SUPERGAL (part 1) Andrew Sievert 1995 Melissa smiled broadly as she glanced at herself in the full length mirror along one wall of the gym. The young woman who smiled back at her was nothing less than a physical phenomenon. Standing at well over seven feet tall, she was absolutely enormous. Shoulders larger than many of those that graced professional powerlifters were above a relatively small waist in comparison. Below, trim hips and muscular thighs, striations running almost an inch deep, ran down to her calves, which could technically be termed in the cow category. Her outfit, a spandex top and briefs along with tennis shoes, barely covered her and left absolutely no doubt as to what she looked like underneath. If she did not know for a fact that they were size XXXX large, she would be certain that she had purchased something too small. Turning, she glanced back over her shoulder to examine her back, ridged and rippled with muscle structure and development that would have made many a Mrs. Olympia jealous. Flexing her bottom, she watched it surge and tighten up, grinning wickedly all the while. Facing front once again, she put her hands on her hips and pushed her elbows forward in a lassitimus pose. Her back assumed a massive triangular formation and her chest tensed up, bringing her best assets, behind aside, to the fore. Perhaps the only fatty tissue left on her body, her breasts did not match the ripped appearance of the rest of her body. They jutted out from her, filling her halter top to capacity and then some, nipples pressing hard against the fabric. For all their size they did not sag or droop in the least, resembling beachballs for all their sphericality. Twisting one arm around and placing her palms together, she squeezed hard, forcing her chest out even more. With a pinging rip, stitches started to give along the side of her spandex. Surprisingly enough, although her body almost radiated power, her face was extraordinarily beautiful. Hair so black that it was almost violet, normally shoulder length, lay pinned back by a terrycloth headband. Blue eyes of almost luminous intensity presided over delicate cheekbones leading down to full lips. Reaching down to the floor with sinuous ease, she picked up an unencumbered free weight bar. Twirling the forty five pound staff of metal lightly across her fingers, she placed one hand at either end, and slowly started to twist inward. The middle bent with a quiet crink of material pushed beyond its limit only a few seconds after she started, but that was not enough. Carefully, so as not to break it, she tied the resisting iron into a rough approximation of a pretzel. Holding it by one hand and tilting it upward, she admired her handiwork. Laughing, almost chortling with glee, she tossed her impromptu artwork over one shoulder and lunged for her bag. A few moments of rummaging and she came up with a Beretta 9mm handgun. The sleek black pistol looked tiny in her hands. Pointing its muzzle at one hand, she winked at herself in the mirror. The gun coughed, a tinny noise in the large room, and Melissa blinked from the barrel flash. The gun joined the metal pretzel on the matting as she examined her hand closely. There was no mark on her. The skin remained as unblemished as if she had never fired. Glancing down, she idly moved the bullet, crushed as if it had struck solid rock, about with one toe while flexing her hands. It had worked. It was a total success. A quiet ping was heard as a small recessed light started to flash above the door. Melissa reacted with businesslike acumen, kicking the barbell and the gun under her bag. As the door handle turned, she reached into her mouth. "Dr. McLearan?" An older gentleman, distinguished in a reserved sort of way, stepped in. Assuming a formal stance, he continued. "You wished to be informed if there were any word of those hooligans at any of your companies' facilities again. There was just an attack on the Shipping department at Fifth and Waterchess." "Thank you, Edward. Anyone hurt?" Edward looked over, then averted his eyes. Reaching out into the hall, he pulled in a chiffon terrycloth towel and tossed it towards her. "Exercising in the nude again, I see. I really should know better than to come in here before checking. No, no one was injured. They did do a great deal of damage however. The shareholders are furious and there is an emergency meeting of all department heads next week, Tuesday at nine." Wrapping the towel about herself, Professor Melissa McLearan, head of the particle physics research institute at CheckMate Industries (Motto: The Last Word In Technology) and also the youngest woman to ever head such a department, smirked up at her houseman. "Now Edward, you wouldn't be denying me my little pleasures, would you?" Edward snorted softly. "Perhaps if you ate more, all the time you spend in here would put a little meat on your bones." Melissa smiled again, turning in front of him. Barely coming up to his shoulder, she was somewhat on the thin side, barely exceeding one hundred pounds. Rather unprovoking curves met his gaze, but that was to be expected from one of the foremost quantum physicists in the country. That slim body housed one of the most acknowledged brains in the field. "Care to go a few rounds with me, Edward? I promise to be nice!" "No, ma'am. I still have the bruises from last time. I and judo do not get along." Edward squinted across the floor. "It appears you left your apparel earlier. Shall I clean up?" "No! I... I mean I'll take care of it. I'm old enough to clean up after myself." Melissa grinned nervously, a trifle too broadly, but it could not be helped. "Very well. Oh yes, Director Huron gave a personal call. She suggested quite strongly that you make an appearance at the meeting." "Thank you Edward. I'll be down in a bit." Frowning, Melissa watched as he closed the door. "Director Huron, hmm?" she muttered, tossing a small block of plastic, still damp from her saliva, up and down in one palm. She scooped up the tank top and briefs with the other hand, noting that the top alone could easily cover her now. Grasping the block between her thumb and forefinger, she held it up to the light and traced by eye the tiny circuit paths visible there. "Director Huron'd be most interested in you, my little friend. Oh yes." The entire start of this was all very vivid to her, almost as if it had happened yesterday instead of nearly a month ago. "This is absolutely incredible. Doctor, if you don't get the Noble Prize for this I'll be quite surprised. Do you realize the potential here?" Director Huron sat back slowly in her chair. Gimbals adjusted quickly to her shift in weight and the corinthian leather creaked softly. In front of her, spread out across her marble slab of a desk, lay reams and reams of test results, examinations and studies. Information scrolled past on her computer monitor, ignored for the time being. Dr. McLearan shuffled her feet slightly, feeling somewhat out of place in the opulent offices of the third highest person at CheckMate Industries. Money went through here, a lot of it. It was apparent. Even with her status, McLearan knew she was one of many. What made it all the more startling was Director Huron's appearance. Standing taller than many men and with a rangy wide shouldered frame and her perfectly coifed auburn hair, she would look equally at home on a Paris fashionway as she did in a business suit. Yet here she was, one of the most well to do women in America. "Of course you realize we're years from a practical test," McLearan commented. "Even though this hasn't been run on anything over a single celled organism yet, I felt you had to be made aware of what the possibilities were." "I had some idea of what you people were up to from the preliminary reports, but I had no idea you were so close to anything." Huron glanced up. "What made you come to me with this now?" "Well," McLearan grew even more uncomfortable. "Truthfully, I didn't know were else to turn." "Is there something wrong?" "I believe there's a security breach." Huron paled slightly. Dr. McLearan could understand that. She worked in one of the most secretive places in the country, outside of military bases and the space stations. If there had been an infiltration it could only be of professional level. "After substantial review of the records of the accelerator and the dimensional arpeture centralization unit, I believe they've been used at unauthorized hours. The problem is that there is absolutely no record in the computers of any of this. The only thing I've got is an inordinately large block of memory freed up for some sort of processing at all sorts of strange hours." "Have you informed anyone of this?" When McLearan nodded no, Huron continued on. "Good. If someone is actually getting in, then security might have a defector or two on it. Don't tell anyone. I'll start my own investigations." Dr. McLearan sighed and slumped her shoulders, surprised at the tension there. Ever since the night before when she had noticed the discrepancies while working late she had been in a state of constant tension. After gathering up her materials, she headed for the door. The smile that had been on Director Huron's face slipped as if it had never been there once the door was closed. Punching a few recessed buttons on her desk, turned her chair and watched a cleverly concealed side door slide open. "Brooke, Andrea, Tiffany, get in here." Even though the hidden door matched the deco of the office and was several inches higher than normal the three women who stepped through had to duck in order to enter the office. Each of them towered over Director Huron, even if she had been standing up. The first, Brooke, was stunning at over seven feet tall. Looking like something out of a beach magazine she padded in on bare feet. Her only covering was a silvery like wrap that just managed to cover her smooth frame. Andrea had to duck further than the others, being inches taller than a regulation basketball hoop. A rather average face with carefully permed short brunette hair was more than made up for by an exquisitely curved body. Muscle layer on muscle layer rippled down, although she still had a very feminine outline. Broad hips and a voluminous bustline made up for her stockiness and it was not until close up that it could be seen that her bicep was larger than the average waist of a normal person. The same wrap as on Brooke graced her body. Tiffany was the most surprising of the three however. Not only did she have to duck to enter the room with her height, she also had to turn sideways to get her truly magnificent prow into the room. Combining the svelte outline of Brooke with the rippled muscularity of Andrea ended up with an incredibly overendowed young lady. Her red hair was carefully pinned back in a ponytail with only a few strands to flip forward over her emerald eyes and generous features. Unlike the wraps on the others, she was stuffed into what had to be a custom made blue leotard. Even allowing that, a great deal of cleavage was exposed. Stretched almost beyond recognition across the front was the logo "Bigger is Better!" in neon red. "You heard." Huron's question was stated so flatly that it became a deceleration. "She's the one who designed that system." Andrea gestured towards the computer. "Even with your access codes as head of the department, I don't think I'll be able to keep her out of her own setup for much longer. As is, she's suspicious that I've been on sick leave as long as I have." Huron shrugged that one off. "You can't report back to work as her secretary looking like that. No, your spying days on Dr. McLearan are over. When you discovered that she had accelerated her project far beyond what we thought possible and reported it to me was the end of your previous position. How are your tests going?" Brooke spoke up. "They're phenomenal! You wouldn't believe what we've been able to do. Andrea took a direct hit from a wrecking ball down at the scrapyard and wasn't hurt at all! Best estimate without an accurate scale of measurement is that we're all capable of lifting weights in the forty ton range, although Andrea is a lot stronger than either of us. If we keep within the mind-muscle link neural limits, I think all of us, and most especially Andrea, will be in the several hundred and perhaps even a few thousand ton range within a few more treatments." "Can you exceed the neural limitations?" Brooke frowned thoughtfully, her lips pursing in a moue. "No, I think that would be quite unsafe. Too much increase would exceed the brain's capacity to cope with the increased strength and endurance. All we'd be able to do was sit and twitch as nerve endings misfired. It wouldn't be fatal, but would result in a very large and immobile individual. Not exactly what you had in mind, is it. With a little more practice outside..." Huron dismissed the idea with a short chopping motion of her hand. "We can't afford any of you being seen. There's rumors enough with you driving down to secluded areas for your experiments. I don't mind all the little costumed vigilantes here in New York finding out about this, but we can't run the risk of any real superhumans finding out too early. Turning her monitor, she clicked a few keys on a pad. "I'm moving up the operation. I need to be made head director within a month if we want to have continued access to the generator. Without that you three would be back to normal within a matter of days. If we time this right I'll have an army of impossibly large and strong women within six months. After that, the sky's the limit." "What about Dr. McLearan?" "Don't worry about her. Even if she discovers something and takes it to the police we're good to go. I have several very incriminating documents that seem to indicate she's been embezzling from the company as well as committing various illegal and highly unethical experiments with her generator on unborn children. While she's in jail trying to get that taken care of, we'll be able to round up her family. That will provide sufficient leverage to keep her quiet. Who knows, if we're careful, we might be able to bring her in on this of her own free will." Andrea shuffled her feet. "Um, I was wondering..." "Yes?" "When are you going to undergo the treatment?" Huron blinked. "I hadn't really thought of it. Our plan calls for you acting like independent operatives against this company, so I don't want to be seen with you. Any reason I should undergo it?" "Yes," Tiffany finally spoke up, placing her hands on either side of the desk and leaning forward. Even though her elbows were straight her breasts nearly touched the desktop. "There's one very simple reason. It makes you feel... unstoppable. You won't understand us until you do." Unnoticed by the four women, the main office door slowly slid shut with a quiet click. On the other side in the deserted secretaries office stood a pale and shaken Melissa McLearan. Slowly straightening her glasses, she walked off towards the lab section, trying to look nonchalant. Fifteen minutes later while sitting in front of a massive monitor and triple keyboard array, she turned on a small tape recorder. "In case of my death or disappearance this tape will give clue to what is going on. My worst fears have been realized. Not only have all my notes and research been plundered, my project has been taken out of my hands and accelerated to the Nth degree. For safety reasons the first human test subject for the Arpeture Merge project was not planned on for another three years. Although I am locked out of my own files, I can put together a pattern. Essentially, what I have tried to create here is a reliable method of providing superhuman abilities against the increasing activities of such in the world today. Ever since the first powered individuals showed up during world war II there have been attempts to do this. Where others have failed, I appear well on my way to succeeding. What my process does is create a wormhole gate to another dimension of my own discovery within a host body. The benefits of this are tremendous. The energies of this alternate dimension provide fantastic strength and mobility as long as the arpeture is maintained by the computer. Increased height and mass are the most common results. Any kinetic force against the host is largely transmitted through the arpeture into the next dimension, so when coupled with the increased physical toughness makes the host almost indestructible. Apparently Director Huron is a bit more aware of my advances in this field than I had thought. Not only as she exposed three people to the process, one of them my former aid, she also has managed to isolate me from my own computer, the only way of shutting them down. Its processing power is now devoted to them alone. I am afraid that my process is about to be perverted. Instead of selective police officers and military individuals receiving this treatment, it seems that Director Huron has some sort of ulterior motive. I may have just handed her the keys to her own personal power trip." With a click of her thumb, she turned the recorder off. In the next few weeks, McLearan's thoughts proved to be true. Her workspace was shut down for some sort of contaminant leak, never fully explained. Shortly after that attacks began on various subsidiaries of CheckMate by assailants unknown. All that could be conjectured were that the burglars were women, blatantly so, and knew exactly what they were looking for. Millions of dollars vanished in short order, the criminals eluding the police with almost contemptuous ease as well as leaving a broad trail of injured and mutilated security guards in their wake. On a more worrisome note, a strange series of murders had started in the local area. Men with a record of abuse had started to turn up dead, beaten to death by what appeared to be a rather large murderer, judging from the bruise marks left on the bodies. No witnesses were ever found, and after the third corpse had been found castrated the media had applied the nickname 'the bobbit basher' to it. Shortly after that several of the local costumed vigilantes, mostly non powered although a few were low delta class, the lowest superhuman category, had started to show up in the same condition. These attacks as well as the seeming inability of the heads of CheckMate to stop it incensed the shareholders. There was a very good chance of the president of the company being asked to resign. With a little fast talking and some influential backers the next in line was Director Huron. At first McLearan intended to take everything to the police, but Huron's threats made that too dangerous to contemplate. Without being able to cut the three giantesses out of the process, it was too risky. There was only one thing she could do. Her own home system, although far beyond the reach of anyone who was not a millionaire with an extensive background in computer design, was nothing on the Cray supercomputer she had been using at work. It would have to do however. The process worked remarkably well, and with the added improvement of a location transmitter that she could turn off and on by simply removing it from her mouth, she was ready and willing to take on Director Huron and her flunkies. The real problems lay in two stages. One, she had to take out the three women so that her family would not be threatened. Two, she had to do it in such a way or so quickly that suspicion would not be raised. Considering how badly Huron wanted what amounted to superhuman criminals it was a sure bet she had numerous normals at her disposal as well. Now that she was ready, all that was needed was a time when the henchwomen would be making an assault. This proved to be the most difficult thing to figure out, a fact that was endlessly frustrating to McLearan. Able to puzzle out intricacies that had puzzled the greatest minds of humanity for centuries, and she could not even emulate the abilities of a common detective. All too soon the Tuesday meeting rolled around. As nominal head of her department, even if it was inactive, McLearan had to attend. She steeled herself for several hours of dry and uninteresting arguments on how CheckMate's present crisis should be treated as well as who might be best suited to lead them out of it. Director Huron had been pressing hard for the rest of the company to take up her stringent security measures. From the outside it seemed to be working, considering that none of the divisions under her had suffered any serious losses.