Day 3: Push It To The Limit

A warm cup of coffee and a plate full of waffles were ready for Rebecca when she groggily came out of her room the next day. I'd woken up early, not really getting much sleep overnight due to the intense mixture of nerves and excitement racking my brain. I'd resisted the temptation to perform tests on her while she slept, but I was eager to see what other limits we could test with the 'Body' patch today. So, to remain in her good graces and hopefully ease her spirits, I made a little breakfast for her. As she wiped the sleep from her eyes and sat at the breakfast bar, I flipped over a piece of bacon on the griddle and put on the biggest smile I could muster.

"Good morning! Are you feeling good today?"

She paused, still trying to wake up. Obviously she'd had a tough time sleeping as well. "Yeah... well mostly. I feel normal at least."

I stood there awkwardly, waiting to see if there was more to the sentence than that, but she just lifted her coffee and gingerly sipped from it. So, I returned to the sizzling bacon on the griddle while she gathered her thoughts. I could feel her eyes searching me up and down, almost examining me in a judgmental way. After a few minutes of silence, I finally caved and turned around.

"Okay, what? You're inspecting me like I'm hiding a gun or something."

Rebecca took another slow sip from her coffee before sighing and putting it down. "Did you test the app on me last night? The patch?"

"What? No, of course not." Phew, thank goodness I hadn't listened to that impulse. "Why, was something different this morning?"

"No. Well, not that I could see anyway. I inspected myself entirely this morning and everything looked the same." Rebecca paused, realizing how accusatory she was sounding. "I'm sorry, I guess yesterday's call just has me feeling really paranoid."

I took the cooked bacon off the griddle and brought the greasy plate over, sitting next to Rebecca at the breakfast bar. I was a little disheartened that she thought I'd do that, but I understood where she was coming from. I mean, the thought had clearly passed through my head last night. "Look, Rebecca, I'm really sorry that we're in this situation. We should've asked Mr. Draymond or somebody in the company the moment we saw the additional patches. It was stupid and reckless and now you're stuck here until the month is over. But I want you to know that I won't do anything with this app without your permission. You have nothing to worry about at night and if there's anything I can do to ease your concerns about that, just let me know."

I was being sincere. I wanted Rebecca to trust me. We were a solid team and I had nothing to gain from taking advantage of her shitty situation. Rebecca listened to my speech and looked up at me as I finished. She was still concerned, it was plain to see, but I could tell my words had given some comfort and ease to those concerns. She returned my sincere smile and grabbed a waffle from the nearby plate, but no bacon.

"Alright, don't judge me here, but I actually don't like bacon" she said jokingly as she poured syrup over her plate.

"What?! Okay, I take back everything I said. Bacon is a gift from the gods. There's clearly something wrong going on after all."

Rebecca laughed, nearly **** on the waffles she'd started to feast on. The pair of us shared a fairly light-hearted morning after that. We took care of breakfast dishes, got cleaned and dressed, and found ourselves in the Research Room once again. I sat down in the rolling office chair in front of the table of patches and started up the app as Rebecca laid down in one of the examination beds.

"So, what are we testing today?" Rebecca asked cautiously.

"Well, I'm curious about the limits of the physical changes." I explained. "We got the results we wanted, but, even maxed out, the changes weren't too ****. I thought that was strange."

"Hmm, you're right. It was weird that we could only change my height by, like, 5 inches" Rebecca agreed, unconsciously scratching the patch's spot. "Maybe we should try that again and see if the results are the same."

I suppressed my smirk and nodded. "Alright, let's give it a shot. You should probably stand up."

As Rebecca hopped down from the bed, I navigated to the Body menu and clicked on Height to reveal a slider and 2 unchecked boxes that said 'Uneven Change' and 'Proportional Weight'. When we'd last tested her height, we left these boxes unchecked, but I was hopeful we'd get a chance to try them in the near future. The slider for her height was set exactly at 50% right now and displayed in parentheses (5'5").

"Okay, taller or shorter?" I asked, finger hovering over the slider.

"Hmm, let's try the same as yesterday and do taller" Rebecca said, shaking away the jitters.

"Taller it is..." I moved the slider to 100% and hit Apply. It was oddly silent as Rebecca slowly grew taller and taller over the next few seconds. Her clothes groaned and grew tighter on her and her t-shirt started to reveal more and more of her navel as it stretched on her taller form. Rebecca held her arms out to steady herself as she quickly grew to my height... and kept growing! After 4 seconds of growth, Rebecca had grown 8 inches to 6'1" before the changes came to a halt. Her eyeline was now higher than my own 5'10" view and I had to slightly look upwards to meet her gaze. Rebecca's body still looked the same proportions-wise, but her shirt and pants were definitely much tighter on her than they'd been before.

"Woah, this definitely feels like a bigger change than the last time" Rebecca said, inspecting her larger body. She leaned over to look at her exposed ankles and a small rip escaped from the back of her shirt.

"Man, we have to bring some sort of change of clothes when we do these experiments" I remarked with a laugh. "This is wild, the max last time was 5 inches, but you just grew 8 inches at 100% this time."

"How is that possible?" Rebecca asked, standing up straight to keep her shirt from ripping further. "Is the app getting stronger?"

"No, I don't think that's it... I think that the patch takes time to ingratiate itself maybe?" I walked over to the taller nerdy girl scratching my chin and pondering what it could possibly mean. "Like, maybe the longer it stays in your skin the more we'll be able to change with it?"

Rebecca frowned at this. "That's kinda creepy... It's almost as if it's a parasite burrowing it's way under my skin... Hold on a sec.." She left the room and returned a moment later with a large baggy sweatshirt on and a long pair of black yoga pants that still exposed her ankles with her new height.

While she was gone, I'd thought about trying the other_ Height _options. "Check out these boxes for Height. Do you want to try either of them? I'm not sure what they'd do."

Rebecca looked over my shoulder, which was much easier from her new height, and thought it over before checking the box next to 'Uneven Change'. Another slider appeared once this box was checked and it was also set at 100%. Curious, Rebecca moved the slider to the middle and nodded her approval for me to hit the Apply button. Once I hit it, Rebecca gasped and took a step back. I turned to see what happened and burst into laughter. After the previous change, Rebecca looked like herself but bigger. However, now she looked like she was mostly legs and her torso/belly area was perched upon stilts that were 5 feet in height by themselves. Her arms had grown out as well and her fingertips reached past the knees of her lengthened legs. It was a very cartoony look that was made even funnier by the surprised expression on her face.

Rebecca looked down at her freakish changes, before looking up at me with a look of incredulity and fear. This caused another round of uproarious laughter to escape me and I tried to fight back the tears as I set the phone down in my laughter. Finally, Rebecca started cracking up as well and the pair of us sat on the opposite beds cackling like buffoons.

After several minutes of laughter, I was finally able to get myself back in control to see Rebecca had my phone in her enlarged hand and was looking over her options.