Synopsis:

One slightly geeky high school kid, one heartless corporation, and one vat of pink goo. A recipe for the ultimate superhero... sorta.

Story:

Maxwell Summers was bored. This, in and of itself, was nothing spectacular. Max himself would venture that he was bored at least thirty to forty-five minutes every day. No, what was special about this particular case of boredom was not merely its existence, but its incredible intensity. Max had stumbled upon what could possibly be the most boring place in all existence. It wasn’t just boring, it was boring with gusto. Most of the time boring things are only passively dull. They’re not exciting, but they’re only being what they are. But this place was something different altogether. It was like it was actively trying to bore him into killing himself. It was going out of its way, in fact, to be tedious. It was like some sort of strange, unexciting alien entity or CBS. It also happened to be the location of Max’s senior class trip.

Max’s class had originally planned to go to the beach for a weekend the week before graduation. It would’ve been sweet. They all wanted to escape from the urban sprawl of the city to a tropical paradise before they left school. But then, a very big problem developed. The class treasurer entered into a torrid affair with one of the lunch ladies. They had run away together to a remote Polynesian island where cafeteria workers were revered as gods. They had taken the money with them. At least that was what the principal told them. “Luckily,” one of the local businesses heard about this sordid tale of deceit and meat loaf and had offered an alternative. And so, instead of heading to a tropical paradise, Max and his classmates were touring an office building. And not a very good one at that.

“And this is a 232A Series Industrial Lifting Crane,” said the tour guide, pointing at an old, busted looking crane thing. “We like to call her Old Craney. We don’t get to use her much anymore since we switched from the 41-A boxes to the 66-Cs. But they say she’s still as young and spry as the day she was bought. Say hello Craney!”

What Max found the saddest about all that was that he actually knew the difference between those types of boxes now. The tour guide had explained it all in great detail sometime between the exciting jaunt to the hall that lead to the executive washroom and the wondrous tour of the second floor supply room. And even after all this, Max still had no clue what the hell the company actually made. Under his breath, Max cursed the name of the embezzling class treasurer.

“Stupid Gil. If I ever see him again I’ll kill him so hard he’ll wish he was dead.”

Max and his classmates were currently walking on a catwalk high above the factory. Beneath them, machinery was being operated, barrels and crates were being moved, and people wearing hardhats were doing whatever it is that people do in factories.

“And here we come to the vats,” said the tour guide as he stopped the group and gestured below. Several rows of giant vats were under them, all filled with different colored chemicals being smoothly swirled around. “They’re what give our drugs that special something extra.”

‘So they make drugs,’ thought Max. ‘Mystery solved. I wish I was dead.’

One of the girls taking the tour raised her hand. The guide acknowledged her with a finger. “Question? Be warned, I can’t reveal any of our secret formulas.” The guide then paused for laughs. He received none.

“Umm, sir? Why’s there all this stuff in here? I thought this was, like, supposed to be an office building. This is like a factory,” she said.

The tour guide laughed. “Well, that may be true for other companies, but we’re a little different than the average pharmaceutical producer. We’ve found that by combining production and management facilities, we can create a powerful synergy of resources. Good question, though.”

“But that doesn’t make sense, or even answer the ques-”

“Yes it does!” interrupted the tour guide. “It makes perfect sense. You’re the one who doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to have call security. I‘ll do it. You don‘t know me.”

“Umm, I withdraw my question.”

“Good.” The tour guide cleared his throat. “If you’ll turn your attention back to the vats, please. Directly under us is our company’s newest product. We can’t reveal just what it is right now, but I can say that the ladies in the crowd will be quite pleased by it…Except the one who asks stupid questions. She can go to hell.”

The vat in question was full of a strange pink substance. It looked like some kind of a gel and it shined like it had glitter or something in it.

“What I can tell you,” continued the guide. “Is that it will revolutionize the drug market as we know it. Right now, you are looking at a concentrated form of the drug. It is so concentrated, in fact, that one pound of it weighs two hundred pounds. Isn’t that fascinating? In addition, the hypothyroid matrix is…”

The tour guide continued talking after this, but Max stopped listening. He just stared down at the vat of pink stuff. It just looked so weird. It was a sad indictment of the day when the most interesting thing he had seen was pink goo. He was really wishing that he hadn’t come to this in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to come. None of his friends were there. He had only come because his mom made him. Nobody in their right mind wanted to spend their Saturday in an office building/factory/whatever.

“And I say Plan 9 From Outer Space is the Worst!” someone yelled.

Max turned his head away from the goo. Behind him, two guys seemed to be having a small falling out. Max guessed they were just as bored by the tour as he was. The guide seemed to be just ignoring them.

“Dude, how can you say that? Glen or Glenda is far inferior,” said one of the guys to the other. “No contest.”

The first guy raised his arms in exasperation. “Dude, Glen or Glenda is almost a good movie compared to Plan 9.”

“C’mon! Glen or Glenda’s not a good movie by any standard. Plan 9 has moments, at least.”

“What moments? It’s terrible. It makes no sense whatsoever. And the cast…Damn. Glen or Glenda at least has a message somewhere in it…”

One of the guys narrowed his eyes at the other and pushed his shoulder. “What are you trying to say? That a well-intentioned theme makes up for plotless pseudo-sentimentality?”

The other guy pushed back. “Well, when compared more production flubs than a thousand third grade Christmas plays, then yeah. It does.”

The one got in the other’s face. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh yeah?!”

“I’ve said yeah like two times already.”

“I’ll show you!” shouted one of the guys. Max had lost track of which was which by now.

The guy gave the other guy a hard shove, send him right into a bystanding Max. The force sent Max flipping over the bar on the side of the catwalk. Luckily, he was able to grab onto the side before he fell to his doom.

A girl in the class screamed as she saw what happened. Panic soon broke out among the students. No one knew what to do, or what those two guys had been talking about. Max simply held on for dear life.

“Stay calm students,” said the tour guide. “Relax. Take some deep breaths. It’s going to be alright. Be cool. Be cool.”

“Umm, help! Please? I think I‘m starting to slip,” exclaimed Max.

“Be cool, dammit! I just said that! Are you even listening! Don’t be stupid! Be Cool!” The guide paused and took a deep breath. “Okay everyone. This has happened before, actually, so let me now turn your attention to the Emergency Rescue Kit. Or, as we like to call her, Old Rescuey. She had a long and varied history at this company and I think that…”

As the tour guide continued rambling on, Max realized something. Either he would have to listen to another boring speech or he would plummet to his death. It wasn’t much of a choice, really. One was the scariest thing a man ever has to face, and the other was death. He decided that he just had to grit his teeth and hang on a few minutes longer. Soon he’d be rescued and could forget all about this.

“Actually, the Kit uses a specially made 65-D box, which allows us to use a very special box opening device to open it. There’s a diagram right over here, actually. There‘s actually an interesting story behind it. It‘s a little dry at first but really picks up after twenty minutes or so.”

Max closed his eyes and let go. He never thought it would end this way, falling into a big vat of goo. He had expected more of a botched operation or an eating mishap to do him in. Time seemed to float away as he fell. He could vaguely hear the screams of his classmates, but they seemed so far away now. And then, he hit the goo. The last thing he saw was an infinite sea of pink. It was beautiful. Then his eyes really started to burn, so he closed them. He passed out shortly after this.

***

Max woke up the same way he had gone out: with ridiculous amounts of eye pain. He tried to scream, but his throat was super sore. After a quick bout of almost-screaming, Max realized that this eyes only hurt because they had to adjust to the bright lights in the room he was in, which was good. He was afraid he had an infection or somebody had poked them too much or something.

Calmed, Max looked around and took stock of where he now was. It looked like some kind of medical ward or hospital room or something. There were beds and monitoring equipment and all that jazz. He was even wearing a hospital gown. He was relieved. He had been really hoping that that fall hadn’t killed him.

Looking closer, he noticed that the equipment was really nice looking. It was much nicer than what you would see at a regular hospital. It just looked very modern and futuristic and cool. There were even some machines that he had never seen before, and he had seen every episode of ER.

He absentmindedly pushed back some hair that was in his face, getting in the way of his looking around. The room was fairly small and there were only two-

Wait, hair? Max blinked. He had never grown long hair. It made his face look disproportionately small. How could he have long hair? He reached back and grabbed a fistful of it. Sure enough, it was much longer than it had been. He was shocked. How long had he been sleeping? It must’ve been a while for his hair to grow out like this.

He looked down at his hands. They looked…thinner, like he’d lost weight or something. He was starting to get really worried. Maybe he had been in a coma. Maybe it had been months or even years since he had fallen off that stupid catwalk. Maybe he was, like, in the future or something. That would explain all the equipment.

He decided that he had to see a mirror. Maybe he was older now. That would be cool. He’d always wanted to skip the rest of his awkward teenage years and go straight into his swinging twenties. He just didn’t want to be old. It would suck if he turned out to be thirty or something. He would’ve slept through all the best years of his life.

He sat up on his bed and shifted his legs so they hung over the edge. They looked pretty atrophied. He hoped he was still able to walk. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then let his feet hit the floor. He took a couple of test steps, bracing himself against the bed with his arm. Surprisingly, his legs moved fine. They didn’t feel weaker at all. If anything, they had more bounce in them than ever. He decided that the future must have super-anti-atrophy technology or something.

What wasn’t so fine was his balance. He felt like his center of gravity had gone all wonky. It didn’t keep him from walking or anything, but it did make walking feel a lot weirder.

He had to find a bathroom. If there was anywhere in the hospital that would have a mirror, it would be there. There was a door in on one of the corners of his room with the little stick figure man/stick figure woman sign on it, so he decided that it was as good a place as any to start.

He stumbled over to the door and opened it up. Sure enough, it was a bathroom. It had all the standard bathroom accoutrements. A toilet. A sink. A hot chick wearing nothing but a hospital gown staring at him. One of those rail things for people to hold on to if they needed help. A bedpan for some reas- Wait. Hot chick?

Max immediately averted his eyes. He was no pervert. At least without the safety of a locked door and a DSL Internet connection. “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! My bad! The door wasn’t locked! I didn’t mean to I…”

Max blinked, though his eyes still maintained their aversion. Was that him? His voice sounded weird. Like, kinda higher and softer. He thought the timbre was off, too. He didn’t really know what the word timbre meant, but he was sure it had something to do with it.

“Uhh, hello? Testing…Testing…Check, one two. Check, one two. What hath God wrought? Qui est tuus pater?” Yep. There was definitely something funny about his voice. And something not funny about his jokes, but that’s beside the point.

Mike was beginning to get worried. Things were beginning to add up to a very ungood conclusion. The hair, the apparent muscle loss, the previously unmentioned lingering weight on his chest, and now the voice. It was becoming crystal clear to him. How could he not have seen it before?

He was turning into a werewolf. That pink stuff must’ve been some sort of…werewolf juice. And it was slowly mutating him into an inhuman monster, driven only by primitive, subhuman lusts and drives. He would be an outcast, shunned by society and hunted by those he used to trust the most.

“Awesome,” he muttered to himself, and then louder. “Miss? I have to warn you that I’m 60% sure that I’m turning into some sort of cool, inhuman monster. You should probably try to escape while I can still hold on to my last few shreds of humanity. Or we could, y’know, talk for a while.”

Max may have thought he turning into a monster, but that was no reason to miss a perfectly good chance for hooking up.

“Umm, miss? I can’t really see you so…maybe you should, like, say something. It’d be really great if you could tell me where we are. I think that we may be in the future, but I haven’t proven it yet. Well, I guess it’d be the present for you. Unless you’re from the past, too, which would be really cool, by the way. It’d be just like that episode of Outer Limits with the people in the future. That’d be sweet. I guess what I’m trying to say is, what’s your name?”

Again receiving no answer, Max decided it was time to look. The girl had had plenty of time to get in a reasonable state of dress. He wasn’t really sure what the policy on seeing other people in hospital gowns was anyway. Were they like underwear or bathing suits or what? He decided to just look. If he accidentally saw a flash of breasts or butt…Well, that was a risk he was just willing to take.

Without hesitation, Max moved his eyes back to the bathroom. The chick was still staring at him, but she was still hot, so it was okay. Seriously. She had long, blonde hair that cascaded down to her shoulders, huge baby blue eyes, and a face that totally like an angel. Even with the baggy gown on you could tell she had some serious curves, even though she was about Max‘s age. Her breasts were sizable, but not huge, and a pair of legs that went to-

Oh shit. It was fucking mirror. The realization hit Max like a metric ton of bricks. Max didn’t know whether that was less or more than a regular ton, but it was still enough to hurt like hell.

He slowly walked towards the mirror, looking at himself or herself or whatever it was now. Equal parts of shock and horror mixed with disbelief and…more disbelief. He lightly touched his face. It was so different It was soft and smooth, without a trace of stubble. Hard lines had been replaced with gentle curves. He looked totally and completely like a girl. But looking closer in the mirror, he could sort of see how she looked like him. Or how he looked like herself. Or how she himself looked like him herself used to look when she had been him. Something like that. Under all the changes, there were still some similarities to his old self. Maybe he couldn’t quite pass as his own sister, but he could definitely be a cousin.

His hands began to move around his body, inspecting the new curves with precision his eyes could not. They finally found themselves clutching her chest. He had managed to touch a few boobs in his lifetime, but it felt much different when they were his boobs. He didn’t really know much about bra sizes, but he had read enough erotic stories to get the gist. He would guess that they were a C cup or so, give or take.

Suddenly, it was as if a torrent of adrenaline hit him all at once. His flight or fight reflex had finally kicked in. And it was telling him it was time to fly.

He wheeled around and dashed out the bathroom door. He had to get out of this place. He had to escape and find someone who could fix him. He should’ve known to expect no good from the future. If Blade Runner had taught Max anything, it was that the future was a dark, scary, dehumanizing place. And that Deckard was totally the sixth replicant. But mostly that first thing.

A set of double doors lay at the other end of the hospital room. Max ran for them with inhuman speed. A little too inhuman, in fact. The doors happened to be locked. Max had more strength, and inertia, than she thought, for upon hitting the door, it broke off its hinges and fell to the floor. As did Max.

“Oww,” murmured Max. Hitting the door had really stung. And falling down hadn’t been to great either.

“Wow,” said a male voice above Max. “You knocked it clean off, Princess. I’m impressed.”

Max looked up at the source of the voice. It was some dude in a white lab coat holding a clipboard. “Princess?”

“Well, I was going to call you Sleeping Beauty, but that was based on the premise that I would greet you right after you woke up. But now that you’re already up and about, the point would sort of be moot. I toyed around with some similar names, but none of them really worked. I was thinking Rapunzel, maybe, but that doesn’t really make sense. So I just ad libbed.”

“Congratulations,” said Max, half-growling. She pushed herself up to her knees. “Who the fuck are you?”

The guy smiled widely and pointed at a badge on his coat. “I’m Steve. You can call me Dr. Steve. I’m the Chief Medical Executive/Head of Research & Development/Scrabble champion in these parts.”

Max looked ‘Steve‘ in the face. “Oh good. I’m happy for you. Maybe you can answer a little question for me, then.”

“Yes?”

“Why the hell am I a girl?! And where the hell am I?! And why’d that door break like that?” screamed Max, nearly at the top of his lungs. This whole experience had left him a bit frazzled.

“Whoa. Slow it down, Princess. You said one little question. That was three questions, and they all have pretty long answers.”

Max, now fully upright, glared at the doctor and poked him in the chest with his finger. “I was being idiomatic! Just answer the questions!”

Dr. Steve’s smile waned a bit. “Well. It’s kind of complicated. You might want to sit down. I can get you a juice pack if you want. Maybe some chips. Dip maybe. I wonder if Accounting still has those pudding-”

“Just tell me already!” interrupted Max.

“Well, first things first, you’re in the illustrious R&D Lab of Zerotech, Inc. We design everything that Zerotech and its subsidiaries sell. We also design the company Christmas cards every year.”

“That’s…great,” said Max. “Can we get to the me being a girl thing? That was kinda the main question. The others were more ancillary.”

Steve took a deep breath and began. “You fell into a vat of an experimental drug we were developing.”

“Really? I almost forgot, seeing as how it was the second most traumatic experience of my life,” said Max.

“What was the first?”

“The moment I realized I wasn’t a werewolf.”

“Right,” said Steve, deciding not to ask. “Anyway, the drug was an experimental…athletic supplement for female athletes.”

“Athletic supplement? You mean, like, steroids?” interrupted Max.

“Kind of. Anabolic steroids may give female athletes righteous physical abilities, but they also tend to make them a wee bit masculine. And angry. And not so healthy in the long run.”

“Right…”

“So, we here at Zerotech designed Femaroid. The athletic supplement for ladies who like their genitalia to not change shape.”

“Femaroid?”

Steve nodded. “Yes. I now. It’s a very clever name. The drug itself uses cutting edge gene therapy to actually maximize the efficiency muscle fiber and increase its contractile force without any unnecessary hair growth.”

“Wouldn’t something like that be highly illegal, not to mention morally despicable?” asked Max.

Steve shrugged. “Probably. If it worked, that is.”

“It doesn’t work?”

“Nope. Turns out gene therapy is trickier business than we thought. We did manage to get people to grow a few extra arms and teeth and stuff, but the FDA tends to look down on that kind of thing.”

“Then why did you have a huge vat of it lying around?”

“We were going to market it as an herbal supplement. Let’s see the FDA get their claws on it now. You’d be amazed at what you can get away with that herbal stuff. I once saw a man who was on so much gingko biloba that he grew a tail. Out of his eye!”

“That’s beautiful. How ‘bout you get back to explaining what the hell’s going on now?”

“Well, we were planning on shipping the first batch of the chemical to our distribution center. It was concentrated far beyond levels tolerable for human consumption. We think that’s why you had such an unusual reaction to exposure to it. We believe it changed you on a genetic level, making you the girl you are today.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Not to bust up your pseudoscience there, Professor, but wouldn’t a change in my genetic structure after I’ve gone through puberty not really do anything.”

“I dunno. I’m a doctor, not biologist. It might have something to do with how you were melted for a while there.”

“Melted?”

“Yeah. There was just a big puddle of you. We were afraid that you were dead, but you formed back up quite nicely. Not like that time you really were dead. Now that was worrisome.”

“I was dead?!”

“Only for a little while. Like, a day or two.”

“Dead?!”

“Yeah. You should be glad we didn’t throw your body out. I have to say, it wasn’t very pretty at the time. You weren’t quite a girl yet, and you were still a little melty and stuff. But I held out for you. I was going to use your body to host a swarm of genetically engineered super-maggots. They turn into super-flies. And that‘s just a cool name.”

“I’m glad you were so concerned.”

“I’m just that kind of guy,” replied Steve with a totally not ironic smile. “Anyway, judging by that door, I’d say you gained some of the intended benefits of Femaroid. We’ll have to have run some tests, but I have high hopes for you. Hopefully you won’t get the addiction to skin lotions.”

Max sighed. This was a lot to take in. By his perception, he had only been a guy not twenty minutes ago. And now he was some kind of freak girl because of something that made no sense whatsoever. “High hopes for what?”

Dr. Steve smiled devilishly. “The boys upstairs have been talking. You could be Zerotech’s first superhero.”

Understanding immediately hit Max. That was why he was here instead of a hospital. Corporate-sponsored superheroes were nothing new. Some of the biggest heroes in the game had gotten started as corporate flunkees. Guys like the Human Shuffleboard, Pumpkin Pie, and Mr. Taco Bell. Some purists looked down upon the practice, but most just went with the flow. Costumes and gadgets and legal protection cost money, after all. And the corporations doing the sponsoring loved good press. The only real drawback was that the one doing the superheroing was basically a slave, but all agreed that this was usually for the best.

Max rolled her eyes. “Why would I want to that for you guys? You turned me into a girl! I’m not me anymore!”

“You’ll get paid. Handsomely, I might add. Plus you’ll get to be a superhero.”

“O I could, y’know, just sue you guys for doing this to me. I think that pasy handsomely, too.”

“I don’t think that’d do so well in court. What’s happened to you is a little bit on the impossible side, and you don’t have any proof.”

“No proof?! I’m a freakin’ chick.”

“Exactly. Our negligence lead to an accident for a dude, not a chick. Genetically speaking, you’re two different people.”

“Well…That is a good point…”

“Besides,” continued Steve. “If you’re not under the employ of this fine company, how can we work out how to turn you back?”

“You make an excellent point, jackass. I guess I could hang around…maybe.”

“Great. Could this be the beginning of the exciting adventures of the dynamic Zero-girl?” Steve chuckled. “Like the name? I came up with it myself.”

“That’s like the stupidest thing you’ve said yet,” said Max.

“Maybe it is,” said Steve with a shrug. “But there’s no time for that kind of talk now. We’ve got to get you tested. And then we have to fit you for a costume. Would you say you were more an Autumn or a Winter?”

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

“That all depends. Which do you think would be better, tube top or halter top?”

Max sighed. She should have known that he should’ve never agreed to a field trip on a Saturday. This was the kinda thing that could happen when you tempted fate.

Notes:

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