* Close Call
The black transit bus came to a stop in front of their destination. Drew had only settled into gently riding Chris moments before, and he was just feeling the rhythem. "Awww, it looks like we've arrived already," a lilt of disappointment in her voice. "I'm sorry, Chris. I promise I won't rush next time. I'm going to finish you now." She paused, making her apology seem sincere, almost asking for permission even though she wasn't.
Then Drew's expression changed, showing a kind of sexy commanding hunger. She rolled her hips, and in three thrusts Chris felt like he had to fight to hold back a climax he didn't even know was coming. She grabbed his head and hair, and vocally writhed against him. "Yes! Ohh, yes! Right there." Her body was in a rhythm. With surgical precision she seemed to be pleasuring herself against him. "Uhhh. You feel so good." A couple more thrusts, and he came.
Drew snapped out of her sultry expression of pleasure so fast it became instantly obvious it was an act. Seconds later, she was propped on him like he was just a comfortable place to sit, every ounce of connection gone. "Wow. I think I feel it already." Her face showed genuine surprise. "Whoa. This must be it. Here it comes baby. You're going to want to feel this." With that she grabbed his hands and wrapped them onto her tits.
Then Drew's face turned sour. Chris could see her frame start to expand, but he also felt an unusual amount of heat coming from her skin. "Owww! It burns!" She tossed his hands off her and started shaking her palms. "Holy crap that burns. My tits are fucking on fire." As her shoulders rose higher, she closed her eyes and started weeping, her words coming out in staccato bursts. "Owww. No. No. Make. It. Stop." A pit sunk in Chris' stomach.
"What's happening?" Suzanne and Allison were upon them now and concerned, Drew's pain and commotion had signaled the end of their mock privacy in the back of the bus. Even in the dim light, they could all see her chest turn an inflamed shade of red.
"Ohh crap," Chris exclamed. "It's the implants. No women at the resort had implants. This must be why." He had no idea what was happening, but he was starting to worry for his own safety. Drew's legs were tensing on him through her pain, and she was getting bigger and stronger by the instant. He reflexively put his hands onto her tummy, trying to push her off, but she didn't so much as budge. "Off. Get her off me! She could crush my legs. Suzanne!" He looked to his girlfriend, the panic forcing actions into slow motion. Drew looked catatonic as they both pulled and pried off Drew, setting her on the far side bench.
With a moment to think and button his pants, Chris could see and hear a small crowd rumbling outside. He realized they must be at the promotion venue. He was impressed that a few tweets, forty minutes, and the promise of a spectacle had brought anyone out. What if Drew was hurt? This whole thing could go so terribly wrong. Could hospitals even help her? Only the resort would even know what was happening, and that was five thousand miles away. He suddenly felt stupid for being so arrogant. For using the Rashja at all without fully understanding it. Vanessa's fearful glare from the front of the bus said she was thinking the same thing.
He looked back at Drew, panting and weeping across the aisle. Her body was incredible, easily over six feet tall, her strained clothes accentuating the increase. Only the skin on her chest was still red. It looked like it was sweating. He noticed her hands were clenching the bench and heard uncomfortable sounds as her grasp tore through the laminate and bent the metal frame. Allison and Suzanne were hovering over her with concern. "Drew? Are you alright?" Drew?"
Finally she seemed to relax just a little. Her face lost its grimace, her hands eased off the damaged seat. Faster than anyone expected, the crisis seemed to pass. "I think... I think it's over." Her eyes shot a stern look of displeasure over at Chris. "You might have warned me about that." Her chest was still red, but the color seemed to be subsiding. Her fingers gingerly poked her skin, as if checking a piece of meat just out of the oven. "Holy fucking hell that hurt." Then, as she turned attention to the other changes, her face seemed to light up. Her hand ran down her thigh as she extended the leg. "At least it was for a good cause. Holy crap I'm tall. Let's see girls."
A moment later they were all on their feet. Drew was still a little shorter than her friends, but proportionally less so. The three of them were a sight next to each-other, Allison in her undersize little black dress, Suzanne in a pink ice bikini, and Drew still topless. So much of a sight, it took a moment for Chris to notice Drew's finger taunting him closer. "I'm really sorry Drew." He pulled himself up by the center pole. "I had no idea that would happen."
As he approached them it became clear Drew was now at least four inches taller than him, and the sassy smirk on her face seemed to say, 'all is forgiven'. Next to her, Allison stood a few inches taller still, and Suzanne nearly another six-inches taller than that, her chin over his head and her bikini top up at eye-level. Normally he might have lingered longer, but with Drew still topless, his eyes were elsewhere. He felt a patronizing pat on the head. "It's okay shorty, looks like everything turned out in the end." Drew cupped her gargantuan tits, the red color seeming to have finally drained out of them. "Holy crap." Drew squeezed herself firmly. "They're gone. My implants are gone!?"
There was a moment of silence, then Allison said what they were all thinking. "Uh, if they are gone, how are you still so huge, babe?" Drew was still touching and probing herself, as if trying to figure out the answer to the exact same question. As they all stared at the mystery, Chris admired that her tits appeared every bit as artificially buoyant as they were moments before, maybe even more-so.
"Ohh god." Her breasts twitched in her hands. "They're solid fucking muscle. Feel them." Chris was the last to reach them, just because he had to cover more distance. He cupped the huge side of one breast. It felt every bit as paradoxically soft and firm as it had moments ago, just bigger. Then suddenly he felt the huge muscle tense and move underneath. For a moment, it was a rock solid sphere which a firm squeeze didn't even budge, then it softened again and his fingers sank in. Her entire implant had apparently turned into solid muscle.
Vanessa shouted from the front of the shuttle. "Look people, if she's okay, we came here with a purpose." They all realized the small crowd was softly chanting. "A-ma-zon, a-ma-zon." Chris would have been happier with them chanting about pink-ice, but he could work on that. By the time they reached the front of the bus, Drew was already tying on a pink-ice bikini top that was so insignificantly small, it looked like it was being held up by her chest, not the other way around. Probably because it was.
"You ready?" Chris asked.
Suzanne lead the response, "ready as we'll ever be."
* Live Coverage Continues
"I'm Kathy Turina, and you're joining for continued live coverage of a spectacular new development in human science, as it unfolds." - In the newsroom, signals among the team placed the helicopter camera full-screen, Kathy in an inset, and titling along the bottom reading 'Downtown, 4th and A'. - "We're looking at the live feed from our news helicopter as it circles a site just four blocks away from our own RNN headquarters." On screen, a black bus sits parked close to a nightclub, outside which about a hundred people have gathered. Outdoor lighting on an ice-sculpture and a red carpet are a stark contrast against the black unlit street and buildings.
Back in the newsroom the executive producer watches a monitor where Alan Wong is still awkwardly attaching a microphone to shirt as the team performs their sound checks and adjustments. He presses a button to patch himself into Kath's ear, "stretch it. We're bringing you Alan Wong in two minutes."
Kathy hated filler. It's where people change channels and news goes to die. "Less than an hour ago, tweets suggested that Amazons will arrive at this otherwise unremarkable venue." She put in a longer than necessary pause, knowing the more she could draw it out, the less worthless verbage she would need to invent. "Surprisingly, our sources with The Protectorate tell us they are not, I repeat, not taking responsibility." Long pause. "It could be a social hoax, challenging the validity of the facts unveiled earlier this evening. However, *if* we do see Amazons emerge from the bus, it means Wendel Varden is not the only party with access to this technology."
On the cue-prompter, Kathy could see Alan's feed was finally ready. "And here, rejoining us live, is University of California Berkeley Anthropology expert Alan Wong." The out-feed switched and split to show Kathy and Alan's panels side-by-side. "Alan, you helped us digest an amazing announcement from the Protectorate earlier this evening, yet the Protectorate have denied any involvement here. Did you expect such an early second appearance of Amazons?"
"Amazon's?" Alan cleared his throat. "The history and myths of the Amazon tribes are already confused enough without this improper interjection of some modern human transformation. Current research suggests Amazon's were merely a progressive tribe whose female emancipation pre-dated the European and Asian societies by several centuries." Kathy doubted her viewers would care about any of this, but it seemed better the more worthless filler. She let him continue. "Since none of this has been scientifically verified or reproduced, I'm hesitant to call this anything other than theatrics. However, it would be more etymologically correct to call this phenomenon human stature enhancement.
"As for your question, at the moment I merely see a parked bus. However, it is quite common in science for techniques to be developed independently by multiple parties at nearly the same time. This happens because inventions are not isolated events, but are built on the backs of our entire body of scientific knowledge. For example, the wheel simultaneously appeared across Eurasia near the mid-4th millennium BC; sailing ships were independently invented by many cultures with proximity to oceans; and even elements of Calculus and modern day..."
Kathy waved her hand, signaling the newsroom to finally reduce Alan's frame-cut and zoom the on-site scene. "Excuse me Alan. There is activity on the ground." The helicopter cam zoomed in on the front of the black shuttle bus, where passengers were obviously exiting. "Yes, it looks we're seeing two, no, three people emerging from the bus. From this angle, they do appear to be Amazon's -- excuse me Alan, enhanced women. One of them appears to be at least seven feet, with the other two slightly shorter."
What Kathy didn't need to say, is that their swimsuit-only attire seemed about as appropriate in downtown New York as a polar bear in Bermuda. It sure made for good television ratings though. "Alan, do you concur it appears we're seeing evidence of female body enhancement?"
"Kathy, this is highly unusual. Without scientific evidence, there is no way..." Alan's words paused as the helicopter angle changed and a clear side-view showed a blond woman's shoulders above the heads of nearly everyone around her. What's more, she didn't just seem taller, she seemed somehow proportionally 'bigger'.
Kathy picked up in Alan's stall. "Yes yes, Alan, we understand there is no proof, we're seeing live and shocking events unfold before our eyes. Still, it's hard to refute the obvious. This is the second time today we've seen women enhanced beyond normal human..."
"Wait a moment there." This time Alan was interrupting, and Kathy allowed it. "There are many well documented cases of individuals above seven feel tall, not only in modern times, but dating back through all recorded history. In fact, in 1890 de Lapouge unearthed fossils of a ten-foot-tall giant man in France which carbon dated to around 8000 B.C.
Kathy was hardly paying attention as he continued. A story that started out like a career ending hoax now seemed not only palpably real, but it was unfolding just blocks from the studio chair she was sitting in. She had to get out there. She swiped her finger on the console touch screen, tapping the button requesting commercial, and then impatiently writing out the word 'NOW' in block capital letters.
Her stare into the camera wasn't aimed at the audience, but her executive producer, who she knew was watching every last stroke. She heard him in her ear. "Kathy, I can't cut now, this live footage is gold." She cleared the sketchpad, and slowly wrote out her intent, in movements so subtle no viewer knew about the silent argument going on below the camera frame. The words finally spelled out her message. IM GOING MOBILE. CUT BEFORE I WALK. When he finally realized what she meant, it sent him into a mad scramble, "Right! Brilliant! Give me five minutes Kathy."
In the broadcast room he started shouting orders. "You. Go find me an alternate to replace Kathy right now." The intern was already turning for the door, planning to get their alternate anchor, when another order was barked out. "A woman! It has to be a woman!" The intern paused, perplexed, no longer knowing what he was supposed to do. "Go now! Get anyone woman can put on-screen. Now!" With that he ran out the door.
Back on the air, they had left Alan Wong rambling on and on, but the producer could see Kathy had reached her limit. He wanted to shout back to her, but she had already removed her earbud. He did the only thing he could, he shouted an order to place the helicopter footage full screen, leaving Alan Won'g rambling academics as a vocal backdrop. He pushed a button to put his voice in Alan's ear. "Alan, this is great stuff. Keep talking. We're swapping out Kathy." Never in his entire career had he left a live program running without an anchor. If something went wrong this was career ending folly. Glancing over at the other stations, they were running re-roll from the Protectorate demonstration, or on-the-ground crews with a view of nothing but the crowd. He had to keep that helicopter footage rolling.