Chapter 7: The Professor's Lectures
"And that's how you solve for x. Any questions?"
No one raises their hand, not one student. The professor looks at her students. Honestly if there was any other place she would rather be, she wouldn't be here. Still, that was the plea bargain they had set for her. In exchange for teaching the youths of tomorrow they would expunge her record. How humiliating. To have to kowtow to these fucking losers.
"Well if there aren't any I'd like to remind everyone to have a safe trip going to, oh whatever it is you're going to. Bye-bye."
One by one the students leave until the professor is all alone. She looks down at the clipboard in her hand. What's next? Chemistry? That was what she specialized in after all.
…
45 minutes from now and according to her notes she has a lecture to give.
"Uaaagh! This is so boring! Why can't I just shrink a random student and just be done with it? Why I'd mess em up real good, tee-hee. That'd sure to give my kicks in."
?: "I'm sure it would, Professor Kosui."
Spinning around to find the source of the voice, the professor sees a young woman in her 30's with wavy blond hair and light blue eyes, traits which are rare for the Japanese. Were it not for society advancing at an accelerated rate, this young woman here would've been asked to leave the university building. Of course none of this matters to this young woman in a buttoned up blue business suit.
"What is it now?"
Tania smiled at the peeved professor.
Tania: "Not much. I just thought I'd drop in and say hi."
"Is that all? Well you better fucking scram then. Cocking shitheads. Can't believe I have to play nice. Were it up to me I'd shrink them all down and I'd coldy play with each of their fucking lives."
Tania: "Oh you sure would, but those days at the Society are over, officially speaking that is. By the way, I didn't just come here to chat. I have a little offer to make."
"Spill it."
Tania: "My, my. Temper temper, Kosui."
Hearing this, the professor pulls out a FN Five-seveN. Tania just smirks.
Tania: "Go ahead. Shoot me, I don't care. I have plenty more of me's out there."
"So you would, Dr. How long's it been that you've taken that body?"
Tania: "20, but don't worry. I've already gathered for myself several more husks to fill with me. Ain't I so kind?."
The professor rolls her eyes.
"You're just an annoying parasite who steals other people's minds and replaces them with your own."
Tania: "Isn't someone jealous? Loosen up Kosui. Why do you have to be so prissy?"
"I do know how to have fun."
Tania: "The non violent kind, the one where you're violently fucking someone over."
"Or having my boys sets off an explosion at the local orphanage. Fffbahahaha! Now that was a real kicker."
Tania rolls her eyes.
Tania: "I bet it was. Can't say it was the same my underlings. Do you have any idea how troubling it is to clean after your mess?"
"Pfft, the hell should I care? And you're saying that I'm the one who has no sense of fun?"
Tania: "Your sense of fun is deleterious. At least try to show some restraint."
"Nah. That's what your goons are for, aren't they? You just keep cleaning and I'll keep my lips sealed, capeiche?"
Tania sighs.
Tania: "If you're going to blackmail me, at least do it with something of substance. If the existence of my Foundation gets leaked out, then the current condition of the Society will be as well and in addition you will be hunted down and let me tell you. You may have gotten ridden of one pest but you certainly will not get past the rest. Do not try us and keep a low profile."
"Ugh! Such a killjoy. Fucking whatever."
The professor storms off to the lecture hall while Tania heads off her own way, to the 2nd basement. She comes upon a hallway and after taking a few steps is skipped across space as she activates a Spatial Distorter.
Location: Lecture Hall
"And so by isolating the uranium isotone from the remaining isotopes in the substance, we are able to get enriched uranium. One method by which we do this is by applying a strong constant magnetic force to…"
Right now the professor is explaining about a method of isotope separation to generate enriched uranium. It is a process that is based on nuclear magnetic resonance, one of 3 methods discovered so far to separate isotopes from one another in a substance, the other 2 being based around by atomic weight and differences in chemical reaction rates produced by differing atomic weights. She then goes on to explain the various uses of enriched uranium.
Finally after 45 minutes the lecture is over. The students pack up and start heading off on their own. As for the professor she sighs, for right after this she has another lecture to give. Picking up her water bottle she chugs it down and prepares to look over her notes one last time. In 15 minutes and other 45 minute lecture will begin and after that…
"So as you can see, despite being so much smaller than I am at only 2 cm tall, my tiny assistant is way more susceptible to cancer than I am, or he would be if it wasn't for the advancements of our technologies. For a time we've noticed that as the smaller you get down in scale or more accurately, the less cells you have, the more prone to cancer you become. Larger animals such as whales are found to be more resilient whereas mice and other little critters have a higher rate of getting cancer. For a time we called this Peto's paradox and naturally this paradox still exists yet with the help of science, this little feature of nature is nothing more than a thing of the past, though not exactly. My little shrinky here is about as susceptible to cancer as I am were we to be put on comparable scales, a thing that is notable an improvement from before."
A female student's hand raises up. Groaning, the professor calls out.
"Yes, Miss Natalie was it?"
Natalie: "This technology that makes our shrinkies about as sucesptible to cancer as we are… does it also reduce the rate of cancer overall? See, I have a boyfriend and I was wondering…"
Ah yes. This student. Her boyfriend had undergone the process of enlargement, of gigantification through a size altering device, for here there aren't only giantesses but also some giants. After all, the technologies which were used to enlarge people weren't restricted based on sex. You just needed to have a lot of money, social prestige and connections. That or you could simply steal one of those devices but if you were caught…
"No, this bio-stabalizing phenomenon which we discover and have created a device to accentuate upon can only work upon much smaller creatures than we are. So far we haven't found a way to expand its scope to much larger beings, not that it really matters since your giant of a boyfriend is already less prone to cancer than we are already. The same however cannot be said of radiation poisoning. For that I'll have you all look at a 1996 UNSEAR reporting of the acute lethal dosage levels of radiation for various taxonomic groups. UNSEAR stands for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation. You'll find that susceptibility to radiation poisoning isn't a matter of just size."
Another 45 minutes. Her lecture is done. Packing up, the professor leaves to retire for the day.
Location: Hidden Laboratory
In a hidden, underground facility buried and constructed deep beneath the earth, lies one of the Society's laboratories. Stepping out of the Spatial Distorter, a young news reporter strides in. As she walks to the front and only entrance to this laboratory, she finds that she has laser pointers focused on her. Snipers, robotic ones to be exact. Smirking, Tania is not in the slightest even concerned for her life, though no. It's not Tania who has no concern whether this body dies or not. After all, Tania is just the name of the previous owner of this body whose mind has been supplemented with another's though for the sake of simplicity and to hide their true nature, the being posing as Tania will just go by Tania for now. Only their closest associates and underlings will know the truth, that and whoever discovers it.
Stepping up to a retina scanner, Tania stretches out an open palm.
…
Overriding Access. Welcome back, Head of the Foundation.
The same usual greetings, so metallic and bland. Were they in charge of this place, they wouldn't be so boorish as to come up with such a simple greeting, but that was just how the Advanced Sciences Societies ran their things. Walking through a few corridors, Tania finds what she is looking for.
Society Prisoner 1: "Help us!"
Society Prisoner 2: "You've gotta save us. She'll-"
Tania: "Calm down, calm down. Relax. I'll help you alright."
Saying this Tania walks over to a console board, flips a few switches, takes out a vial in one of her front pockets and inserts it into the machine. Coldly looking them into the eyes, Tania watched as numerous shrinkies bubbled up and exploded. Of course she couldn't just free them. That would jeopardize her true identity.
Tania: "See? Just as I said. Everything's okay for you now. No more senseless torture."
Of course there would be no more senseless torture. They were all dead, killed by a deadly concoction and their splatter remains were all that were left. With a flip of a switch, the bodies of the deceased shrinkies were chutted towards an all encompassing meat grinder. Professor Kosui may have been a lot of things, nasty things and she certainly wasn't the type to waste an opportunity to be needlessly cruel. This specialized contraption of hers was designed to mince up the remains of her slaves, apply various chemicals and feed them right back towards her remaining prisoners. Forced cannibalism along with inhumane experimentation. Reaching into her back pocket, Tania pulled out an important item and with no fanfare tossed it into the professor's meat grinder.
Clank
Clank
The machine stuttered to a halt, giving the contents of this machine enough time to touch the object which was now obstructing the machine from working any further. As the pieces of shrinky guts touched this foreign object, they began to meld together, not to the object stopping the machine but to the nearest splatter remains of their fallen comrades. Vaguely taking on humanoid shapes, these tiny husks started growing patches of skin, hair and pairs of eyes until it was as though they never died.
Tania looked down at the machine. Reaching into her front shirt pocket she pulls out a device and attaches it to the machine. Then, reaching down she grabs the item that she had thrown inside along with as much as the guts and remains of the deceased shrinkies that she could. She had missed some of the husks which had formed as the result of directly touching the object which had been thrown in and as a result of them no longer touching it, they collapsed back into what they truly were, splatter remains.
Tania: "Well that should be it for now."
Tania removes her device from the machine, hits a button which then disposes of the vial she had used earlier. Having accomplished what she had set out to do here, Tania leaves via the same Spatial Distorter she had used to come here.
