“You had no right to mess with his genetics like that.” Carolyn admonished the tween while Bryan made bodybuilder poses in the mantle mirror. “What if things had gone wrong?”
“Babe. C’mon, Give her a break. It didn’t go wrong.” he smiled broadly. “It went the complete opposite of wrong! Damn this feels good…” He turned to look at Maggie in the eye. “You, young lady, are a fucking genius!”
“Bryan, this is serious. We still don’t know if there will be any side effects. And what are we going to tell our friends? Your family? Oh, hey, Brian has suddenly become The Rock?”
“I can put him back to normal. I have his original DNA saved.”
“I fucking don’t care what anyone says. I love this! I could probably bench press a car right now. We’ll just tell people I started working out… a lot”
“Honey, your family just saw you a few weeks ago at Christmas. Even if they accept the gym story, no one is going to believe that you suddenly sprouted up to six foot two.”
“Explain how this worked again? You put the altered DNA in my milk…?”
“Yes, I put it in the milk, but that did not work at all. I thought the nutrients being delivered to the cells would carry it universally to all DNA information instead of targeting a specific area. But then when you started drinking all of that beer, that went straight into your bloodstream, and ultimately was the delivery system that worked. The calories and carbohydrates…”
“And brownies and four frozen pizzas…”
“…all converted directly into mass.”
“Okay, so here’s the deal. She’ll put my height back down to 5 foot 11”
“You were 5 foot 10.”
“Back down to 5 foot 11,” he winked at Carolyn “then we reduce the muscles some so I can at least fit into my normal clothes. Deal?”
“You can put him back like he was?” Carolyn still wasn’t convinced this was a wise idea. “Restore his DNA?”
“Yes. Of course. Everything is backed up. The only factor might be the time needed to fully metabolize the alcohol in his system that delivered the altered genetics. That might take 80 hours to fully clear. Although, it has been known to linger in hair follicles for up to three months in some individuals…”
“If she can get you back to fully normal, then I’ll accept that this is safe, and you can start experimenting all you want. Deal?” She held her hand out to shake Bryan’s.
“Deal.” he wrapped his now larger, thick and meaty paw around hers. “Deal?” he smiled over to Maggie.
She put her small hand on top of theirs. “Deal.”
———
Bryan laid low from classes and other social activities for most of the week in order to avoid any major questions about his new buff and broad physique, while Maggie tried out the most recent edit of his DNA every few hours, taking notes of each failure of the mixture to take hold. On Thursday, he slipped off to the campus gym to pump some iron. It was effortless, although he nearly gave himself a concussion when he kept bumping his head on the equipment. One of the coaches approached him about trying out for the team that fall as a walk-on.
Carolyn, for her part, was coming around to the possibilities that her genius roommate opened up. The lovemaking sessions with the newly scaled Bryan were extremely satisfying. She loved him regardless of his shape, but this was a shape she could most definitely appreciate.
Finally, on day number four, the latest genetic/hops mixture had been mixed and ingested. As the three watched Netflix, Bryan started sweating profusely. “Okay, I think this may be the one,” he said weakly as perspiration poured down his forehead and from every pore of his body.
“Eighty four hours and approximately 20 minutes.” Maggie wrote down in her notebook. “Carolyn, you may want to get all the towels.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, Bryan shed over 40 pounds of mass, returning to his former 5 foot 10 stature, but still retained some of the musculature, even if it was more trim like a swimmer rather than bulk like a bodybuilder. The mass was shed primarily through the skin via perspiration, but at the end of his metamorphosis, he also took what he described quite proudly as ‘an epic dump’.
“This is amazing, Maggie.” Carolyn said “Your research has the potential to revolutionize everything.”
Maggie sulked. “My department chair doesn’t think so. He hates me. He won’t listen to me about anything. I heard he had argued against my even coming here which is what held up my scholarship. He treats me like a child. They all do.”
“Fuck him. Department chairs are all assholes.” Bryan scoffed, throwing a load of drenched towels into the washer. He was wearing his own regular clothes for the first time in several days instead of sweats. “He’d just end up taking all the credit for your work. Don’t tell anyone about any of this before you can get it patented for yourself.”
“This technology could be worth billions. The entire healthcare industry would try everything to bury it. It would put them completely out of business.” Carolyn sighed “Plus, she’s 13. Can’t make it legally binding without a guardian or, at the very least, emancipation from her parents.”
“So she waits it out then.”
“But I have so much research and testing that I need to do. I have my PhD that I need to earn.”
“Do your research here. Do just enough in the lab to earn that PhD, but do your REAL work here. I’ve got a buddy who’s studying patent law. We’ll get him to prepare all the paperwork and the moment you turn eighteen - BOOM, you’re the richest doctor on the planet, all while saving lives, curing cancer, and, whenever you want, feel free to CRISPR me right back into Superman again, because that was fucking fun!” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Carolyn and me, we’ll have your back.”
“Thank you.” She said, wiping the rare tear from her eyes.
Comments
No posts