McMillan Tech Industries basement lab complex, storeroom
Slowly, Ryan made his way to the door of the storeroom. He had been in the storeroom for the last hour, ever since Dr. Chance got zapped with the Random Gun and turned into a blonde punk woman with a mohawk who went around smashing chairs and tables and defacing things around the lab just for the sake of it.
The Random Gun. Jeffries had come up with that one as one of his wilder Transformation Gun ideas. It was a Transformation Gun that was completely random in its effects. While subjects remained human, they could change in any random way. Age, gender, skin color, personality, some combination of the above.
On paper, it was just a silly fantasy. But in real life ... it was horrifying. People could lose themselves as a result of that thing. They could go mad, or be overwhelmed by some warped new personality.
Not that Dr. Chance's actual pre-Transformation Gun personality was very pleasant, either. Dr. Jerry Chance was a recent hire at MTI, and skilled at both technology and biochemical research. However, his fantasies tended to be depraved and rather sexist. He had been married, but it ended in divorce when his wife got tired of his wishing for her to dress in sexy outfits. He was a brilliant scientist and possibly a brilliant inventor in the making, but his attitudes toward women were a turnoff.
The rest of the group attempted to steer him away from such things, and it was hoped that working in a group that included two highly intelligent women and three other men who respected their intelligence would be a good influence on him.
However, his more questionable ideas did come up in their brainstorming sessions about the Transformation Guns.
Flashback, three weeks ago: McMillan Tech Industries, basement lab complex, break room
"My turn again." Dr. Chance said.
Ryan wondered what Dr. Chance was going to suggest. None of the group had particularly liked Dr. Chance's previous suggestion, the Slut Gun, which made people sex-obsessed and made them dress in revealing outfits. Ryan and Dr. Rachel McLewis came up with the Prude Gun to be a sort of polar opposite to it. The Prude Gun, of course, caused someone to be very prudish when it came to sexuality and manner of dress, to put it mildly.
"So here's the Bimbo Gun. Based off of an abandoned idea I had before I came to MTI." Dr. Chance said. "It lowers one's intelligence while increasing their sexual desires."
"Is it just mental effects or are there physical effects as well?" Jeffries asked.
"Well, I was thinking that it would transform one into a female as well." Dr. Chance said.
"There is such a thing as a male bimbo, you know." Samantha Duncan said.
"Sometimes we call them himbos, but it's basically the same thing." Rachel added. "Enough that we don't really need a separate Transformation Gun for it."
"They're right." Ryan said. "I think the mental effects are enough. It can be one of those 'mental effects only' ones."
Dr. Chance paused. "I suppose so. Very well. So be it." And with that, the information was written down on paper.
"Good thing these things can't possibly be real, right?" Ryan said.
McMillan Tech Industries basement lab complex, present day
Of course none of them could have seen the strange event coming that made their fantasies reality. And when the Transformation Guns were made real, Dr. Chance wasted no time in testing his own creation, the Bimbo Gun, on two tech staff outside their club. Sure enough, Larry and Carrie had both decreased in intelligence. Where they were once both skilled mathematicians, now they barely knew that one and one equaled two.
And then Jeffries got accidentally zapped by one of the Random Guns, and turned into a white-haired spiky haired scientist who was clearly crazy.
He had dumped one whole batch of Transformation Guns (at least one of each type) into the Cargo Teleportation Chamber, and set the destination to Lake Point High School. Ryan, Samantha, and Mycroft Brewer watched in horror as he ordered the robots to restrain them while he did it. "I've heard all your stories about how out of hand the cliques there are, and how they're making your kids and Ryan's cousin miserable. They need things like this to shake things up. And they're not the only ones that have grown complacent."
Jeffries had also sent another batch to the upper levels of McMillan Tech Industries, Lake Point Branch. Mycroft Brewer rushed upstairs to mitigate the damage, helped by the fact that he had been zapped by the Jock Gun and now was in better shape. Ryan had not seen Mycroft since.
To make matters worse was the fact that Jeffries had not sent any of the Restoration Guns on either trip. Instead, Jeffries had locked all twelve of the Restoration Guns (there were twelve of each type of Transformation Gun) in his own personal lab storage locker, which only he knew the combination to.
The Restoration Gun was something Ryan came up with only three days ago. He had figured there needed to be some sort of antidote to the Transformation Guns. With Jeffries and Samantha supplying a few ideas to flesh out the idea, the Restoration Gun's effects were as follows: One zap undoes the effect of the most recent Transformation Gun used on a person. If a person had been zapped with the Nerd Gun, and then with the Jock Gun, and then with the Emo Gun, the first zap would turn someone from an Emo back to a Jock, and the second from a Jock back to a Nerd, and the third back to their normal self. Jeffries added the catch that the Restoration Gun could not undo a Transformation Gun effect that had been in place for 30 days or longer.
Again, it was all harmless as long as it was a fantasy. With the Restoration Guns being locked up, there was no way of knowing if they even worked in reality. But all the other Transformation Guns did. Over the past few hours, Ryan had seen people being turned into Goths, Jocks, Clowns, and Mimes (among other things) with the Transformation Guns, and knew all of them worked.
And the result was utter chaos all over McMillan Tech Industries. People were fighting each other. An intern zapped by the Clown Gun sprayed whipped cream in Ryan's face, while Dr. Chance fought with Jeffries over control of the basement laboratory. In the end, Jeffries zapped Dr. Chance with the Random Gun. Dr. Chance turned into the blonde mohawk punk woman and swung a chair at Ryan, and Ryan had run down the hall and hidden in a storeroom for the past hour.
And now here Ryan was, about to leave the storeroom. He had lost track of Samantha and Rachel, and hoped they were safe. But he could not help them, or Jeffries or anyone else, by continuing to hide.
Cautiously, he stepped out of the storeroom and into the hall. For a moment, there was silence.
Then a loud, angry brash female voice shouted at him. "That's it, geek! Come to Jerri!"
It was Dr. Chance, or the blonde mohawk woman Chance had become. Jerri was dressed as an 80's punk girl, with leather vest and pants. She looked like she would be more comfortable playing electric guitar in a punk metal band than working in a technological facility like MTI.
"What is WRONG with you?" Ryan blurted out.
"Just doing my part to stick it to the man." Jerri said. Jerri then spraypainted the wall with black spray paint. The message read 'piss off, rich guys', though the comma was barely visible.
"And now for YOU!" Jerri said, grabbing a Transformation Gun from behind an overturned water cooler. Ryan gasped as Jerri aimed the Transformation Gun at him. He had no way of knowing which type of Transformation Gun this one was...
