James, Amy, Mia and Eric walked into the house. The fire earlier had tripped the house power breaker, causing the air conditioning to shut down. As result the house was extremely hot and stuffy.
James asked Eric and Mia to sit in the living room.
"You two have gotten your self's into a very dangerous situation. Why on earth were you messing around in my lab when you KNOW it is off limits?"
Eric and Mia just sat there silently, staring at the floor.
With adrenaline subsiding, James was beginning to become very angry.
"Do you understand that I've probably lost my job because of this?" He began to pace back and forth. His face getting red and sweat forming on his forehead. "Not to mention that you could have been hurt, or maimed or even killed!!!!"
"James?" Amy said softly and pleaded with her eyes for him to calm down.
He looked at her with red eyes and ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. "Ok...look. Most importantly you are not dead. This situation isn't great, but I'll try to find a way to make it better and your Mom and I will come up with a plan."
"You guys go up to your rooms" Said Amy "Your father and I need to talk"
Mia stood and her mother hugged tightly and kissed her on the top of her head. Amy noticed some grey hairs and flakes of dandruff on Mia's now red headed scalp.
It was strange for Mia to be a little taller. Where she used to be smothered by her mothers bosom she now found her face pressed against her mother's chest with her mothers breasts pressed against her neck, with her own breasts mashed against her mother's stomach. She stepped back and looked up at her mother with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry mommy, I'm so sorry" she said.
Amy wiped a tear away from Mia's middle aged face. Up close she could see the wrinkles around her eyes, worry lines across her forehead. Her former brown eyes now a light bluish green, with short eyelashes looked so sad. Full lips replaced Mia's thin ones above a more prominent chin, a different freckled nose, wider and longer replaced Mia's tiny button one between two ruddy, fleshy cheeks and higher cheek bones. Amy stared at her, looking for anything that might have remained from the little girl who had stood right here in this same living room just hours ago, but there were none. If she passed her own daughter on the street she wouldn't recognize her now. Amy began to spiral into despair. If nothing changes, Mia has lost roughly 38 years of her life and Amy won't get to see her little girl...her little "Mini Me" grow into a woman. She pulled Mia close again and held her tightly. She pressed her lips against her head again. The smell was gone, the smell every mother knows. All gone.
Amy looked at Eric and directed him to stand up. "Come here" she said waving him over.
Eric stood and feeling self conscious as reality continued to settle in. He shuffled over, desperate to not make any movement that might cause the breasts on his chest to move. A small trickle of sweat rolled down his upper stomach from under the left breast before being absorbed by the t-shirt that was stretched taught against hiss skin by his belly and hips.
Eric was pulled into a hug, and like Mia he was taken aback with his new physical status. He had not had to look up to his mother since he was 12 and at 13 a growth spurt put him above her height at 5'9. The feeling of flesh mashing against his mother's stomach was disturbing so he immediately pulled away. His mother's eyes looking sad a longingly into his.
Amy studied Eric's face, it was exactly the same as Mia's....in fact she doubted no two people on earth could look so alike. From the grey hairs, freckles and the wrinkles all the way down to a tiny pimple on the side of each of their noses. She felt a different kind of sadness for Eric. Going into his senior year of High School, the future was bright. He was smart like his father and he had already been accepted into a good College but had decided to forgo starting this year at the University and decided to stay in High School so he could graduate with his friends and play one more year of football. Like Mia he has lost so many years and he may never get to be a good dad and husband the way his father is. Instead, he like Mia faces going forward in the rest of his truncated life as a middle aged woman with no real life lived. It wasn't fair.
James came over. "We'll find way kids, I promise"
"It's not fair" Amy whispered.
Eric stepped back another step. Standing next to his dad, his new stature even more uncomfortable now that the initial fog of everything had worn off. He had been the same height as his father, just over 6 feet tall. Now, looking at...and up at his dad he felt dwarfed, as if he were looking at professional basked ball player...like standing next to the tallest human being he had ever seen in person!
Eric shook his head. "Nnnnnnooo....no...I can't do this" he said and turned to run up stairs. This turned into a bigger challenge than he could imagine.
"Eric!" James called
Eric ignored him and hit the stairs running. Breasts bouncing painfully, but he didn't care. He just wanted to run...run away.
He got to the bottom of the stairs and made an attempt skip the first two stairs, something he did regularly. The attempt ended in failure as his new, shorter and weaker legs collapsed, he let out a squeak as he tripped and the breasts hit hit the staircase first, then the rest of his body followed, smashing them into carpeted landing and ending with his cheek bouncing off of the stair.
Amy gasped and James grabbed her arm "Let him go" he said softly.
Eric adjusted the glasses he wore and hefted himself up one leg at a time with the aid of the stair railing. His legs were shaking as if he had just finished a workout on the leg press. Not looking back he took another ill advised attempt to just run up the stairs but while his brain was willing, this older, shorter and weaker body just was not. He fell again, humiliated, and out of breath, he kicked off the flip flops and trudged up the remaining stairs one at a time, holding on tightly to the handrail. Reaching the top, with thighs and calves burning he caught his breath. Hands on soft, chubby knees he bent over, heart racing, and feeling like he would throw up. Sweat rolled down his face, dropping on to the lenses of his glasses, keenly aware of the breasts with their heavy weight tugging downward from his chest as they swayed freely.
He looked back down stairs where Mia, mom and dad were standing. Mom had a horrified look on her face and Mia, now wearing a pair of glasses was trying hard to now fall down laughing.
"What!!!" Eric said with as much indigence as he could muster between breaths. He reached up and wiped a lock of hair that had stuck it self to his eye from his face. He stood, took a deep breath, and continued to his bedroom thankful that he was able to keep from crying until now and slammed the door with tears running down his face.
Amy looked at Mia. "Don't laugh at your brother. Just go up to your room, I'll come see you in a few minutes"
"OK mommy" Mia said. She might have made the same mistake Eric did, but Mia, a quick learner saw the troubles Eric had and went up stairs taking it slow and easy. It was more difficult she acknowledged but at least she had not made a fool of herself like Eric did.
James and Amy walked into the kitchen and sat down. James pulled out his cell phone and called his lawyer friend.
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"...OK Sean I'll see you soon. I can't tell you how much we appreciate this." James said as he ended the call."
"I can't believe they can do that!" Amy exclaimed
James sighed "It's intellectual property and patent law, so as Sean said, according to the "Law" they can but it's not going to come to that. I agree with Sean, that if we go public with this....the perception will out weigh everything. The public will not tolerate that a human, no matter his or her circumstance can be "Owned" like a seed of grain or corn because of it's proprietary genetic makeup.
Any nodded. "Probably right...I just wish we knew for sure." She said.
"It's going to be a circus" James said
"Kids won't be happy either" said Amy
"I can't blame them." James sighed
James reached over and held her hand. "We'll get through this"
Amy looked upstairs "And what do we do about them?"
James gripped her hand tighter. "I need to get that AC working and I'll sort through the lab, see what I can salvage"
He stood and kissed his wife on the head and went into the garage.