Side Effects May Include... by pseudoclever
“Well
Max? Don’t you have anything to say in your defense?” Lily
asked, still smirking up at him wickedly.
He
glared at her. “Fine, good, you got me. There’s the evidence in
your hands. But think about this: I can have my arms around your
windpipe before you take three steps. And there's no way a midget
like you could fight me off. So maybe you should just give me those
reagent bottles.”
The
tiny girl threw her head back, laughing uproariously. “Nice try,
Max-ie, but I know you too well. You aren’t capable of murder - to
say nothing of the cameras. So why don’t I tell YOU what’s going
to happen, hmm?”
He
stared at her for a long moment, and finally gave the tiniest nod he
could manage.
“How
much of that stuff are you making?”
Max
closed his eyes. “Fifteen grams.”
“That
would be...ahhh...about a hundred thousand doses, correct?”
“Yes,” he spat.
“Well
then, here’s the plan: I’ll go ahead and put these reagents away.
You finish your little reaction. Then I walk out of here with seven
and a half of those grams, and we forget this ever happened.”
Max
wondered briefly if he had somehow slipped himself a couple hits of
the stuff he was baking. This had to be a trick. “What? Why
would YOU want any of this?”
“Let’s
just say I could use the money. And besides, the way you tricked
Doc...that was a work of art. It’d be a shame if I had to be the
one to spoil it for you.”
“How do I know you aren’t going to leave here and go straight to
the cops with that stuff?”
“I
could do that anyway. Even if you cleaned up the lab, anyone who
takes a close enough look at the security tapes is going to know
SOMETHING is up. No, Max-ie. What I’m purposing is that
you...TRUST...me.”
Max
let out a short bark of a laugh. “And why the hell should I do
that?”
For
the second time ever, Lily gave him a genuine smile – this one even
wider than the first. “Because I’m going to implicate myself
with you. Either we both get away with this, or neither of us do.”
He
shook his head, and sighed deeply. “I guess I don’t have much
choice.”
“Do
you trust me?”
“No.”
The word came out flat.
Lily
giggled, and blew him a kiss. With a flourish she turned, and went
to the reagent room.
By
the time she returned, Max had finished boiling off the remnant. “As
soon as it cools we decant, and then we can get out of here.”
She
nodded. Neither of them spoke. The only sounds in the room were the
ticking of the clock, and the gentle rush of air from the heating
duct. At some point Max became aware that the nasty little munchkin
was staring at him, her huge green eyes twinkling mischievously.
“What?”
Her
face took on a predatory look. “Two things. First...it occurs to
me that, at some point, we need to make sure you did this reaction
right. Before we try to sell it at least. Bad things happen to
people who push drugs that don’t work.
“And
second...I can’t let you walk out of here until you say that you
trust me. It’s the foundation of this entire plan. If either one
of us rats the other out....” She shook her head.
“I’m
sorry. It’s a little difficult for me to have faith in the woman
who’s blackmailing me.”
Lily
nodded. “I thought you might say that. Well, maybe I have a
solution to both problems.”
Suddenly,
the girl pulled a low-dose measuring syringe from her pocket, and
stuck it into the serum.
“Hey,
HEY! What are you doing?” he shouted.
“Shut
up. And stand close to me, block the camera.” She grabbed his
shirt, and pulled him tight against her. “This is just a little
romantic rendezvous, Mr. Security Guard,” she whispered. Max could
feel her hot breath against his chest, her lithe little body pressing
into him. All the blood was rushing to his head.
Lily
tipped her head back, and depressed the syringe. A minuscule amount
of liquid dripped out on to her tongue.
“How
much?” he snarled.
She
looked down at the device in her hand. “Just five hundred
nano-liters.”
“Are
you kidding?” he hissed. “Do you know potent this stuff is?
That’s at least three hits you just took!”
“Today’s
dosing standards for acid are pretty tame - I’ll be alright. Oh by
the way...you’ve got some pretty strong legs here. Do you work out
much?” Max realized the elfin girl was still clinging to him, and
quickly stepped away. “Ce’st la vie,” she said, fixing her
hair.
“Explain,”
he demanded.
“It
isn’t that complicated. I’ve just put a dagger in your hand. If
you want, you can stab it into my back, and get off scott free.”
Max looked confused. “In about thirty minutes, I’m going to be
high out of my mind. If you really don’t trust me, you can call
the police. I’ll have nothing on you at that point.
“But!”
she added, looking him dead in the eye. “Remember this: I trust
YOU. I trust that this stuff you made isn’t going to kill me. I
trust that you won’t screw me over on my half of the product, or
get me thrown in jail. And...maybe I even trust you to take care of
me while I’m on my little trip. But that part is up to you.”
“You
need to stop calling me Max-ie,” he said.
“Done.”
They
stared at each other for a long moment. Max felt the beginnings of a
smile playing across his lips. In spite of himself, he felt like he
could almost tolerate this girl. Almost.
He
moved to pick up the solution, when suddenly Lily grunted, and
doubled over in pain. “What? What is it? Are you okay?”
She
spoke to him from between clenched teeth. “It...nrrgh...isn’t
supposed to...it takes longer than this...I....” A few seconds
later the girl shook her head, as if trying to forget a bad dream.
“I don’t know what just happened. But I feel better now.
Actually...hmm...I feel kind of strange.”
“Strange?
Strange how?”
She
shook her head. “It’s hard to describe. Hot. And...the room
looks different. YOU look different. Almost as though everything
were getting....” Lily trailed off, her eyes going wide.
Max
started to ask her what she had been about to say, when a sudden
shifting of fabric caught his eye.
Lily wore the same
loose-fitting white polo shirt that she had earlier in the day. For
some reason, it didn’t seem quite as loose as he remembered. In
fact, as he watched he could swear it was getting tighter, as if an
invisible hand were pulling it taut against her chest. Even
stranger, it looked as if her sleeves were rolling up her arms all by
themselves. Every place he looked he saw more of Lily than expected:
her shirt was starting to ride up her midsection; her collar
was stretching
wider; her breasts were straining against the snug little shirt.
Wait,
breasts? Max knew for a fact that Lily was almost completely flat
chested. Yet there was no denying the two firm little mounds that
she had suddenly sprouted, each the size and shape of a small orange.
Or...perhaps not so small?
“Max,
what’s happening to me?” she asked, her voice tinged with fear.
He looked into her face - and found it much higher than he
remembered. With a shock he realized what had happened - Lily was
taller! The girl had gained at least a hand’s width in height in
only a few seconds! Max guessed that she was still shorter than his
friend Tara, but probably not by much.
She
stared at him, her eyes pleading for help. As he looked into those
eyes he felt a mild sense of vertigo, like stepping off a carnival
ride to find the world around you still spinning. Every part of her
he could see was marching steadily upward, and Max had to keep
readjusting his perspective to follow. She grew faster, and faster
still, her transformation hurtling towards some unseen critical point
with break-neck speed.
She
was the same height as Tara now - no, taller! And it wasn’t just
height Lily was gaining - her whole body was bigger. Her shoulders
were wider, her arms longer, her legs...wow. Her jeans looked as if
they had been painted to her body, and the cuffs had risen halfway up
the length of her calves. The seams along her thighs bulged, but the
garment held fast, squeezing against her legs painfully.
The
neckline of her polo was spreading wider, popping buttons from her
shirt, revealing more and more of the copper-colored flesh of her
bustline. Her breasts were definitely growing even faster than the
rest of her body – she was now at least a small C-cup by now. Max
could see the supple curve of her cleavage emerging from beneath her
ever-tightening shirt, a pair of wondrous orbs making a slow-motion
escape from their cotton prison.
With each passing
second another millimeter was creeping into view. If he just
waited....
“Max...help
me...please, you’ve got to help me!” Lily squeaked.
“I’m...scared!”
This
admission was what finally snapped him back to reality - it was the
last thing he would ever have expected the snarky girl to say. He
looked around the room, thinking fast. Lily now stood at least five
six, nearly a foot taller than her previous height, and there was no
telling how much longer her growth would continue.
Max
grabbed the vial of solution, hastily shoved a cork in its opening,
and dropped it into his pocket. “We’ve got to get you out of
here!” He took Lily’s hand – large, clammy, but not entirely
unpleasant to hold – and pulled her toward the door. “Follow me.
I’ve got a plan!”
He
led his still-expanding lab partner into the hallway. His senses
were all keyed up to the maximum: he could hear each increasingly
heavy foot-fall behind him; could feel her hand swelling in his
grasp. He tried to pull her, make her run faster, but it was
becoming difficult for her to keep up. Her clothes, especially her
jeans, were far too tight now, limiting her pace to that of an urgent
walk.
“Where
are we going?” she hissed into his ear. He tried not to pay
attention to the height from which that voice came.
“We’re
almost there,” he whispered, not looking back. “How are you
feeling? Does it hurt?”
It
took her a moment to respond. “Actually...no, not really. Now
that I think about it...if it weren’t for these...ergh...these
tiny-ass pants, it might even feel...good.” There was another long
pause, and what Max thought might have been a sigh of contentment.
“Yes. Good...wow...very good.”
Max
stopped, pushing open the door to the Lady’s Restroom. “Inside.
I’ll be right behind you.” Without checking to see if she had
obeyed, he went to the janitor’s closet. He was prepared to force
the door if necessary, but fortune was in his favor and he found it
unlocked. There was a small pile of bright yellow signs, each
labelled “Out of Order,” and he grabbed one, along with a roll of
duct tape. After securing the sign to the restroom door, he went
inside.
He
took two steps, and walked straight into a solid wall of girl-flesh.
“Hey, watch where you’re going...Shorty!”
Max
paused, thrown off by this last word. He and Lily were almost the
exact same height now – six feet even – and he told her this.
“So it isn’t really fair for you to call me short, is it?”
“I
supposed it isn’t,” she admitted, stretching her arms above her
head. “Not yet, anyway....” The tips of her fingers came a
fraction of an inch from touching the ceiling. As he watched, Lily’s
hand slowly closed the gap, making contact with her middle finger,
then her index. “But wait around for a few minutes and we’ll
see.”
Max
took a deep breath, forcing down his body’s reaction to her
display. Lily seemed to have lost all fear of the changes she was
experiencing. The sudden emergence of her flirty nature, combined
with her rapidly-increasing height, made her strangely appealing to
him. The way she was dressed - or rather, not dressed - wasn’t
helping his situation either. The last of the buttons had left her
shirt, and
the garment stopped well above her belly-button. The frilly white
material still barely concealed the business end of her breasts, but
otherwise left nothing to the imagination.
It
took a few seconds before Max trusted himself to speak. “Okay.
This is what we’re going to do: you wait here, while I bring my car
around. We’re going to sneak you out of this place. And then
we’ll go....”
Lily
spoke up. “My house is only a few blocks from here, and I live
alone.”
He
nodded. “That’ll work. Anything else you can think of?”
“Yes,”
she said immediately. “I need you to get me out of these pants.”
Max
looked at her dubiously.
“Yeah
yeah, I know it’s the first time a beautiful woman has ever said
that to you....”
“The
first time a GROWING woman has said it to me, maybe....”
“...but
this is serious. They’re cutting off my circulation. Please?”
He
sighed, and dropped to his knees in front of her. At first he tried
simply grabbing the cuffs, which were now just below the level of her
knees, and pulling. This accomplished nothing except causing Lily to
grunt in pain. He thought for a moment, and instead plunged his
hands into the two wide rips that had formed at the crook of her
hips, right around the area of her inner thighs. Choosing to
interpret the soft coo that she emitted as one of surprise, Max
tugged with all his might. The jeans tore open, and after another
moment’s work he was able to pull them free from her body.
He
looked up at her from his knees - and regretted it. Lily was staring
down at him, her eyes slightly glazed, wearing an expression of foggy
bliss. From this angle she looked impossibly huge. Her shirt had
jutted out to follow the curve of her breasts, and the lift this
created gave him a completely unobstructed view underneath her polo.
He could see everything. Even worse, the lacy g-string that she wore
was right at eye-level, and so tight that it did nothing but frame
and accent what lay beneath.
“Max?”
she purred, her voice thick. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
He
stood up quickly, doing his best to hide the bulge in his pants.
“What kind of a question is that?” he demanded.
She
smiled enigmatically. “So you don’t? Is it the height thing?”
The
height thing. Max suddenly became conscious that Lily had been
growing this entire time. The top of his head was now even with her
nose, putting her in the neighborhood of 6’3” or 6’4”. He
felt sure that, if she tried to reach for the ceiling again, she
would easily be able to touch it with the flat of her palm. And with
each passing second he found himself looking higher and higher to
meet her eyes.
The
clock was ticking.
“I’ll
be back in a few minutes,” he told her, moving toward the door.
“Max,”
she said again, and he turned. “You’ll hurry?”
Was
that actual worry in her voice? He must be imagining it. “I
promise.”
“Good,”
she said, nodding. “Because you’re not getting out of answering
my question that easily.”
He
fled.