Dangerous Science

Chapter 4
Just Desserts

This was the last position Penelope Glassman wanted to find herself in. She had worked hard for years to reach such a pinnacle in her career. At age twenty-nine she had made it to the top of the food chain at the NIH, the pre-eminent government medical research body. Of course she hadn’t made it that far by playing nice. It was a dog eat dog world in Washington DC. It was a world of power players, political alliances and espionage. But somehow she had always come out on top, at least until this moment.

The Defence Intelligence agent she’d called over to help her out hadn’t proved as dumb and malleable as she’d thought. Somehow she’d misjudged him at the lab a couple weeks earlier. His refusal to help her gain test subjects from Gitmo ruined all her plans. Despite her claims to the contrary she had no other means of obtaining test subjects with no real rights who could be easily discarded. Her whole plan to make a name for herself beyond the NIH rested on the cooperation of someone in the Pentagon, and it seemed she’d picked the wrong patsy.

When Penelope lost her temper and tried to slap the recalcitrant secret agent things had taken a serious turn for the worse. She found herself strapped into her own trap. The chair was designed to self activate to prevent subjects from easily escaping once they realised the real purpose of the treatment. As soon as her weight closed the electrical circuit the machinery activated. As she heard Rick looking for the release button a new sound broke her concentration. It was the gentle hum of white noise. At the same time the electrodes on her temples warmed up. She knew that was bad.

When Rick called out to her to describe the button, there was nothing she could do. Already her mouth wasn’t responding to her commands. She was aware, but unable to speak. A fuzzy haze was already beginning to spread through her mind, clouding her thoughts, leaving her confused. She tried to fight it, tried not to let it happen. If she could only hold on a few seconds Rick would locate the button and free her. She couldn’t let this happen to her! She’d seen Sara and knew all too well what would happen if she wasn’t freed soon. All her work, all her struggle to achieve power and prestige, it couldn’t just be undone like this!

Penelope felt warm tingling spreading all through her and she knew it was already happening. A part of her was curious, excited to know exactly what the process really felt like. After all, only a test subject really ever got to know what it felt like to have their brain drained, and they would left unable to explain the sensation to anyone else. Part of her was actually excited at experiencing something so few people would ever have chance to feel themselves, something secret.

Those thoughts didn’t last long. The humming kicked into overdrive as Rick stepped back before her with his hands in the air. “I can’t find it!” he declared, frowning.

Penny wondered what it was the strange man couldn’t find. He seemed to know who she was, but she had no memory of him. What was she sitting in and why couldn’t she move? Was he forcing her to be here? He didn’t seem mean or angry, just confused. Maybe he was trying to save her from something. Penny just didn’t know. She felt so fuzzy, so lost. Her head lit up with pleasure. It was bliss, it was pure euphoria. Penny loved the sensations of pure happiness radiating through her. They made her moan, her eyes rolling back in her head.

The funny man was gone now. He gone back to push at buttons. He still talking but Penny not listening no more. Penny feels so silly, delightfully mischievous to be strapped in this special seat feeling pleasure. She knows she’s done something very naughty, but she isn’t sure what. Penny likes the way her muscles feel. They’re relaxing, loosening. Her jaw goes slack, she gazes off into space as her eyes glaze over, her vision blurring. Penny feels sooo good.

The restraints on her arms and legs release and Penny finds she can move again. That’s so much fun, so lovely! But the buzzing, the tingling continues. The thing on her head is still warm. She doesn’t move away, she loves the pleasure pulsing into her from it. Penny feels little now, so much littler than before. Her head is all empty, all airy and big cuz of the pretty lights and tinglies filling up the space where big thoughts were before. Penny thinks about all the things she likes. Ponies and unicorns, dolls and sparkles and fairies. And then these thoughts become hard to hold onto. The images in her mind seem to distort and blur. She can’t picture them anymore. Ponies and fairies disappear. She can’t recall what they were. Then the words are gone too. Just like that, poof, gone. What was Penny thinkin’ ‘bout? She don’t know no more.

Penny pulls her legs up and grabs at her feet. She likes her feet, they’re fun to touch and the toes are all wiggly. She makes tinkles and that feels so nice. She likes doin’ tinkles, but she’s not sure if that’s a big girl thing to do. Part of Penny still wants to be a big girl. But a bigger part of her wants to keep feeling the tingles, wants to relax and let her head go all nice and empty till all that’s left is pleasure. Penny likes tinglies, Penny likes footsies. Penny thinks stuff get fuzzy-wuzzy and she like that. She like... pweety stuff an’ big person with funny face. She like wigglies awll nummy-num... bababageee...

**

Rick punched at the keys on the control panel desperately. Once he’d seen the glazed over eyes and slack expression of Dr Glassman’s face he knew the machine was actually on and her mind was being turned to mush. He wasn’t sure if the buttons he pushed were making things better or worse, but he just knew if he found the right one she’d start making noises again. He just had to find it soon.

A minute passed as he searched for the right control. Then finally, mercifully, the sound of the machine powering down came after he pressed a sequence of buttons. Rick didn’t care why, he was just happy he’d succeeded in stopping the machine. He hurried around the chair, noticing even from the back that the restraints had indeed released the doctor. The fact that she wasn’t screaming worried him though.

Stepping around the front of the chair Rick’s face fell. The doctor was curled up in a fetal position, feet pulled up to her face, several toes on her right foot jammed in her mouth, slurping away at her tootsies, drooling down her chin. She gazed up at Rick with wide, innocent eyes. There was no anger there, no fear, just innocent wonder. But there was also no comprehension behind those eyes, no intelligence. It was the dumb look of a baby, of a silly little infant who liked to explore her feet with her mouth.

Rick felt her cheek with his hand. “Guess we’ll be needing some more diapees, huh?” he said to her.

The former doctor didn’t respond, only blew a raspberry around her toe and then scowled as she began pushing a load of poop into her pants.

“Yep, looks like we need a diaper for you right away,” Rick nodded.

A few moments later Rick exited the lab room back into the nursery, carrying Penny in his arms. Sara, still sitting in her high chair, had been quite pleasantly surprised to see another big baby emerge from the other room clearly naked but for her diapee, cradled in the big nice man’s arms, hair done up in pig-tails. Like all infants she liked to look at other babies. She could tell from the soft babbling and the spastic little kicks the other woman’s dangling feet made that she was also a baby. But the real surprise came when Rick turned around to shut the lab door. Penny’s chin was resting on his shoulder, wetting his shirt with her slobber. Sara instantly recognised the face of her mommy, or at least the woman she’d come to think of as mommy. Why was mommy a baby?

Rick swung Penny around, privately enjoying the feeling of her body nestled in his arms. She was so loose now, like a warm little rag doll. But his shoulder was already starting to feel disgustingly wet and he knew she might flood or mess her diaper any moment, so he decided to set her down on the floor. Sara’s big innocent eyes were locked on the new ‘baby’ and she banged her messy hands on the tray of her high chair, eager for some attention.

“Yes Sara, you have a new playmate,” Rick told her, undoing the tray and scooping her up by the armpits.

Sara just gaped vacantly at him as he lowered her to the floor right in front of Penny. He was curious to see how the two former scientists got along, what they’d make of each other. They each settled on their diaper-padded bottoms, long bare legs splayed out before them, brushing against each other’s. They stared at each other with matching curious but uncomprehending expressions, jaws slack, identical long beads of drool hanging from their chins and wetting their jiggling bare breasts.

Sara clapped her hands and feet together, babbling loudly at her former mommy, then seeming to wait for a response.

Penny’s face seemed somehow slacker than Sara’s. Her eyes were just a bit duller, a bit emptier. She watched the other baby clap her hands and feet but seemed incapable of copying her. She waved her hands about but they didn’t meet. Her pretty painted toes wiggled and her feet flexed and twitched but did nothing coordinated. She didn’t babble back so much as coo and slobber over herself all the more. Then she seemed worn out by the effort of sitting up and she dropped onto her back, chewing on her knuckles and letting her legs kick seemingly without her realising it.

Rick observed the women playing on the floor for a few more minutes before he made any calls. He watched Sara transition to her hands and knees, crawling about on the floor, giggling cheerfully to herself. Then he watched as Penny rolled to her front side, but didn’t rise to hands and knees. Penny simply crept flat on her tummy and boobies, legs kicking out behind her like a froggy, making no more than a few inches progress before giving up and returning to playing with her fingers. Sara liked to play with her feet, pulling them back and forth and wiggling her toes. But Penny seemed absolutely fascinated with hers, like she’d never seen them before. She seemed to love jamming those tootsies in her mouth, slurping off what was left of her toe-nail polish.

Rick was certain that poor Dr Glassman had gone even further back that Sara had. He guessed her mental age to be at the five to six month level. She was incapable of crawling and could barely sit up on her own. Rolling over was the height of her ability. She played with her feet so much because she’d only just discovered they were a part of her body, she sucked on them because the only way her mind knew to explore new discoveries was with her mouth. Unlike Sara she didn’t even have simple baby words for everyday objects like her ba-ba. She was totally pre-verbal.

Kneeling down beside the creeping women Rick ran his hand along Penny’s back, taking a tissue from his pocket to wipe the drool from her chin and the puddle of slobber on the floor below it. “Ahh...oooheeeh” the infant woman cooed up at him.

“What are we going to do with you now?” he asked, shaking his head.

As if in answer Penny scowled and began filling her new diapee with poop. Rick watched the padded garment expand as she filled it, amazed by the size of the load she was unleashing. “Wow, you really are a poopy girl now, aren’t you?” he chided, not looking forward to changing her.

Penny was smiling now and before he knew it she’d rolled over onto her back, kicking her legs and wiggling her bum to squish her load around.

“Oh Penny, what are you doing?” Rick exclaimed, scooping her up by the armpits before she could spread the mess around any further.

Penny simply chortled in response.

“So you like playing with your poopy now huh? Well we’ll just have to get you into a new diapee extra fast then.”

Rick carried Penny over to the changing table, buckling the safety strap around her bare tummy. She didn’t attempt to escape, just continued spastically kicking her legs and making random sounds up at her new daddy, clearly pleased with what she’d done. Rick found a red teething ring on the floor at his feet and picked it up, placing it in Penny’s hand to distract her. Sure enough she promptly jammed it in her mouth and gnawed at it while Rick undid the tabs on her diaper. As soon as he released it the smell hit him full force. It was enough to make him cough and jerk backwards.

“Woohee! You are a stinky girl, Penny.”

Penny was oblivious to his jibes and untroubled by the stench. She was lost in her explorations of the plastic ring.

Rick balled up the messy diaper and dropped it in the bin at the foot of the table, then he grabbed some wipes and went to work on her filthy bottom. She really had spread the mess around everywhere. He lifted her legs up as best he could and started to wipe. Penny spit out the teething ring and grabbed at her feet, quickly jamming several toes in her mouth to replace the ring. Rick just shook his head and finished cleaning her up while she sucked peacefully on her toes, glassy eyes crossed in concentration.

When she was at last cleaned, powdered and had a fresh new diaper taped on her Rick was able to coax her toesies out of her mouth with some light tickles across her thighs, then undid the safety strap and let her down to the floor. With both women now in clean diapers and playing happily he decided it was time to call in the authorities.

He’d expected a few security guards, what he got was a massive emergency response. The whole lab was shut down and soon the equipment was being boxed up and carted off to some unknown storage facility. The government couldn’t allow such dangerous experimentation to continue, especially given what Rick told them about Dr Glassman’s plans for the device. It was obvious to everyone that the project had to be abandoned.

To Be Continued...