first sale.” Stephanie was stern.

“I see.”  Mr. Jones saw she wasn’t going to budge.  “We’ll keep in touch.”  He turned around to leave.  The movers’ truck were pulling up outside.

Stephanie had won.

In a few weeks she had become a millionaire, selling her products at premium.  Her weight was managed and the overgrowth problem for her customers was no more.