Principal's Office, Lobby
"I have a cousin who works at McMillan Tech Industries." Kyla Leeson said to the others. "Ryan Leeson. He got the job last summer. He's a nice guy, likes many of the same things I do."
Nicole nodded. "I'm sure he is a nice guy. I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm not accusing Sarah's dad of anything, either. All I know is that Gladys told us there's a whole other batch of Transformation Guns over there, and things are just as crazy there as they are here. I don't really know anyone there."
Kyla paused. "He's in my contacts list. I think I'll text him and see if he's all right."
Kyla then took out her cell phone, and texted her cousin.
McMillan Tech Industries, Lake Point Branch, basement laboratory complex
Kyla: Hey, I heard things are crazy there. Are you OK?
Ryan Leeson saw the text on his cell phone, from the storage room where he was currently hiding. It was his cousin, Kyla Leeson. A brief sigh of relief came to him as he realized that this meant she was probably safe. She most likely hadn't been affected by the more extreme Transformation Guns.
Ryan: I'm safe. How are you?
Kyla: I'm okay.
Ryan: Is everything all right over there?
Kyla: No. These weird guns are changing people. Transformation Guns. I heard they're over there too
Ryan: They are. I'm so sorry.
Kyla: For what?
Ryan paused. He knew there was no going back.
Ryan: The Transformation Guns. We made them. They came from here.
Ryan recalled how it all began. It had seemed so harmless back then.
Flashback, one month ago: McMillan Tech Industries, basement lab complex, break room
The informal little club met once again during their break period. There, as they had since the previous summer, the six of them talked about amazing technological inventions they'd come up with that (in spite of advances in science and technology) were still laughably impossible in the early decades of the 21st Century. However, it was fun to fantasize about them.
And this they did, writing down fully imagined details as to how these devices would work, in the manner of homebrew tabletop RPG creations.
While their department had several employees, only the six of them were a part of this little fantasy club. They were Dr. Samantha Duncan, Dr. Mycroft Brewer, Dr. Jerry Chance, Dr. Rachel McLewis, Randall Jeffries, and Ryan Leeson. Ryan and Jeffries were the two youngest members of the group, having landed their jobs straight out of graduating Lake Point University.
In the previous session, Ryan had pitched the idea of a Cargo Teleportation Chamber. This device would open a warp field to send cargo to a destination chosen via the console. "It'd be great for sending stuff to MTI's other branches. All you need is a complete floorplan of the building and the stuff can go to any room there."
His friend Randall Jeffries (who most just called Jeffries - in fact he preferred to be called that to his actual first name) took the lead on this day's session. "Ryan and I have read a lot of these transformation fiction stories, and I think we've come up with a great idea. Picture this: Transformation Guns. Each of them looks like a sci-fi or comic book style ray gun or energy gun, but they're all different. Each one changes a person in a different way. Could make them thinner, fatter, smarter, more athletic ... each different."
"Wow." Rachel said. "That is amazing. We could devote dozens of sessions coming up with our own variations."
"Exactly." Jeffries replied. "It's like an extended RPG campaign."
And so for the next few weeks, the six of them did exactly that, coming up with different ideas for Transformation Guns. For example, Samantha Duncan worried about her son Jay Duncan, who was called a nerd at school and picked on for his geek interests. Having experienced that herself, she came up with two Transformation Guns.
"Nerd Gun and a Geek Gun? What is the difference?" Mr. Brewer said.
"The Geek Gun gives the affected knowledge of a wide range of geek pop culture." Samantha said. "Fantasy, sci-fi, comics, anime. The Nerd Gun, however, turns people into the thin, glasses-wearing out-of-shape stereotype with pocket protectors."
As the weeks went on, the ideas for Transformation Guns they tossed around became even wilder. Everyone laughed at ideas like the Clown Gun, the Hillbilly Gun, and the Mime Gun, but they wrote down the effects on paper with all the rest, anyway. Samantha, Rachel, and Mycroft all agreed with Ryan that it was a good thing that the Random Gun (one of Jeffries' crazier suggestions) didn't exist in reality.
However, neither Ryan nor any of his collaborators in this shared fantasy could have predicted what would happen a month after their little game began. None of them knew about Jon or the wishing stone. And none could have anticipated that an accidental wish that "something interesting would happen" would result in their fantasies becoming reality.
The wish worked its magic in the basement laboratory at night, when most employees at MTI had gone home. Almost instantly, the lab became even more advanced technology-wise, filled with work robots whose function was to find blueprints and quickly construct whatever was on those blueprints. These robots, powered by a magical power source, found the notes on the Transformation Guns, complete with detailed schematics, and constructed a dozen of each type of gun. All of these guns were powered by mysterious energy packs of magical energy designed to make each of these magical guns possible.
Early the following morning, the six collaborators were shocked when they entered the basement laboratory complex and found that the Transformation Guns, the advanced robots, and the Cargo Teleportation Chamber had somehow become real.
Present Day: McMillan Tech Industries basement laboratory complex storeroom
A loud noise from elsewhere in the basement returned Ryan's thoughts to the present day. He did not know how the Transformation Guns had become real, but they were still causing chaos. And then there was Jeffries.
He did not know how long he would be able to hide. He wanted to find his friends and save them. But he needed to be ready for what awaited him out there.
He looked at his phone, and saw the text from Kyla.
Kyla: You made them? How?
He didn't know how to respond. Kyla was an imaginative girl, being the geek that she was. She could probably accept a lot of things others had trouble believing. Still, how was he going to explain what had happened when he didn't know all the details himself?
He thought of stopping the texting and just calling her to tell her with his voice. It would be easier than trying to tell the whole long story through text messaging.
But he could not. Thanks to the Transformation Guns at MTI, some people had gone mad. He needed to make as little noise as possible to avoid attracting attention.
Ryan: Long story. Things are too crazy here. Got to go. TTYL I hope.
With that, Ryan ended the discussion. He needed to focus on where he was now, and what was happening outside the storeroom.
