Chapter 2

It was hard for Lucia to wake up and go to work, but she needed the job, so she had to do it.

She wore an angry face as she got into the office, early. As usual, her boss was not there. He would arrive no earlier than 9:30. She took advantage of that time to get the work done. If she could finish early in the morning, she might be able to go to the gym. At that moment, it was the only thing she really wanted to do.

Phil arrived at 9:45. And that day he started right from the first minute. The funny comments, the looks at her chest and ass… Lucia was getting nervous, very nervous. And then, as she was looking for some reports he had asked about, he stood next to her and brought his hand to her ass once more. This time he left it there.

Lucia lost her mind. Something in it shut down. And she just turned and slapped Phil as hard as she could in the face. She was a fit young woman and by Phil’s reaction, her slap hurt. She saw his cheek reddening and felt proud about what she had done in an irrational way.

Outside the office, several people saw it and the whispering started right after. Phil did not know how to react for a second. He was red faced, and not only from the slap. Then, he yelled at her:

“Are you crazy, you damn bitch?”

Lucia, still mad, yelled back:

“You got what you deserved, you dirty bastard!”

“You are fired! Security!” Phil yelled.

“I’m going to report on you. You harassed me, you pig!” she yelled. Then, she looked at her coworkers and said: “And all of them know it!”

At that moment, all the people in the office turned at the same time and stopped looking at her. And she understood at once. No one would help her. No one would say that she had been harassed. When she turned, Phil was smiling cynically.

“Really?”

A security agent was approaching. Lucia then yelled:

“Fine, I don’t need this crappy job.”

Then she turned to her coworkers and said: “And I don’t need to work with you, you fucking rats”

Then, for a second Lucia felt dizzy and brought her hands to her head. The security guard tried to reach for her and asked:

“Are you alright, ma’am? I need you to follow me.”

When she felt the hand of the security guard on her arm, Lucia recovered and pushed him.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” she yelled

The security guard looked at her with puzzle. He could not understand how a quite petite woman had been able to push him, with his 6’4” and his 220 pounds a couple of feet backwards. He did not have time to find out. The woman stomped her way towards the exit and he just followed her. When she reached to door, though, she turned and raised her voice for all the officer workers in the floor to hear:

“You will all regret this, you damn bastards!”

And then she slammed the door shut behind her.

It was amazing how quickly Lucia went from anger, to frustration, to depression and to anger again. As soon as she got into the car, she slammed her fists repeatedly into the steering wheel as she yelled. She could not accept that genuinely bad people like Phil could get things going their way while people like her always got beaten. Then, she realized that she was jobless. She barely had any savings in the bank, she had just got a $600 fine and now she had lost her only source of income. She could not avoid crying. It wasn’t fair. Her life was miserable, and she had done nothing to deserve it. The moment she saw someone getting out of the building, she tried her best to hide that she had been crying. It was not enough. She could see as the two guys looked at her and a smirk in their faces. They had noticed. She felt her blood begin to boil once more. Then, she just started the car and stepped on the gas, making a noisy exit from the parking lot.

Ten minutes later, she was on the highway and when the car in front of her suddenly braked, all Lucia could do was to slam the brakes of her own car as hard as she could to prevent crashing into it. She managed to prevent the collision by barely a few inches. She thought she would have a heart attack but when she saw that she had prevented the accident she felt relaxed and thought that maybe her luck streak was beginning to change. She quickly changed her mind when a second later she heard brakes screeching behind her and then heard and felt at the same time a car crashing into her own.

It was nothing too bad, but Lucia had almost reached the breaking point.

“What in the fucking hell does God have against me?” she yelled as hard as she could while she slammed her hands on the steering wheel again.

When the car in front of her moved again, she drove to the right and parked in the hard shoulder. The car behind did the same. She unbuckled and got out of the car, barely able to contain her anger. It was worse when she saw that the car behind was a large Mercedes sedan and that it barely had a scratch, while her Corolla was pretty battered from the collision. A middle-aged suited man got out of the dark sedan. His first words were:

“A woman. I knew it!”

Lucia lost it. She stomped her way to the man and then, without warning, pushed him back. He was shoved two feet back and slammed into the door of his car.

“What the hell do you mean, you damned moron?”

The man tried to take one step to the front, but Lucia pushed him back. She did not stop to think that she was easily overpowering a man that was quite taller than she was and weighted much more.

“You slammed your fucking car into mine and you blame me for being a woman? Just who the hell do you think you are?” she said, slapping him in the chest.

The expression of the man changed very quickly. He had looked cocky when he had first climbed out of his Mercedes, but now Lucia saw that he was scared. Scared of her. It was a strange feeling to Lucia, but after having been overlooked and underestimated for so long, it did not feel bad.

“Miss, I’m sure that we can fix this,” the man said in a trembling voice.

“You fucked my car!” she said, still looking very angry.

He reached for the inner pocket of his suit and took out a business card.

“Here you have my card. I’ll get your car fixed. But now I need to go. I’m late!”

Lucia still did not look convinced. Still, it was shocking when the man reached into his pocked, took $200 and gave them to her:

“Here, that’s all I have with me right now. Please take it. I promise I’ll get your car fixed.”

Lucia still needed the last word.

“I have your plate number. If you fuck me I promise I’ll fuck you”

And she gave him a last shove for good measure. She felt good when doing that. Then, she turned and got into her car. The moment she sat behind the wheel, she realized that her shoes seemed to feel a little tight. Then, she saw that the top button of her blouse was somehow gone and that she was showing quite a lot of her generous cleavage. Was that what had made the man nervous? She doubted it. Her chest had caused many reactions in men along the years, but none of them had been fear.

Thirty minutes later, she was home. She wanted to lay in the sofa, drink some hot tea and forget about everything for a while. Of course, things could not go as expected. She had no tea. After much hesitation, Lucia decided to get out to the convenience store and get some. She was sure that she would need plenty. And it would not be that bad to get some air.

The moment she saw them walking straight towards her in the alley she had chosen to cut a shorter path to the store, she knew what would happen. When they cut her path and one of them took a knife out, Lucia finally reached the breaking point. She fell to her knees and brought her hands to her head. She screamed out loud. Her mind could barely focus on the overall dizziness that engulfed her entire body and what felt and sounded like clothes shredding. She could feel a very noticeable tightness, but she did not know too well from where it was coming. Somehow, she knew that the two men in front of her were saying something, but she could not focus on what they were saying.

“What the fuck? This chick is fucking crazy!” one of the muggers said.

“Just take her bag and go” the other replied.

“What the hell…?”

The two muggers heard as the woman’s formal attire began to shred and then observed in perplexity how her body started to expand. Even though she was kneeling, her head was soon level with theirs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! We need to go!” the first man said.

The second one was about to reply when the woman’s large dark brown eyes opened and her arm shot out for him. He tried to start running when her hand grabbed his T-shirt. He was the man with the knife and, scared, he just stabbed her in the arm.

The pain brought Lucia back to consciousness. When she felt the sharp sting and saw the man wielding the knife against her arm, she pushed him away impulsively. She was not prepared at all for what happened. Driven by her push, the man’s body was thrown 30 feet backwards and he crashed against some dumpsters with a very loud noise. Seeing what she had done, his colleague, who was now 20 feet away, turned and fled.

The first thing Lucia did was to check her arm where it had been stabbed. She was expecting a nasty wound. Instead, she found that the area where the knife had landed was barely reddened and that there was barely a small trickle of blood that seemed to be stopping.

“This is not possible,” she said aloud. She touched her arm and the pain seemed to recede.

When she got up from her knees, she saw that this was not the only strange thing that had happened. Her formal business attire, with knee-length skirt and a light blue blouse had been turned into a pretty slutty mini-skirt with an almost full-length parting on the left thigh and what looked like a vest wrapped tightly around her torso. Three additional blouse buttons were gone, completely opening the path for her generous breasts and her black bra to show and the blouse had crawled upwards to reveal her washboard flat stomach. Looking down, she saw that the toes of both feet were showing through her shoes’ opened fronts and that the heels were gone, so she could do nothing more than kicking them out and standing barefoot on the street.

“What the hell happened to me?” she said aloud once more. She was starting to freak out.

The moans of the man caught her attention. Remembering that she had pushed him, she walked towards him. When she reached him, she saw him lying next to a pretty battered dumpster. Crouching next to him, she realized that he looked too small.

His eyes opened in fear as she approached him, and his moans stopped. She could clearly see why he had been moaning, though. His right arm was out of its socket and he was bleeding abundantly from the forehead. A quick look down showed her that his right leg was bent in a very unnatural angle, too.

He pointed with his left arm, a gesture that visibly caused him pain, and said:

“Mo… monster!”

Lucia just got up, turned and started running towards her house.

*_*_*_*_*_*_

When Sharon got to Lucia’s, she found the door open. She called for her friend, but did not get a response. When she finally got inside, she heard some faint sobs and moved into the living room, looking for their source. She found it easily enough. Lucia was sitting on the floor, her back against a corner, her legs folded and her head between her knees, arms around them. She was sobbing.

Sharon quickly realized what was weird about her friend. She had a first impulse to walk away, but easily restrained it and went ahead.

“Lucia?” she called.

Her fried lifted her head and looked at her.

“You came,” she said.

“Of course, I came. I was at work when you called, but I came as quickly as I could,” Sharon said.

Lucia looked at her. She was visibly startled.

“What the hell happened to you?” Sharon asked.

Lucia hesitated for a couple of seconds and then said: “I’m a monster!” just before she broke into crying.

Sharon did not know what to do for a few seconds. Then, she walked towards Lucia’s oversized form, hugged her in a weird way and said:

“Shhhh. You are my best friend, so why don’t you stop sobbing and tell me what happened.”

It took a couple of minutes to Lucia to calm down enough, but finally she did and she told Sharon everything that had happened since the previous night.

Sharon listened to her friend’s whole story and when she finished she said:

“You have been through a lot of stress, definitely.”

“And how in the hell would stress turn me into a monster?” Lucia complained.

“You are not a monster!” Sharon said.

“And how would you call this, then?” Lucia said in an angry tone, pointing at herself.

“Well, a late growth spurt, it would seem,” Sharon said.

Lucia narrowed her eyes and replied:

“Do you know many teenagers with late growth spurts that end up throwing a man across and alley?”

“He tried to mug you!” Sharon said.

“Yes, and I pushed him. And you know what? I broke I don’t know how many bones. God, he probably has internal bleeding too. For all I know, he might very well be dead!”

“You did not kill anybody!” Sharon said, yelling.

“And how would you know? I am a monster!”

“You are no monster, for God’s sake, Lucia!”

“Yes I am. I’m a freakish monster!” Lucia yelled back.

Sharon slapped her. Only her hand never touched Lucia’s cheek. An oversized hand was closed around her forearm and she could not move it an inch.

“How the hell did you do that?” Sharon asked, incredibly surprised at the reaction speed on her friend.

“I don’t know,” Lucia said, apparently as puzzled as she was.

“Lucia, you’re hurting me,” Sharon said.

Lucia immediately let go and, with a face that was both scared and apologetic, said: “I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t. You did nothing wrong”

“I hurt you,” Lucia said.

“It was my fault,” Sharon offered.

“How in the hell can it be your fault? I’m the one who’s become a monster,” Lucia replied, insisting on her idea.

“For the last time, Lucia, you are not a monster.”

“I don’t even know how freakishly tall I am.”

“Let’s solve that,” Sharon said, eager to find something that would let her get out of the loop her friend had got into. “Do you have a measuring tape?”

Five minutes later they were discussing about the results.

“7 feet 6 inches!!! I’m freakish!”

“You are not,” Sharon said

“Really? How many NBA players are taller than me?” Lucia asked.

Sharon did not reply.

“How tall is Yao Ming?” Lucia insisted.

“I believe he is 7 feet 5 inches” Sharon admitted.

“I want to be 5’5” again”

“I’m sure there is some way to fix this, Lucia.”

“I don’t see how.”

Just then, the doorbell rang. Sharon looked at Lucia and whispered that they should not open the door, but whoever was outside insisted and when they did not open, there were knocks on the door and yells of “Police, open the door!”

Sharon could see that Lucia was terrified, but when the police threatened to bring the door down, she finally gestured Sharon to open.

The cops got in in a rush, but they stopped on their tracks when they saw Lucia, standing seven and a half feet tall and wearing shredded clothes. Apparently, what several bystanders and neighbors had told them was true.

“Miss… Miss Torres?”

Lucia was very nervous and on the verge of crying, but she managed to reply:

“Yes?”

“Miss Torres, is… is everything all right?” the cop in charge asked.

Lucia started crying then.

Sharon tried to calm her down and the cops simply waited, visibly puzzled by the situation. When she finally stopped, the cop in charge said:

“Miss Torres, we have a man badly injured in the hospital. Several witnesses report that you assaulted him.”

“He assaulted me!” Lucia screamed.

This scared the cop a little, but he regained his composure and said:

“We will need you to come by the precinct and declare but…”

“But what?” Sharon asked.

“We will escort you to the hospital first,” the cop said. “We need… some checks… to find out how you got… how you got like this.”

“I’m not a this!” Lucia yelled, getting very nervous again.

“Miss Torres, please calm down” the leading cop said, even if he did not look very calm himself.

Sharon took a step forward to try to bring some sanity into the conversation. By doing so, she unwillingly got into the shooting line between the cops and Lucia. One of them, looking very jumpy, yelled at her:

“Ma’am, get out of the way!”

When Sharon did not understand, the cop took a step forward and shoved her.

Lucia could not take it anymore and took a step forward as she said:

“Hey, take your dirty hands away from Sharon!”

It was as much as the cops could take. They were very obviously freaked out by the sight of Lucia. Both of them took their weapons out of their holster at the same time. Lucia froze and Sharon yelled:

“What the hell is this supposed to mean?”

The realization that those were tasers and not fire weapons calmed Sharon down, but just a little.

“Miss Torres, stand back!”

Sharon took another step to the front and the cop on the left aimed his taser at her. This made Sharon freeze and Lucia get mad.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” Lucia asked, as she took another step to the front.

The cop on the right could not take it anymore and pulled the trigger. Twin wires shot from the weapon, their probes stinging Lucia in the thigh and attaching to her skin. Lucia could immediately feel the electrical shock, her right leg suddenly not responding and forcing her to her knees.

“Aaaawww!” she complained.

“She’s still moving!” the cop on the left yelled.

“Shoot yours!” the one on the right, who had already fired, commanded him.

The cop on the left took aim, but Sharon charged him, trying to prevent him from shooting. She managed to do it, but the cop was much bigger and stronger than her, so he soon recovered and shoved her out of the way. Sharon was sent a foot back and stumbled on a chair, falling on her back.

This made Lucia mad and gave her enough strength to stand up again, despite the probes attached to her right thigh. She reached the cop before he had the time to aim back at her. Not knowing too well what to do, she just pushed him. As with the thug, the results were spectacular, and the cop was sent flying across the living room, loudly crashing on the opposite wall. He slid down, clearly unconscious.

Four more cops poured into her house, no doubt alerted by the sounds of fighting they had heard. Her original attacker looked at them with some relief and said:

“Tase her! She hurt John! Fry the fucking bitch!”

Lucia raised her arms, trying to explain that it had all been a misunderstanding. Four additional pairs of probes hit her all along her body, the electrical shocks building on top of each other.

Lucia was back at her knees, her body shaking uncontrollably. She had never been through some much pain in her entire life.

“The bitch is still standing!” one of the cops said

“Recharge! Recharge!” the first shooter yelled at them.

She managed to articulate the word “No”. It was to no avail. Soon, five fresh electrical shocks brought her body to the limit. Her body made a loud thud when it fell backwards, totally limp.

“You sons of a bitch killed her!” Sharon screamed hysterically.

The cops did not reply. One of them took a couple of steps towards Lucia and said:

“The damn bitch still breathing!”

“That would have killed a bear.”

“Well, she’s way hotter than a bear,” the cop that had walked towards her body said.

Another cop reached a very shocked Sharon and grabbed her by the wrist:

“Ma’am, you’ll need to come with us to the precinct.”

“I did nothing!” Sharon yelled.

“You interfered with police work. If you cooperate we may not press charges, but we need a statement,” the cop said.

“A statement about what?” Sharon yelled back.

The cop pointed towards Lucia’s limp body and said:

“About that.”

“She’s not a that,” Sharon complained.

“She seriously injured an officer,” the cop sharply cut it. “And we need to understand how she got like that”. Then, the cop looked at a colleague and said: “Cuff her.”

Sharon was concerned, but much more for Lucia than for herself. It was technically true that she had hurt a cop.

“What is going to happen to her?” Sharon asked.

“We’ll take her to a hospital first. We’ll see what we do later,” the cop said.

The last thing Sharon heard as she was being escorted out of Lucia’s apartment was:

“My God! The damn bitch weights a ton!”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Being a sales vice president, it was not the first time Phil was at the CEO’s office. It was the first time he was called there in a hurry. He sat down on the opposite side of the heavy oaken desk of Rudolph Lang, his boss’ boss and one of the most feared executives in the industry.

His direct manager had not been invited to the meeting, which was weird. Mr. Lang moved his eyes from the computer screen he had been examining when Phil had got into the office and addressed him for the first time. He had not even considered necessary to politely welcome him in the office when his assistant had showed him in. He had just pointed to the chair and kept his eyes on the screen.

“Have you ever bothered to read the HR procedures of the company, Phil?”

That was straight to the throat.

“Mr. Lang…” Phil started to say.

The man did not seem to hear his words. He just went on, his voice soft but strong at the same time, carrying a lot of authority.

“Because they are there for a reason. And I would have thought that a vice-president, of all people, would have guessed that,” Mr. Lang said.

There was a knock on the door and Lang let out a soft but very audible “Come in.”

Two more people got in. He knew Stahl. He was the Senior Vice President of R&D. He did not know the other guy, but he walked in with a lot of confidence.

They sat down without being invited.

“I think you’ve already met Lyman Stahl. And this is Mr. Green,” Lang said.

Phil shook their hands, wondering really hard what the hell was going on and why these two people were in the CEO’s office with him in a conversation that had started with HR procedures.

Phil had already started to suspect that all that was about Lucia Torres. He did not know why a CEO, of all people, would be concerned with a problem like that, but it was even weirder to have an SVP of R&D and an unknown dark looking guy in there to discuss the topic. And he was sure Mr. Green was not in HR, because he knew every manager there.

“I know the set up may look a little weird, so let me go straight to the point,” Lang said. “Mr. Green here is our head of Corporate Security. And, you see, your stupidity had just created a massive security issue for us. I should fire you immediately and make sure that I destroy any chances you have for a future career, but it turns out that you may be helpful to fix part of the problem you created, so we’ll keep you around and give you a chance at the same time.”

Phil swallowed hard.

“Mr. Lang… I’m sorry…”

“Shut up!” Lang said. He had not raised his voice, but still it held a lot of power, so Phil stopped talking.

The CEO produced a paper from his desk and said:

“Sign.”

Phil did not even read it. He knew he had no other option but signing, so he did.

“If you ever mention anything of what you are about to hear in this room to anyone who is not us, you’ll be spending a lot of time in jail. Do you understand that, Phil?” Lang asked.

Phil nodded, so the CEO just signaled Stahl, who started talking.

“You understand that we do advanced research in this company, don’t you?” Stahl asked. Phil nodded, so the older man went on. “Sometimes our schedules require us to get some field data before we can get all the proper permits from the FDA. And you’ll have noticed that we tend to meet or beat our schedules, unlike some of our competitors, which is one of the reasons you get such a fat bonus at the end of the year. The thing is… we’ve found some ways around FDA permits that have worked very well for us.”

Phil started to understand, but it was hard to believe some of what he was hearing, and he was not a man with a lot of moral issues. Stahl just went on.

“You’ll have also noticed that our admission tests, when we are hiring, tend to include a pretty comprehensive physical examination. And that we are pretty zealous with our employees’ health, making sure that we offer them complete and free medical check-ups every 6 months. What you seem to have missed is that our HR policy specifically states that you need to get active approval from the HR system before terminating anyone from their job.”

“She slapped me in the face, in front of all my employees,” Phil protested. He shut up when he saw the expression of the other three men.

“Lucia Torres is a very healthy young woman. She has a very privileged genetic heritage, as well. You have certainly noticed, although in a different way than my research team. Her scores in the admission tests were off the charts. She had no valuable work experience anywhere and her tests did not show any type of exceptional skill. Given her profile, we asked HR to find a place for her in the company, so they did. Based on their records, they placed Miss Torres in the position in the company they considered less demanding: as an assistant, working for the executive that would do the least possible use of her. She worked for an HR idiot for a while. When he retired, HR decided that you were next on their list. The truth is that, according to some of her evaluations, Miss Torres has even managed to put some good work up while working for you, which would mean that she is even a better asset than we thought,” Stahl said.

“You were testing on her?” Phil finally asked.

Stahl looked at the paper he had just signed, on Lang’s desk, and then back at Phil.

“We were. We are working on a really breakthrough performance enhancer. It brings cells to their limit and then makes sure that they get regenerated at really amazing speeds. Both based on her health and on her regular physical activity, Miss Torres was a really good test candidate,” Stahl said.

“But… how did you get the results?” Phil asked, suddenly intrigued. “I mean, you make medical tests every six months, but that cannot be enough.”

Stahl looked back at the contract, shrugged at the other two men, and then said:

“The gym’s machines are rigged. So are the restrooms. Whenever one of our subjects uses any of BioChem’s facilities, we make sure that we gather as much data and samples as we can. The rest, we gather in our regular medicals.”

Phil suddenly understood that Lucia Torres was much more valuable to the company than he was, and this realization sent a cold shiver down his spine.

“I… I’m sorry,” Phil said.

“We need Miss Torres back. And you’ll help us do it,” Mr. Green, who had been silent so far, said.

Phil then thought about something, even if he wished he had not. Why would they need him? They could very well fire him alleging harassment charges and then convince Lucia to join back the company, using the fact that justice had been done as bait.

Mr. Green seemed to read his mind and said:

“Of course, we could do it without you. But there is a small problem: we need Miss Torres back today.”

Phil was taken by surprise.

“Why?” he asked.

Green looked at Stahl, who shrugged and went on:

“I told you about the gym and about the toilets. Of course, the coffee machines and the water coolers are also adapted. We use them to deliver new doses or to make adjustments.”

Phil suddenly understood.

“Oh God! You need to make an adjustment!”

Lang arched an eyebrow, as if saying that he was not as stupid as he looked. Then, Stahl said:

“Precisely.”

“What did you do to her?” Phil asked, even if she really did not care about his former assistant at all.

Stahl looked at Lang, who nodded.

“It turns out we mixed up our latest dose a little. We need to counter it before it can take its full effect on her.” he said.

“So she cannot heal faster?” Phil wondered, suddenly feeling cynical.

“There may be side effects to it. One of the only issues we found in Lucia Torres’s admission tests was a certain tendency towards aggression. It was really mild, and observations over the last three years have turned out in nothing but an amiable character, but the dose she took yesterday could mix up her emotions a little and exacerbate this trait.”

Phil touched his face in the place where she had slapped him and said:

“Yeah, I have already noticed that.”

“You deserved what you got. Had it been my daughter, you would not have teeth by now,” Mr. Green jumped in. “But we want to make sure that it does not go further than that. Especially if her performance really gets enhanced.”

Phil understood.

“I’ll drive you to her place. You’ll apologize to her, tell her that everything was a massive misunderstanding. You’ll offer her a fat raise and a position where she does not need to physically interact with you. You’ll drop on your knees and cry if that’s what it takes. But you’ll come back with Lucia Torres. Understood?” Mr. Green said.

Phil nodded.

“Good. We leave now,” Mr. Green said.

Then, the security head’s phone beeped and he widened her eyes in an expression of concern. He took a look at the screen and frowned.

“There has been a complication,” he said with a flat tone.

Lang and Stahl looked at him. Phil did not know what was going on, but there was a lot of tension in the office.

“Lucia Torres seriously injured a man first and a police officer later. She was incapacitated by five additional officers and is now being moved to Kingston’s East Hospital. The report mentions that she was about seven and a half feet tall.”

Lang immediately looked at Stahl.

“The probability of that happening was almost negligible… oh my God! Seven a half feet! That’s several orders of magnitude above any simulation! Her bloodstream must be looking like a messed-up cocktail now!”

“Will they find out about the drug if they test her?” Lang said.

“A first grader with a toy microscope would!” Stahl said.

Lang looked at Green and said:

“Send someone to the hospital. Make some calls. Remind the mayor and the Chief of Police about our generous contributions to their campaigns. Use whatever money you need, buy whoever you need to buy. Bury this!”

Green nodded and stepped out.

After a couple of seconds, Phil, who could still not believe what was going on, said:

“Am I… fired?”

Lang shot an icy glance to him. He swallowed hard and answered:

“We may still need you. So you keep your job… for now. Come to work as usual. Do you job if you want to. Or don’t do it. I don’t care. But stay around!”

Phil nodded.

“And now, get out of my sight, you worthless piece of shit!”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Lucia came back to her senses and felt dizzy. When she tried to move, she felt that she was strapped and started to panic. Opening her eyes showed her she was in a very confined space, with really dim lights.

She tried to free herself from her bonds but she had too little space to move. Then, she started to yell.

“Miss Torres, please remain calm. This is just a standard MRI,” a metallic voice said.

“Why am I in an MRI?” she yelled. “Have I been involved in an accident?” she asked, suddenly scared.

Memories of the previous hours started coming back. She felt incredible frustration at the events of the last couple of days first, then she came to her “growth” and freaked out.

“What happened to me?” she asked, scared.

“Miss Torres, this is what we are trying to find out,” the metallic voice came back.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“7:30 AM,” the metallic voice came back.

7:30 AM! It had not even been midday when the cops had come to her house, if that was really a true memory. Had she been out for almost a day?

“How tall… Am I big?” she suddenly asked, trying to get confirmation for what she was afraid of.

“Miss Torres, you’ve gone through a lot these last few hours. We are here to make sure we have a good understanding of your special circumstances and to make sure you have the best possible care, ok?”

Special circumstances? Oh God! Was she really as freakishly tall as she remembered?

“How tall am I? Please!”

She did not get an answer back. She just heard a metallic sound, like that of machinery starting.

“This is getting very hot in here!” she complained after a few seconds.

“Don’t worry Miss Torres. A certain level of claustrophobic reaction is perfectly normal in MRIs. It will soon be over,” the metallic voice said.

“It’s really, really hot!” she said, her voice clearly showing a growing panic.

She heard a noise that had felt like someone switching the loudspeaker off. And then, there was no voice coming back.

She started to raise her volume, screaming that the heat was becoming unbearable. No one seemed to care.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dr. Wu switched the speakers off and turned to the police officer that had asked for him.

“This must be a mistake,” Dr. Wu said.

“The chief wants her back at the precinct as soon as we are done with the test,” the officer said.

“But we barely started. And Miss Torres’s condition is… she cannot move from here,” Dr. Wu protested.

“She is awake, so she can talk. She is coming,” the officer said.

“I’m not signing the release form,” Wu threatened.

“The director already signed it for you,” the cop said, to his frustration. Why would Anderson do something like that? He did not have time to ask. The cop produced another form and extended it to him.

“Share the results with BioChem?” Wu asked. Then he turned to the suited man on the door and asked: “Would that be him?”

The cop nodded.

“And why would you need that?” Dr. Wu asked inquisitively.

“We take our employees’ health very seriously,” the suited man said.

“I see,” Dr. Wu said in a tone that clearly suggested that he did not.

This was either a massive misunderstanding or the closest to a conspiracy he would ever be. Being the chief oncologist in KEH he was immediately assigned the weirdest case that had ever got to the hospital: that of a woman that had grown a couple of feet in a matter of minutes. That was the sort of thing that only happened in the science-fiction books her woman avidly read, so suddenly having a police officer and a mysterious suited man taking the patient away from him and requesting all the information was as suspicious as something got. Still, there was not too much he could do. The papers were all properly formatted and signed by Martha Anderson, the hospital’s director. Why would Martha do something like that? And why would she not have asked him?

He did not have time to express any of his doubts aloud, though. One of the technicians called him and when he turned, he saw all the screens in the MRIs control room flashing with red symbols.

“What happened?” Wu asked hurriedly.

“I don’t know… the temperature is really off the charts. Everything was fine, but suddenly…”

A very intense light came from inside the MRI device right then. The readings of the MRI were amazing.

“Oh God! Look at that. She’s… she’s expan…”

He could never finish the sentence. A massive explosion engulfed him and the rest of the building.

The explosion was so massive that the whole building of Kingston’s East Hospital went down quickly. She did not notice it. She had passed out just a second before the explosion. As a matter of fact, she had been the source for it.