Letter of the Law

The main entrance of the school was a breezeway littered with strangers to Wendy, so none batted an eye as she made her way peacefully by the administration office and all the trophy chests littered with their varsity rewards. Assistant Principal Catherine Hatts, a stern administrator infamous for her almost bestial temper, watched over the students with a keen eye and a strong jaw that earned her the "Bulldog" nickname. She didn't bother leaving her gaze on Wendy, of course; Wendy made sure to never let such low-level government agents catch on to her operations-

“Wendy!”

She nearly jumped from her skin at the sound of her own name… but the source was thankfully not the Bulldog. Instead it was Chris Dodge, a fellow Chess Club member and arguably one of the largest boys in the school. “Arguably” came from the fact that Chris was both 6’3” and over 300 pounds, most of which came from his fluffy fat body. Wendy had nothing but respect for Chris, of course; he was an admirable and eager novice of Chess and evidences no ulterior motives in joining the club, something she wished she could say about the other boys therein.

With his thinning hair combed neatly and his breaths heaving, Chris made his way up to Wendy with a huge, shit-eating grin. “I got it last night.”

With everything that had transpired in the morning, it took Wendy a few beats to even realize what he could mean… and then it hit her with enough enthusiasm to temporarily wipe all concern. “You… don’t mean…”

“Yep,” he beamed.

Wendy looked around the breezeway for prying ears before almost whispering, “The... printer?” A 3-D printer was on Wendy’s own wishlist for some time now, but it was one of the few expenses her parents answered in the negative, perhaps because they feared the effective, homemade equipment she could craft with it, or because they were being influenced by the same forces that now toyed with her life... or, and perhaps most likely, the absurd cost of the one she wanted.

Chris’ parents had no such inhibitions, it seemed. “It’s awesome, and kinda complicated, and I only just downloaded a few designs-!”

“Sssh!” Wendy hissed as she glanced about again. “Do you want to end up on a watchlist?”

Chris grinned at his paranoid partner. “Everybody's got 3-D printers these days!” An incredulous, half-lidded stare urged Chris on, “Y-You worry too much! Look, I already made something for the Chess Club just using the basic resin it came with,” he grunted as he maneuvered off his backpack and rummaged through it. Wendy's mind raced at the possibilities, but her mind never landed on the truth that Chris ultimately fished out of his backpack and held between his fat thumb and forefinger. “Tada!” Chris declared as he revealed…

… a pawn.

Wendy adjusted her glasses and peered through her medical filter to try and assess… any hidden value in the hollow shell of a chess piece. Aside from it being very smooth and well-made, she found none. “What… does it do?”

“What does… I mean, I thought you’d already know, hweh heh,” Chris chuckled obnoxiously, earning an eye roll from his club superior.

“It’s just a chess piece? You can now manufacture unlicensed replaceable parts for almost any weapon or device you can find on the internet and you made... a chess piece?”

“A chess set! Well, a partial set. One piece for each member! We don't have enough members for a whole board, and really we're more like... one Queen and a bunch of Pawns, right? Later I'll print out the others, but for now I just made one Queen and a few Pawns so…”

Wendy resisted the urge to shake her head in disappointment. She had to be polite, after all. “Well, it’s... it’s nice…”

Pop. Her jacket opened up slightly as one of the two buttons holding it closed fell off, but the noise and awkwardness kept Wendy from noticing it.

“Here, this one’s yours!” Chris shoved the chess piece into Wendy’s hand before rummaging some more.

Wendy held it briefly before slipping it into her shirt pocket. Hmm. Why did she do that? To free her hands, she told herself, but was still slow to realize why she wanted her hands free.

“I hope Donna likes the Queen... eh, she won't think that's awkward, right? I mean she's our President, and she's the best player we have, right? So it's King or Queen...”

Her fingers undo the only remaining jacket button she had before they get to work on her collar button. No...! She tries to yell internally to stop, but her hands and body move without her will. The effect plants the thought in her mind, but she can barely comprehend it. She was... given a "token gift," a 3D-printed pawn, specifically... and finally it made sense. This was a setup, Wendy decided. Sure, Chris occasionally got her and other club members snacks or other small gifts, a penchant for trying to secure friendship against his insecurity. The gift was not unprecedented. But the timing, and the nature of it, and that he did it here instead of at the club meeting... everything screamed setup, and Wendy couldn't do anything about it as her shirt's third button came undone.

“I tried to make the features as simple as possible for the first batch, so the Queen is... just…”

Chris’ words trailed off just as Wendy tried to find her own. Her glance goes all over as her hands undo the fourth button, opening most of her top. Two more buttons and the shirt will be a suggestion. Three more and it can just slip off if it weren't tucked into her skirt. The hands stopped at just one more button, however... and Wendy looked up at Chris as her mouth meekly muttered, “Don't look.” He didn't so much hear it as feel it, but his morning virgin brain failed to process it in time before he, and a handful of other students in the breezeway, all caught sight of Wendy's fists pulling her shirt open to let the girls debut on their first public stage. Fear, humiliation, and the cool morning air all duked it out on her body as temperatures, chemicals, and liquid panic passed through the trembling new adult. The letter of the law was clear: she owed him an immediate Mardi Gras Special, and she had to ensure Chris got his token's worth.

Normally Wendy would be kicking herself about how the enemy had lured her into a false confidence, or how the description of her punishments were vague enough to permit such dastardly setups. She would suspect nothing short of a perfect conspiracy that led Chris to choose today, of all days, and this morning, of all mornings, to deliver a gift to the first Chess Club member he spotted which, of course, had been Wendy. The last thing she would consider was that Chris was in on it, an alien himself hiding terrible, otherworldly biology in his folds who came to trigger their next stage of experimentation.

But Wendy’s mind went to none of these things, because all she could think about right now was wanting to close her clothes back up, dig a hole in an empty field, and bury herself alive. Chris’ face did not improve this matter: bulging eyes, flushed face, a dropped jaw, and irises laser-focused on never-before-exhibited areolas that cause Peppernickel to perspire.

“What the- PEPPERNICKEL?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” The Bulldog's voice ensured any eyes not focused on her before joined Chris’ intense gaze, causing Wendy’s body to break out into a hot sweat that bubbled up too fast to be natural.