McMillan Tech Industries, Lake Point branch, basement lab complex, main lab
"Finally!" Samantha Duncan said, as she and Ryan Leeson opened Jeffries' storage locker. In the storage locker were the eleven Restoration Guns that Jeffries had stored within it. "I thought we'd never get it open."
"Looks like Jeffries really is back to himself, at least mentally." Ryan said. "But how?"
"I don't know. It happened so suddenly." Samantha said. "It's not like we were saying or doing something that would shock him to his senses. We tried, and nothing seemed to get through to him. And then, he's suddenly back to his old self."
"I'd say maybe his personality was strong enough to overcome that 'mad scientist' personality the Random Gun gave him." Ryan said. "But if that were the case, why didn't it happen sooner?"
Samantha paused. She had no answer. The timing of Jeffries' recovery didn't seem to make much sense. One minute he was still refusing to give them the combination to the storage locker, the next he had his old personality back.
"The important thing is, we have the Restoration Guns now. Let's just take them all out of the locker so we don't lock them in again." Samantha replied.
Ryan and Samantha then proceeded to empty Jeffries' storage locker of all the Restoration Guns, and set them down on the floor, before closing the locker again. They then picked up two of the Restoration Guns, and returned to Jeffries.
Jeffries was still tied up with duct tape, but he was making no attempt to struggle. Instead, he was relaxed and waiting patiently.
"Okay," said Ryan. "You asked to be the first to be zapped with the Restoration Gun. Let's see if this works."
Ryan zapped Jeffries with the Restoration Gun. Jeffries glowed for a bit, and then almost instantly was restored to the appearance he had prior to the Random Gun. A young man in his mid-20's, with short curly dark hair. His glasses were still missing, though, but otherwise he was his previous self.
"Oh, thank you!" Jeffries said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I never, ever want to go through that again."
"Are you all right?" Ryan asked.
"I think so." Jeffries said. "I still remember what I did, though. When I was in crazy scientist super villain mode. I might have had good intentions but... you were right the whole time."
"I guess that means we can untie you now." Samantha said, working on removing the duct tape.
Jeffries turned to glance at the two smashed robots in the laboratory. "A shame about those robots, though."
"I did what I had to. There wasn't really time for a more gentle solution." Samantha said.
"You almost stopped me, there." Jeffries said. "And now the whole world's different now. Who knows what's going to happen now?"
It was at this point that Samantha's cell phone began ringing. Samantha turned to her phone, and saw that it was from her friend Rachel McLewis.
Samantha was halfway through with freeing Jeffries when she answered the call, and signaled for Ryan to remove the rest of the duct tape.
"Rachel, are you all right? We haven't heard from you in hours." Samantha asked.
"I'm okay." Rachel said. "Somehow I made it through the last several hours without getting zapped. But I lost my phone, and Stragey kidnapped me and..."
"What? Slow down." Samantha said. "What happened?"
"It's a long story." Rachel said. "It started after Mycroft and I left the basement."
"I'll put this on speaker so everyone can hear." Samantha said. She did so.
Rachel explained how she checked the upper floors of McMillan Tech Industries, Lake Point Branch, to discover that several people in various departments had been zapping each other with Transformation Guns. She had seen signs that most of the ones they had imagined in their break room collaborative fantasy sessions had been used on at least two or three people. This included the Goth Gun, the Clown Gun, the Fat Gun, the Mime Gun, and Rachel's own creation, the Babe Gun.
She then told them of how she had been kidnapped by Martin Stragey, from the Marketing Department, who threatened to use the Random Gun on her if she didn't help him break into the meeting room where CEO Richard McMillan and four others of the Board of Directors were meeting. "Stragey was very upset he'd been turned down for a promotion to Department Head, so he wanted to use the Random Gun to change everyone hoping they'd end up with personalities more willing to give him what he wanted."
Rachel then told of how the plan had backfired on Stragey, when MTI's Chief Operating Officer Clay Dankworth (who had changed for the worse as a result of being zapped with the Random Gun), seized the Random Gun, and got transformed into a crazed maniac who kept zapping Mr. McMillan, Stragey, and the others on the Board over and over with the Random Gun.
"I didn't see all the transformations -- Jerri shoved me away from the door and we were hiding behind furniture outside the whole time -- but I think each of them might have been changed twenty times." Rachel said. "Mr. Dankworth was so far gone he forgot about any plans he might have had, and just kept changing them."
Jeffries looked especially disturbed upon hearing this. "The Random Gun did THAT to Dankworth?" he asked.
"Yes. He was like something out of a horror movie's portrayal of a crazed mental patient. Only instead of being a pyromaniac or a slasher, his mania was changing people." Rachel said. "And he kept doing it until the Random Gun overheated and blew up in his hands. He's dead now."
Jeffries, Samantha, and Ryan were nearly speechless with shock. All of the collaborators had agreed on a 'cooldown period' for Transformation Guns, to discourage people from going crazy with them. None of them could have known that the Transformation Guns would become real somehow, nor could they have predicted that the Random Gun could cause someone to reach the level of insanity required for them to not drop it when it was overheating and allow it to cool off.
"Oh my God.." Jeffries said, in a whisper.
"He really did it?" Ryan asked. "He really kept using it more than 100 times in five minutes?"
"I think it was three minutes or less." Rachel said. "Mr. McMillan and the others fainted. Too many transformations, too many alternate personalities all coming and going too quickly. We've made a rest area for them now, but they're still reeling from transformation shock."
"This ... this is bad." Samantha said. "This is very bad. Even with the Restoration Guns, this is bad. If what you've just told me is true, you've got five people who'll need twenty zaps each within the next thirty days to get back to their original forms."
"You have the Restoration Guns?" Rachel asked.
"Yes." Samantha said. "And Jeffries is back to himself. But... there was an accident."
"An accident?" Rachel asked.
"Have you seen the news?" Samantha asked. "About what's happening in the outside world?"
"I saw some vague things about transformations happening outside of MTI, but I was too busy checking MTI's social media." Rachel said. "What's happening?"
"The Cargo Teleportation Chamber overloaded." Samantha said. "It couldn't handle transporting two batches of Transformation Guns at once. Ryan and I aren't sure what happened, but we think it sent out a wave of energy imprinted with the data from the previous teleports, and that data turned all guns everywhere into Transformation Guns. If what we've seen on the news is any indication, almost every type of Transformation Gun is out there in the world now."
"Including Restoration Guns?" Rachel asked.
"I don't know." Samantha said. "I switched one of the Random Guns in the last two batches with a Restoration Gun, but I don't know if that means there are Restoration Guns 'in the wild' now or not. If there are, the news hasn't reported it yet."
"You did?" Jeffries said, genuinely impressed. "Wow, that was some quick thinking there. I didn't even see it."
Samantha turned back to Rachel on the phone. "Anyway, we have the eleven Restoration Guns from the storage locker. We can start using them as soon as things begin to settle down."
Ryan spoke up. "There should be only one of each type on the upper floors, unless security had some regular guns that were changed into Transformation Guns. Anyway, over at Lake Point High School, the Principal instructed people to find and turn in every Transformation Gun they could find and gather them all together in one place. It's far past time we did the same over here."
"Sounds good to me." an unfamilar female voice could be heard saying from the phone.
"You still need your rest." another female voice said.
"That's the doctor and Mr. McMillan." Rachel said. "The doctor here isn't a licensed professional - just a junior accounting executive who got zapped with the Random Gun - but she seems to know what she's doing. Anyway, I've got to go now. Tell Mr. Sallow I'm representing Research and Development up here in his absence."
"We will, as soon as we find him." Ryan said.
"He's probably in the basement somewhere." Samantha said. "A lot of people down here got zapped. We still need to restore Larry and Carrie. There's a lot that needs to get done."
McMillan Tech Industries, Lake Point Branch upper floors, waiting area near the meeting room
Rachel was about to end the call, when the cheerleader that was the transformed Richard McMillan spoke up.
"Wait!" McMillan said. "Were you just talking about Restoration Guns? I'll save you some time. Don't use any of them on Mr. Stragey. He deserves to be stuck in whatever form he ended up in. Oh, and he's fired."
"Are you sure?" Rachel said.
"If there's anything I'm sure of right now, it's that." McMillan said. "Once the rest of the Board hears about this, I'm sure they'll agree to dismiss Mr. Stragey."
By, 'rest of the Board', Rachel assumed McMillan was referring to those who were not present at that fateful meeting, and who could therefore have a somewhat more objective viewpoint of the situation than McMillan and the others who were present.
"Well, apparently transforming your boss in a hostile takeover attempt can get you fired." Rachel said, with a smile. "Who knew?"
Of course Stragey (who was currently stuck in the form of a female Asian nurse) had only succeeeded in zapping Mr. McMillan and the other four Board members present once each. But he had been indirectly responsible for the Random Gun falling into Mr. Dankworth's hands, and the trauma that followed. McMillan was well within his rights to fire him, and sue him as well.
For the first time, Rachel began to wonder about her future, and the future of her friends. Once word got out that they had originally imagined the Transformation Guns in the first place, would their jobs be in danger?
She knew she couldn't worry about that now. She had to be sure Mr. McMillan and the others would be all right, and speak with the legal and PR departments of McMillan Tech Industries. As well as find out who else had Transformation Guns in the building and was using them.
The day had been long, but it still was not over yet.
