“We should head back and meet up with Steven,” Cindy sighed as she looked at the two infants on the floor. I was flabbergasted by this decision, we couldn’t just leave Carolyn by herself here. “We can’t Cindy,” I exclaimed. “We can’t just leave these two here by themselves. Besides, what’s Steven going to say when we show up without his wife or worse show up with his infant wife.”
“What else can we do,” she groaned. “The antidote isn’t here. We can’t stop this and we can’t stay here. I don’t know what else we can do.”
In the brief time I had known Cindy I had never seen her so downtrodden, the girl looked on the verge of tears. She had obviously placed all her hopes in finding a cure in this lab. Now those hopes were dashed and she was left with a guilty conscious, knowing she had turned a friend and an enemy into helpless infants. I realized then if anyone was going to help her, it would have to be me. “Okay Cindy listen,” I said slowly. “This isn’t your fault okay. Right now though we can’t just go back to Steven. We do that we’re going to regret it and worse, we sentence Steven to the same fate as these two. Do you really want to do that?”
Cindy sadly shook her head no, the last thing she wanted was to put more people in harms way. “I didn’t think so,” I said. “Now think. We not have an antidote but their has to be something we can use. Maybe a temporary solution. Something to help Carolyn and Steven until you can figure out a cure. Do you have anything like that?”
Cindy paused for a moment as she began to think. I watched as her eyes lit up, a look of concern crossing her face. “Yes,” she said slowly. “But it’s dangerous and it would only be temporary. I still need to come up with an actual cure.”
“Okay tell me what it is.”
Cindy sighed as she now approached one of the tables in the lab. Climbing up onto a chair she picked up two vials of blue liquid. “Well before the accident we were trying to develop a reversal serum,” she said. “These two right here are some of the prototype versions of it.”
“So it’s a cure then,” I stated. Cindy shook her head no as she gazed at the two vials. “No it’s more of a progression serum,” she said. “It counteracts the regression serum but it has some drawbacks.”
“What are the drawbacks,” I asked tentatively.
“The serum is incomplete,” she said. “That means it will only restore a portion of a persons age. I would of suggested this but considering our condition the serum won’t do much. Even if it restores some of our age we would find ourselves growing younger again relatively soon after taking it.”
“Do you think it would help Carolyn and Ellen,” I asked. Cindy nodded as she looked at the two girls. “Yes,” she whispered. “But once again it would only be temporary. I might be able to restore them to young adulthood but with them being in close proximity to us they would return to infancy once more. It might take a little longer this time but it would remain the same. Plus, there’s a side effect.”
“What side effect,” I asked warily.
“Unfortunately the reason we abandoned this serum is because of mental degradation in subjects,” she stated. “Basically what we observed is the subject beginning to have younger brain functions after repeated exposure to the serum.”
“Sonwhat does that mean exactly,” I asked, somewhat confused.
“It means the person starts to think and act younger the more they are exposed to it,” she said. “If we injected ourselves with it we would be okay for awhile. Unfortunately we would begin to grow younger again, perhaps more slowly this around. To remain adults we would need to keep injecting ourselves. Unfortunately it would start to affect our mental state, repeated exposure would mean we would begin thinking of ourselves as younger than we are. We would perhaps age up on our first exposure to our late to mid twenties, keeping our mental facilities intact. We would still continue to grow younger though, meaning we would have to rely on the serum to remain adults.”
“How many times could we take the serum,” I asked.
“By the fifth or sixth injection is when we would begin to experience problems,” she said solemnly. “The serum would no longer be as effective. Instead of our late twenties we would be in our early twenties. We would also begin to see mental degradation. For example, I’m in my 50s usually. Once the mental degradation begins to set in I would think I was in my early 40s. I would forget everything that I learned or accomplish past that point.”
“Would the same thing happen to these two?”
Cindy nodded solemnly as she gazed sadly at the two infants. “I’m afraid so,” she whispered. “That’s why I didn’t want to use this. Right now they’re only physically infants. If I use the formula enough times on them they would become infants mentally as well. I can’t do that to them. Not even to Ellen.”
I went over to Cindy, placing my small hand on her shoulder as I looked up at her. “Look I know you don’t want to do this but we’re running out of options here,” I said. “We need to come up with an antidote. If we age the three of them back into adulthood and explain the situation to Ellen she’ll have to help us. With her help maybe we can come up with an antidote befor it’s too late.”
“I doubt Ellen Hardy will help us,” Cindy huffed.
“It’s either help us or be stuck in diapers,” I smirked. “I think she’ll be more than willing to help.”
Cindy sighed, nodding in agreement. Our options were limited and trying to fend for ourselves at our current stature was a near impossibility. Grabbing two hyperdermic needles, Cindy filled them with the serum before injecting the two infants with it.
I watched in wonder as the two infants began to grow up once more. Carolyn rapidly left infancy, swelling into early than late childhood inside her dress. At first stunned, young girl pulled her disheveled dress around her in order to maintain her modesty as she grew up once more. “What happened,” the teenage said groggily as she adjusted her disheveled dress, her legs and bare feet slowly extending from underneath the dress. As her transformation completed we could see Carolyn was once more a young woman of perhaps 27.
Ellen’s changes were just as stunning, as well as comical. The chubby infant grew in her oversized lab coat into a chubby child, complete with puffy cheeks. As she entered her later childhood years we watched as the girl began to slim down immensely before becoming a thin teenage girl. Ellen continued to age her skinny legs eventually begging to fill to the former adult proportions before becoming a plain looking woman of 27 once more. “How,” She rasped. “How did you do that’s? Did you finally find the antidote?”
“No Ellen I didn’t,” Cindy said sternly. “I found the prototype progression serum and used it on you.”
Ellen’s eyes went wide as she angrily glared at her 8 year old rival. “You did what,” she exclaimed. “Damn it you know that serum is ineffective. Why the hell would you use that on me, you know what the side effects are.”
“Yes Ellen I do,” Cindy said sternly, narrowing her eyes. “Which means you really don’t have much of a choice in the matter. If you don’t want to end up in diapers and thinking Sesame Street is the greatest show in the world, your going to help me develop a cure.”
Ellen bit her lip as she studied her adult body. She knew she was stuck. The serum she had been given wouldn’t last more than a day or two as long as she remained around Cindy. Even if she somehow got away and could avoid Cindy’s contagious regression she knew the serum wouldn’t last forever. The serum was a failure, which is why it had been abandoned. She knew that even escaping from Cindy the serum in her body would eventually begin to mentally regress her. She right now remembered everything in her career but in perhaps only a few months she would find herself mentally back in her 20s. All the research and experience of her adulthood would be wiped away, she would be starting over from scratch. “Damn it,” she huffed. “I’ll help you come up with a cure.”
Cindy smiled as she watched Ellen adjust her I’ll fitting clothes on her young body. As I watched the three of them gather up additional serum to regain their adulthood as well as other chemical to manufacture a cure I wondered what exactly would be in store for us in the future.