The Experiment by Steve the Z 1. Dr. Harold Lautimer watched Dr. Joyce Painter as she tightened the last screw on the last panel of the Matrix Programming Machine, which the two of them had co-invented. Joyce was kneeling on the floor, her back to Harold, bent over so far her skirt was tautly stretched across her buttocks. Harold thought she almost looked sexually attractive in that position. Then Joyce tossed the screwdriver aside, stood up and dusted her hands together. Harold's illusion was shattered as Joyce's skirt settled to it's almost ankle-length, covering her thin legs from view. Joyce looked at him and brushed a lock of her short pale-blond hair off her forehead, then pushed her glasses up the bridge of her freckled nose. Her wide smile revealed her slightly prominent front teeth and the lower portions of her upper gums, a sight Harold always found somewhat repugnant. "There!" she said triumphantly to her 42 year old partner. "It's finished, down to the last nut and bolt!" The beefy, somewhat red faced Harold shook his head and looked down at the short young woman who stood so eagerly before him. Harold always wore a tweed suit coat that was a size too small for his powerful torso and thick arms, now folded across his chest. "Yes, it's finished all right." he said. "And now so is our grant. Because you know as well as I that this damn thing'll never work, Joyce! How we deceived ourselves AND the institute into thinking we could build a machine that could alter the parameters of the entire universe is something I'll never figure out." "Oh come on, Harold. I NEVER claimed my matrix field would affect the entire universe. Only the conditions pertaining to Earth will be changed. And the device WILL work. I just KNOW it will!" 2. Harold looked at the huge banks of dials and gauges that covered the entire east wall of the cavernous laboratory and that made up the Matrix machine. A console, with a padded leather chair set before it, was connected by a thick cable to the main computer interface of the machine. Instructions typed on the keyboard, and entered properly into the Matrix Machine, would, if all went as planned, change the history and/or evolution of the world according to whatever guidelines the programmer cared to give. Joyce had done the electronic work, and Harold had built the mechanisms according to her specifications. He hadn't completely understood all of the circuitry, a fact which riled him no end, although he had never mentioned this to Joyce. He wasn't about to admit a 24 year old woman was smarter than he was. 3. "Well then, Harold," Joyce said, interrupting his brooding mood, "If you're so DAMN sure the experiment's a failure before we've even started, I assume you'll have no objection to ME programming it." "Not at all. Not at all." Harold said. "Feel free. Have fun. By all means, use your imagination." "I intend to," Joyce stated flatly as she seated herself at the keyboard and began typing. Harold paced to and fro as Joyce busily pecked at the keyboard, curious, in spite of his certainty of their failure, as to what direction she planned for the continuum. Ten minutes later, Joyce typed one last set of commands, pressed "ENTER", and pushed her chair back. "There!" she said, standing up. "It's done!" 4. "Right," Harold said sarcastically. "You've just spent ten minutes improving your typing skills." "Oh, I think I'll have improved much more than that." Joyce said mysteriously. "What do you mean by that?" Harold asked, but Joyce ignored him for the moment, busying herself with the set-up procedure. "Give me a hand, Harold." she said. "Oh, all right," he groused. "Don't have anything better to do at the moment anyway." They busied themselves setting and calibrating the hundreds of dials and gauges that needed to be properly adjusted for operation. Out of the corner of his eye, Harold saw Joyce chewing on a nail as she made a critical adjustment, another habit he found displeasing. At least she never had to buy nail cutters, he thought with wry amusement. "You realize, Harold," Joyce said as she turned a dial while watching the accompanying indicator needle swerve to the right. "That we'll be the only two people in the entire world aware of the changes that will come about. The machine's aura will instill in us memories of both the old and the new order." "Yes, IF it works." Harold said, checking settings on the final panel against a clipboard that hung beside it on a string. "There. I'm finished here," he said. 5. "I am too," Joyce said, and, with a flourish, she threw the switch which set the machine into 'OPERATE' mode. A low humming filled the lab, gradually growing more intense until the air reverberated with a low, steady, powerful throbbing. "Listen to all that power building up," she said. "It's just fantastic." Harold had jumped when Joyce threw the switch. He hadn't expected her to act that fast. Now it was too late to warn her of possible consequences or unanticipated side effects. "Yeah, it SOUNDS impressive," Harold said. "But I still have grave doubts about all this. I hope you won't be too dissapointed, Joyce." Joyce was looking at her hands, the nails of which now extended a good quarter inch past her fingertips. "Thanks for the warning, Harold," she said, smiling (with not a trace of gums showing). "I won't be, I'm sure." 6. They checked readouts for a few minutes, making their respective ways across their halves of the banks of instruments: Harold stalking grumpily and Joyce almost gliding, her skirt's hem (now just below knee-length) swishing gently as she walked. Everything seemed to be functioning properly, now all they could do was wait. Harold eased himself into a chair by a lab table set up about ten feet in front of the machine. He eyed Joyce uneasily, she seemed different somehow, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what the difference was just yet. "Just out of idle curiosity, what did you program the new world order to be?" he asked. Joyce turned so her profile was presented to Harold for a moment, and he gasped slightly at the sight of her bustline. He hadn't noticed how visibly her breasts thrust against her blouse before, but before he could get a really good look, she was facing him head on. She gave him a peculiar, intense look. "One which I'm sure you wouldn't approve of, Harold." "Oh? And just what is that?" "A world where women evolved as the superior sex. By a quite significant degree." "Is that so? Superior in what fashion?" "Why,in EVERY fashion. Taller, stronger, smarter, sexier. A world where women rule, and men are mere - adjuncts." "Hrumph!" Harold said. " Adjuncts! Totally ridiculous, of course." "Perhaps a better term for men would be adscititious. Yes, I prefer that to adjuncts." "Adsci - what?" Harold said. "Adscititious," Joyce repeated. "It means not essential, or supplemental." Harold snorted, at a loss for words. To cover his confusion he picked up a magazine from the table and pretended to read it, while Joyce returned to monitoring. 7. Joyce continued re-checking calibrations, while Harold leafed through the technical journal. The power continued to thrum, reverberating throughout the lab and, theoretically at least, the entire world, and who knew how far beyond. The page he was perusing, a cigarette ad depicting a man and woman in swimsuits with the man lifting the laughing girl by her waist with water streaming from her hair, seemed to blur suddenly. Harold rubbed his eyes, then went back to the magazine. Now the woman was holding the man up, her muscular physique easily supporting his lean body, and HE was laughing with water streaming from HIS hair. "What the ...?" he said, two states of reality conflicting in his thoughts. He angrily tossed the magazine on the table. Looking up, he watched Joyce as she studied the displays and readouts, now briskly jotting notes on a pad of paper held in the old clipboard she always used. His eyes widened as he noticed the fact that her hemline now only barely reached her knees, and her legs were no longer skinny at all, her rounded calves tautly flexed by the high heels she wore, and the way her dress stretched across her thighs hinted significantly at their newly gained power. As the minutes passed, Harold began to notice other differences in the lab. The ceiling seemed higher, especially in the center, as if it was becoming a dome, and the walls were a lighter, brighter color. The machinery appeared newer, shinier, as if it was very well taken care of, all the analog dials had been replaced by brightly glowing digital readouts, and the humming had taken on a more vibrant tone. Harold still felt his same old self, although his clothes for some strange reason appeared a bit shabbier and looser. Joyce was humming too, a quircky little tune he had never heard before. A tendril of blond hair had fallen down the back of her neck, and he swore it thickened and grew longer as he watched. She reached up to adjust a lever, and his lips went dry as her skirt pulled up momentarily. Her thighs were BULGING with muscles. Hastily, he stood up and, turning away, began to explore the lab, which was now a strange place to him indeed. Everything seemed familiar and completely different at the same time, as if he was having trouble adjusting to this brave new world he was now unquestionably being thrust into. As he walked around the room he marvelled at the instruments and machines that were now totally incomprehensible to him. On a marble topped table under a narrow, high window stood half a dozen devices whose functions he couldn't quite grasp. He picked one of them up and turned it over and over in his hands, then shook his head and set it down again. He glanced out the window. Outside, tall pastel colored buildings with graceful spires and arches stood on immaculate lawns. Women, tall, beautiful women, strolled down the paths. "My god!" he said, turning away. His attention was immediately captured by Joyce; a very miniskirted Joyce, who was looking at him, her thick blond hair falling gracefully to her wide, well built shoulders, a clear lucite clipboard in her hand. She took her glasses off and gave Harold a quizzical look. Her freckles were gone. "What was that, Harold?" she asked, walking towards him. "I - I..." he said, while Joyce approached, the clacking of her high heels echoing from the lofty beams of the cathedral-like ceiling. Harold licked his lips, staring at her strong, shapely legs, his eyes drawn trance- like to the swishing material of her short skirt as it flowed so nicely across her hips as she moved. Joyce stopped a foot away from Harold, and his mouth moved, but no words issued from his slack lips. Joyce was an inch taller than he was. "Close your mouth, Harold, it's unbecoming. Having a little trouble adjusting to the new order, hm? Well, don't worry, you'll get used to it. And by the way, this is only the BEGINNING. We've a long ways to go yet." "You - you..." Harold began. "You're - TALL! You're taller than me!" "An incorrect conjecture," Joyce said. "I am currently five feet, ten inches tall. The elevating effect of my heels raises my apparent height to six feet, two inches. You are currently six feet tall exactly, making you two inches taller than me subjectively at this time." "Bu-but I'm six feet two!" Harold said, "Not six feet!" "No longer." Joyce said. "Your judgemental abilities, as well as your height, are conforming to the new order. To prove this fact to you, I will perform an experiment. First, we will test your perceptual ability." Joyce placed her hands on her hips, smiled at him, and thrust her chest out. Harold stared goggle-eyed at the straining buttons of her blouse as her pronouncedly braless breasts, tilted up by her wonderfully developed pectoral muscles, nearly burst through the straining fabric. One button, the very top one that was fastened, did give way and went zipping by Harold's head like a BB shot. Joyce placed a long nailed fingertip over the taut cloth against her right nipple. It instantly became erect, a thumbtip size bulge putting even more stress on her poor blouse. She put her finger in her mouth and slowly drew it out, then touched the glistening digit to her left nipple, which became a copy of the right. Harold's knees apruptly turned to water. Joyce uttered a musical little laugh, cupping the orbs of her breasts in her hands. "Oh, the absolute POWER we have over you poor men!" she said. "We really don't even NEED these - " Taking her hands from her chest, Joyce clenched her fists and assumed a bodybuilder's flexed double biceps pose for Harold. Her sleeves were instantly filled by the bulging muscles, the material stretched skin-tight around their powerful fullness. Joyce laughed again at the dumbfounded expression on Harold's face. "I was going to ask you what you thought my bustline measurement was," she said. "But I see you're too upset to speak right now so I'll just tell you. It's forty eight inches, Harold. Quite impressive, but I still see room for improvement, don't you?" Joyce grasped Harold's shoulders and guided his unresisting body to a chair, where he sat down heavily, stunned. She moved a few steps away and regarded him, looking at him like a laboratory specimen she wasn't quite sure what to do with. Harold just stared at her. Her thought her skirt was now as short and as tight as it could possibly become, her legs superbly muscled and so long that they quite literally took his breath away. The spiked heels of her shoes had her practically standing on her toes, and how she maintained her balance he had absolutely no idea. "Oh by the way, Harold," she said, watching the sweep of his eyes. "I'm six feet, four now; four inches TALLER than you." Joyce began to pace back and forth as she talked. Harold was fascinated by the way she moved, graceful as a cat, her hips swaying saucily, her muscles rippling majestically. "I am afraid you are going to be forced to accept our brave new women's world, Harold. I almost feel sorry for you, as you will be the only male cognizant of how our situation previously existed. But it was your stubborn pig-headedness that provoked my decision to program the Matrix as I did. So you have no one to blame for your situation but yourself. "Women rule now, Harold. You are merely my assistant at this point. When the Matrix program terminates, you're status at the lab may be diminished to one of a janitorial capacity." She stopped before him, now clad in a pair of skin-tight provocatively cut hot-pants that made Harold's mouth water, and a white shimmery sleeveless top that clung to her curves like wet paint, with every powerful muscle of her torso outlined against the fabric. Harold struggled to his feet and looked up at Joyce, who had gained a few more inches of height while giving her little speech and now stood a good head taller than him. "Harold," Joyce said. "I have become your physical and mental superior. However, my intellectual capacity has not advanced to the degree I had hoped for. Therefore, I believe I will introduce a new parameter in the Matrix program. Do you wish to know what that will be?" Harold swallowed to force some moisture into his dry throat. "Uh, yeah sure, Joyce. What?" "A sub-program that will promote the evolutionary development of the mind far beyond it's present level. Just think, I shall become a super genius!" She swiveled away from him and sauntered to the keyboard, reaching it in a few long-legged Amazonian strides. The Matrix machine had dwindled to half it's former size, with brightly colored loops of glowing tubing encircling and criss-crossing it's shiny silver surface in a bewildering aray that made Harold's head spin. Joyce primly placed her sexy buttocks on the padded divan before the ultra-modern keyboard and typed rapidly away, the tips of her inch long nails striking the keys quickly and unneringly. Harold felt the new forces generated by Joyce's new program almost immediately, only seconds after she had began typing. Waves of energy pulsated ferociously around him and the fillings of his teeth began to ache, throbbing in time to the pulsations. Joyce finished her task and stood, once more approached Harold. Her even longer legs propelled her quickly to his side. Her hot pants were briefer, more like the lower portion of a leotard now, and seemed to be visibly exposing more of her hips with every passing second. From her twelve inch height advantage Joyce stared down at Harold, who cringed under the gaze of her cold blue eyes. Her new high forehead was responsible for at least two inches of her increased height. "Augmentation of my intellectual, esemplastic, and itegrative powers has begun," she said, her voice lower and huskier. "My cranial capacity must expand to provide room for the increasing mass of my brain. Soon I shall be - Oh, OH!!!" Joyce bent over and clasped her head in her hands. Horrified, Harold watched as she dropped to her knees before him, her head bent towards the floor, her hands on top of her head. Her fingers were being forced apart by her swelling cranium, and tufts of her golden hair were drifting to the floor. Harold shook his head like a dog, wrenching his gaze from the metamorphosing Joyce and ran to the keyboard. Now was his chance to reverse all this and return the world to normal! While Joyce moaned behind him, he scanned the unfamiliar keyboard. The letters of the alphabet were there, but mixed between them were many sympbols he had never seen before, and right in the center of the keyboard and twice as large as any other was a key marked with the ancient Greek symbol for woman. Harold ignored the keys he didn't know and began writing his own program. He had typed only two sentences when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He stopped typing, and looked at the hand, which had six long delicate fingers tipped with razor-sharp claws. The skin was a golden bronze color that vibrated with health and vitality. Slowly, Harold allowed his gaze to travel up the heavily muscled arm, the bicep of which seemed at LEAST twice the size of his, which in another life he had been inordinately proud of. Harold's inspection moved upward to the impressive swelling of Joyce's busom, which immediately reminded him of watermelons. Two sheaths of dark material covered her magnificent breasts, which had developed to the point of phenomenal voluptousness. The folds of cloth passed behind a thin silver belt which encircled her tiny waist, to become a thong-back brief leaving her shapely hips and perfect buttocks completely bare. The hand tightened on his shoulder and yanked him like a rag doll to his feet. Harold looked up and gasped. Joyce's head was now shaped like a huge light bulb, her cranium swollen to over twice its previous size, the hairless dome criss-crossed with thick, bulging veins, and a bony crest running from a few inches above her eyes, then up and around to the back of her neck. A single rope of hair grew from the back of her head, just below the slight hollow between the start of the bulge in back and the top of her neck. This strand was braided, fell to just below her knees, and had a bright pink ribbon attached at the end. "Foolish primitive man," Joce said, her deep voice booming, "How dare you presume to interrupt my schedule!