“No, Jen! Go on and intern at Horizon Industries! They’ve got the latest tech, you sure won’t be doing busy work!” Jennifer grumbled to herself as she put yet another toy into the replicator.
Granted, the technology itself was really cool stuff--prototype cloning but in a different way. The idea was pretty simple, since matter couldn’t be created or destroyed, the ray simply converted something from one form to another. You put something in the replicator, fired up the beam, hit a target, and poof! Perfect copy.
There were only two problems. The first was that she had to keep her hair in a ponytail behind her head, to ‘avoid contamination’. It was standard lab procedure, but Jennifer had hoped Horizon Industries had moved beyond those archaic techniques. But that was a minor quibble.
Jennifer’s real problem was that since the company was unwilling to test on anything organic, she had to test out the replicator on a bunch of toys, working on simple things at first, then gradually getting more and more complex.
She’d started earlier last month doing a batch of a hundred teddy bears. Then after that came simple nutcrackers, then toy soldiers. Now was her fiftieth or so jack-in-the box. It wouldn’t be so bad if Jennifer didn’t have to reload the chamber manually after each one. They wanted her to test the hundred replications using a set of five different jack in the boxes, each one painted differently and with a different tune.
She’d put one in; fire the beam; then test the new toy. Every time. And even though all of the songs were slightly different, a human being could only take so many renditions of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ until they went completely mad.
Jennifer looked at the toy she was loading yet again--sample number three. This one bothered her the least--it was exactly like the jack-in-the-box from the movie Elf, so at least it gave her some nostalgia. It looked perfect, right down to the silly clown painted on the box and even the little mechanical cackle it made when it popped up.
“Well, here we go again, number three.” Jennifer sighed, putting the yellow and blue-garbed toy in the loading chamber. “Firing in three, two, one.” She tapped the big red button on the replicator, and the machine slowly whirred to life, firing a golden laser at one of the plastic targets.
As usual, it worked perfectly--the beam bathed the polycarbonate brick in a golden hue, its shape changing to match number three’s. After a minute or two, the beam clicked off, leaving a perfect jack-in-the-box down range.
“Whee.” Jennifer muttered disinterestedly, yawning as she jogged over to the little toy. She bent down to pick it up, her back popping as she did so. “Ugh, I really need to talk to H.R. about what this is doing to my spine…” Jennifer sighed, looking over at the other jack-in-the-boxes on her table.
She’d build up quite a stack, even making a game of it. At first she had stacked them like a leaning tower, but that seemed like a bad idea. Now, she’d come up with ‘Toy Curling’. Much like the real sport, Jennifer had taken to sliding the toys to see how close she could get them to the stack. She had gotten pretty good at it, too.
“All right, try number twenty-seven! Jennifer, star of the Women’s National Team. is the current deliverer. Aiming to shoot, for the win...” She wound back, clicking the toy shut in her hands as she set it on the ground. Then, with a gently play of her arm and a flick of her wrist, she sent the copy of number three skittering along the floor to join its brothers.
Jennifer beamed--she’d really gotten the hang of this! It was going, going, aaand… With a quiet clack, the box clicked against the table leg.
"And it’s a hit!” Jennifer punched her fist in the air, still smiling as she cheered herself. Then the stack of toys on the table wobbled a little, and her smile turned into a frown. It looked like her precariously perched playthings were finally losing their balance.
“Oh, that’s not good…” Jennifer mumbled, wincing as the stack fell with a series of clacks, off-key notes, and popping springs. Great; she’d need to redo that batch to hide her little slip-up… She made it a step towards the replicator when she heard a loud whirring.
Jennifer’s eyes widened as she stared at the big red button: one of the toys had sprung just right, had been at just the right angle, had been perfectly high enough--all to land on the trigger that she’d failed to lock down.
Before she could even squeak in surprise, the replicator fired at the only target down range: Jennifer herself. The beam bathed her in warm, golden light and Jennifer gasped in distress, her mouth freezing in a small ‘o’ of surprise.
It was a bizarre feeling--like dipping into a warm bath, yet everywhere the water touched was turning cold and numb. Jennifer stared as her jeans and shoes started to take on a blockier appearance, square and hollow. Her shirt became half-gold; half-blue, with little red frills at the cuffs and collar. And worst of all, her skin was turning a numb, hard plastic.
Jennifer tried to call for help, but her face didn’t seem to want to work properly. Instead, all she was able to do was to wave her arms, bouncing slightly up and down on her legs in a vain call for the camera’s attention. Her hair pulled up as she continued to bounce, strawberry-blonde locks turning a darker shade of yellow, pulling up her head to become a little jester’s hat. Her ponytail split into two little pigtails, which in turn became a red point and a blue point atop the golden fabric.
The rest of Jennifer’s face went numb, and she shuddered as her cheeks tingled, no doubt turning a rosy red like number three’s. Her fingers flew to her face, the plastic clacking against plastic as she patted herself down. She couldn’t even feel an inch of her own skin, and Jennifer stopped her frantic waving in shock, patting the rest of her body down.
All the while, she continued to bounce, her legs apparently having twisted into a spiraling spring while she was preoccupied with her painted cheeks. Jennifer looked down to it in aggravation, reaching her hands out to the corners of her pants-turned-box to steady herself. Then she started to shrink.
Becoming smaller was an utterly alien squeezing, her entire body compressing like it was just a little too small to contain her. She wobbled unsteadily as she became smaller and smaller, her box seeming to expand so that it could fit her entire body and its music player.
Jennifer frantically tried to wave at the air again, to impossibly pull herself through the air and keep herself from getting any closer to the ground-to keep her from shrinking. All that did was set her bouncing once more, with renewed vigor.
On the bright side, she didn’t feel a bit of nausea. Some part of her subconscious affirmed that this was probably because she lacked an inner ear--a realization which made Jennifer flail all the more frantically. She didn’t want to be a toy! Especially not a jack-in-the-box, with a little handle and sounder.
Then the beam released her from its grip, leaving her at a diminutive foot tall. Jennifer tried to wiggle her arms again to signal for help, and much to her relief her attending engineer, Kathy, burst on scene.
“Jennifer!” The older woman exclaimed, her cheery face twisted with concern and disappointment alike. “How in the hell did this happen to you?” She knelt down, checking her intern’s body. “Are you still in there?”
Jennifer started to nod; then realized how the motion could be mistaken for her insistent bouncing. Instead, she hurriedly made an ‘okay’ sign with both of her hands. Much to her relief, Kathy broke out into a relieved smile, albeit a slightly confused one.
Then, much to Jennifer’s dread, a small twinkle came into Kathy’s eyes. Jennifer recognized that look--it was the same look she had when Jennifer had come up with the idea to test more and more complex toys.
“This is huge, monumental even!” Kathy exclaimed, her hands scooping up Jennifer’s box. The engineer pulled her intern closer to her face, inspecting the girl’s changed body eagerly. “We’ve somehow managed to create a DNA-altering machine that doesn’t lose the subject’s identity!”
Jennifer would have blinked in surprise if her face wasn’t frozen. Instead, she waved her hands ‘no’ angrily, making chopping gestures that would leave a football referee green with envy.
“No?” Kathy smiled, that twinkle persisting in her eyes. “Well, I’m sure legal will find something in your contract that lets us keep you--hopefully forever! Until then, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice, little toy.”
As she spoke, she cupped her right hand around the top of Jennifer’s box, pulling it closed. There was a soft thump as it pressed against the girl-turned-toy’s head, and Jennifer tried in vain to press against it with her tiny plastic arms. Of course, she didn’t have nearly enough strength, and the lid sealed with a loud click, pitching Jennifer into complete darkness.
Jennifer screamed silently, trying to wiggle her arms enough to free herself. Then, a loud clinking filled the air, the dinging of musical tabs being struck by her box’s turning gears. Outside, Kathy had started to sing along, making the nightmareish situation somehow worse.
“Round and round the Horizon lab, the laser changed Jennifer. The laser stopped and Kathy came, Pop! goes Jennifer.” The engineer giggled as the latch in Jennifer’s box released, bursting the girl out with a mechanical giggle. Only instead of number three’s cackling laugh, this giggle sounded exactly like something Jennifer would have made were she able to talk.
“Oh, that is just precious!” Kathy cheered happily. “By the way, do you like that? I just came up with it on the spot!”
Jennifer bounced irritably, waving her arms to try and steady herself. Once she realized it was a futile cause, she settled for her last recourse: flipping Kathy off. Jennifer realized her mistake almost immediately when a teasing smile spread itself across the older woman’s face.
“Now now, that wasn’t very nice.” Kathy spoke with a small smile, cupping Jennifer’s lid once more. “I’d say that you deserve a little time-out.”
Jennifer waved her arms again, but once more it was too late, and her lid forced her down onto her spring with a loud clicking. This time, no musical notes sounded to free her, and Jennifer started to panic as she realized she’d be spending anywhere for the next few days to the rest of her life as a toy--a little ‘Jen-in-the-box’.