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Unending BE - episode 28867

Matthew Gardner was a scientist. And he was really proud of that. At school he once had a really big argument with his Bible teacher over causality and positivism, and was kicked out of school. His parents, a good Baptist couple from Albuquerque, finally figured out that their son didn't go very well with religious education and sent him off to England. College there passed in a flash. Matthew didn't even get his bachelor's degree and both the CERN and Fermilab wanted him. Still a virgin at age 30, he had accepted this work as a high=energy specialist at BlackCo because of the great freedom given to researchers and the abundance of resources available. For the past four months he had been working on the "Difference Engine" project -- a teleport device, no less! In every other lab he and the twelve others of his team would have been considered crazy or visionary at best. Here, they got both credit and resources to try. So far the project was stuck on a detail -- only pure elements could be sent throught the gapdoors. If one sent through a kilo of iron, it would have come all right. If one sent through a lab rat... Matthew was disgusted at the memory, wishing they could at least let them use bureaucrats instead of rats for those experiments.
Being an old-school Positivist at heart and one of those all-work-and-no-play types as far as everything else was concerned, Matthew didn't have a single problem in working nights too if he could. On this particular Saturday night he was, as usual, wide open so he decided to throw in a little testing on the DE project. He firmly believed in Science and mostly disbelieved in anything outside it. His surprise when he saw a pixie sleeping lightly on top of a cheeseburger he forgot in the lab was impossible to describe.
The thud made by his laptop hitting the ground woke Sharon up. The scientist was standing there with an empty expression as Sharon took her time to stretch a little, unfolded her wings, jumped off the cheeseburger and flew right in his face.
"Hi," she said trying to sound casual "who are you?" Matthew took about three seconds to process Sharon's words. She was now hovering at twenty centimeters from his face, allowing him to see her tiny but definitely feminine form through his thick glasses. Her hair was cut short (to avoid hampering the wings, he reasoned) and for some reason dyed in black and yellow stripes. Her form was fully human as far as he could see, save for the wings and antennae and for the fact that her crotch was smooth like a doll's. There were two logical explanations as far as he could tell:
1.He needed to reduce his workload;
2.The gapdoors had some unsuspected features.
"Hey? Are you all right?" Sharon asked again. Matthew was, after all, still a scientist. The scientific thing to do was to drop oneself on the nearest chair and state in a tiring voice, "Sure. But -- just -- Who are you?where do you come from?"
"I'm stuck in here... will you let me out, pretty please? this place is so scary!"
Matthew thought for a little. If this was what he thought, it was just too big to be handled through corporate channel. The best thing to do was to get the pixie (he frowned just at thinking that word) out and, well, talk with her later.
"Sure I will, ehm, dear lady... but where are you from and how did you get here?"
Sharon thought quickly. This scientist didn't seem to work in the biotech lab, but if she told him the truth he might have brought her back to that stupid dollhouse -- or worse, to the transformation pods. On the other hand, if she told him the truth he might have been willing to restore her back to normal... if that's what I really want, she found herself thinking. For the time being, she just flew on his shoulder and let herself slide into her pocket. The scientist left the lab and was waved out of the complex by a guard. Only when they were in the parking lot Sharon risked to look out of the pocket again. Matthew gently lifted her out along with the pocket protector and asked again as she sat on his open hand, "Now do I get some answers? Where did you come from anyway?"
Sharon replied...

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Conrad Volkov

Sat Jul 3 15:48:06 1999