Magic Inc.
copyright 1999
By Czolgolz
[email protected]

Author’s note: The following is the account of reclusive millionaire and inventor, Howard Philips, on his founding of Magic, Inc.


It doesn’t seem that long ago, but now that I think back, it’s been almost forty years.  I was young then, barely twenty-five, but Uncle Sam knew talent when he saw it.  I had been working for the Department of Defense, devising new and more terrible methods of wasting money.  Recently I had been relocated to the nation of (deleted for security reasons), ostensibly so that I could work with greater security.  The cold war being what it was at the time, the powers that be decided that (deleted) would offer me the best security against the Godless Commie spies.

I stood alone in my office and puffed on a cigar, regarding the fruits of my labor.  Piles and piles of documents, the information which they contained capable of pulling the United States well to the front of the technological race the preceded the space race.  Years of my life were represented on those papers.  With a long sigh, I casually flicked my cigar onto the desk and didn’t turn around to the sound of the flames engulfing my gasoline-soaked office.

Returning back to my lab, I heard the squelchy sounds of the local radio station.  Reports were sketchy, but it appeared the rebels were making an unstoppable advance on the capital, where I was located.  My superiors, who totally failed to foresee the recent governmental collapse, had sent me concise instructions:

1) Destroy everything in the lab
2) Get the hell out

Destroying the lab wasn’t easy.  Burning the papers had been hard and now I had to destroy my precious equipment.  Leaving would only be nominally easier.  Since the rebels now controlled every point of egress from the country, thousands of refugees were stacked up at the border, trying desperately to flee the fighting.  I, however, was slightly better off.  For one, I had access to the governmental helicopter; that would make getting to the border slightly safer as I could avoid the marauding gangs of soldiers.  Once at the border, I could pull my ace: the diplomatic American passport that should allow me to safely make my escape.  I shuddered to think what I’d do had I not had that important document.  Weeks earlier, when the scant lab staff had been evacuated, leaving had been hairy enough.  Now, with anarchy reigning, they’d be worse.

Momentarily distracted by the panoramic view of the flaming city, I almost didn’t hear the frantic knocking at the front door.  As my mind snapped back to the troubles at hand I quickly drew my revolver and warily asked “Who’s there?”

“It’s us!” came the frantic feminine reply.  Quickly I opened the door and ushered my four friends inside.  

I had met them a couple of months ago when I was upcountry trying to secure some supplies.  They were Peace Corps volunteers, assigned to this country to help build an experimental farm that could feed thousands of starving peasants.  Their farm was ultimately dynamited by the government to prevent the rebels from seizing it.

Locking the door behind them I regarded my visitors with a growing sense of alarm.  Four young women, foreigners in this land, and totally unarmed.  What the hell were they doing here?  The last civilians should have been evacuated days ago. I thought I was the last American here.

“What in God’s name are you still doing here?  This city’s going to fall any day now!”

“We were going to leave, but…” answered Moonbeam, the strongest and most outspoken of the group.

“But?  But what?”

“But we ended up giving our documents to some local residents.  So they could leave in our place.  They would have been killed otherwise.”  She said this defiantly, almost challenging me to point out the stupidity of such a move.  Leave it to Moonbeam.  She was smart as hell, but at that period in time few people could look past her firm, statuesque frame, her thick lips, and her long, long legs.  Her goofy name didn’t help either.  After years of unsuccessfully trying to make it in a man’s world, she had joined the Peace Corps to at least try to do some good.

Still, noble gestures are one thing, but suicidal defiance of reality is another.  

“Moonbeam, what the hell are you guys going to do now?  No one gets out of here without a passport, and even then it’s kind of tricky!”

“Well, we were…is something burning back there?”

“Only my life’s work.”

“Ah.  Uh, well anyway, we were hoping you’d be able to help us.  Maybe you know some government representative who could do us a favor.”

I sat at my desk and rubbed my temples.  “Moonbeam, honey,  I’m the only government representative left.”

“Dear God!” gasped another of the volunteers.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?  C’mon Philips, you’re supposed to be the genius around here.”

There was a loud bang as a building somewhere exploded.  I felt like I had just taken a gulp of liquid nitrogen.  I was helpless; I was a scientist, not a politician.  There was nothing I could do.  I shuddered at the thought of what would happen to four pretty young American women in the midst of all this chaos and violence.  God, wasn’t there some way I could sneak them out?

Then it hit me.  The diplomatic pouch.  As a US government representative, I was permitted to take a sealed briefcase with me, unopened and not subject to any inspection.

The problem, of course, was fitting four adult women into a case that could easily slip under a car seat.  But my lab equipment was still intact, and I had a trick or two up my sleeve.

“There is a way,” I began warily, “but it’s dangerous.”  Instantly, hope shone in all their eyes.

“What did you have in mind?” asked Moonbeam.

“I’ll smuggle you out in this,” I said, holding up my smallish attaché case.  Their looks of hope turned to anger.  “This is no time to joke,” one of them snapped.

“I’m serious.  Hear me out.  I’ve been here experimenting on…er, keep in mind I could be executed for treason for telling you all this.  It’s a new method of cargo reduction.

Objects can theoretically be reduced in size for transportation, then restored upon
arrival.  A freight train could theoretically be transported in the trunk of a Buick.”

Or, more likely, an atomic bomb could be snuck into Moscow.  But I didn’t tell them that.
“So,” said one of the women, an attractive black lady named Kim, “you could fit all of us into that?”  She sounded dubious.

“Theoretically, yes.”

“Why do you keep saying theoretically?”

“Um, because it’s never been tried on humans before.”

“So this process could kill us,” said Moonbeam.  She wasn’t being judgmental, she was just stating a fact.

“I seriously doubt you’d be killed,” I replied, hoping I was convincing.  “The problem is…well, I can’t take my machinery with me.  I’d have to rebuild everything from scratch, and even if I could do that, I can make no guarantees.”

“So,” continued Moonbeam, “you could reduce us, but maybe not restore us.”

“That’s the long and short of it.  You women know the risks either way.  I’m sorry I can’t offer you something more safe.”

The women looked at each other.  Then we all dived to the ground as a stray bullet ripped through the front window.  After making sure everyone was OK, I asked them for a decision.  There was no time to lose.

“I’ll do it.”  I was shocked.  The voice belonged to Millie, the quietest, most timid one of the group.  Only now her jaw was set and determined.  “I don’t care about the risks.  I’m not going to get raped by the entire (deleted)ian army.”

I took her by the hand and looked her in the eyes.  I knew very little about her, just that she was Jewish, and originally from Colorado.  She almost never spoke in a group setting, I always figured her as too shy.  Consequently I had never paid her much attention.  But here she was, the first to volunteer for the risky procedure.

“Millie, I promise that no matter what happens I won’t rest until you are restored.”  Millie kissed me on the cheek and I blushed.  She was rather cute.  Slender and well formed, with the prettiest face: auburn hair, freckles across her nose back to her ears, gray eyes, slightly crooked teeth, and a gorgeous smile.  I quickly stopped admiring her and got down to business.

I pulled the sheet off the device that would be used to fit Millie into my case.  To the outward eye, it appeared to be nothing more than an oblong block of steel, about the size of a refrigerator on its side.  It was hinged in the middle, however.  When I pulled a release the top half swung up, revealing a featureless plane of metal that formed to top of the lower half of the block.  I instructed Millie to lay down on this surface.

I could tell she was nervous.  “It’s OK, Millie.  You won’t feel a thing.”  She smiled a nervous smile and glanced warily at the immense upper half of the machine a few feet above her.

Warning the other girls to stand clear, I walked over to the controls of the machinery.  After making a few adjustments, I activated the device.

First, there was a loud series of beeps, like a truck backing up.  “Wait!” I heard Millie shout, just before the top of the box slammed down on her with a resounding ‘clang!’
The three remaining women stood there gaping.  The bottom of the top and the top of the bottom pieces were flush with each other.  You couldn’t slide a piece of paper between them.  And yet, that was where Millie was now located.

I let out a silent prayer that this had worked.  If I had screwed up, I hated to think of what sight might await me between those blocks of steel.  At least there was no blood, that was a good sign.

I hit the release, and the five of us walked over to the platform.  The girls let out a collective gasp at what they saw, I let out a sigh of relief.

If you didn’t know what had happened, you would assume that what was lying there was a life-sized photo of Millie, with no background or surrounding scenery.  It was wearing Millie’s clothes.  Its eyes were almost perfectly round with shock and the mouth was opening, trying to form a non-vocalized syllable.  But if you looked closer, you’d realize that something wasn’t quite right.

For starters, the image was just a little too life-like for comfort’s sake.  The skin tones were too clear, the details were too sharp for any existing photo technology.  Secondly, the image had an almost disconcerting 3d effect, kind of like those flat pictures that form three-dimensional images when you squint at them.  You’d almost swear you were looking down her screaming throat or across the bridge of her freckled nose, when you knew she was no thicker than a sheet of notebook paper.

Her four friends gathered around what remained of Millie.  “It isn’t possible…it can’t be,” stammered Missy, another member of the group.  

Without further comment I peeled up Millie and displayed her to the other women.  Physically, she was more like a bed sheet than a piece of paper.  She weighed a little more than paper and was softer.  She would bend but not crease; fold, but not stay that way.  As I held her by the top of the head she billowed a bit.  Her image slightly warped as she hung loosely from my fingers.

Moonbeam gaped at her depth-free friend as the other two women searched the machine fruitlessly for some sort of opening that Millie could have slid into.  Finally, Moonbeam ventured to touch the image’s limp arm, then withdrew her hand with a scream.  “It feels like…like skin,” she said as she rubbed Millie’s limp hand between her fingers.  “Girls…Philips really did flatten her.”

The other two women gently touched Millie on the arm or cheek.  They all nodded.  Millie’s skin had the unmistakably warm, soft, and pliant feel of a woman’s skin.  They were convinced.

“She’s…alive?” asked Kim, seeming to dread the response.

“Of course.  She’s in a kind of suspended animation right now.  She’ll never age, never need food or even oxygen.  Of course, she can’t move or speak like this.”

“Can she see us?” asked Moonbeam, waving her hand in front of Millie’s unclosing eyes.
“I can’t say for sure, but I believe that she is totally aware of what is going on around her.”

Moonbeam opened her mouth to say something, but then decided against it.  Millie would be leaving the country with me.  After that, her fate was much less certain.

I laid Millie on the lab table and folded her up until she was about the size of a notebook.  I then slid her into a Manila envelope and sealed it.  

“Moonbeam, would you be so kind as to put Millie into the briefcase?”  Wordlessly, she picked up the envelope that contained her friend and opened my case.

“What do you want me to do with all these bags of shredded leaves?”

“Uh, just get rid of them.  No, not near the fire!”

That took care of one of them.  Now there were three.

I turned and looked at the remaining women.  “Who’s next?” I asked, trying to sound more confident than I felt.  I feared that the sight of Millie’s seemingly lifeless flattened figure might scare them into taking their chances with the army.  But I had underestimated them.

“I’ll go.  I’ll do it,” said Kim.  Kim, as I mentioned before, was a young black woman from Lawrence, Kansas.  Though I had been brought up not to associate with her kind, I was able to overcome her background and accept that fact that even though she had gone to the University of Kansas and I had gone to the University of Missouri, we could still be friends.

Kim was probably the bravest woman I had ever met.  Not the running into the enemy trench with guns blazing type of brave, just the willing to stand up to whatever obstacle lay ahead of her type of courage.  If I had told her the only way out was to fight the entire (deleted)ian army with an electric can opener, I think she would have lead the charge.  
Kim walked over to the flattening machine.  “No,” I called to her.  “I’m going to try something different on you.”

“Why?” she asked dubiously.  “If it worked on Millie, why not use it on me as well?”
“I er, just want to uh, try a variety of things…” I replied lamely.

“You mean,” Kim interrupted, “that if you can’t reverse the effects of one of the machines, then only one of us will be stuck that way, instead of all four of us.”
“Russian roulette, more or less.  Are you game?”

Kim nodded.  I motioned towards my next piece of equipment.  It was an eight-foot tall glass cylinder, whose base was a large machine with a crank on the side.  I wheeled a stepladder to the glass structure and asked her to climb into its open top.  Soon she stood inside her glass cage, hands pressed against the transparent surface.  “OK?” she called.  “So what do you have planned for me?”

“Well, first, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to disrobe.”

Kim looked down her nose at me as only a woman can.  She had such a pretty face: big brown eyes, a turned-up nose, medium length black hair…it’s not that I wouldn’t have liked to see her nude, but I really did have a serious reason for my request.  I told her as much.
Kim sighed and began removing her shoes.  I felt a little embarrassed and turned my back.

 “Okay Philips, I’m ready.”  I turned my head.  There she stood, almost proudly, and not a stitch of clothes on.  I could see how a certain type of guy would get turned on at the sight of her dark, gorgeous young body trapped there in my reduction device… Well, anyway, it’s not like I could see anything.  She was covering her breasts with her hands and someone, I suspected Moonbeam, had taped several pieces of paper to the front of the cylinder, blocking my view of her lower private regions.  I moved towards the machinery.

“Hang on there, doctor.  Is there anything I should know first?”  

I looked up at her, trying to keep my eyes on her face and not her appendix scar and what lay below it.

“Just stay calm and don’t panic.  You’ll be fine.”  I flipped a switch on the machine and the bottom of her cage filled with CO2 smoke, obscuring her feet.  I gave the crank a turn.
Kim seemed to grow shorter by about an inch.  In reality she had sank about an inch into the haze that obscured the bottom of her container.  She yelped, but stayed erect, still covering her nipples with her hands.

“Are you OK?”  I asked.  “No pain?”

“I’m fine.  I just can’t feel my toes.  What’s going on?”

So it was working.  I continued turning.  Kim’s decent slowly continued.  Soon she was gone up to her knees.  Her vagina was no longer obscured by the paper hung in front of her, but I was actually more interested in something else.  Every time I turned the crank a few grains of chocolate-colored powder would fall into a glass jar attached to the underside of the machine.  By the time her stomach had vanished there was nearly half a pint.  The other girls noticed what Kim was changing into, but tried not to look, out of fear of alarming her.

Soon, all that was left was her head.  “Wish me luck girls!” she shouted as she vanished.  The women hollered out their best wishes.  “And Philips…” she called, but she was too far-gone to finish what she was going to tell me.

Eventually my continued cranking failed to produce any more of the dust that had been Kim.  I removed the pint jar and affixed its lid.  I held it up to the light and gave it a good shake.  The jar seemed to be filled with chocolate powder, a dark substance as fine as dust.  Moonbeam carefully took the container.

“So, you ground her up?  You powdered her?”

“More or less.  I’ve dehydrated her.  If we’re lucky we’ll just add water and have instant Kim.”  I wrapped the jar in a protective towel and placed it in my briefcase next to Millie’s envelope.

There was a clatter as something inside my fiery office exploded.  The force of the blast knocked the burning door the rest of the way off the hinges and smoke began to pour into the lab.  Moonbeam let out a startled gasp.  I smiled internally.  She didn’t often let on when she was startled.

I was feeling good; two reductions and nothing had gone wrong yet.  I still had two more machines capable of reduction of biological material; if either of them failed I could use one of the proven pieces of equipment.  Then I just had to fly a helicopter over the densest part of the fighting, land an airbase which was being shelled every hour, get past whatever pirates were in control of customs, and make it to safety.  After that it was just a simple matter of rebuilding my machinery completely from memory and we’d all be safe and sound.

I was about to motion for Moonbeam to prepare herself for shrinking when I stopped.  I kind of liked having her there; her forceful presence made me felt like I wasn’t the only one facing this problem.  While I knew she’d have to face reduction eventually, I decided to save her for last.

“Missy, would you stand here please?”  Missy, the penultimate test subject, had the type of body that would be popular in a few years, as soon as Twiggy and the waif look came onto the scene.  She was possibly the skinniest woman I had ever known, with tiny breasts, an inward curving stomach, and long, long legs.  She had  a pretty, though rarely smiling face, and long brown hair.  Missy was actually not an American, she was from Canada and had designed the farm that the Peace Corps had tried to build in (deleted).  Despite being younger than me, I knew she had graduated with honors from Harvard when I was still a sophomore at Old Missouri.  Her parents had refused to pay for her education, since they thought college was unnecessary for girls.

Missy stepped onto the platform I had indicated.  It was a small dais, about six inches high, constructed of shiny aluminum.  The top surface was slightly concave, with a small hole in the exact center.  Missy stood on top, her feet on either side of the dime-sized hole.

“Now please remove your clothes.  The underwear won’t be necessary, only your outer garments.”  I expected protests, but I guess after Kim’s reduction Missy knew that I had a reason behind my request.  Soon she stood there in her bra and panties, her hands awkwardly clasped behind her back.

I approached her with a bottle and syringe.  She held out her arm and I injected the highly experimental formula into her muscle.  I was very nervous.  Out of all the procedures I was doing, this one had never been tried before.

“Now what?” asked Missy.  She kept looking at her half-naked body, as if expecting it to suddenly change color or crumble to pieces.  

“Just wait a second.”

“OK, I…damn.”  Missy began trying to rub her own shoulders.  “I’m feeling stiff.”  She stretched her back, as if it were aching.

“Don’t worry, that’s to be expected.”

“B-buuuut I…” Missy’s mouth seemed to creak with the effort; her tongue seemed numb.  She tried to put her hand to her face, but she couldn’t seem to move it.  Eventually all movement, including breathing, ceased.  She stood there like a statue, one hand on her side, the other reaching up to her mouth.  She looked almost as shocked at Millie had.

Moonbeam, concerned as always, laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder.  “She’s so cold!”

“0 degrees Celsius.  That injection liquefied your friend, she’s now made of ice.”

Moonbeam glanced at the flames now licking the walls of the lab.  “But won’t she melt?”

I gestured to Missy’s feet.  Trickles of flesh-colored liquid were running from her calves, over the tops of her feet, and forming a small puddle in the depression on top of her platform.  Soon her feet and lower legs had melted away; Missy’s frozen body appeared to stand knee-deep in a puddle of skin-colored water.  I knew that was a misperception; actually the ‘water’ was what was left of her legs below the knees.  There was a slight gurgling sound as her melted body flowed into the tiny hole and into the dais.

Trickles of melting Missy ran down her whole body.  She was thinner, and lumpier, due to the uneven melting.  The extremities went first: her hands had dripped away almost to the elbows; the end of her hair had flowed away, leaving a brown patch in the rapidly draining puddle of pink; her bra had slipped since her small breasts had turned to liquid.  Only her face was basically untouched; only part of her nose had vanished, giving her a Sphinx-like quality.

She was gone up to her ribs now, her panties having submerged in the think material that remained of her lower half.  Her arms had vanished as well; she looked like Venus de Milo now.  Her head slipped backwards and before long she was just a face staring out of the puddle of melted woman.  We watched as her startled eyes and mouth sunk into the rest of her, and then waited as her body flowed down the drain.  The last of her finally disappeared, leaving only her empty bra and panties lying on the machine.

I opened a catch in the lower part of the machine and took out a medium sized glass vial, which was filled with about a half gallon of melted Missy.  It was almost hypnotic, watching Missy slosh around in her bottle like that.  I had no idea is she was aware of anything or not.  Without comment, I placed her in the case.

So now it was me and Moonbeam in the rapidly burning lab.  In another situation it would have been kind of romantic, what with the firelight and musical rumble of gunfire off in the distance.  Maybe when all this was over I’d ask her out, though I felt I had scant hope of success.  Still, the sight of her big brown eyes, muscular frame, and silky dark hair made me think it might be worth the risk.

“So what do you have planned for me?” she asked.

I showed her my final and proudest creation.  Weighing nearly a ton and taking up most of the lab, it had taken me years of planning to construct the prototype.  I gestured to it with no little sense of pride.

“What do you call that behemoth?” she asked.

“I call it a computational machine, or a ‘computer’ for short.  It is capable a doing mathematical equations that would take weeks to work out with your standard slide rule.”

Moodbeam looked at me dubiously, skeptical of my outrageous claim.  I think if she hadn’t seen my other successes she would have called me a liar outright.   I continued to brag.

“Not only that, but it can remember the information and display it later.  For instance, I could program your phone number into this input device, I call it a ‘keyboard,’ and retrieve it months from now!”

Moonbeam shook her head in amazement.  “I think I read about something like this once.  Isn’t there a machine like this at MIT?”

I snorted.  “Does MIT’s machine fit in only one room?  Does it have over 500 vacuum tubes?  I think not!  Still, that is the wave of the future.  By the turn of the century I predict ever center of higher learning will posses one.  But we should continue the discussion later.  Let me show you what I have in mind.”

Attached to the machine was a series of electrodes terminating in suction cups.  As I attached them to her temples I explained how I planned to convert her body into electromagnetic data.  I obviously couldn’t take the whole machine with me, but I could store her on one of the standard 18 and a half-inch diskettes that also held information.  After that I’d be safe to leave with the women.

The problem was, it didn’t work.  It didn’t even sort of work.  Nothing happened.  It was not my finest moment.  Moonbeam looked at me questioningly.  “Got any more fancy devices?” she asked, not completely unsarcastically.

“Nothing you haven’t seen.  I’m going to flatten you like I did Millie.”  Moonbeam obediently lay down on the pressing surface.  “Ready?”  I called.

She shot me a thumbs up.  I moved towards the ignition and was nearly knocked off my feet by a powerful explosion.  The lights went out; the lab was now only illuminated by the fire that was quickly engulfing the building.

Moonbeam leapt up.  “What the hell was that?”

I looked out the window.  “My guess is that the rebels just dynamited the power station.”
“Tell me you have a backup generator!”  Her voice was no longer calm, she was petrified.
“I don’t know how to say this…I’m sorry, no power.”

“And you can’t run your machines without it?”  I was beginning to feel sick.  I shook my head no.  Dammit, if I hadn’t spent so much time bragging about my computer I’d have been able to flatten her in time!

“Give me your gun.”

“Excuse me?”  I had forgotten about the revolver I was wearing under my lab coat.

“Give it to me.  Now,” she commanded.  I handed it over.

Moonbeam stripped off her shirt, revealing her athletic bra and sweaty torso.  “They are not going to take me alive,” she said standing by the window.  “You’ve got to go, but I’m not going stand here and be defeated.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said half distractedly.  “You can’t fight the whole army.”  My mind was racing, trying to find an alternate route of escape.

“They’ll never take me alive,” she repeated, woodenly.

“Now listen to me…” then the full import of what she said hit me.  She couldn’t fight hundreds of soldiers, it was true.  But my gun now insured that they wouldn’t get her alive.

“My God, Moonbeam, you can’t,” I moved towards her.  She leveled the pistol at my gut.

“I don’t want to hear it.  Last week a woman was brought to the hospital after tangling with a battalion of soldiers.  She died of internal hemorrhaging.  A bullet is quick Philips.  Death by multiple rape is not.  Now get out of here,” she gasped, trying to hold back a sob.  “You have to save the girls, you’re the only one who can restore them.  And if you try to disarm me, believe me I have no compunction against shooting off one of your kneecaps.”

Was that it?  Was this the end?  Could I really just leave her to end her life?  I knew I couldn’t stay, it would be inhumane to risk the lives of Millie and the others.  But I knew I would never stop hating myself if I abandoned Moonbeam.

I’ve been told that I’m smart.  Maybe it was true.  But if I was so smart, why couldn’t I think of a way to save my friend?  ‘Every problem has a solution.’  What the hell was the solution to this one?  How could I get Moonbeam out of the country with no passport?

There was only one option, and it made the other girls’ states seem normal in comparison.

“Moonbeam?” I asked.  She had been gazing out the window; I think she thought I had left.  She turned in my direction.

“Moonbeam, will you marry me?”

“THIS IS NO TIME FOR FUCKING JOKES!”  For a second I feared she was going to shoot me.
“I’m not trying to be funny.  Put the gun down.  Listen, there is a chance, and a slight one at that, but a chance that if you marry me, you can be included on my passport as my wife.  It’s better than nothing.  It’s better than…well, you know.”

“But, how can we get married?  Who will perform the ceremony?”

“Well, as the last American diplomat, I can.  C’mon, this is your last hope.  We’ll get divorced tomorrow.”

***

Half and hour later I was piloting the helicopter over the war-torn city.  Next to me sat my wife.  Handcuffed to my wrist was the US diplomatic pouch.  Without a look back at my burning lab, I headed to the border.  The fire would take care of everything I left behind.  Now all I hoped was that I could get the girls safe and 3D again.

That night I laid on my luxurious bed in my private suite at the US embassy in neighboring (deleted).  I was busy unpacking my briefcase.  There was a knock on the door.  Without waiting for a reply, Moonbeam entered.

“How’s tricks?” she asked.  I rubbed my swollen rear end and smiled.  The maniacal border patrol, upon learning that the diplomatic pouch was off limits, proceeded to search and confiscated everything I owned.  They at least could have lubricated their hands during that last body search.   Ironically, they never looked twice at Moonbeam.  I began to wonder if I couldn’t have gotten any of the other girls out via the normal channels.

Moonbeam sat on my bed and looked at what was left of her friends: Missy, liquefied in her container; Kim, reduced to powder; and Millie, still preserved in her 2D beauty.  I laid the remains of Kim and Missy on the desk and draped Millie over a chair.

“So when do you think you can restore them?”

“That’s going to be a little hairy.  With no money or funding, it’ll take some time.”

“But the government…”

“Fired me today.  They weren’t pleased when I told them I had developed nothing of interest in (deleted).”

“But…your machines!”  she stammered, confused.

“Moonbeam, if I let on what really happened in the lab, they’d confiscate our friends and we’d never see them again.  I couldn’t let the G-men turn them in lab rats.  I’m going to have to do this on my own.”

Moonbeam picked up Missy’s jar and sloshed her friend around distractedly.  “So what will you do?”

“Open my own lab.  I’ve got a bit of money saved up.  Don’t worry, it won’t be easy but I won’t stop until they are all back to normal.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Yes.  I’ll need an assistant.  Someone I can trust not to tell anyone.  You game?”

“Of course.  I…owe you a favor.”  That was her way of thanking me for saving her.

“I’m warning you, this won’t be easy.  I think I can get Kim back to normal in a week, but with no funding, the others might take years.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.  You know, there might be a market for some of your machines, once you get them working.”

“I don’t want to sell to the government.  That would be creating more problems.”

“I don’t mean that.  Have you ever thought of stage magic?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Take that trick you did with Millie.  If you could restore her it would be an excellent finale to any magic show.  I bet any of your procedures could be altered to work that way.”

I thought about it.  “You may have something there.  If I could get just one of those machines to work right I could start a magic supply house.  That would pull in enough dough to restore everyone (provided that I was smart enough to do it).”

I noticed that Moonbeam was carrying a small bag.  I inquired about it.

“I got it from the head chef,” she replied, opening it and revealing a small bottle of champagne.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Well, even though it’s a sham marriage and I’m going to divorce you as soon as I can, I figured it is my wedding night and the least I could do is have a drink with my new husband.”  She poured and we toasted each other.

“Moonbeam?”

“Yeah, Howard?”  It was the first time she had ever called me by my first name.

“Seeing as how it’s our wedding night and all, could you allow me one kiss?”

“You damn scientists.  You always ask too many questions.”

We kissed.


Reporter:  So that’s it?

Philips:  I told you, no questions.  You wanted my story, and you have it.

Reporter:  You didn’t tell me you were going to make it a cliffhanger.

Philips:  The hell I did.  Everything you wanted to know is in there.

Reporter:  Could I just ask a couple of clarifying questions?

Philips:  You may ask four.

Reporter:  Only four?  Ok, for starters, what was with all that (deleted) garbage?  You honestly can’t give us any idea where you were?

Philips:  I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you (reporter laughs, Philips looks serious).

Reporter:  OK, well what about Moonbeam?  You two ended up staying married, didn’t you?

Philips:  No, we got a divorce in Mexico the following week.  We didn’t get married for real until almost four months later.

Reporter:  OK, I guess my main question is did you ever restore Millie and the others?

Philips:  Yes

Reporter:  And they were completely normal afterwards?

Philips:  Well, not exactly.

Reporter:  What do you mean?

Philips:  And that was your four questions.  Good day.