Dr. Raymond Caroll stumbled down a dark stairway in an apartment building, a few blocks away from where he’d just witnessed a miracle. His prized work, his crowning achievement, was a success. He always knew the HECT formula would change the course of human history – he just underestimated how quickly that change would come. He had a little of the HECT sample left in his other laboratory and he’d decided he wasn’t leaving the city without it.

A middle-aged woman marched up the stairs beside Raymond, barking orders at her two teenage sons in Spanish, all three of them carrying hastily-packed bags. When she saw the ragged looking man pass by her on the stairs descending into the basement level, she turned and shouted at him too, although now in English, “Hey, idiota! You not own a TV? There’s a fuckin’ giant puta destroying the city, where the fuck you going?”

Raymond just continued his descent, waving his hand dismissively at the well-intentioned, foul-mouth stranger. She rolled her eyes, and continued up the stairs, shouting at her sons to move their asses. Raymond made his way into his apartment, and pulled out his cell phone. He hit the name ‘Henry Palazzo’ in his contact list, and held the phone to his ear.

Raymond and Henry had a complicated relationship. Henry was an investigative journalist who had made a career off of the NSA leaks voluntarily given by Raymond. In return, Henry was able to procure items necessary for some of the doctor’s not-quite-legal experiments. Henry had an impressive list of contacts and a professional courtesy that Raymond never had to second guess. Due to a recent incident in which they were both nearly caught, Henry agreed to take a step back from hard hitting, investigative issues and took a job for a daily news network. Henry, much to his chagrin, found himself stuck on helicopter traffic duty. Today at least provided a welcome change of pace.

“What?” The slightly annoyed voice answered.

“It’s me. Need you to pick me up in the chopper. I’m at 20th and 5th,” Raymond spoke, his voice even but soft. He plugged a USB drive into his computer and began transferring files while he chewed on his bottom lip.

“Are you out of your mind? Turn on a TV!” Henry cried. He sat in a small news helicopter, along with a pilot and a cameraman, hovering nearly three hundred feet in the air. All three stared in disbelief at the incredulous sight before them – a young, beautiful, naked woman walking down the middle of the street… except she was fifty times larger than normal. Her footsteps were so thunderous, the trio could hear every single one, even over the whirl of the helicopter blades. And even though they were a fair distance from the giantess, her unnatural combination of size and speed made her intimidating in her approach. Every few seconds, the pilot had to pull up and reposition.

“Don’t need to. I assume you’ve met my friend, Tasha?” Raymond unplugged the USB drive and pocketed it. He made his way to a small closet, grabbing an orange cooler bag.

Henry swallowed. The giant woman had stopped, and was looking into a window in a nearby skyscraper. She raised her right hand up to her face and slid her index finger into her mouth. Then, like she was sucking a tiny cock, she slowly withdrew her saliva coated finger as her lips curled into a smile. Next, she stuck the finger into the window she was spying into. The enormous finger, which was bigger than the entire window, punctured through the building like it was paper. They watched the giant woman laugh as she fingered the building like she would to a partner. Then she bent over slightly to look through the aperture she created.  

“What the hell do you mean ‘your friend’?” Henry asked, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his armrest.

“Come pick me up, now. You owe meeeeee,” Raymond sang.

“If you know what’s going on, then you know this is the biggest news story in the last fifty years. Hell maybe ever.”

Raymond sighed. He looked at his wristwatch. “Yes. And she’s been this large now for thirty-four minutes, long enough for every news network in the city to have a live feed up, whoop-de-doo. I can give you the real story.”

“What?”

“I can tell you how she grew so big.”

“Did… did you do it?”

Raymond took a case of vials from the closet – the last samples of the HECT-183 batch he'd created, which perfectly matched the 182 sample – and carefully placed them in the orange bag. “I need a ride out of the city. That’s the price.”

“You have a car.”

“City’s already gridlocked. And it’s going to get worse. A lot worse. Henry… I hope you can see that.”

Henry watched the giantess grow bored of the building she was fingering, and continued her unyielding march through a busy intersection. “Imagine what you would do, Henry. If you had that power. We’re all nothing to her now. And you know what? She’s still getting bigger.” Raymond could hear Henry’s breathing on the phone. “A lot of people are going to die,” Raymond continued. “And I don’t plan on being one of them.”

“You’ll tell me what happened?” Henry asked, as the helicopter gained altitude to stay out of the giant woman’s reach. “You’ll give me the exclusive story of how she grew, if I get you out?”

“That’s the deal. 20th and 5th, I’ll be on the roof.” Raymond hung up.

Henry covered his mouth as he watched the blond giantess crush a cube van, her heavy breasts bouncing as she stomped down with authority. Her colossal body made regular enough looking movements, Henry surmised, but each motion still appeared supernatural due to her incredible proportions. Henry tapped the pilot on the shoulder and brought his helmet microphone back down to his mouth.

“We’ve got to go to 20th and 5th for a pickup. Now.”

The pilot nodded and pulled back on the control stick, climbing into the sky and away from the biggest news story that Manhattan had ever seen.