Despite the overturn in government ethics, life went on. The problems with the IRS caused the more fascist members of the government to shelve its plans for a “Restructuring of American Society” for a time when it was deemed that the remaining public would accept it. In time, the Super-Rich, those who had become the Barons and Dukes of America in power but not in name, would rule the land. Thomas knew that the dream of democracy in America would be over soon and his work would be part of the cause of its demise. He had seen the effects of the formula he created and the thought sickened him. The New Amerika would be a land of the poor and disadvantaged, ruled by the fabulously wealthy and the exceedingly ancient whose wealth made them ageless and thereby effectively deathless. He envisioned “Old” Bill Gates use his fantastic wealth to immediately became a teenager again. His vast fortune would insure that he would never grow a day older.
The Justice Department attempted to sue Mr. Gates for the imagined crime of his, “monopoly on youth”, but since he was unable to purchase Thomas’s company at any price, the suit collapsed by its lack of merit. (Thomas’s company had wisely bought back the public shares of their stock prior to the announcement of their discovery. As a result, the holders of the company’s private stock became wealthy beyond even Bill Gate’s wildest imaginings. Thomas’s undivided stock and royalties on his discovery made Mary one hundred times richer than any of the other stockholders.)
Thomas’s wife/mother would die within ten years due to grief-induced mental illness. The lawyers who administered the gigantic trust that would be established in his name would discover that the hundreds of billions of dollars they controlled were too great a temptation to resist. The political power conferred by managing the trust made them the most powerful individuals in the world. Silent agreements would be made to maintain the status quo; they would have no intention of turning over control of the world’s largest accumulation of private wealth to someone who couldn’t even be potty-trained. A few well-placed bribes in high places secured the passive acquiescence of government. Majestik 12’s members smiled and let the lawyers have their dreams of fortune. They would take the money away from them soon enough. A few “accidents” and the only member of the trust left alive would be Majestik 12’s own man in the firm. The power that had accrued to the trust would be Majestik 12’s alone. Before Thomas’s body had attained the age of eighteen months again, they would use the full strength of the formula to regress him back into a nine-month-old infant. He would never be allowed to become old enough to claim the wealth that his work had created. He would be regressed over and over, every score of years, in a successful plot to retain control of the trust. He would go on and on, century after century, as an infant…There was no end in sight. Thomas would drift aimlessly in a timeless sea of baby formula and dirty diapers. He would be a baby forever!
Thomas wept and whimpered all the way home in the squad car. What made matters worse was that he had peed and pooped in his diaper sometime while they were in the hospital and he never knew it. Only the rising reek from his diaper and the itching caused by his incipient case of diaper rash gave him a clue as to what he had done. He had become as truly incontinent as any infant.
The police officer that had removed the baby seat from Mary’s car courteously volunteered to restore it to its former place in the backseat of Mary’s vehicle while Mary sat in the heated police car with her babe in arms. Once his task was finished, he returned her keys and escorted the grieving woman and weeping baby to their front door. The officer offered his condolences and wished them good night before returning to his squad car.
Majestik 12’s second operative watched clandestinely from a car parked down the street as the woman emerged from the car with her baby. His superiors had decided to forgo the second act of “wet work” in an uncharacteristic act of mercy. As long as the woman thought that the baby was her son, she would be safe. The minute she came to her senses, they could always arrange an “accident” for her as well.
Mary dropped her purse on the couch and proceeded immediately to the nursery to change Bobby. Once there, she laid him on the changing station and lifted his legs to put a cloth diaper beneath his bottom before undressing him. She, unlike Marge, had learned the technique from her Mother. Marge had learned from sad experience that a plastic pad that becomes soiled by a dirty bottom is far more difficult to clean than washing a mildly soiled cloth diaper. Mary began unsnapping the fasteners that closed the inseam that ran up Thomas’s feet all the way up to meet at his crotch. Once his legs had been freed of the confining material, she lifted his legs with one hand and tucked the bottom half of the sleeper behind his back to protect it from soiling during the diaper change