Larry was rather bored...
Sure it was nice to work in one of these 'mad scientist' laboratories that had sprung up. Ever since 'the discovery' was made centers like his had sprung up around the globe. Always... moving around as legislation changed.
He had got a job at 'SpliceR', for about a year now. It was one of those new up and coming body modification companies... operating on the legal side for the occasional request to subject a person to... well... whatever 'it' was.
Larry worked doing all sorts of things here as a simple maintenance worker. He did all the little jobs that supported the 'real' doctors... just an average guy sorting out appointments, buying coffee or cooking and buying various books. His favourite job was preparing the pamphlets that was sometimes needed.
As for the device itself... it was an amazing discovery... supposed to revolutionise the world and make disease a thing of the past. It could create super soldiers! Allow humans to exist in space! The dawn of a new age!
… if one could ever get it to work reliably.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) it didn't change society as much as expected. It was even banned in some places and those changed by the device were even deported or banned from entering certain countries. He had listened to scientists talk about the machine and how to activate it but he didn't really grasp the whole physics.
Essentially, the machine transformed people.. subtly, interestingly, dangerously... disturbingly. It certainly required a host of psychologists to help those who didn't get quite what they wanted... the problem was how 'random' the changes could be. The motto of the company embraced this though. After all nobody chose how they came into this world in the first place... so SpliceR saw it as being... reborn. All the legal and ethical questions that came afterwards seemed pretty simple at that point. The lab wasn't here to 'change' you to your desires... but to simply renew your body... in whatever way the dice rolled.
They certainly tried to emphasise to those who came through the doors, that this was a fresh start with everything and they could go as far as they wanted- but a lot of things could change. The company was always curious and had run many psychological tests boasting a 90% successful 'happiness' rating. Happy after a change of course.
What if someone wanted to return to normal? There was a... sort of recall process, but its reliability was often in question. Very few went completely back to normal, but most gained enough normality to never go near such a place again.
Larry had worked at SpliecR for a couple of months now. First as a cleaner and general 'helper' around the transformation center but slowly going up in the ranks and taking on more responsibilities. It was an interesting job... one one end of the spectrum he had seen people elated with their changes... on the other end they cried in despair, numb with fear or just treated it as 'another day' after going to the dentist.
He walked down the white lined corridors taking a door to the right to where the offices were. Piles of paperwork and pictures... medical reports, psychological updates and legislation notes were scattered around. “Uh, more coffee doc?” Larry asked as he passed over a cup. “I brought some new mail...”
A man walked over from his desk... on eight spider legs. “Yeah sure why not,” Doctor Kamara nodded. He was... a rather strange person, no longer human. Perhaps the results of getting too close to his own experiments. He had a drider body... his lower half now that of a spider. Dark black with eight legs as he walked in strange zig zagged patterns. Such changes were certainly on the more dramatic side... and he wondered how such a careful scientist had that happen to him. It seemed to have done him well though. His face was quite old but the rest of the body surprisingly muscular. If it caused him any bother he never really mentioned it. The lack of pants made him wonder if that was a concern too. “Any good news?”
Larry went through the mail. “Electricity Bill.. lawsuit, lawsuit, a thank you card-” he tossed that to the doctor.
Dr Kamara smiled happy at that and put the thank you card on a shelf. 'thank you for giving me my life back.' “Aw... that's wonderful.” He paused at the other more stern letters enclosed with actual brown envelopes and red letters. “Well, only two lawsuits? Just send that to the legal department if you would.”
Larry nodded and forwarded the details then placed them in a growing file. Not that any of the lawsuits actually mattered, the contracts were quite well worded. “I'll go get that coffee then” he walked away from the office to the break room... sneaking a quick glance to the room at the furthest end of the corridor. It gave him a rare glance of the machine... strange circular orbs running in patterns from top to bottom in a vaguely frustum shaped object with a door inside. The door was open and being cleaned up by technicians, using some kind of hand held electrical thing- giving an occasional 'zap'.
Larry stared for a moment but got back to work and started to make coffee... questions on his mind. Why would... anyone... do this to themselves? Mostly it was the infirmed, the desperate, the crazy or even... the curious. Though the curious always made him wonder the most. They had nothing wrong with them and yet.. they did it anyway. Why?
Some of it could be financial. Insurances seemed to favour a recently transformed body making it easier to apply for a mortgage. (Though car insurance tended to be worse- those companies always won in the end.)
Larry looked on the table while the coffee cooled a bit and started to clean it. There was a newspaper, the front story was about the technology and the experiences of a wealthy woman. She started as quite elderly and used the transformation to get her youth restored. The usual checks were made and everything went fine...It worked pretty well, as she regained about twenty years, from eighty to sixty. She was happy with the results at first but...
… she wanted more.
With some subtle influence she decided to have another go... and ended up as a teenage girl with a set of horns on her head like those of a dear. Like many of these changes, trying to alter them by surgery seemed to be temporary. They would grow back spontaneously at some point.
Unfortunately this angered the woman who had paid tens of thousands to have the 'perfect' body... curious he brought the paper to ask Dr Kamara about it. “Hey doc.. you read about this?”
Back in the break room, Doctor Kamara shifted his spider legs to the side, kneeling down on his office desk. He didn't need to use a chair as his large spider-body supported his... human body. “Ah yes, Mrs Barring... a sad case.” He mused as he drunk the coffee. “1987... She would have used a model seven machine in her eighties... and didn't tell anyone about it when she tried to use a model fourteen machine with a phase variance of 0.3 degrees... causing the Matrix equation to shift, thus altering her desired change for a rejuvenation resulting in a set of antler horns on her head.”
Larry blinked. That made no sense to him. “Uh.. yeah.” He nodded.
“It couldn't have been helped I suppose.” He turned the page. “... oh dear. She found a company willing to try again to remove the horns... poor thing.”
“What happens if you go into these machines too often?” Larry asked hopeful to learn something about the process.
“The CF.. er.. Chaos Factor. It increases exponentially.” The doctor said with a slight shuffle of his eight legs. “At some point you end up... well... how do I put this...” He tried to dwell on the simple explanation. “You religious by any chance?” He asked with a brief smile.
“Me? Eh.. no.. not particularly.” Larry shrugged. “Maybe sometimes.”
“Heh... good man. At least you are honest about that. There are no atheists in a foxhole.” He gave a look as if that phrase had some weird double meaning to the exocentric scientist. “Brutal truth? The changes can't be controlled... at least, not by us.”
He gave a quiet pause... enough for Larry to wonder what he meant by that.
The scientist continued. “There are some people that say it can be controlled... by altering certain aspects of the process, or the subject... there are even some correlations but... eh, I dunno. We are dealing with a set of infinite dice with infinite faces... but maybe we can limit one those die to a particular change but the others faces are sill infinite... maybe more so by limiting one. The universe balances itself... somehow.”
“Heh.. faces.” Larry chuckled. “So you mean like- people faces?”
“No- uh- yes.” Dr Kamara laughed too as he got the joke. “Sorry I rambled on there. Essentially We can 'adjust' one die... but I think the universe starts to notice if one of its dices are weighted... and will pull back, sometimes very hard...”
Larry found the whole concept quite interesting, even if he couldn't understand it. It was all well beyond anything he knew of course... everyone had their own curious reasons to come to this clinic. It wasn't just the people who had an illness.. though that tended to be the majority. There were also those who had nothing wrong with them but wanted to experience more. “So with this dice weighting thing.. you can give people a transformation they want?”
“For legal reasons.. I'd have to say 'maybe.” The doctor chuckled gesturing to the lawsuit files. “There are a bunch of theories... coincidences... but the only truth we have figured out is that repeating transformations causes problems. “So this one here,” he gestured to the girl in the newspaper. “She got slimed.”
“...slimed?”
“Slimed,” The drider sighed. “Condition number three from repeated attempts.” He said simply. “The universe doesn't like do-overs... and will put you in a state where you can't undergo further changes. For some reason a slime body is resistant to any change subjected upon it.. returning to this gelatinous state.”
“What's the... inside of this machine like?”
“Oh you've never been inside? Come on I'll show you.” The man smiled.
“Uh-” Larry gulped.
“It's safe. The keys are all locked and only I can activate it.” He smiled.
That gave some comfort to Larry as he was lead inside. He looked around the room expecting perhaps something a bit more. Inside the room was a pod.. and within that pod was a chair much like a dentist's chair. Though it seemed to have a gap between the two sides of it... possibly to allow for tails?
“So a person lies down on this chair... then Two fields are required and overlap within the pod by careful alignment.” He gestured to what looked like a large electrode like a lightbulb on top of the pod.. and another on the inside of the pod slightly to the left, which looked to be on a track allowing it to move in circles on the circumference. “We can adjust the field strength in the control room... weighting the dice.” He grinned clearly quite.. excited by it.
“Uh.. thanks for the tour-” Larry felt uncomfortable just being near it so he quickly walked out.. followed by the doctor as they returned to the offices. “I'm going to miss all the shenanigans of this place. Seems I have to deal with one of the lawsuits personally overseas... I'll be gone for a week.”
Larry nodded. It was going to be a quiet week without any changes happening... but he could use the break. There were some maintenance work that needed to be done anyway. He glanced at the newspaper with the picture of the slime-lady sadly. She looked like she was half physical and half.. water. Could she even hold anything like that? What a waste... “Say Doc? Would this lady.. recover?”
The doctor closed his eyes doing some quick mental arithmetic. “Eventually yes. She should have sufficient ability to move her form... Being turned into a slime tends to mean starting fresh on a lot of things... the brain would be spread over the entire body and all the different parts need to talk to each other to function. Careful stimulation of electrical energy, and keeping her in a humanoid shaped recess will help her recovery... the rest is on her.” He shook his head. “I wonder why she wasn't content with the antlers though. It could have been a lot worse.”
“Did they really restore her youth as promised? Or was that just luck?”
“Maybe? Like I said, I don't think it is possible to control 'all' the changes, particularly the first one. It can be directed to a certain extent... but...” The doctor sighed. Seeing what could go wrong was certainly a difficult part of the business. Even if they were completely careful and tried to change someone based on their entire desires... they could set the parameters exactly the same and even if they were 90% successful... there was still that ten percent. People who neither wanted that transformation and couldn't be convinced otherwise...
He hated to admit it, but part of the job was psychological. It was easier to convince people that what they got was what they might have secretly wanted... which of course would not bare up to any scrutiny. They called it 'fate' or some act of the divine... The quote of 90% success was that 90% of people were 'convinced' they were happy enough... but the honest truth was they had no choice. Making them realize this at least made things 'easier'... and thus a lie could become a truth.
Though he couldn't use that in this particular lawsuit issue. The doctor picked up his briefcase. “See you later Larry. Close up afterwards and activate the alarms.”
“Sure. I still got some stuff to do. Got to clean up the corridors,” Larry smiled getting his mop from the supplies cabinet.
With that Dr Kamara put on his coat- looking somehow even stranger with the eight legs dangling off it and Larry was now last in the building.
“A week without the mad scienist..” Larry chuckled. He started to whistle a little as he worked and cleaned up, tidying up papers. He took a moment to look at the transformation room... he liked to call it the 'T-room'. It sounded nicer that way. Less.. frightening. He was still rather curious and being lead recently into it once made him feel safer to have a little closer look again.
The machine that looked like something out of the movie 'the fly'. Maybe it would make his own life more... interesting? He was given the keys to lock up after all since he was expected to clean all the areas including the pod. There wasn't much to clean up here though... no vomit fortunately- unlike that one time a few months ago. After a bit of dusting he stepped out to the side room. This was an observation room with a large glass window connected to the T-room. It was impossible to actually 'see' the change happen... given it was all sealed up behind plastic and steel but this would be where people could see the results of a change... “Must be where they control the field...” He saw a few dials.. power gauges... “Hm.. wonder why there's no video inside the pod?” That would surly make things easier right? If a transformation was going the wrong way, couldn't it be aborted? He did eye a big red button... but he knew better then to touch anything here.
His job in this area was a little more mundane.
Larry started to pick up the used tissues that indicated a lot of crying- he hoped of happiness rather then despair but... who knew? He threw it in the trash as he had done so a couple of times before, then replaced it with another set of tissues. A few nice pictures were on the wall of 'successful' changes... Larry thought of it as the freak-wall. Did any of this really make people happy?
“Just another day...”
Larry was all done with the work. He had started to lock up the T-room and secure the keys in another cabinet. He lamented his own life sometimes in these moments. He existed in a working environment where a life was changed... but he never really saw the people changed. What would the machine do if he used it? He was bland and ordinary with very few needs in life. Was that a problem? Most people had dull lives... uncomplicated... lives. It was a curse to live an 'interesting' life wasn't it?
He made just enough money doing this and he didn't feel an ambitious desire to do 'more'. Maybe he could learn more about the machine and become an actual doctor- well- if one could call what people did here doctoring... he wasn't sure hat applied. He didn't make enough for any luxuries and women always passed him up- something he made his peace with a long time ago. Nobody noticed the work he did... as long as it was done right anyway.
Perhaps that was one unique aspect of this world. People had to 'want' to be changed to be changed... and if one was reasonably content nothing would happen to them. Nothing bad would ever happen to him making him feel a little... calmer. With the work all done the worker was about to leave when he saw a man pressed against the door. Larry thought he might be drunk... or confused. “Sorry Uh- we're closed” he said as he opened the door.
“Doc...tor...” He muttered as he fell into the hallway. The man was in a trenchcoat... largely built and pale white skin. Too pale actually... indicating a problem.
Larry gasped as he realized the situation. There was a trickle of blood... slowly flowing out of the man. It looked like he had been wounded. “Oh crap- what!” Larry tried not to panic. He had to stop the bleeding. “Hold on-” he tried to turn him around and get him into a recovery position.
The man was breathing but... was he stabbed? Shot? That didn't seem to matter as Larry quickly tried to call for an ambulance... when the man suddenly pulled a gun towards him, still lying down. “No... cops...” he said. “You... fix... me up...” He groaned and winced in pain and coughed.
“What?” Larry blinked. He put the phone down but the man didn't waver with the gun. Larry felt a shiver of fear. He never expected this... just one flick and his life was over... why? Why him? He dare not move. “Okay- look I-” He paused. If he said he didn't know how to use the machine... would this man shoot him anyway? He had to go along with this...
“Sorry...” The man groaned. “I ain't... dying... yet. Too much- to do.” He whispered as he held the gun. “Put me... in... and... fix me... up... doc. Give me.. a new body.... now.”
Larry thought about his options. The machine would be a good place to lock this stranger up first.. then to call the cops after. “Yeah- okay I'll do it.” he said putting his hands up. “Can you... move?”
“I can move...” The man groaned as he slowly got up. “Your phone.. put it... down.” The man insisted. “Where...”
Larry frowned and dropped his phone. “Okay... Just- uh- come this way.”
The man followed Larry... still aiming his gun. Each step was becoming harder and harder to take...
The unknown man kept his gun close... and Larry wasn't feeling brave enough to go for it despite the man's injuries. He could see that the stranger was weakening, yet his will power and resolve was keeping him going. He was stuck with this horrible feeling of just hoping the stranger would succumb to his injuries... but neither did he want to see someone else die in front of him. Even if it was someone that didn't share in the same respect for life and may in fact kill him at the end. For now he had to comply... and stick to the plan. 'Lock him up...' He could then call for help. The T-room was the most secure area to lock someone up after all. He grabbed the keys and started to open the electrical doors.
“No funny business Doc...” The man whispered. He blinked as he started to suffer blurred vision. Yet he continued to walk... “Where... do I...”
“Just- lie down here...” Larry insisted as he quietly entered the pod with the man, remembering what the real Doctor had told him.”
“No... funny business...” The man repeated as he complied and laid down on the chair. He started to cough up a bit of blood again. He briefly closed his eyes- but widened them instantly. Larry lost his chance to go for the gun. “I'm.. real... Sorry doc- about this. Never- wanted to hurt... anyone but- got to... make sure you...” He then slumped back as his will power finally failed...
Larry held his breath.
The gun fell from the stranger's limp hand.
'Yes!' Larry could see freedom. He could get out of here...However as he took his first step at this momen of opportunity, the gun clattered to the ground... and misfired, “Holy shit!”
The bullet ricochet inside the pod, somehow missing them both but hitting one of the electrodes. The hermetically sealed doors closed suddenly and there was this bright light. The machine was turning on! An alarm began to sound.
“No No No NOOO!” Larry cried out. He could see some strange field of energy pulse around him. He tried to pull at the door to open it but it was sealed shut. Panic set into his heart as he realized it was about to happen. “Oh God no!”
There was a sudden bright flash of light...
