Scott decided to start making plans. After thinking on it long and hard, he had decided to start planning out himself going missing.
But first, he needed the boy's DNA. He went up to the boy's room.
"The Boy!" he scoffed.
His plans involved him becoming his own step-son. He hated the idea, but it was the only one that would work. People tend to look for missing kids much harder than they do with missing grown adults. Even if said adult was a respected scientist like Scott was. And besides, he thinks Angela, his wife (and soon-to-be-mother....UGH!) Would be much more heartbroken at losing her son than she would be at losing her husband.
Meanwhile, he could maybe work on a way at freeing the boy. ("I gotta stop calling him that. "The Boy." I'd hate to be called that, and that's what I'm about to become.")
At least, he hoped he wouldn't lose his current intellect and become a barely literate 6th grader. There was no telling whether the original brain would be intact ir not. They've only started going into the testing phases, and was able to change a mouse into a worm. But, desparate measure and all of that.
The boy looked like his mother. Not quite as Hipanic-looking, but he did have her soft chocolate brown eyes, unlike his own sharply intelligent steel blue eyes. The boy's hair was always messy. He had soft, brown hair, and the messiness somehow worked with his cute, tan, face. Unlike Scott, who had blond hair, and a nicely-trimmed blond beard.
The boy's father died when he was a baby, and he met Angela 6 months later. He's been with them for the past twelve years, and so, he baturally thinks of him as his own boy. And the boy thinks of him as his own father. He knows his father is dead, of course. And sometimes asks questions. But he obviously never knew him. He only ever knew Scott. The father was Italian, and his mother was part Hispanic and part French. And so, the boy looked like a mutt, with faintly Hispanic features. He was a cute boy.
"I can't believe I'm going to turn myself into a kid, " he thought, as collected his DNA sample ftom *his* "new room." A string of brown hair on his future bed. A bed that he'll be sleeping in starti g tonight, should all go well. Just a stupid cheap twin bed, rather than the nice, expensive King-sized bed he sgared with his wife. "Mom," he had to start reminding himself.
He also decided to rumnage through the boy's....his...dresser for some clothes, that way he woukdnt have to march through the house naked in case of bad timing with Angela home.
Man! He couldn't belueve he was goung to end up having to wear this small shirt! And the jeans! Size 14! But he had to shrug off the indignity. With the sample and the small clothes in hand, he went back to his lab to cook up the mixture that would overwright his own DNA.
It took only just an hour. Angela came home, and shouted down that she was going grocery shopping.
"Ok, hon! Have fun!" he shouted up at her.
He knew she always took at least an hour. They got it down to three minutes to turn s mouse into a worm. He was sure it would take longer for a grown adult. But hopefully not much more than an hour. It would be awkward to be caught halfway between man and boy. And he knew he wouldn't want to be caught in this basement as Harry.
"Harry, " he scoffed. "I'm about to be called Harry."
Meanwhile, the real Harry was in the corner unknowingly eavesdropping against his own choice. He'd rather be outside running around in the setting golden sunlight. But this old corner will now be his new home permanently, and listening to his father muttering to himself was the closest he was ever going to be alive, and was the best form of entertainment he was going to get.
"What does he mean, he's about to be called Harry?" thought Harry. "Does he mean me!?"
Scott's mixture was finished. He held it up, and said:
"Well. Here goes nothing!"
He tipped it back, and swallowed.
Almost immediately, he felt heat spread out from his insides. Not quite like after drinking a stiff drink. This was different! And the heat kept rising, and startes to spread throughout his body!
This was something they knew about. When turning a more nassive creature into a smaller creature, the excess mass would be "burned off" as heat energy. Which is why he was afraid of losing his intellect, as his brain would reshape itself into that of a 12 year old. Worse, into that of a "normal" 12 year old.
While Harry wasn't stupid, he also did not possess the genius-level of intelligence of his step father. He was also older than most kids in hus class, but that was thanks to being a mid-July birthday kid. He missed the cutoff date for signing up when he was five. He was several months too young. So they had to wait until he was 6. So now he's older than half the kids in his class by at least a half a year. So now Scott, the well-respected genius-level 35 year old scientist, was about to turn into a 12 year old boy stuck in the 6th grade.