The adventures of Danny Archer, Chapter 1: Sweeping up the chem lab
By psycho unimportant - psycho@email.com
A spin-off of the Mastermind Formula story.


A foggy pre-dawn descended on the college campus; the School of Science in
particular was bathed in a dark, misty cloud. Into this early morning
darkness, the headlights of a rather drab-looking blue van cut through the
gray. It wound its way through the back service road, coming to a stop next to
the dumpster behind the Chemistry building. The ignition was switched off, and
the driver's door opened. The most blessed human being in the world was about
to partake in his favorite pastime, pissing in the crack of concrete
separating the dumpster from the raised ledge of the Chemistry building's
loading dock. The Gods be praised.

Danny Archer worked the night shift as custodian for the School of Science,
coming on duty at around 11:30 and finishing up around 7. He was a quiet man
who lived alone, and the lack of people around while he did his job suited
Danny just fine. He didn't really care for the forced pleasantries the day
time custodial staff was subjected to. It was typical to find Danny at the end
of a long hallway, only one light bulb turned on, muttering peacefully to
himself as he mopped or swept or sprayed. In fact, hardly any students at the
college had ever even seen him. Only the most dedicated science nuts stuck
around the school after 11 pm. In the past 5 years, Danny had reluctantly
befriended the small handful of them, basically because he had to say
something when he ran into them. Almost all of them were male students,
typically seniors working on there thesis projects. So far this semester,
there was only one. Some guy named Ryan.

Danny could normally care less about these students, getting their free ride
through school straight from daddy's wallet, but he had to admit, Ryan was an
exception. For one thing, whenever Danny accidentally interrupted him in the
Chem lab, the guy would literally drop what he was doing and take immediate
interest in Danny's life. As a janitor, he had never really experienced this
before. Ryan seemed like one of those guys who was wise beyond his years, and
Danny found himself opening up about his many life experiences: as a soldier
in the Gulf War, a trucker in the Midwest and a drifter in New York. Danny
didn't let too many people in on his past; he probably wouldn't have been able
to score even this job if he had.

Finishing his urination, Danny pulled out his Nextel two-way to check the
time. It was 5:13, and he'd have to hustle if he was going to get the
Chemistry building finished in less than two hours. He mixed up the order of
science buildings he cleaned so he didn't get too bored; tonight he had
started over in the physics building, and had slowly worked his way through to
Biology. After hitting the 24 hour food mart down the road for a sausage
biscuit, he had returned one last time to finish off in Chemistry. He dug out
his keys, hurried up to the rear delivery entrance and headed inside.

Thinking about Ryan had made him a little curious. For the first time in his
life, there was another human being who new more about Danny than he did about
them. The science major was pretty damn mysterious, come to think of it. Danny
had attempted once to ask some vague question about what the kid was working
on, but Ryan had quickly and politely dismissed the inquiry in favor of
hearing more about how Danny's truck routed through Nebraska and Iowa back in
the mid-nineties.

Danny decided that at this hour, no one would be the wiser if he just took a
little peak at what the crazy kid was working on. He headed to the vending
area and grabbed a coffee, then climbed the stairs up to chem lab C, which had
become Ryan's home away from home most nights lately. Picking his way through
the gloom, he finally came to the door and the light switch, and flicked it
on. For a laboratory, there really wasn't that much in here; no bubbling
beakers or apparatuses making crazy noises everywhere. There was, in fact,
only one table with anything of interest occupying it, and it was sitting
square in the middle of the room. Danny shuffled over with his coffee, setting
it down next to a large glass container in a metal cradle of some kind. The
container was filled about a quarter of the way up with a fairly putrid
smelling liquid. Danny didn't recognize the smell, but then the only one he
might have known at all was sulfur. This liquid didn't smell like that, it
smelled like ...

"Shit!!", Danny blurted out as he banged his shin on a faucet fixture sticking
out near the bottom of the table. He had been heading to the opposite side
where he saw what looked like a notebook of some kind, possibly explaining
what exactly the young genius was working on. His accident shook the table
quite a bit, and as he slowly found his bearings again, he didn't notice the
glass container slide in its' cradle and drip some of its' odious liquid
directly into his coffee cup.

Grimacing at his new pain, he returned to his coffee and decided that the
mystery of Ryan's project would just have to wait until another night. Time to
head down to the janitor's closet, get his gear and get moving ...

The coffee tasted horrible this morning. He remembered hauling some of this
processed crap to various vending machines when he was a trucker, and he
dreaded to think what they put in it to preserve it. He was about dead on his
feet though, so he gulped the mixture down, cringing at the aftertaste it
left. "You better fucking wake me up!", he said bitterly, tossing the cup into
a nearby trashcan. He did feel a little wired already, so at least his 35
cents had gone to performing a necessary function, even if it did taste like
ass.

An hour and a half later, Danny was finishing the last room of the building,
and feeling fine. He was more awake now than he'd ever been on caffeine
before. This might have troubled him if not for the fact that he so
desperately wanted to get finished and get out of here before he had to see
anybody. Checking his two-way, he saw that it was now 7:05, and the day time
cleaning lady would be arriving any minute. She was an older Hispanic woman
named Norma Dominguez, a short, stocky woman who looked like she'd lived a
lifetime of work, work and more work. The fact that she was Mexican did kind
of excite him though, he had always had a thing for women not of his own
Caucasian background. A fetish, he figured, but so what? Compared to some of
the other sexual fantasies he had, a little innocent lust for a Latino seemed
pretty low on the weird scale. But he was feeling so weird, he'd been feeling
this alertness ever since he drank that fucking coffee ... was he getting
sick?

"Hallooo! You still here Mr. Archer?", came Norma's voice from just down the
hall. Damn, he always felt like some pervert when he had to talk to her, and
he was just about done. Why couldn't she just wait? He knew she didn't like
him ... maybe he was paranoid, but she always looked at him like he was crazy.
And he was sick of it!

"Hallooo?", the woman came into the room pushing her cart and smiling like
someone's sweet, hard-working mother. She had on her usual white t-shirt and
white painter pants, with white tennis shoes. Her hair was pulled back into a
tight bun, and she raised her hand when she saw Danny. "Hey Mr. Archer, long
time no see huh? How you been?"

Danny looked at her and sighed, wishing she would just get down to business
like a soldier would, without all the bullshitting around.

All at once, Norma's demeanor seemed to change. Her smile faltered, and for a
moment she looked a little confused. Then she shook her head, as if coming out
of a trance, and with a stern expression grabbed her mop and bucket. She
stepped away from her cart rigidly, and faced Danny. "Sergeant Archer, Sir!
Request permission to mop the Chemistry Building hallways sir!" She held her
mop and bucket like they were her gun and backpack, as if she was about to
head out on a daylong bombing mission. Danny just stood there with his mouth
open, wondering what the fuck was going on. Was she fucking with him? Did one
of the other Janitor's put her up to this? Tell her old crazy Danny deserved a
good mocking? This was fucking unbelievable, this bitch trying to act like a
soldier ... but wait a second, something else was going on here too. Her body
looked different. Less plump and more ... well duh, more firm. Her shoulders
seemed a little broader, her chest a little deeper as she thrust it out, her
arms a little thicker, and her head ... well shit, her head seemed higher to
him. If asked, he would have guessed Norma's height to be around 5'4", but now
she looked a couple of inches taller. What the fuck was going on?

"Norma?", it was all his addled brain could think of to say. "Sir, yes sir!",
she responded with that same ridiculous attempt at being a soldier ... only
the odd thing was, she did sound like one. A female soldier with a Mexican
accent maybe, but still.,,

And that was when it finally hit him ... he had caused this! His mind had
wanted her to be more like a soldier, he had even subconsciously imagined her
body standing like one, had even added a few extra inches and pounds of muscle
to his mental image ... and now here she was, behaving exactly like a grunt
private would, and sporting the exact body he had imagined. He could somehow
see into her now, her entire molecular make-up, the very contents of her
brain, and he knew that he had the ability to alter it at his leisure. He
could alter her personality and her body into whatever the fuck he imagined
...

He looked hard at Norma, and tried to focus his thoughts ... slowly the world
of Norma Dominguez came into focus. She was a divorcee, and amazingly had
never had any children. Although to Norma, this seemed to make sense; she was
the middle child with an older and younger sister, and had always felt that
she was the plain one, the ugly one. More thoughts and memories began to flood
Danny's mind, but he focused his thoughts and found that he could control the
amount and type of information he was receiving. He focused again, and
discovered that apart from a few casual friends and neighbors, Norma lived a
fairly solitary life. It wasn't a perfect situation, but if he played his
cards right, he could have this woman as his very own private love slave ...
couldn't he?

"Norma Dominguez! Who is your employer?" He tweaked her mind slightly, and
waited. "Sir!", she barked, "My employer is Sergeant Danny Archer Sir!". Her
body stayed rigid, like powerful bars of steel were embedded in her legs and
spine. Danny was feeling a bit carried away, and didn't notice for a moment
that his mind was continuing to alter Norma's body. She grew two more inches,
and seemed to thicken and broaden even more. Shit! Danny had to get himself
under control. Norma already looked remarkably different from her usual self:
where her personality had been bubbly and docile before, she now seemed stoic,
powerful and rather cold. Danny decided that he needed some time to process
his new found gift.

Again focusing his thoughts, he began to fill Norma's mind with instructions.
Her eyes began to dart back and forth; it almost looked like she was dreaming,
only her eyes were wide open. The instructions Danny gave her were as follows:

*You will carry out your cleaning duties as usual, and will greet all college
staff, teachers and students as you would on any normal day.

*No one must know that you are actually on a mission, assigned to you by
Sergeant Archer. You're ability to act and behave like the old Norma Dominguez
will be flawless, even though you know that this is simply an illusion for the
public eye.

*When your cleaning duties are done for the day, you will proceed to your car
and drive to the following address, to receive your next assignment.

Danny proceeded to implant his address into her mind, so that she couldn't
possibly forget it. When he was done, he pulled out of her mind, and Norma's
eyes ceased their movement. Danny had additionally instructed her not to begin
her "top secret" assignment until he had left the room. She therefore remained
standing at attention in front of him. He stepped forward, examining her
newer, more powerful body. She smelled of bacon and some type of cheap
perfume. To Danny, it was intoxicating. With one more small tweak, Norma
suddenly shouted, "Sergeant Archer sir! Permission to be inspected for flaws
sir!". It was all the invitation Danny needed. Norma took a small step
forward, so that their bodies were almost touching. Danny reached out and
lightly squeezed her shoulder. It felt like a concrete block had somehow been
embedded there.

Danny stepped back, again trying to calm himself. At 5'8", Norma was
remarkably different from her old self; would other people notice? He decided
he didn't want to take any risks, so some realignment was in order. He
concentrated intently, and found that he could literally save the current
state of Norma in his mind, to be recreated later. This done, he began
morphing her body back to as close a replica of the old Norma as possible.
Norma shrank and thinned considerably, until she looked basically like her old
self. Satisfied, Danny programmed her mind once more.

Norma blinked for a moment, and then smiled at Danny. "Well Mr. Archer, I
guess I better get moving, lotta rooms to clean, eh?" She grabbed her
equipment and headed for the door. Just as she was about to disappear from
view, she turned her head back. "See you later!", she said, and then gave
Danny a rather sexy, knowing wink. She was gone. Danny leaned back against the
lab table. Holy shit!, he thought, I think that actually just happened. I'm a
frigging God! He looked around quickly, making sure he hadn't made anything in
the lab look too out of order. Feeling the adrenaline cycling through his
veins, Danny Archer headed for his truck, and then to his own home, where
Norma Dominguez would be joining him later. As far as he was concerned,
tonight was going to be unfuckingbelievable.