-Bernoulli Prime, Colony Alpha-

-2186 CE, April 17th.-

-9:35 AM-

Dr. Rosalie Farrel was late to the laboratory that morning. She polished off the last of her coffee, dropping the cup into a nearby recycler and rubbing her eyes, shaking off the last cobwebs of sleep. She bemoaned the cost of long nights spent riddling out the problems she was supposed to be solving on the clock, but the gifted chemical engineer felt like she was close, damn close, to a real solution.

“Stead-E” Rosalie called out. “Review yesterday’s findings.”

There was a brief electronic chime of recognition and a glimmer of light as her holographic lab assistant assembled itself from swirling light in midair.

“Good morning Dr. Farrel!” The little AI chirped, then began to run through his daily review. “Twenty one total batches were tested on April 16th, with seventeen failures, three unstable structures and one nominal success.”

Rosalie nodded.

“Uploading some findings from last night.” She told Stead-E, tapping together a quick portfolio of the equations that had kept her up. “Cross reference them against our one successful batch and proof up a full slate of test samples for today based on what I’ve given you.”

“Affirmative, Doctor.” Stead-E’s little round, glowing avatar whizzed off to the other side of the room, hovering by the compact chemical manufacturing plant that dominated an entire room of the lab.

Rosalie took a seat at her work station and watched as the necessary data was input and the machinery enclosed behind the wide glass paneling whirred to life.

As the machine worked, Dr. Farrel reviewed her notes. The goal was easy enough to grasp: she was looking for an atmospheric additive, a form of “smart gas” that could administrate and control its own pressure through rapid decay and construction of oxy-carbide clusters based on environmental factors. It was theoretically possible, and being able to create a stable sample of it would mean a complete overhaul of modern life support technologies. Creating a livable climate in the vacuum of space was no easy thing, and if Rosalie’s programmable atmosphere actually worked, it could render entire sections of any ship’s life support suite out of date. Whoever got this gas to work stood to make millions in the long run.
“I won’t see much of that beyond a bonus.” Rosalie sighed. “It’d be nice if they named it after me or something…Farrelite? Rosalift? Suppose that’s a question for the marketing department.”

“First samples ready, Doctor!” Stead-E chirped, breaking Rosalie out of her musings.

“Thank you, Stead-E” Dr. Farrel grunted, rising from her seat. The laboratory she worked in was spacious, and kept her on her feet most of the day. It was most likely intended for a research team of at least half a dozen, but Rosalie had insisted that she worked best alone when she received her funding.

The morning passed in a blur of study and testing. Every hour or so Dr. Farrel would stretch her legs, collect another pressurized canister of gas from the clattering manufactory on the other side of the lab, and return to her battery of tests. She was still close, but “close” was miles away from “there”. The gas was responsive, it could hold its chemical structure in an open environment and (most importantly) it was safe to breathe. The problem was that it wasn’t behaving. It was either too reactive or too inert.

“Why does my gas have an attitude?” Rosalie grunted, taking a long draw from her afternoon coffee. She watched a controlled plume of her smart gas fill a glass sample reservoir. She needed to find the right peptide chain that would let her actually control it, reliably. Until she arrived at something close, it would just be trial and error.

Rosalie checked the reading on the sample reservoir.
-9.6 psi-

No good, that density was barely breathable. Gradually, she began a controlled release of her latest peptide chain.
-10.5 psi-
Better.

-14.7 psi-

Rosalie smiled. That was the earth norm at sea level. Now if she could only find a way to keep it there.

-20.3 psi-

Okay, that was getting heavy. Maybe this batch wasn’t doing the trick.

-35 psi-

Rosalie’s smile faded. This sample was getting way too dense. The gas was exhibiting over two whole atmospheres of pressure.

-67 psi-

Rosalie started, double checking the reading on the containment reservoir. The air pressure within it was expanding far too rapidly.

-103.6 psi-

It was out of control. Furiously, Rosalie hit the abort key to end the experiment, but the pressure continued to climb.

-165.3 psi-

Rosalie was on her feet, fighting panic. The chemical hood she was using was rated up to 30 atmospheres of pressure, and she was approaching the halfway point. The sample canister attached to the reservoir began to tremble slightly.

-214.6 psi-
Rosalie’s eyes flickered up to the glass of the reservoir as she heard a crackling sound. Tiny spiderweb cracks were beginning to spread across its clear surface.

“Attention Dr. Farrel.” Stead-E’s sudden announcement nearly made Rosalie jump out of her skin. “Sample pressure reaching critically unsafe levels!”

Rosalie frantically swiveled to admonish her assistant
“Thank you Stead-E, I noti-”

With a loud crack, the sample canister shot off the reservoir like a bullet, denting the desk as it ricocheted in a spinning arc across the room. Rosalie squeaked and ducked as it flipped past her head, passing right through Stead-E’s holographic form. The projected drone’s individual visual elements scattered like leaves, only for them to reform a moment later none the worse for wear.

Rosalie coughed, waving at the air with one hand as she dared to open her eyes and assess the damage to her lab. As she feared, it was minor, but crippling. The scientist bit back a curse as she projected the days of project time she’d lose waiting for necessary repairs. She coughed again and tried to smack an odd taste out of her mouth.

Then she heard the hissing.

It was a quiet, low sound that made the doctor turn around and look at the inert sample canister lying on the far side of the room. It seemed to have vented its entire payload already.

The hissing sound was still present. Where on earth was it coming from? Rosalie felt a strange bubbling sensation in her gut, and placed a hand on her trim stomach.

She bit back a burble of indigestion, and felt the tingle of looming dread settle around her. She must have inhaled the gas. It was in her now and still very reactive.

“I need to..” Rosalie mumbled. She honestly didn’t know what she needed. Her train of thought was interrupted by a sudden surge of pressure. Her hands flew to her midsection as it swelled out to meet them. Her entire stomach had distended to the point that she looked as if she had swallowed a basketball.
“Oh…oh god.” The scientist was out of her depth. “S-Stead-E, chart unexpected interaction between unstable gas and human physiology…”

 Whatever happened next, the best she could do was keep a record.

Rosalie staggered as her stomach continued to grow, pressing against the thankfully elastic material of the jumpsuit she wore underneath her lab coat. Her belly was already so large it was parting her coat, a sizable beachball that was pressing on the underside of her breasts. Her breasts. Rosalie’s hands rose from tracing the circumference of her stomach to her chest. She had always sported a modest size for a woman of her build, but now they filled her hands like overripe grapefruits and were only getting bigger.

“Oh..I uh…findings involve internalized bloating…” She stuttered, blushing as she remembered that her assistant was recording all of his. “Smart gas appears to be attempting to create equalized pressure inside of ho–in me…”

Rosalie hiccuped as her belly continued to push outwards, and she suddenly became aware of her butt straining at her clothing. Tearing her eyes away from her now basket-ball sized chest, the scientist craned over one shoulder and pawed at her backside, which was doing its best to catch up with her stomach, already twice as wide as it used to be and showing no signs of slowing.
“I can’t..S-Stead-E, initiate quarantine procedures and recommend countermeasures!” Rosalie cried out as her arms began to rest on the sides of her swelling body. Gradually her backside and torso were beginning to merge together into a single awkward pear shape. She was beginning to have difficulty seeing the widening horizon of her own belly over the twin globes of her chest.

“Locking down the lab.” Stead-E acknowledged. ”Processing request, Doctor. Please stand by.”

The inflating doctor waddled in a circle, feeling the material of her lab coat start to cinch around her shoulders. Rosalie flailed, realizing that the growth had extended to her arms. They were awkwardly stiffening like the limbs of a balloon animal.
Rosalie gulped as she watched her belly grow ever larger, completely obscuring her feet. Her thighs were becoming difficult to move. She attempted to take a few shaky steps, only to find her feet bouncing off of the ground and her massive body hanging in the air for a few moments with every push off the ground.

“Am I getting…lighter?” Rosalie winced. “How could this possibly be…”
The findings from today’s incident would certainly prove fascinating, if she were intact enough to review them.

Just the barest adjustment of her feet sent Dr. Farrell airborne. She kicked her stubby legs in empty space as her ovoid body left the floor for the last time.
“Stead-E, are you still-Mmmph!” The swelling scientist’s words were stifled as her swelling shoulders and chest rose to press against her face. Her entire head was being overtaken by her own blimp of a body. She attempted to move her arms, only to realize that they had become paralyzed with pneumatic pressure along with her legs. With a great tearing sound, the back of her lab coat was finally torn asunder by the pressure of her body, falling to the floor.

Rosalie’s body resembled an overfed starfish, her limbs reduced to widening cones that were gradually being overtaken by the huge sphere of her midsection. Even her meter-wide breasts were being stretched out into domes on her upper hemisphere, getting shallower by the second. Rosalie ascended, the floor of the lab now several feet below her.

The human balloon made another attempt to wave her limbs, as if she could alter her trajectory like an organic blimp, but realized with a start that her arms were completely gone, reduced to a pair of flailing hands that were being drawn into the circumference of her expanse. Rosalie groaned as she felt the pressure of her own body begin to swallow up her kicking feet.

Dr. Farrell's round back finally made contact with the ceiling above, the slight impact reverberating through her huge, hollow body. The inflated scientist let out a small huff. She had been “reduced” to a massive gas-filled sphere patterned with the blue and white color scheme of her jumpsuit, which still stubbornly clung to her. The only signs of her former personhood were her sunken, puffy face and the barest hint of motion along her equator where her hands and feet were embedded.

“Analysis complete!” Stead-E beeped, apparently finished its calculations. “Immediate expulsion of gas via oral eructation recommended to create a new pressure differential.”

Eructation? Rosalie felt a churning bubble of indigestion inside of her gut and realized what Stead-E meant. Belching, of course. The balloon swallowed her pride along with several mouthfuls of air as she tried to carry out the embarrassing procedure. Pressure divested every inch of her taut form, but now she felt a new turmoil building somewhere within her.

“BBBRRRRRUUUUUUURRRRRRPPPPPPPUUUURRRRR”
Dr. Farrel’s cheeks suddenly ballooned with the force of the gas passing out of her mouth. Her entire throat rattled and her insides were alight as she let out the longest, loudest burp of her life. Her entire spherical body was propelled across the room like a zeppelin, pushed along by her forceful burp. She coughed as it finally petered out, smacking the taste of her own breakfast out of her mouth, but the chain reaction had begun. Another massive burp followed the first, then another, then another. She whizzed around her lab, occasionally bouncing off the walls as her body began to shrink. Gradually, her arms began to remanifest, her legs reemerged from the vanishing orb of her body and she could turn her head against the swell of her shoulders.
Another loud burp sent her across the room, her butt impacting against the far wall and reminding her that she had one again. Her arms were back and she used them to grab at her restored breasts and still gigantic belly, attempting to keep on top of her own stomach like it was an incredibly bulbous raft on choppy waters.

Finally, her round midsection bounced against the floor once, twice, then finally skidded to a stop as gravity reaffirmed its hold on Rosalie's body. Exhausted, the scientist rolled directly off her stomach and onto her back, letting out one last thunderous belch into the air and letting her stomach shrink away, finally giving her back her original svelte body and deflating her cheeks..

Dr. Rosalie Farrel lay prone on her back, her head swimming as she stared up at the lights overhead.
“Stead-E…” She slurred. “Make a…a note of that. I guess we could call that…forward progress.”