Mary studied her changed form through her newly acquired additional disembodied vision. The enhanced visual acuity let her examine herself with both speed and ease she would not have otherwise been able to. She quickly came to the conclusion that there were no discernible changes to her physiology beyond the growth of 2 additional body segments. Mary considered it highly likely that whatever DNA had been spliced into her was of the many legged variety, possibly a millipede or a centipede.
She recalled seeing a centipede in one of the terrariums on one of her earlier trespasses into her Dad's lab. She walked over to the wall of terrariums and aquariums and inspected the contents, which were obscured from her goop vision by their lids.
One terrarium had frogs and a sub-terrarium releasing a steady stream of mayflies. Mary was startled and let out a slight giggle when one of the frogs shoot out 2 tongues and caught 2 separate flies at the same time. Another frog turned and hopped, revealing it had 2 sets of rear legs. Still another frog had a second set of eyes positioned on its rotund belly.
Wow, Dad's been busy. I wonder when he started doing DNA or genetics editing.
The next terrarium had 2 tarantulas. One raced around the floor as if in a constant state of panic. It moved faster and faster and quickly became a blur. About a second later the blur faded to reveal a web had been spun and the tarantula was resting in the center. The other tarantula was much more lethargic in its movements... Alongside the inside of the vertical glass front of the terrarium. Its 10 legs slowly moved as it walked on the vertical glass as though it was flat ground. Mary shook her head and quickly re-counted. Yep, that spider had 10 legs.
Ugh, creepy crawlies. No wonder Dad's never invited me down here to see them. Wait.... I thought tarantulas didn't spin webs.
A little spooked by the super-sonic and the extra-crawly spiders, Mary's focus moved on to an aquarium. The bottom of the aquarium was covered in starfish, all with the same flowery pattern on the back. A piranha-like fish (possibly a piranha) dived down near the bottom of the tank and its toothy maw opened. A second toothy maw darted forward out of its mouth on a tentacle-like appendage and bit an arm clean off one of the starfish. The inner maw dropped the remains of the starfish's arm and retracted into the larger toothy mouth, at which point the fish retreated and hid in a cluster of seaweed.
Oookay, piranha with xenomorph mouths. That's about as scary as an actual xenomorph.
Mary stared in a mix of horror and awe for a couple minutes. The crippled starfish didn't even bleed when it lost the arm and seemed to continue to move along the bottom of the tank. Perhaps more weird was the severed arm kept moving. After watching for nearly a minute, Mary noted that the crippled starfish had started to regrow the severed limb, and the severed arm was simultaneously growing out into another starfish.
Soylent Green levels of bizarre there. "Infinitely replenishing seafood" sounds great but the reality is... Yikes.
The next aquarium had a jellyfish and an octopus. The jellyfish floated near the top and lightning sparked constantly between its tendrils. The octopus seemed unfazed by the electrical discharges happening in close proximity. 2 of the octopus's tentacles reached for Mary. To her surprise, instead of stopping at the glass they passed right through the glass as though it didn't exist. Mary let out a shriek and jumped back in surprise. The sudden motion convinced the octopus to skitter backwards and hide inside a model shipwreck. Several of its tentacles spilled through the model and continued to shift about in plain view.
What the hell... Did that octopus really... Through the glass? Jeeze, that's some X-men shit right there.
Mary carefully re-positioned herself in front of the next terrarium, and ensured that her extended body was not within tentacle range of the prior aquarium. In the terrarium were a few snakes - a garden snake that split into 3 about halfway up its body and had 3 heads, a boa constrictor with a head at both ends, and a viper with 2 jaws and 2 pairs of eyes on its weirdly symmetrically oversized head. All 3 (or more?) snakes lazily lounged in the heat lamp's focus on the terrarium floor and tree branches. Mary refrained from tapping on the glass, fearing that something might surprise her in a terrifying manner.
This just gets more and more freaky. I really hope you aren't up to something bad, Dad.
The next terrarium housed a strange lizard-shaped mirror. Mary shifted a little and looked at it curiously for a few seconds before realizing what it really was: a chameleon with its color-changing camouflaging cranked way up: What the chameleon saw was what its skin looked up, down to incredible megapixel level of detail. Mary waved a hand past the chameleon and marveled at how she could see her own hand displayed in remarkable detail on the chameleon's skin. Suddenly the chameleon turned a jumble of bright colors then vanished entirely. Glancing to the side, Mary saw that a miniature komodo dragon had emerged from a small cave. Despite appearing to be a fully grown komodo dragon, it was only about 9 inches in size, but it moved with a remarkable speed. It approached a bowl with some meat in it and on making contact with it the bowl suddenly shrunk to 1/10th its previous size. The komodo dragon ate a chunk of meat before turning and walking back to the cave. A few seconds after it lost physical contact with the food bowl, the bowl suddenly expanded back to its original size.
And more crazy X-men shit. Or maybe that's Ant-Man. Oh I hope there isn't some crazy ant colony in here too...
The next terrarium was smaller and had a stag beetle that seemed intent on rolling a round and strangely smoothed ball about 6 inches in diameter in laps around the floor of the terrarium. The ball didn't seem to be made of the material Mary expected, and instead looked to be made of leaves and dirt. As it rolled, a clump of dirt came loose and revealed a dull but very clearly crystalline gemstone composed the majority of the ball's interior. Mary was so distracted by the stag beetle's strange object of affection that she almost missed the centipede. It looked weird - instead of the usual earthy colored exoskeleton it had a peachy coloration. Its many legs were also much thicker than Mary expected, and they only had 1 joint. And near the end of the leg was an odd armor-like growth that seemed to come out of the leg but only protect its outer edge. It was also far longer than Mary thought a centipede should be - at least 2 feet long. She didn't bother trying to count its legs, there were well over 100.
In a moment of inspiration, Mary realized... The centipede had human DNA. Her human DNA. Its exoskeleton had been replaced by skin. Its legs had turned into toes.
So this was the thing that shared the teleporter with me last night, huh. It might have gotten the worse end of the bargain... At least I still look primarily human. It just looks like... a weird pink thing with a couple hundred toes. That's super weird.
Mary opened the terrarium lid and transferred the altered centipede to an empty terrarium where it would be alone. While handling it, she confirmed that it did feel like it had human skin instead of the hard carapace she half expected.
Satisfied that she had found the insect that was responsible for her altered physiology, Mary took a moment to think about her next move.