Demons, part 2
by Nathan
The Transformation


     Darkness enfolded Katherine Starr like a velvet shroud.  She could neither 
see nor hear anything at all.  She wondered briefly if she were dead, 
disconnected completely from the world.  She felt as if she were floating 
through an endless, formless nothing, without sense, without time.  She vaguely 
remembered some indescribable horror, some great ordeal, but that was far behind 
her, a million years behind.  Utterly relaxed, she took a deep, cleansing 
breath...
     Knives of fire stabbed deeply into her chest and ribs, and the world fell 
back into place.
     It was painful to breathe.  She could see nothing more than a huge blur of 
light, but she heard, quite clearly, two voices.  One was the deep voice of a 
young man.
     "Doctor, she's coming out of the anesthetic.  Vital signs stable."
     "Thank you, Robert.  Have her ribs knit yet?  Ilsa was quite rough with 
her."
     This second voice was much older.  It squeaked and rasped through a ravaged 
throat, and had a very thick teutonic accent.  It was a small, weak voice, but 
it nonetheless made Katherine cringe with fear.  There was something ancient 
behind it...and very, very, evil.
     "No, sir," the first voice again.  "We didn't administer healing solution 
for fear it might interfere with the function of the implant."
     "There is no danger of that, Robert, I assure you.  Administer the 
injection now, that she might join us here in the waking world."
     "Yes, Doctor."
     There was a brief whirring of machinery, a hiss, and a slight prick on 
Katherine's shoulder.  A few seconds later, the pain in her chest exploded into 
a thousand white-hot shards.  She screamed as she felt her torso jerk forward, 
tearing off from the rest of her body with a sound like glass crunching in a wet 
cloth.  She clenched her teeth until she tasted blood, and shut her eyes so 
tightly that they felt as if they would explode.  Then, when the pain finally 
became so unbearable that she prayed for death, for a release, it stopped.  
Completely.
     It was like hitting a brick wall.  She jerked spasmodically a couple of 
times, then was still.  It no longer hurt to breathe.  She felt fine.  
Impossible.  Not a hint or trace of pain remained.  She opened her eyes.  She 
could see.
     This was not a big plus.
     It was not a big plus because now that she could see, she could determine 
that she was, in fact, naked, and bolted to a metal table with unnecessarily 
huge restraints which pinned her wrists above her head, her ankles, her waist, 
and her chest.  At least they covered all the right places, she thought.  The 
table was tilted just enough that she could look around just a little bit.  The 
room she was in was not large, but its smooth, white walls gave an impression of 
great depth.  Huge, bright lights shone down on her from the ceiling, their 
beams reflecting off of the weirdly shaped, chrome-plated machines that 
surrounded her almost completely.  A tiny, wizened old man in a lab coat stood 
directly in front of her.  He spoke.
     "Finally, she awakes.  Welcome, Miss Starr, to my laboratory.  I am Doctor 
Josef Krantz, this,"  here he pointed to a tall, handsome man, also wearing a 
white lab coat seated behind a bank of controls, "is Robert, my assistant, and 
you, my dear, are the subject of today's wondrous experiment!"
     She found her voice.  "Experiment?" she stammered.  "Oh my god!  Let me out 
of here!"  She strained against the clamps, but couldn't budge them one 
millimeter. 
     "I assure you, Miss Starr, that you are perfectly safe here.  I  requested 
that you be brought to me some time ago.  You see, you carry a very special set 
of genes.  One that I have not been able to find for some time.  It took me many 
years and much money to track you down."
     Katherine continued to struggle.  "I don't care if you've been looking for 
fifty years!  You're not cutting me up, you Mengala!"
     The doctor froze.  A look of utter horror crossed Robert's face.  Slowly, 
shaking with rage, the old man turned to face her.
     "Never, NEVER, mention that name again!  Mengala was a butcher, a brute!  I 
designed the fuhrer's so-called 'master race' while he was still chopping the 
brains out of Jews!  Never speak to me of him again!"
     Katherine recoiled at this.  "Oh, great, so you're a nazi, too?  This gets 
better and better..."
     "I am no nazi, I am a scientist!  Herr Hitler's regime simply provided me 
with sufficient monetary backing to continue my research...Oh, and in answer to 
your other statement, I have been searching for you for fifty years.  Or, more 
precisely, your mother...Did you know that your name is not Starr?"
     "What do you mean by that?"  Katherine's head was spinning.  Who was this 
man?
     "I mean just what I say.  Your grandmother was a German Jew named 
Stern...Ruth Stern, if I'm not mistaken.  She was...But I get ahead of myself.  
I must start at the start, ja?"
     "Fifty-six years ago, as a scientist in nazi Germany, I made amazing 
advances in the field of genetic manipulation.  I discovered that, with minimal 
tinkering with certain genes and proteins, I could cause the human body to 
manifest size and strength of superhuman proportions.  I tried to keep my 
research secret, in order to use it for my own ends later on, but there were no 
secrets at that time.  After the Gestapo found out what I was doing, I was 
ordered by Hitler himself to create an entire squadron of supermen, which would 
serve as the basis for a true master race."
     "Needless to say, I succeeded wildly.  I built his supermen for him...two 
hundred eight-foot, five-hundred pound behemoths, each capable of tearing apart 
an armored tank with his bare hands, each specially selected from German Special 
forces for his utter and complete loyalty to the state.  Hitler was pleased.  He 
called them the SSS...the 'Super Schutz Staffeln', and sent them into immediate 
duty, not on the front lines, but 'cleansing' Jewish ghettoes."
     "They only ever succeeded in destroying one.  In their first action, 
unforeseen complications  caused them all to go completely berserk.  They began 
destroying not only the ghetto but the German section of the town as well.  They 
were eventually brought down with highly concentrated nerve gas, but not before 
they had destroyed ninety percent of the town, and raped and murdered 
thousands."
     "Even then, they were not dead.  Their unconscious bodies were wrapped in 
chains normally used for mooring boats.  They were taken to Auschwitz, where it 
took some of them nearly five hours to die in the gas chambers.  I was branded a 
traitor and criminal and was forced to flee my home city of Dresden, where I had 
worked and lived for seventy-five years, and come to America, promising your 
government my scientific knowledge in return for asylum. Most of my notes and 
equipment were well hidden and destroyed in the firebombing just two days 
later."
     Katherine could not contain her amazement.  "Seventy-five?  But it's been 
more than fifty years!  You must be..."
     "Yes.  I am one hundred and twenty-eight years old, Miss Starr.  There is 
nothing my science cannot accomplish... I have spent the last fifty-three years 
searching for female survivors of the SSS debacle.   Unfortunately, by the time 
I found them, most were dead, with no children.  I found a few who had borne 
children, but their offspring, mysteriously, were all male, incapable of 
carrying the X-chromosome linked complex which was the dormant form of the 
supergene.  A man would only pass that gene to his daughters..."
     "Then, three years ago, just when all seemed hopeless, I located the 
daughter of one female survivor, by the name of Leia Stern.  She was, by this 
time, living under the assumed name of Starr, the English equivalent of "Stern", 
and quite a crude alias.  She was also far too old to have any value as a 
sample, but I did find out that she had borne a daughter...can you guess who?"
     "NO!"  Katherine screamed, her face white with rage and terror, "No, no, 
no, no, no..." She started sobbing.  "I'm not...not some lab rat, some freak you 
created...I don't want..."
     "You should, my dear.  You should want this more than anything.  Why, when 
my most powerful strength enhancing serum meets your dormant DNA, the results 
will be spectacular!  If my calculations are correct, you will become one of the 
most powerful beings on Earth!  Of course, thanks to the biochip I've implanted 
in your brain, you will also be completely under my control.  Can't have you 
killing me, now can we?"
     "No, no, I don't want this...power...no...I want to go home..."  Katherine 
choked, from behind the tears that streamed down her face.
     "I am afraid you have no say in this matter, Miss Starr.  Our wishes are as 
nothing compared to the immutable pulse of human progress.  Science marches on, 
and my research will not be denied."  He motioned to Robert.  "Begin the 
injection of Protoserum B-29.  Fifteen CcOs."
     Robert pushed a button on his control console, and a mechanical arm next to 
Katherine sprang to life.  It slowly and deliberately moved over to a rack of 
ampoules, descending to enclose the closest one.  As it drew the glass cylinder 
out of the rack, Katherine could see that it contained a blood-red substance 
that bubbled and moved as if it had a life of its own.  A razor-sharp, inch-long 
needle glistened at The syringe's end.  She struggled harder against the 
restraints, but to no avail.  The arm swung back around hovering over her arm 
like the chromed hand of God.  Robert Pressed another button.
     The needle descended, piercing the soft flesh of her arm, sinking deeply 
into her unwilling vein.  The viscous red fluid burned like liquid fire as it 
coursed into her bloodstream.  She groaned, and continued her futile struggles 
as the substance shot up her arm and into her chest, then back out through the 
rest of her body.  The feeling was like molten lava searing every nerve ending 
in her body.  The pain continued to worsen, growing more and more powerful, 
until it screamed white hot through her entire being.  As it reached its mind-
shattering apex, the transformation began.
     Suddenly, the pain was gone and every cell in her body was standing at 
attention.  Something buried deep within was awakening, something pushed down, 
something hidden since her birth.  Her body began to respond to the serum.  Her 
veins bulged against her skin, visibly throbbing, as if objecting to their 
strange new cargo. Her muscles began to twitch slightly, then vibrate 
uncontrollably, and finally, they began to spasm wildly and painfully.  She 
began to strain against her restraints with such violent force that it appeared 
her arms and legs would snap.  Then, she began to grow.
     Cords of muscle began to creep up her arms and down her legs, giving the 
impression that small animals were burrowing toward her hands and feet, pushing 
out her skin as they went, progressing with every beat of her heart.  Her chest 
shrank as the fat dissolved off of her body, but it quickly swelled again, the 
cleavage of her breasts replaced by that of rapidly expanding pectoral muscles.  
Her abs simply seemed to rise out of her torso, already extremely hard and cut.
     Her entire body was now pulsing in time with her heartbeat, convulsing (and 
growing visibly) with each cardial contraction, causing the restraints to clank 
loudly as pushed against them.  They were rapidly tightening around her 
expanding body, even more so because she was becoming taller, as well.  Her 
forearms and calves were being forced under the restraints by her own growth, 
and the twin forces of height and muscle increase were causing them to groan 
audibly.
     Robert glanced at a meter on his control console.  " Sixty seconds, 
Doctor," he said, his voice betraying not a hint of emotion, "rate of growth is 
already nearly five times normal for Proto B-29.   Strength level well into the 
low superhuman range.  Loss of primary restraints imminent."
     The Doctor smiled.  "Excellent.  She has already surpassed even my most 
liberal projections.  Ready the fields."
     Even as Robert adjusted the controls, Katherine's growth seemed to speed 
up.  Enormous, spreading lats flowed out from under her torso, joining with the 
prominent serratus which plated her sides and, further up, her incredibly 
striated, volleyball-sized shoulders.  She was now more than seven feet tall 
from head to toe, but, with her arms still pinned over her head, seemed much 
taller.  She was increasing in height and mass at an incredible rate.  
     Suddenly, her arms and legs, now coated with deep-etched muscles, inflated 
several inches in a single heartbeat.  Deep stress fractures appeared in her 
restraints.  The metal moaned and screamed under the torturous pressure of 
Katherine's diamond-hard sinews.  Still wildly convulsing , she inhaled sharply.  
Her immense chest muscles snapped the bar holding them as if it were a 
toothpick, sending the pieces flying at incredible velocity over the head of 
Doctor Krantz and straight through the wall behind him.
     "Now, Robert," he said calmly, "The fields.  Release primary restraints."
     A galvanic shock traveled through Katherine's body, causing her to jerk 
even more violently than before.  The twisted, mangled remains of the primary 
restraints clattered to the floor, but Katherine's body was still pinned against 
the operating table.  A strange orange glow surrounded her wrists, ankles, waist 
and chest.
     "Ahh, perfect.  The fields will hold her as her metamorphosis continues,"  
sighed the doctor.  "Parameters, Robert?"
     Robert checked his meters again.  "One hundred and fifty seconds.  Subject 
has far surpassed previous growth parameters for Proto B-29.  Subject currently 
ten feet, nine inches tall, weight approximately one point one-five tons.  No 
accurate strength reading available.  Field integrity holding."
     Katherine was, indeed, incredibly huge, and still growing.  Her arms and 
legs were now several feet wide.  Giant beachballs of muscle nearly four feet in 
diameter expanded and contracted as she flexed her arms,  While the teardrop-
shaped muscles of her thighs were much larger than a man's head.  Her pectoral 
muscles rose and fell like a mountain range, forming and eroding with each 
breath.  As she approached twelve feet tall,  the pain that seemed to tie her 
body in knots gradually subsided, replaced by a sense of extreme urgency.  For 
the first time since her injection, she felt aware of herself.  Control of her 
body was returning to her.  She felt enormous.  She felt powerful.  She felt 
terrified, both by her incredible transformation and by the situation she was 
still in.  She had to get out.
     She could hear Robert's voice.  It sounded like he was shouting, yet 
somehow retaining a normal tone of voice.  She wished she could see him, but her 
enormous arms blocked all lateral vision.  She tried looking down at Doctor 
Krantz, but she could not see him over her massive, engorged pecs.  "Growth is 
subsiding.  All parameters out of instrumental range.  God, she's huge.  Nothing 
else even approaches this in terms of pure drug reaction.  How did you do this?"
     "Patience, Robert," Even the Doctor's thin, rasping voice was a scream in 
her ears.  She could hear everything, from the soft hum of the lights, to the 
whirring of the machinery in the next room, to the pitter patter of an ant 
crawling across the floor.  Whatever had enhanced her body had also enhanced her 
senses, then.  She concentrated on her ears, willing them to be quiet, until she 
had managed to wrestle her hearing sensitivity down to a manageable level.  She 
kept her eyes tightly shut.
     "Is she conscious, Robert?  If not, we must wait to activate her biochip.  
Otherwise it will not adjust to her pattern of conscious thought, and that, 
after all, is what we wish to affect most of all."
     "Conscious thought?"  screamed Katherine's brain,  "Oh, god, I have to get 
out of here..."
     "Uh...unable to determine.  The breaking of normal parameters seems to have 
caused a small systems overload.  I'll have to reboot and adjust the acceptable 
mean...it may take a...uh...doctor...DOCTOR!!"
     Robert was staring in horror at the operating table.  At this point, it may 
be worthwhile to point out that the table was actually more a slab of solid 
metal several feet thick, constructed of an extremely strong alloy interspersed 
only with the elements necessary for holding the restraints and creating the 
fields.  It was, essentially, the quintessential immovable object, absolutely 
impervious to force of any magnitude.
     Katherine was folding it over on itself.
     She was slowly bringing her arms down and her legs up.  Her massive muscles 
bulged as she strained to break the thing that held her, exerting incalculable 
stress on the metal, which was rapidly buckling.
     "Robert, you fool!  Activate the chip!  The chip!!"  The Doctor was 
screaming now, terrified by his own creation.
     "I can't!"  Robert wailed, over the din of shrieking metal, "The system's 
still frozen!  It's..."
     Before he could finish, Katherine gave the slab a last, mighty yank, 
Causing it to snap completely.  There was a deafening crack, and huge, blue arcs 
of electricity leapt from the ruined elements in the slab and into every other 
piece of machinery in the lab.  Robert's console glowed white-hot for a fraction 
of a second before it exploded in a shower of sparks and sent him flying into 
the wall, where he collapsed in a heap.  The doctor, shielding himself from the 
blast with an overturned instrument cart, pulled a small, black device out of 
his pocket.  As the two halves of the slab fell away from Katherine's gargantuan 
body, Doctor Krantz clicked a button.  Instantly, he and Robert were surrounded 
by a strange, blue glow and disappeared.
     Katherine was too busy to notice that they had gone.  She was still 
adjusting to the most powerful body in the world when it wasn't strapped to a 
table.  Her massive limbs felt far too light for their enormous size, and there 
seemed to be almost no resistance to any of her movements.  She stepped forward 
and was blinded by the flash of igniting chemicals.  Her eyes now shut, she 
stumbled forward, and felt a slight pressure against her naked skin that 
subsided almost as quickly as it came.  As she continued forward, she felt it 
again and again, like a breeze against her shoulder.  She also thought she heard 
a faint crunching sound over the explosive din behind her...
     Suddenly, she was aware that the light around her had greatly diminished.  
She opened her eyes and looked around.  She gasped.  She was standing in a dark, 
moonlit forest.  In front of her, enormous trees stretched out into blackness at 
the edge of her sight.  Behind her, light streamed from a series of enormous 
holes in the foot-thick, reinforced concrete walls of an enormous, gray 
building, stretching all the way back to the lab.  So those had been her 
"breezes."
     Absolutely terrified, Katherine took one last look back, then broke into a 
full run, dashing as fast as she possibly could, away from that hellish place.
     She didn't even bother to dodge the trees.