The machinery hissed, cool and calm while an equally frigid and calculated man pursued his work carefully, controlling a robot hand through use of a remote glove worn on his human hand. That is to suggest Dr. Maximillian E Mumford HAD much humanity left at this point. The man practically operated like a machine as he used his microscopes and other periphery to ascertain that which had eluded him to this point.
"Ah-ha!" the gloating Dr. would enunciate before seemingly taking it back. His assistant, Dr. Hoffnung seemed unamused and frankly, unimpressed.
"Doctor..." Trevor hemmed and hawed, "I think it's safe to say that whatever happened in the chamber wasn't normal and also didn't result in the showing we wanted..."
Dr. Max wasn't having any of this talk though.
"I'm not having any of this kind of talking!" the cruel Dr. remarked back, still staring carefully at that lone plastic container which he had under many plates, trying to magnify it as much as possible while his scientific goggles tried to give him any advantage possible. "There MUST be something here, the machine went off, we know that for a fact!"
"We also know that whatever triggered it weighed over 150 pounds, which exceeds the experiments limitations!" Trevor postulated, noting the last known weight measurement the plate on the ground had taken before executing ... or trying to execute, the Delta experiment.
"That is only MORE evidence that there IS a subject 287 ..." Dr. Max would shake his head defiantly
"Then where are they? WHAT are they?" Trevor would ask, an eyebrow raised. He, as well as Max had already pondered the very likely possibility that whatever triggered the machine was human. There were too many signs of it. The discarded backpack, the weight measurements and what little of the security footage that could be retrieved through the cloud would suggest as much. A human female, even. But of course, that wasn't the original intent of Project Delta and that would mean an error was made, perhaps even a grave one. Now to Trevor Hoffnung, that was serious business, particularly if he felt another human being was in some kind of danger. Max only cared about one thing however. An error. How could there be an error in one of HIS scientific processes? He was infallible, and by association anything that he designed was such.
"Stay here and watch the sample" Dr. Max would instruct, ignoring his assistant yet again while he departed the scene, "I'm going to get my spectrometer and see if we can't find anything in there ... some kind of clue or artifact left behind"
"There's nothing in the container..." Trevor would finally cede, "it's not microscopic, it's not subatomic, it's just ... not there ..."
"THAT IS ENOUGH!!" Max would shout, shaking his head and beginning to boil over, "You are giving me the headache! Now go! I will finish this investigation myself for the evening..."
"Do what you want..." Trevor would exhale, a rare loss of composure for the gentleman as he passed the slumped over Doctor on his way out of the lab.
Dr. Max took further offense to this but ultimately allowed Trevor out of the room. After all he had bigger fish to fry... or perhaps, smaller ones. Before Trevor cleared the threshold however, the Doctor had another thought.
"One more thing..." Max would add. Trevor would reluctantly stop long enough to listen
"Did you do as I instructed with that boy's phone ... the self proclaimed scientist always trying to get away with the picture taking?" Max asked
"What? N-No ... that was a horribly unethical idea, sir ... I honestly thought you were joking" Trevor replied
"Ah, you're going soft on me, Trevor..." Max sighed, before smirking a bit, "...good thing I did it myself then"
Trevor would just let out a disappointed murmur as he faded down the hall.
Elsewhere, a father and daughter would be sitting down to a small dinner. Not a very uncommon scene naturally, although this particular one would tie in nicely with the current goings on.
"You've been kind of quiet tonight, Leah..." Dave would ask his young daughter Leah while taking another modest spoonful of spaghetti from the large bowl located in the center of the table.
"Y-Yeah ... I don't know ..." Leah murmured, "just thinking about ... homework and stuff ... lots to do, yknow? College time ...n-not that that I regret coming to visit you, of course"
"Y'know ... if you're going to lie, you can at least try harder" Dave would smirk
"Huh? No, Dad, I really DO enjoy spending time with you..." Leah would frown, her cell phone secretly balanced precariously on her thigh to glance at every so often
"That's not what I meant" Dave replied, shaking his head, "I mean the homework thing ... I know you care about your grades but I've never seen you get so distracted about HOMEWORK ... so maybe there's something else you'd like to talk about?"
To this, Leah would go silent, not even sure where to begin. She'd carefully pluck up a small sampling of spaghetti from her plate, entangling the noodles with the fork, and having a bite
"The pasta's good" she'd nod.
This would be followed with more awkward silence.
"So, you've probably heard..." Leah's dad would sigh, realizing he couldn't quite crack whatever was troubling his daughter at the moment, "...there was sort of a ... thing at Enormo that happened"
"Oh?" she nodded, not wanting to say too much about that but it had dawned on her that it could be worse than people were saying. If anybody would know, it would possibly be her dad, being an employee of the shady conglomerate.
"It's ... probably nothing serious" he nodded, trying to reassure Leah, although maybe it wasn't so much her he was secretly trying to calm down, "you'll probably hear some crazy rumors and things about it, but just ... I don't know ... don't believe what you read online, some people are just conspiracy nuts about everything"
"Heh, it's all good, Dad" Leah would nod, trying to hasten her pace eating and salvage some sense of normalcy within the father/daughter moment that was currently transpiring. "I'm not like that ... I don't really believe that paranoid, wackjob kind of stuff"
Almost right on cue to illustrate some kind of example would sit a young man on his computer, finishing up a thorough internet search.
"Oh man ..." Josh would think to himself, "I sure do love this paranoid, wackjob kind of stuff"
Of course in his case, the comment would be more tongue in cheek. He wasn't stupid, far from it. He was basically a straight A student, with the exception of a couple times his grades may have slipped due to overinvolvement in video games or comic books but he loved science, and had a strong passion for gathering more knowledge. To some though, he knew he was viewed as a "wackjob" but he didn't care so much about what those people thought. After all, he had earlier vaulted over a fence to retrieve a stray pair of pants from the exterior of a large scientific facility known to be dealing in oddities and perhaps even criminal activity.
"Dr. Max cites huge financial success from Enormite production as reason for expanding research in nano-metals..." Josh would read to himself, going over many articles about Enormo spanning from the last 5-10 years. One thing was for sure. Silly consumer products like office supplies and other things that bore the Enormo name on the back of the box in a place most people wouldn't even look simply funded and masked the fact that the company had several shady deals in place with unsavory types and they were working on something much more than an opposable paper clip. Josh was determined to get to the bottom of it. At any cost.
"Dad?" Leah asked, meanwhile, feeling her phone twitch and her heartrate momentarily spike upon seeing Lexi's name on her text screen, "C-Could I be excused?"
"Oh, um... sure honey..." Dave would nod, "It's getting kind of late anyhow, and you probably need to finish unpacking your things and whatnot ... I appreciate you spending time with your boring ol dad..."
"Oh non-sense!" Leah smiled a bit warmly as she took her cell phone and stashed it, then gave her dad a loving hug and kiss, departing down the hallway to feverishly poke at her smartphone's buttons as if they were bubble wrap.
"Hey Leah ... I'm okay ... just was kinda pissed about what happened is all... I hate that Mad Max guy" Lexi's text would read to Leah.
"Lexi ... what happened to you?" Leah would answer back, "I heard you missed the cheer tryouts"
"I was feeling sick" Lexi would respond with a sad face, "but I met someone who may be able to get me a second tryout opportunity so ..." she'd end with a fingers crossed emote. Leah would smile at this. Lexi always had a way of bouncing back. Perhaps her worrying was unwarranted. She could definitely agree on one thing about the whole ordeal. That Mad Max guy sure was an asshole.
Giantess World
