Before my astonished eyes, I saw the nine year-old Dr. Laurel Stone physically age. Ten, then fourteen—years in seconds.
Then, very quickly, it was over. Lauren was left with the body of an adult woman, a very young woman, but still … No, I revised that opinion. She was a teenager, on
the cusp of womanhood.
The shirt—it must have been a man’s—completely covered her body. Still, I could see … shapes, shadows, underneath it—and she had a very pretty, in fact, beautiful
face. It would have put ideas into my head, if I hadn’t been stuck with the body of a preschooler.
She stared at her own reflection in the mirror, in shock—then confirmed my supposition. “I’m eighteen again,” she said, half in shock, half in wonder. “Or nineteen, at
the most.”
“Yeah, about that. I don’t suppose you could get whatever zapped you to that age to work on me—could you?”
She looked at me quizzically. “I don’t even know what I did—but, I suppose, if you like, I could aim this at you, and start whacking it like I did before.”
That didn’t exactly appeal. There was no way of knowing what this crazy machine might do to me. Of course, being stuck in a three year-old’s body wasn’t exactly
fun, either.
In fact, the more I pondered what it would mean for me, growing up all over again …
The more I realized I would take any risk to avoid it.
“Do it,” I said through gritted teeth.
She gave me another, doubting look—but she aimed the remote-thing at me, and gave its side a whack.
At that first smack, the remote beeped. I held my breath as …