A new, more intense kind of color might solve that problem, Rod realized. Just as it might solve the Beasley problem. Two problems with a common solution, just like the condom.
Taking apart a universal remote, Rod got down to cases. He hooked it up to a power source and started converting it to an eximer laser.
"I need a pink several orders of magnitude greater than hot pink," he muttered.
Rod experimented with various pink dyes extracted from natural substances, mostly exotic flowers, pink minerals and gemstones.
And he knew he had it when he started feeling good-really good for the first time-since coming to work for the Sam Beasley Corporation.
The feeling passed the minute he shut down the hot-pink pencil of the laser.
When he showed his bosses what he had accomplished, they grinned under the pink radiance, clapped him on the back and told Rod Cheatwood what a wonderfully inventive employee he was, a credit to the Beasley Corporation, yesiree-bob.
When the laser was shut down, they turned on him.
"Not pink enough," one said.
"We need saturated pink," said another.
"Saturated?" Rod blurted. "I never heard of saturated pink. What is it?"
"We'll know it when we see it."
And they did.
Using a dye laser in which the essence of the pinkest natural substances was diluted in alcohol and beamed out in one huge pulse of light that instantly exhausted the power source, Rod found himself walking his lab in happy circles when the closed door jerked open and a dozen happy faces crowded in.
"You found it!" one Beasley boy crowed.
"It's perfect," exulted another.
"Do it again."
"Can't," said Rod. "It burned out the power source."
"Hookup another."
"Wait a minute," Rod said suddenly. "'How could you know what happened? The door was dosed."
"The pink pulse came right through the wall, it was so powerful"
"Eureka!" Rod shouted, because he couldn't think of anything more appropriate. "I did it! I did it!"
"He did it! He did it!" the Beasley boys said. "We have our saturated-pink hypercolor laser."
"No, that's not what I meant. You saw the pulse through solid wall. It's my TV remote finder. I'm going to be rich."
It was close to that moment when the pink pulse aftereffect began to dwindle, and the Beasley boys grew serious of face.
"Actually," one said, "Beasley gets rich. Not you."
"I own half the rights," Rod said.
"You owned half the rights."
"You signed them away, remember?"
"When? When?" said Rod. "Show me proof."
And they did. It was a short legal document, ironclad, and when he saw his more-flowery-than-usual signature at the bottom, Rod Cheatwood wanted to one by one tear out the larynges of the Beasley boys with his angry teeth and swallow hard.
"When did I sign this?"
"It was the release. You wanted fifteen minutes more in the Pink Room."
"I thought it was a medical release," Rod said in horror.
"Did we say medical release?"
"No one ever said medical release."
And the Beasley boys smiled that inner smile of theirs.
"Damn," said Rod.
"Let's have some more pink," one of the boys said.
"Let's renegotiate that contract," countered Rod.
And when the Beasley boys hesitated, Rod knew he had them. Sort of.
In the end Rod settled for ten percent, because truth be known, he ached to bask in the glow of the pink laser, too.
"It's really pink," the Beasley boys said happily.
"The pinkest."
"Hot pink."
"Let's call it Hotpink. One word. That way we can trademark it."
"What's next?" asked Rod.
"More colors." Try green.
"Then red."