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Cutting Room Floor: Short Shorts
🕑 Added 2019-02-27 19:18:57 +0000 UTCStories that didn't make it far enough to have more than an intro. Stories scrapped before they even began... I've got those. Two at a time, because they're simply not enough for basics. But hey, if there's interest, maybe they'll come back.
1. This was to be a lighthearted slime girl character's introduction
Well, you were JUST making a diet drink and then you accidentally made an invincible firehorse; you have to remember that.
I remember YOU, yes, and it was hardly just a diet drink...
There was that time you summoned a demon just by leaving the portal open too long.
Hey, Rose is perfectly nice.
We hired a mysterious door guard the same night that entire CITY disappeared.
Completely unrelated.
The eusociality experiment that rendered that one universe an everygrowing mound of planet-sized ant girls.
I don't actually remember that one.
Amy was the last person to see that one tanuki chick before she started mysteriously getting extra arms.
Okay, THAT one we have nothing to do with!
So you admit the other ones are totally our fault, then.
Shut up.
I'm just saying, I give this project five minutes before something ridiculous happens.
Well too bad. I've already done everything the project actually calls for, there's no more science to be done at this point.
Oh, hey, is the disposal working?
Frank couldn't actually respond, he just winced.
Rose: I knew you guys would get a proper disposal eventually, man, I had a lot of... uh... succubus stuff to dump in there.
Amy: Wait that was a disposal? I thought you had taken my 'spray on bras' suggestion and ended up getting some hyperdrive in it when trying it on.
Jack: Is that why it was such a mess? It looked like it was going to blow and you were nowhere around so I ran a quick analysis and stabilized it for you.
For a long moment, Frank didn't even blink.
Anybody else? Anybody at all? The mysterious ant-girl Chaz mentioned?
She's really more of a hive intelligence, and she quit a while ago.
Just... just shut up. Amy. Take the vat to one of the quarantines and set up monitoring.
2. Disconnected bits from an Ant-Girl macro story. Only the Dialogue was ever completed.
Dr. Thessaly M.
Project Goals: -Discover if the HGT virus properly inserts genetic code into the target organism. -Discover if the code is properly expressed. -Monitor the expression of traits that should result in sentience in individuals of eusocial colony lifeforms. -Monitor the change and how it affects specialized organs held by the base species.
You don't usually test away from home.
Not usually, no.
Is there something I should know about this project?
Lot's of things! You are in charge, after all.
...Is one of those things that this is one of those 'doom the entire universe' projects?
Yes.
It might be one of those things, or it might doom the entire universe?
Also yes.
Both then. “I don't think I can feel good about testing this if it's going to destroy whatever we test it on, boss.”
“How much of an asshole do you think I am?” The doctor actually sounded indignant. “The reason you've been off project so long is that I needed to find the right setting for this experiment. And I did. I found a species that's eusocial, has specialized organs, is not cohabitating with an already sentient species of some sort, and is going to die soon. Now get in their and mad science those ants!”
“Wait why are they all going to die soon?”
“A virus evolved that infects through wing membranes and killed all their queens and males.”
Howdy Howdy!
Frank. Precisely how did you get the genetic code for this project.
Well, yaknow how it would ordinarily take impossibly long to check for all possible genetic matches beyond a shadow of a doubt?
I had wondered, yes.
We got around that by marking a single person's genetic structure and using... a contractor to change him into other species and seeing what didn't change!
What? What person? Who could possibly do that or survive having that done to them? How could you even do that in the first place.
The contractor is from out of universe. Abilities we can't replicate may not make good tech, but they're still pretty handy for learning!
…
…
What. Person. Provided the code.
Oh, it was Charles.
Charles.
Yup.
Charles the guy whose genetic code you screwed up so hard his cells physically cannot stop replicating in new and frightening ways.
That's why he survived, yup.
Charles the guy we had to put a billion dollar containment system in lest he destroy literally everything.
I feel it's important to remember the lack of intent, but yup.
Charles the guy who already fended off one invader from an alternate universe easily, despite the invader being able to practically rewrite reality; a feat he most definitely could not accomplish unless whatever was making him so near invincible was really, really difficult to change or remove.
I think I see where you're going with this and I both apologize and feel very stupid.
Charles the guy whose shared genetic structure almost certainly contains code for reality-dooming levels of growth, that's the Charles whose code you used?
...How big did they get.
They're halfway to me as we speak!
I'll come bail you out.
THANK you.
See you in a week!
Wait, what? Fuck!
