“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.