Page 12 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Three

Upon his return he telephoned corporate headquarters to tell them
about his wonderful purchase. They told him he had violated the
terms of their agreement: he could only use additives and fillers they
provided. Therefore his contract was null and void. He had lost the
franchise. Mac was despondent, and threw the beans on the ground
behind his shop. The next day he found that they had sprouted, big
and fat. He picked some and mixed them into his last batch of
spoiling meat. Then he opened for business and starting grilling.
Attracted by a magical aroma, customers poured into Little Mac’s
place, demanding to be served his wonderful new burgers. Mac
realized he could make a fortune with his magic beans. He waited for
the remaining plants to mature so he could harvest more beans for
another crop. But they would not grow beyond sprouts. Mac realized
Mondomino had put a spell on them, so he went to its gigantic
corporate office tower.
He was determined to steal the secret of the sprouts, and sneaked
up the emergency stairs to Mondomino’s laboratory on the eighty-
sixth floor. The security system sniffed him out just as he was
hacking the company computer system to reveal the science of the
beans. His new friend the sales rep intervened, and promised not to
have Mac arrested if he would sign a long-term contract to buy what
he now knew were genetically-altered beans with a suicide gene.
Mac didn’t like the terms because Mondomino’s sprouting beans
would cost more than any others he could get wholesale. So the sales
rep revealed the company’s entire plan to corner the market: all other
bean varieties would soon die off because Mondomino had
developed its GMO bean in tandem with a powerful new strain of
resistant bean blight and a proprietary fungicide, Fynol Solution.
Only Mondomino’s beans would survive the blight—if they were
treated with Mondomino’s spray.
Now Little Mac became certain his fortune was made: he signed
the first big contract to buy magic beans. Soon he would have a
corner on the beef-extender market. He went back home, eager to
start his own franchise. He did not know that Mondomino was
breeding a potent new type of acclimatized tsetse fly. All the cows in
the world would be wiped out except those with the bum steer
gene—also in final trials.